A Plugin Idea for Gaim: Buddy’s Time Zone

by steven  []  -  9 replies

Here’s a quick idea I had while chatting with someone in Australia via instant-messaging this morning.

I would like to see a plugin/extension for Gaim (or any other instant messaging application, but especially Gaim, since it’s the one I use) that showed the local time zone of the person you’re chatting with in the chat window. Here’s a quick mock-up:

Time Zone Plugin Mockup
View full-size mockup

I’m not looking for anything too fancy. I don’t mind setting the time zones for my contacts manually (though tying this in with a system-wide address book makes sense in the long run). Also, it shouldn’t show anything if I haven’t set a time-zone for a contact, or if we share the same time-zone.

This would keep me from interrupting Nick during his dinner time in Paris.

Replies to Steven Garrity’s post: A Plugin Idea for Gaim: Buddy’s Time Zone
Gabriel Mihalache []
gabriel@individualism.ro
http://www.individualism.ro/
So simple and yet so brilliant... this could even be part of the protocol, so you don't have to manually set someone's timezone, they could send it to you when setting up the conversation. (If they'll like to)
Alan []
I think that is a great idea but the reference should not be to "My buddy's time" but to "Buddy's Time" to make it Cape Breton compliant.
Dan J. []
dan@ceoblues.com
http://www.ceoblues.com/
You could also look at your clock for my timezone as I live in the same city and during the day am usually less than 20 feet from you... But good idea. It would be nice to see more prominently in email apps too.
Lou Quillio []
public@quillio.com
http://quillio.com/
Needs the date too, though. Probably DayOfWeek is enough to resolve international dateline confusion.

LQ

Steven Garrity []
steven@actsofvolition.com
Lou: Maybe on the show the day/date when it's different from yours - and yeah, "3AM Friday" would probably suffice.
Thomas Sibley []
http://zulutango.org:82/
Only problem is that I don't think a Gaim plugin would have an easy time getting at the GTK widgets needed to put the text in the window.
Denis Morrison []
http://www.spicken.de/profispicken/spickzettel.html
That's a nice idea and much better than the "internet time" by swatch.
Steven Garrity []
steven@actsofvolition.com
Thomas: While I'm not sure how it's done, or how difficult it is, the Gaim "your buddy is typing" indicator does go up there. Here's a screenshot.

By the way, this feature idea was born out of a similar feature in the silverorange intranet. Here's a partial screenshot of the time-zone display on our intranet.

nathan []
Thomas & Steven:
It just so happens that the way the typing icon is placed in the menu bar is being reworked, and the preferred change will also allow plugins to stick stuff up there too. See this thread on gaim-devel for details.