World Time A.1.3 Release Notes
Written By Dan Hallock


General

Do you have to call people in other parts of the world frequently?
With the WorldTime program, you can check the time in the city you are
calling before you call.

This Windows program will display the current time for your location
(based on your PC's clock), the Greenwich Median time (GMT), and the time
for any city you select.

There is no copyright on this program. You are free to do with it
whatever you wish, and give to whoever you wish. I only ask that you
do not change it.

This is a pretty simple-minded program, I doubt too much can go wrong
with it; however, if you find an error please feel free to let me
know.

    Dan Hallock
    CIS: 71760,3027

Topics in this file

       Installation
       Configuration
       Operation
       Using the City Editor
              GMT Offsets
              Daylight Savings
       Incorrect Times
       LAN Operation


Installation

This program was written in Visual Basic which means you must have
VBRUN200.DLL in your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. You can find VBRUN200.DLL
in the WINADV forum on Compuserve. I did not include it in my zip file so
you don't have to pay to download it if you already have it.

The files TIMEZONE.EXE and TIMEZONE.DAT can be copied into any directory,
but they must be in the same directory. You may copy them to a new directory,
or to an existing directory.

TIMEZONE.DAT contains cities by their names. If you wish to use airport
codes instead (JFK instead of New York), copy TIMEZONE.APT to TIMEZONE.DAT.

Once you have the files in the directory of your choosing, do the
following:

Select the group in Program Manager where you want to place the
World Time program. From the Program Manager menu, select File then New.
The "New Program Object" window will open. Select "Program Item" and
then click on "OK".

In the "Program Item Properties" field, enter any description you
wish such as "World Time". In the command line field, enter the fully
qualified program name, for example "C:\TIMEZONE\TIMEZONE.EXE".

In the "Working Directory" field, enter the path to the program such as
C:\TIMEZONE. Click on OK.

The World Time icon will now appear in the selected group. Double click
on the World Time icon to start the program.


Configuration

After starting World Time for the first time, you should go into the SETUP
window to configure the program. If you are in the United States, setup is
very simple. Select the Time Zone you are in: Eastern (EST), Central (CST),
Mountain (MST) or Pacific (PST). If daylight savings is in effect (mid-Spring
to mid-Fall), turn on daylight savings.

If you are not in one of the four listed time zones, then you need to enter
the correct GMT offset. The easiest way to do this is to go to the editor,
find your city and its GMT offset, then return to SETUP and enter the GMT
offset.

For example, if you live in Frankfurt, go into the city editor and type "F"
then ALT-DownArrow. Press the DownArrow until you get to Frankfurt and
finally press ALT to select Frankfurt. You will see the GMT offset for
Frankfurt is 1.00. Return to the SETUP Window, and enter 1.00 in the GMT
offset field.

Once you have completed the SETUP Window, press OK. Now check the times of
a few cities that you know what the current time is to make sure that you
have correctly configured World Time.


Operation

When the World Time program starts, you will see the time in a selected city,
your current time, and the GMT time. To see the time in another city, you
can click on the down arrow and then scroll through the cities. You can
also use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through the cities.

You can also type in the name of the city. As soon as you type in enough
characters of the city to fully qualify it, it will appear.

To exit the program, use ALT-F4 or the Quit button.


Using the City Editor

You can add, delete, and change cities that World Time knows about. From
the main window, click on edit. This puts you in the city editor.

To add a new city, enter the correct city name (overwriting the current),
and enter the correct GMT offset and daylight savings flag. Once you are
satisfied, click on the Add key.

To modify or delete a city, you must first find it. Use the mouse or the
keyboard to select the city from the city box.

To update the city, make the desired changes, then click on the Update key.

To delete the city, click on the update key. You will be asked to verify the
deletion before the record is actually deleted.


GMT Offsets

Determining the correct GMT offset is easiest done by finding an existing
city in the same timezone. For example, to add Dusseldorf, first find
Frankfurt's GMT and then use it for DusselDorf.


Daylight Savings Flag

This flag indicates the city observes daylight savings when it is in effect.
This flag does not indicate that daylight savings is currently in effect
(that is done in the Setup Window).

For example, Chicago observes daylight savings (as does nearly all U.S.
cities); however, Phoenix does not. You will see that Phoenix does not have
this flag set.


Incorrect Times

If World Time comes up with a wrong time, there are two likely reasons: the
GMT offset is wrong, or the daylight savings flag is wrong. If you find such
a mistake, please let me know so that the next version of World Time has the
data corrected.

World Time's GMT Offset comes from a corporate data base and has a high
probability of being correct. The GMT offset is an offset from the Greenwich
Median Time (the time in London when daylight savings in not in effect).

There is a map of GMT Offsets in the "Information Please" Almanac. This map
is not very detailed, but will probably be suitable enough if you already
know exactly where the city is.

The more probable reason for the time being incorrect is daylight savings.
In the US, daylight savings exists in nearly every city, but I do not
currently know who is using daylight savings outside of the US other than
England (they use it).

As such, I have assumed no foreign cities use daylight savings. If you call
another country and find out that World Time is wrong by 1 hour, find out if
they are using daylight savings. If so, update the city using the city
editor, and the time will be correct. I hope to find some reference to
daylight savings in other countries so that World Time can correctly take
daylight savings into account.


Modification History

A.1.3:  Feb 28 1993.

   Fix: The city editor now correctly saves changes.

A.1.2:  Jan  7 1993.

   Fix: Corrected code to find help file correctly.

   Fix: Removed opening screen - too annoying

A.1.1:  Dec 31 1992.

    Fix: Fixed help to find help file in same directory as program.

    Enh: Opening screen is displayed while data is opening.

A.1.0:  Dec 27 1992.

    Enh: Completely revamped the design to use a "Next" style window.

    Enh: Help now pulls up a file viewer and loads timezone.txt.

A.0.5:  Dec 21 1992.

    Enh: Converted to use Visual Basic 2.0.

    Enh: Increased size of time & date (required some moving of the controls).

    Enh: The time and date follow the format as set in the control panel.

A.0.4:  Dec 14 1992.

    Enh: The Window's position at closing is saved and used next time the
    application is run.

A.0.3:  Dec 12 1992.

    Fix: When typing in the name of a city, after a city is fully qualified,
    any other key resets the search (instead of just control-home).

    Enh: The active city is saved on exit and will be recalled when the
    program starts. Note: this is done by adding the [TimeZone] section
    header in the WIN.INI file.

A.0.2:  Nov 30 1992.

    Enh: Created new TIMEZONE.DAT file with 450 cities. NOTE: because
    of the large number of cities loaded, TIMEZONE loads slower than
    previously (it takes about 5 seconds on my 386/33). If the load
    time is unacceptable, you could delete cities from the data base.

    Enh: The TimeZone Code may now contain fractions for those cities
    that are 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 of a time zone. For example, India uses a
    GMT offset of 5.5. In the entire data base I include, only one city,
    Kathmandu uses 3/4 and none use 1/4.

    Enh: Redesigned the form to display all of the data in the smallest
    possible window.

    Enh: Added Online Help.

    Enh: Added City Editor

    Enh: New TimeZone.DAT format that allows easy updating for the city
    editor.

    Enh: When program is minimized, the timer interrupt is disabled so the
    program does not use any time.

    Enh: Setup screen now allows any GMT Offset.

    Fix: When scrolling through cities (without using the scroll bar -
    ie. dragging), a subscript out of bounds would occur. While scrolling,
    the timer interrupt keeps occuring, using what ever city index was
    current. Apparently, this index is not always valid when using the
    drag method of scrolling. Now the program turns off the clock for the
    city during selection of a city. The other two clocks continue to be
    updated.

A.0.1:  Jul 5, 1992.

    Fix: Removed use of True Type fonts so program will display
    correctly on Windows 3.0.

    Fix: Initial form now starts in the upper left hand corner.

    Enh: Added Date and AM/PM indicator.

    Enh: Local Time Zone, daylight savings flag, and location Database
    is now loaded from a file allowing end-user to change.

    Enh: Allow configuration in program via the new Options window.

A.0.0: Jun 16, 1992.

    Initial Release.
