October 29, 2014
Since I moved to the US, I'm constantly checking the time it is around the world: sometimes in France to contact my friends, sometimes in New York where some coworkers are, etc. The thing I need the most is the UTC time. All our database and deployment timestamps are UTC and I don't really enjoy the mental gymnastics I have to perform to get the right time :)
The Mac dashboard doesn't provide a UTC clock widget so I decided to create one!
Open a Terminal on your Mac and go to the dashboard widgets directory:
cd /Library/Widgets
Locate the "World Clock" widget and explore the package:
cd World\ Clock.wdgt
Open the javascript file with your favorite editor:
subl WorldClock.js
Locate the "Europe" line (should be around line 48) and add an entry for GMT/UTC:
...
var Europe = [
{city:'GMT/UTC', offset:0, timezone:'UTC', id:"2647937"},
{city:'Amsterdam', offset:120, timezone:'Europe/Amsterdam', id:"2759794"},
...
Save the file and open the dashboard. Add a clock widget and you should now have the option for a GMT/UTC city :)