Folding Forum

Hello, I am requesting a simple update to the app. Time, you guys are still using an old method of trying to tell time. Nobody wants to use UTC, we can't calculate the time difference nor should we. We live in a modern world where the app should be able to use the time of your time zone or the time you can input. My log says its 2.10 pm. Well its not 2.10pm where I live. Its 10.10 am. Its not even the right time zone unless I am missing something.

Is there any way we can please update the app to use your computers current time or at least a time we can manually input?

Thanks,
Erik

This is a logging issue only right? The operating system should be able to tell the local time to the app logging component, so this should be a low hanging fruit for the FAH developer. We need a bug in github for that https://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-issues/issues/1582

Yea low hanging fruit. I like that. I would suspect that it would be a low hanging fruit issue or relatively easy to fix. Well if you open the app the time is displayed in the bottom right hand corner which is still current UTC time and not local time. All I am asking is it possible to have the app use a local time or if we can manually input the time? That seems like a relatively easy thing to program or code in.

A decision was made that the log files would always be reporting UTC time since it allows troubleshooting when dealing with Servers across the globe since all time is UTC. Thus, it won't be logical to show UTC time on the log, but displaying the local time in FAHControl. Instead, FAHControl shows the UTC time so you can have an idea of when the events occur when you see them in the log file.

"Correcting" the log would actually make it MORE difficult. For example, go to
https://apps.foldingathome.org/wu#proje ... 715&gen=25
and look at a WU I completed recently (or put in the PRCG numbers of one you completed. The servers all operate on the world-wide universtal time UTC (aka GMT0 and it doesn't know what timezone you or I happened to be in when the WU was assigned or returned. Searching for the status of a WU will force you to do the conversion anyway and when we ask for the appropriate segment of your log, we won't know how to find it.

Pilots all manage to fly using UTC ... and sometimes they fall back to "15 minutes before the hour" just like the newscasters when they're speaking on a site that spans local time zones when it's clear that you're talking about the next or the previous hour.

Many of the old apps ran on Stanford Time which was fine for me (I live in California, so Pacific Time) but once FAH had servers in a number of different timezones, everything was converted to UTC. I still have to convert when the TV news says the debate will be at XX Eastern Time. BTW, we switch from Daylight Savings time to Standard Time on Sunday. further complicating the mental conversion process.

If you use FAHControl, note that the current time in UTC is always on the bottom right side.

Just to rub it in, our daylight savings time kicked in last Sunday.
Lucky me, we went from BST to GMT0 (UTC). :p