Forum Feature Request

[Ligali]

We like to use our forum calendar to store the anniversaries of historic events. However, when adding a date to the calendar if we choose a start date earlier than 1970 the system falls over. I know it may not be the original intent for the calendar but it adds definite educational value to be able to store anniversaries of historic dates alongside birthdays and events of members.

[Michael]

January 1st 1970 was the start of the unix time method of reckoning time, used by many other types of software, including IP.Board. To do what you need would require fundamental changes to the way dates are used in the product, and that's something that isn't to be taken lightly. To support this would require hundreds of source code changes in various parts of the product, and would require more database storage space to store everything related to dates. I'm not going to say this won't happen, but I doubt it will ever change.

[Tanax]

January 1st 1970 was the start of the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time]unix time[/url] method of reckoning time, used by many other types of software, including IP.Board. To do what you need would require fundamental changes to the way dates are used in the product, and that's something that isn't to be taken lightly. To support this would require hundreds of source code changes in various parts of the product, and would require more database storage space to store everything related to dates. I'm not going to say this won't happen, but I doubt it will ever change.

What about this?

The Unix time number is zero at the Unix epoch, and increases by exactly 86 400 per day since the epoch. Thus 2004-09-16T00:00:00Z, 12 677 days after the epoch, is represented by the Unix time number 12 677

[bfarber]

Negative timestamps are not universally supported.

I can categorically say we will not be changing from unix timestamps to any other date storage method. This is a limitation that faces almost every website PHP script out there today. Similarly, timestamps have a forward limit as well (based on the type of processor in your server).

[Wolfie]

We like to use our forum calendar to store the anniversaries of historic events. However, when adding a date to the calendar if we choose a start date earlier than 1970 the system falls over. I know it may not be the original intent for the calendar but it adds definite educational value to be able to store anniversaries of historic dates alongside birthdays and events of members.

This would be better off as a mod that hooks into the calendar system and generates dynamic events daily. It could then be done in a way to return the true history, while remaining compatible.

I'll admit it's nice to have historical tidbits to read, but not as a standard feature.