On 11/13/2017 12:12 PM, Guy Harris wrote:
So every UI that offers a list of tzdb names (or tzdb names slightly tweaked by replacing underscores with blanks, or whatever) as if it were a list of cities is broken.
If your UI is intended *solely* for people who understand what tzdb names are - i.e., they are strings that happen to use city names as a component, but are *not* identifiers for *your* city - then using tzdb names is OK.
If your UI is expected to be used by people who *aren't* familiar with tzdb names, it should not use tzdb names, whether it's a GUI interface or not.
While I agree with this, there is an additional challenge here. If the user selects a name other than the localized form of the TZ name, you really should store that choice. That way, if the location the user chose moves into a newly created zone due to a change in TZ rules, the user will not need to re-select their location. I have no idea how many of the big players (Apple, MS, Google, etc.) do this right. --Ted