Time Zone support and/or time zone independent?

I have been traveling a lot recently, and as I’ve changed time zones, it appears that OF2’s default preference is to lock the time to where a date where was originally entered, and adjust for the new time zone. Often this is the behavior I want (e.g., for tasks due at the end of business day in my home time zone). However, there are many actions which I would like to start at, say, 6:00am in whatever my current time zone is (making my morning coffee, for example).

Is there a way to select whether a date/time should adjust for time zone OR be time zone independent? I searched help and the forums and could not find the answer, though certainly may have missed it!

If this option does not exist, I’ll put in a feature request to the Omni folks.

Thanks, in advance, for anyone’s help!

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Perhaps Omni can follow BusyCal’s model. BusyCal allows you to select a time zone and enter the date and time of an appointment in that time zone. But it will show up as whatever local time zone your computer is set to.

For example, I can enter an appointment such as a sports event. I can set the appointment to 3:00 PM Eastern Time. But if my Mac’s clock is set to Pacific Time zone, it will show up properly as 12:00 PM Pacific Time.

I guess if there is no time zone set for the task, it should go back to the default time zone. Perhaps, there would be a preference setting to define “default time zone.”

The Omni folks can download a demo of BusyCal and see how BusyCal does it.

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I filed a feature request for something like this a while back when I used to take fairly regular trips between the US and UK - if folks email omnifocus@omnigroup.com about it, we can make sure they get attached to that item in the development database. (That’ll help us weigh demand for this alongside all the other requests in there.)

Thanks for the replies everyone. I submitted a request to both the general OmniFocus email, as well as the Beta (even though this is a feature request, not a bug per se). I referenced and linked to this thread.

I sure wish this feature were implemented now. I am traveling across the country for a couple weeks, and ALL of my actions are mis-scheduled by three hours! :-/

I’ll update here with any response or news!

Continuing the discussion from Time Zone support and/or time zone independent?:

Would it be possible to create something like the (now-defunct) ‘votebox’ that Dropbox used to have, to poll opinion?

It’s an idea we occasionally get asked about and thus consider. It would end up consuming time and attention that would otherwise be spent on our products.

There’s never seemed to be enough reward (or demand) for the cost justify itself over the current setup, in other words.

Brian: I assume you are referring to the cost of setting up votebox, rather than time zone support. Correct?

I’m almost certain that’s what he intended. The timezone work would definitely require a file format change (to store a date/time plus a timezone, rather than just a date/time). So it’s off the table for 2.0 but is certainly being tracked as a feature request for future consideration.

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Thanks lizard! Just wanted to make sure. :-)

Glad to hear it’s being tracked and considered. I understand it won’t be implemented in 2.0, though I do hope it can be considered for one of the releases soon after. It seems to me that time zone support would add an important detail to the usability of OmniFocus, especially with the implementation of things such as Forecast.

I know not everyone will use it, but right now it’s killing me to have all my tasks set to the wrong time. Especially my actions that should start first in the morning, but are not even appearing available in my current time zone until late morning.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback and update. Keep up the great work!

I would also appreciate this feature. All of my tasks are dependent on the time of the day.

Adding a +1 to this thread. Particularly for daily tasks, the ability to have due and deferred dates relative to the timezone you’re currently in would be great.

I have no hope for this… When I look at the old forums, time zone support was routinely requested since 2010. At one point (2011) the Omni staff said that for adding a “time zone independent”-checkbox they would have to change the database format, which was seen as a complication because every user would have to change to the new format – basically the same problem as with multiple contexts, priorities, etc (except that time zone support is really a MUST, at least in my opinion). Anyway, I guess such a database format change would have been possible for version 2, but for this release Omni reworked the UI and left the database untouched. Anyway, I guess this could possibly only come with a major new release, probably quite a few more years ahead…

It’s a pity, because OmniFocus would be actually well suited for travelling, with the possibility to put contexts on hold – however, missing time zone support, you can’t really use it at all, especially if you defer items…

Well, here it is, March 2017, and I am still waiting for OF to keep its cool through time zone changes. OF is quite good for maintaining a set of daily chores, which I would like to do at the same time (e.g., vitamins at 0400) regardless of where I am. To be sure I want to call my mom every Sunday at 1430 (her time) wherever I am, I have found I am capable of working that out for myself.

My biggest problem concerns a system I developed for integrating appointments into OF; e.g., 1300-1500: Meeting. Instead of setting time at 1300, however, I set it for 0:13, which causes it to appear at the top of the daily list. The conference call at 0800 would be set for 0:8, putting it above the 1300 meeting. It is a SLICK system, very useful, except when I travel, and the appointments are likely to show up late on the previous day.

Please, Omni Ninjas, help us weary travelers.

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+1 … I am going to submit my 2 cents to omni support in hopes that this feature gets added sooner than 2022.

For now, I simply use the time setting for sorting my tasks, as well. Would love to use for prompting me for time of day sensitive tasks.

Same problem here. All my daily/weekly recurring tasks have incorrect defer and due dates when I travel. And because I live in Japan and generally travel to North America, it’s not a small shift. Tasks show up as available or due 15 hours before they should be. I guess I could just use Reminders for those instead, but then I’m back to having two separate systems and no complete view of what’s coming up.

While not ideal, this script has worked well for me. It moves everything back 3 hours when I fly to the west coast and then back again upon my return home.

https://support.omnigroup.com/of2-due-times-applescript/

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Thanks for this! I somehow never saw this. I’m about to take a two week trip through multiple time zones. This will make it so much easier!

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