[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #10324: Better Timezone Selection interface

[WordPress Trac]

#10324: Better Timezone Selection interface
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 Reporter:  Otto42          |       Owner:                
     Type:  enhancement     |      Status:  new           
 Priority:  low             |   Milestone:  Future Release
Component:  Administration  |     Version:  2.8           
 Severity:  minor           |    Keywords:                
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 As matt mentioned in #3962, the new timezone selection interface is not
 the best. It was simply the easiest, and I never intended for it to be
 finalized like that.

 So I'm starting this ticket for ideas/implementations of better UI's. I'll
 start. :)

 One of the ideas by sambauers in #3962 was an autocomplete type in
 interface. I have no real problems with that idea, it was the
 implementation that I disliked. Maintaining our own list of cities?
 Horrifying. I also didn't like that you put in a city and had to save it
 before you found out whether or not it would work. Even with autocomplete,
 you're shooting in the dark here.

 My idea is to use Google and Geonames webservices to figure out the
 timezone via an AJAX method. Without Javascript, we can fall back to some
 other approach.

 There's lots of possible ways to do this interface with these APIs.
 Geonames is capable of converting a lat/long into a valid timezone easily
 enough, while Google could be used to look up placenames, to display a map
 to click on, or even to simply make an educated guess as to where the user
 currently is located based on IP. If Gears is available, that location
 information can be made more accurate. Alternatively, the new Location
 awareness functionality in Firefox 3.5 could be used to figure out the
 current location (this functionality is identical to Gears location, as
 they use the same Google services).

 I'm attaching a simplistic HTML/Javascript example. This example uses one
 of two methods to determine the users timezone. The automatic "guess my
 location" method, and the manually entered placename method. Both use
 jQuery and Google and Geonames webservices (via JSON callbacks).

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/10324>
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