Time Zone change... How?

#1

I understand dates in tiddlywiki are set in UTC because of a problem with date switch across time zones (not sure why that’s a problem, but accept it as is).

When I create a tiddler, particularly a journal tiddler, the date and hour are in UTC time which is an issue. This is true for the title, which is annoying but I can change manually, but also for the displayed modified date, which is more of an issue. I read that TW has a way of displaying local time, but I couldn’t find out how to turn it on.

Am I missing something obvious that lets TW display local time (takes system time as input for example?)

If not, is there a way to change TW altogether from UTC to my time zone (US eastern)?

And if there’s no easy way to do that either… Why? Where can I read some more about this problem, because I’m not sure I follow why it’s a problem to begin with…?

What are some solutions implemented?

Thanks again! This place has been so helpful :slight_smile:

#2

Using the ViewWidget should display the local time. Something like:

<$view field="modified" format="date" template="MMM DDth @ 0hh12:0mm am"/>

Shows the modified time of a tiddler in my local, MST-AZ time as:
November 5th @ 11:03 am

Check out the page https://tiddlywiki.com/#DateFormat for all the date-time formatting codes.

Edit

I made a dialog for myself that converts local time into UTC time. Figure now is as good as ever to put it online:

https://utc-converter.tiddlyhost.com/

You get a very simple modal dialog…that probably won’t work very well too far outside the US. :sweat:

If I ever get more informed about date-time conversions, maybe I can add more options to make it more widely useful.

#3

What operating system are you on, and do you have your OS’ location/timezone set correctly?

#4

OK I have an idea of what’s going on. My modified time does not work for some reason.
<$view field="modified"> gives me the string of time in UTC, not eastern time zone. Similarly, if I format it to fit what Brian said above, it’s still the UTC timezone.

It does change the hour, so, TW “thinks” I’m on UTC time zone even though I am not.
I’m using Linux Mint (Ubuntu basically) and my system time is correct as far as I can tell (date command in terminal gives me the right time). I’m behind a VPN, but this is a local file so I doubt this is an issue. The VPN is also pointing to a EST server.

…So, what’s going on here…?

edit: I just tried this on a freshly-downloaded tiddlywiki. Same issue. So, if the modified field is supposed to catch up my local time zone, something on my system prevents it from doing so. Hmmm… I wonder…

edit: I figured it out. It’s my browser. Running TW on a “normal” browser yields the right time in the modified field. It works in a new journal page also. Firefox, Brave (chrome) work fine. But when I use LibreWolf, which is my daily driver and a browser I user to block all kinds of things (it’s a fork of firefox), it messes up the time.

TW probably has a script that checks the local time/date on my system, and LibreWolf blocks it - which doesn’t surprise me. I will tweak with it a bit further and could probably give TW permission through this.

#5

For Clarity, unless you write your own code to save dates, and exclude the “[UTC]” part of the date format, all dates are stored as UTC and tiddlywiki identifies the current time zone offset and gives you the local time.

  • If you change timezones everything is adapted to the new local time zone.
  • Is your browser providing the correct (or any time zone)? I can see how this could be a piece of information someone could use for estimated location.