FFs Google, get the effing calendar sorted, how hard is it to have a calender with an option 'stop dicking around with my event times you bastard!'

I thought things had got better with the option to set an appointment with start and end timezones but no it's just as crap, I put in a flight in 2 weeks from the UK leaving at 8.35 local time, so if I don't put a timezone in I know it'll appear as 9.35 when I am in the UK so I specify the UK timezone for the start of the event but now this #]?!##@ 'calendar' displays it as 9.35 when I view it in zurich, no doubt it'll appear as 8.35 when I am in the UK (at least I hope it does) but right now if someone asks me when's my flight leave the UK I have to go into the calendar and open the item to see the correct local time, the month view is useless and I can't even see how to get the correct time from my android phone.

How hard can it be? just keep the frickin time I entered, under no circumstances change it, fine allow time zones as an option if I want to share my calendar for a meeting so everyone sees it as local but let me have a way to stop it mangling my events.

I've had to resort to putting the event times in the title of the item.

I hate you google calendar!!!!!!!!

An 8.35 time in the UK is 9.35 (currently) in Zurich, when you view in Zurich you view in local offsets. When you are in the UK, it will show as 8.35. The times are the same. The offsets are different, local times are offset. If you went through a UK proxy, you would see UK times. This is normal and expected behaviour. Once you grasp this, you can adjust your interpretation.

Should this goes into complaints corner of Google?

I know what it's doing, I've written enough code that deals with timezones working on UTC and had to explain how java.util.Date works to enough people to know my way around computers and time but knowing what it's doing and compensating for it is no substitute for it working as I expect it to. Clearly theres a use for time-zone sensitive events if you want to schedule a conference call and share the calendar with different timezones but for the majority of the events I put in I don't need that sort of support.

If the calendar is unable to replicate the behaviour of one hanging on your fridge door then to me it's just wrong. What irks me more is that they had to put effort in to make it this wrong, had they just done the staggeringly simplistic approach of storing a time as text I would have found it more useful.

You are not allowing for local clients offsetting against local time zones. An 8.35 appointment entered in the UK will show up as 9.35 when viewed in Zurich, and 8.35 when viewed in London.

You have the option to set the Time Zone when viewing you calendar, not just when entering appointments.

http://www.google.com/support/calend...y?answer=37064

I am pretty sure you are not adjusting your view settings to local TZ when you log in , in Zurich.

Storing time's as text ??? Pfffftttt...

Looks like it's the kind of nonsense we have to learn to live with. Those programmers even think they are doing a great job. It's like when I want to read my favorite American newspaper from my computer in Switzerland, and I get all sorts of advertisement from Swiss or other European companies. For Pete's sake, when I read a US paper, I want a US paper, without having to go through an American proxy.

Globalization of information, my @ss.

GEO-IP determines your location as being in Switzerland. Adds are inserted according to location. They can't sell US goods to a CH based person browsing. Local companies want your business, and are more likely to get it. I don't want to see special offers back home, I want to see achievable offers near me hence I am targeted by ad servers with local adds. This is common sense. Are you really going to rush out and save $50 bucks at Walmart in Fl whilst living in Zurich ? No... Neither do the advertisers want to spend money on such adverts.

Yes I am, that why I said I could see a use for timezone sensitive events. my point is I don't want to see 9.35, it's not shared with anyone, theres no possible use I could have for viewing that UK 8.35 event in Zurich time.

Yup thats set correctly, thats why it's displaying it in Zurich time, you can select a single zone for calendar display so if you have a mix of timezones then it's impossible to get it to display the times you entered

Yup it's a rubbish idea although I've seen it done loads of times, not suggesting it *should* be done that way, just saying that if it was then I'd have more use for it.

Google: So now you can throw away that old last-century paper calendar
Me: Great, so it does everything a paper calendar did only better?
Google: Wellllll not exactly
Me: So it can't do everythin a paper calendar does?
Google: erm no
Me: Fail!

So if in Zurich, why not set your Calendar TZ to GMT(London) ?

Have a look at the last few pages of
http://www.google.com/support/forum/...l=en&start=120

Seems people shared your view, but it looks like the problem has been fixed ?

I have added a separate timezone for Switzerland from Calendar settings.

I set my flight times as UK times but can also read off from the Swiss timezones on the left hand side.

That probably wouldn't help if I shared my calendar.

Of course I know how they do it and why they do it. That's commercial sense, not common sense. I partly live in the USA, and when in Switzerland, reading my regional US paper, I want to see what's on offer there, not here. Period.

rrrright... and THEY are stupid for not catering to this microscopically miniscule market niche??

Well, they obviously are stupid enough to invest money in the even much smaller market niche formed by those people who read American on-line papers from abroad but in reality want to read their domestic advertising.

Wow. This sounds much worse than stepping on an old land mine or getting shot because you're from the wrong ethnic group! I had no idea such things occurred!

which by extension means 'don't do anything ever because theres always something more deserving of attention'

or, it means you could spend your time explaining to Google why they're wrong and that they should hire you and give you a parking space and a personal assistant who also is a massage therapist.

Sadly not, the last post is asking the same question, I think the guy who says it's fixed is mistaken

Yeah thanks for that, tried that too but the month view doesn't show the second zone, also you ened to know the appointments timezone so you know which time zone to read from, anyway late night spleen vented, the morning is bright and beautiful and I've not been shot for my ethnicity yet so it's a good day.