[HOLD for payment 2022-03-22] Always display timezone of the other person in the chat window - Reported by @Santhosh-Sellavel

[mvtglobally]

If you haven’t already, check out our contributing guidelines for onboarding and email contributors@expensify.com to request to join our Slack channel!

---

Action Performed:

1. Open Any User Chat with the same timezone as yours. OR (Create two test accounts User A & B with the same timezone settings. And Open User B's chat logged in as User A )
2. Navigate to User Details by clicking on the chat header

Expected Result:

Timezone should be displayed at bottom of chat in all 1:1 chats.

Actual Result:

Currently timezone is displayed at bottom of chat only if your timezone doesn't match the timezone of the other person.

Eg. Sonia is in PST, Vic is in AEDT. So in the Sonia-Vic chat both see each other's local time at the bottom of the chat window:

Sonia is in PST, and Francois is in PST. So the Sonia-Francois chat doesn't display local time at the bottom of the chat:

Showing timezone in some cases but not in others feels unintentional. Let's make it consistent by showing the other person's local time at the bottom of a 1:1 chat in all cases regardless of the participants' timezones.

Workaround:

Click on the profile icon of the person you're chatting with to open their Details panel which lists their timezone and local time.

Platform:

Where is this issue occurring?

• Web
• iOS
• Android
• Desktop App
• Mobile Web

Version Number: 1.1.38-0
Reproducible in staging?: y
Reproducible in production?: y
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Notes/Photos/Videos: Any additional supporting documentation

Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: @Santhosh-Sellavel
Slack conversation: https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C01GTK53T8Q/p1643993593833769

View all open jobs on GitHub

[MelvinBot]

Triggered auto assignment to @sonialiap (AutoAssignerTriage), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4749 for more details.

[parasharrajat]

This is not a bug.

[iwiznia]

I know this is on purpose and we don't display the timezone if they are the same. But to me as a user, it looks broken. I don't know if the other person is in my same timezone or not. I rather see the timezone in every chat.

[sonialiap]

I don't think I've ever seen any chat/email systems display sender's timezone on the message timestamp. If we were to be the first to do that, it would be confusing to users since there isn't a precedent for this.

Currently we show the message timestamp in your timezone. If the other person in the chat is in a different timezone then their timezone is displayed at the bottom of the window.

Victoria is in AEDT, I am in PST so I'm shown her current time:

If they're in the same timezone as you, then their time isn't displayed. Nikki and I are both in PST:

I think it makes sense to either leave it as it is or display local time at the bottom of every chat (so my chat with Nikki would show her time too). @iwiznia do you think we should make this change?

[iwiznia]

I have no idea where some people are or if where they are it's the same time zone as where I am. I went to a chat and wanted to know if they could be online based on their time and did not see it there, to me it looked like a bug because all other chats seemingly have it.
So yeah, I think we should always show the other user's timezone, no matter if they are in the same timezone as you or not.

[sonialiap]

Made some tweaks to the original post

[MelvinBot]

Triggered auto assignment to @chiragsalian (Engineering), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4319 for more details.

[Santhosh-Sellavel]

Proposal

Here is the restriction we make to hide the other user's time, where we check the other user is from a different timezone.
Removing this check would be enough to handle this issue.

App/src/libs/reportUtils.js

Line 230 in 58f0168

&& moment().tz(currentUserTimezone.selected).utcOffset() !== moment().tz(reportRecipientTimezone.selected).utcOffset();

[MelvinBot]

Triggered auto assignment to @kadiealexander (External), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/8582 for more details.

[kadiealexander]

Posted to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~01fb9158fbedf74de3

[MelvinBot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @parasharrajat (Exported)

[MelvinBot]

Current assignee @chiragsalian is eligible for the Exported assigner, not assigning anyone new.

[koushal141]

Proposal from Upwork

Hi!
This seems like it's not a bug, but the way the front end is coded.
I.e:- When time zones are same, they are rendered at the top and when they are different, they render at the bottom.

This can be fixed by merging the different timezone logic from bottom with the one at the top.

Eg: { timezoneOfUser1==timezoneOfUser2? < RenderLocalTime /> : < Render International Time />}

Or remove the logic of checking timezones completely and just use new Date(timestamp) which will return the Date & Time object based on the users device timezone

[parasharrajat]

I like @Santhosh-Sellavel 's proposal.

cc: @chiragsalian

🎀 👀 🎀 C+ reviewed

[chiragsalian]

Yup it lgtm too.

Feel free to create the PR @Santhosh-Sellavel.

[MelvinBot]

📣 @Santhosh-Sellavel You have been assigned to this job by @chiragsalian!
Please apply to this job in Upwork and leave a comment on the Github issue letting us know when we can expect a PR to be ready for review 🧑‍💻
Keep in mind: Code of Conduct | Contributing 📖

[kadiealexander]

@Santhosh-Sellavel please don't forget to apply in Upwork!

[Santhosh-Sellavel]

Done @kadiealexander !

[kadiealexander]

Paid @Santhosh-Sellavel for his fix + reporting bonus, and paid @parasharrajat for C+. Thanks team!