Difficulty understanding update offset

Orion_sandstorrm · Post by **Orion_sandstorrm** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:24 am

I just want my comic to update first thing in the morning. 1 AM would be nice.

So I go to Site Admin, Edit Comic, Update Offset.

But what's the deal with the seperate column for "Tomorrow's Comic" and "Today's Comic"? There's two places where you can select 1 AM, one in each column. What's the difference between them, between these two columns? It seems that I can only click one button out of either list, not one button in each list. If I click a button in "Tomorrow's Comic," will the comic update a day late? I don't think that's what that means... does it mean the amount of time in between one update and the next, if you had a daily comic? Why is "Tomorrow" listed before "Today," anyhow, with its times listed in reverse order?

It seems like it ought to be simple, but I've poked at it a lot without gaining any understanding. I didn't find anything in the Gear manual explaining what this is, and I didn't find any other forum posts explaining it, either.

If that's too much to explain... I'd just like the quick answer to this question: What button, in what column, do I select to make my comic always update at 1 AM?

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:28 am

To have your comic update at 1am, you'll want to select a button in the "Tomorrow's Comic" column. The times are all in Pacific time, though, so you may have to adjust for timezones.

Orion_sandstorrm · Post by **Orion_sandstorrm** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:38 am

That should do. Thanks!

Jerms · Post by **Jerms** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:43 pm

So what is the diffrence between tomorows comic and todays comic, today was the first update I ever had and I wanted to test that out, but you all know how things turned out. So now Im even more confused.

Oualawouzou · Post by **Oualawouzou** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:52 pm

Here's how it works:

Let's say you want your comic to show up at 1AM your local time. Problem is, you are located in Europe. As such, when it's 1AM your time, it's 3PM the day before on the US west coast (where the servers are).

So, for your comic to update at 1AM your time, you have to ask the server to update your comic at 3PM server time, and instead of looking for the present day, the server will check for comics supposed to go up the following day (because it's already "the following day" in Europe).

Does that make sense?

Jerms · Post by **Jerms** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:02 pm

Its still not clear to me

Oualawouzou · Post by **Oualawouzou** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:35 pm

Okay, let's see...

It's October 7th. You have a comic titled "20051007.jpg", so therefore a comic due up on October 7th.

If your setting is at "today's comic, 5PM", the comic for October 7th will go up at 5PM pacific time. However, October 7th 5pm pacific time = October 8th 1am in some parts of Europe. If you live in Europe, it means your comic for October 7th will go up only in the wee hours of October 8th!

So, instead, you change your setting to "tomorrow's comic, 5PM". That means that on October 6th, 5PM pacific time, the server will update your comic. However, it will look for files titled for October 7th (tomorrow, in other words). Problem? Nope! Since you're in Europe, October 6th, 5pm = October 7h, 1am!

That's about as clearly as I can explain it... If someone who's better at this sort of thing want to try too, go ahead!

Jerms · Post by **Jerms** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:53 pm

AH ok now I understand it, thanks dude, now there is only one issue. My time zone is GMT+1 I am in Europe, I need somone who knows about timezone conversions to tell me what time I have to set so my comic uploads first thing in the morning.

Pillywiggin · Post by **Pillywiggin** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:10 pm

Define "first thing"

1 am? 6 am?

Jerms · Post by **Jerms** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:13 pm

first thing as in most peoples morning, in my case 9 oclock, but I will settle for anything after 1am.

Pillywiggin · Post by **Pillywiggin** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:50 pm

Jerms wrote:first thing as in most peoples morning, in my case 9 oclock

Lucky.

GMT+1 is 9 hours ahead of PST. So that'd be at midnight which is the prime crunch time. I'd recommend actually setting tomorrows comic to either 10 or 11pm. It should then show up for you around 7 or 8 in the morning.

Jerms · Post by **Jerms** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 3:01 pm

AHA thank you very much, I shall do as you say and see how things go next monday, taking into account we dont get the same problem as this week.

LauraSeabrook · Post by **LauraSeabrook** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 5:14 pm

I'm confused too. I live in Australia, which is to the west of teh International Dateline, so I'm in the GMT +10:00 zone. If I want to have my comics updated at 1am, what time do I pick?

Cope · Post by **Cope** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 5:25 pm

Uh....I think that would be 8pm in the tomorrow's comic column if you're in a daylight's savings state, 7pm if you're in Queensland.

Rabbitz_ · Post by **Rabbitz_** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 5:25 pm

Jerms wrote:AHA thank you very much, I shall do as you say and see how things go next monday, taking into account we dont get the same problem as this week.

Jerms, we live in the same timeline (judging from your "location" tag, I can't say same country because, you know, you seem to live in a colony, but we're quite close together), so if it helps, i've got my comic set at 3PM PST/PDT, wich is just 00:00, so the comic updates at midnight...

LauraSeabrook · Post by **LauraSeabrook** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:06 pm

Cope wrote:Uh....I think that would be 8pm in the tomorrow's comic column if you're in a daylight's savings state, 7pm if you're in Queensland.

Thanks!

Me thinks the online form could do with a redesign.

Cope · Post by **Cope** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:24 am

ARGH, WAIT!

That should be 7 am and 8 am respectively. Sorry, I must have been half-asleep when I wrote that.

Comic Genesis Forums

Difficulty understanding update offset

Difficulty understanding update offset

Urk - I can't follow this either!