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Note: This plugin is no longer necessary in WordPress 2.8, because the functionality of it has been integrated into WordPress itself. If you’ve upgraded, you can remove this plugin.
Plugin: Automatic Timezone
Version: 1.7.1
Last updated: 461 days ago.
Downloaded: 6,890 times.
Overview
One of the things that has always annoyed me about WordPress is the need to adjust the settings every so often, for one reason or another. Major things like how things look are fine, but minor things like having to set it for daylight savings time, or figure out what timezone I’m in… the computer should figure that stuff out. So I wrote the Automatic Timezone plugin. It’s simple, it’s easy.
WordPress normally requires you to set a date offset for the blog in terms of a numeric difference from GMT/UTC. Instead of that, this plugin uses the zoneinfo database, built into PHP 5 and most Linux systems. You just select a timezone instead.
The advantage of this is that the database contains all that is needed for daylight savings time adjustments, and you don’t have to manually change the clock twice a year anymore.
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Requirements
Only one: PHP 5 and up or PHP 4 running on a Linux-based hosting service (sorry Windows PHP4 users… all 3 of you).
I highly recommend that you use PHP versions 5.2 and up with WordPress. PHP 4 is dead. Ask your web host to upgrade now, or ask them how you can use PHP 5 on your website. Most hosts offer a way to do it.
Features
- Choose your timezone based on the standard zoneinfo method (by nearest city).
- Automatically adjusts to daylight saving time.
- Uses the built-in database of your server to determine DST rules. If the rules change in the future, your server will get updated and those rules will get updated automatically as well.
Installation Instructions
Unzip. Put automatic-timezone plugin directory into wp-content/plugins on your server. Activate the plugin. The plugin will check if it will work on your machine and it will refuse to activate if it won’t work.
Licensing
This plugin is licensed under the GPL Version 2 only.
Method to get support
You are free to email me, however I am also a moderator at the WordPress.org support forums, so you’ll find me there as well.
FAQ:
What is this list of cities? Where do I pick my Timezone?
The zoneinfo database uses a method of timezone choices that most people may not be familiar with. Instead of picking a named timezone, you pick a major city close to you that shares your timezone. The reason for this is although there’s 24 hours in the day, there’s hundreds of different ways of dealing with daylight savings time around the world, and laws and such change these all the time. The zoneinfo database tracks these and stores each different set of settings in a different “named” timezone, named after an area, such as a city, that uses that set of rules. So instead of picking something like “Central Time” or “Greenwich Mean Time”, you will choose a city. That determines what set of daylight savings rules you will use. For your convienence, the cities are grouped by continent.
The plugin won’t activate, it says it can’t find a list of timezones.
The plugin won’t work on some systems. Notably, Windows servers running PHP 4. Upgrade to PHP 5.
It’s not working, and I’m using PHP 4 on a non-Windows system.
This plugin works best with PHP 5.1 and up, but it should also work okay on some PHP 4 systems with Linux/Unix hosting. If it doesn’t, email me and I’ll try to help. It does try a few different methods, but if it won’t activate, then it also won’t work, so don’t try to force it or anything.
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great job – awesome simple plugin. I can’t believe we need a plugin for this. Anyone using any sort of events calendar plugins or anything else like that can’t do without it. This should be part of wordpress core! Do you know we should most effectively suggest that to the wordpress development community?
Already done. I wrote the patch to get the basic functionality of it into WordPress 2.8.
So this plugin can be deactivated and deleted when WP 2.8 comes out?
Yep. The 2.8 functionality basically duplicates this. It also is compatible, meaning that if you used this, then 2.8 will know about your setting and continue to use it.
I’ve been considering upgrading the plugin to make it self-deactivate when 2.8 is being used. It’s not necessary, exactly, but it does seem like it’d be cool.
Excellent — thanks for the quick response. I’m writing up my ten favorite WordPress plugins and want the final article to reflect v2.8’s functionality. I was going to recommend Automatic Timezone… I still will, but with the caveat that it’s best with pre-2.8.
plug-in is not workig correct… it doesn’t show my any “time-zones” in admin-panel
i’m using wp (latest version, german) and everything else is working fine. php version is 5.1.2
any ideas why the plugin doesn’t show my any time zone???
greets
If you can activate the plugin, then it works. Just go to the new Settings->Timezone page and choose your zone.
thx for your reply. the time zone butten is shown but empty! no cities or locations are listed…
Well, then your version of PHP is broken or missing the timezone database. Nothing I can do to fix that. The list of timezones comes from PHP directly, it’s not contained within my plugin.
sure but which add-in php needs?
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