Feature Request – Timezone Offset Handling for VAX/VMS 5.5 Clusters

[mbvhq]

Hello,

I’m trying to use the VMS IDE extension to synchronize source files between a Windows development PC and a VAX/VMS 5.5 cluster using MultiNet and the SSH stack from Process Software.

The VAX system does not provide timezone or UTC support (no UCX, SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL has no effect), and file timestamps are returned in local time.

However, the extension assumes that remote timestamps are in UTC, which leads to a consistent 2-hour discrepancy during synchronization. If the timestamp difference is less than 2 hours, the file from the VAX is pulled to the PC even when it hasn’t changed.

This behavior is unavoidable on VMS 5.5, and we cannot adjust the system clock (it's a synchronized development cluster).

💡 Could you please consider adding a timestampOffsetMinutes setting to the extension ?

Example:

"vmsIde.sync.timestampOffsetMinutes": -120

This would allow users to correct for static timezone offsets, especially on older systems without UTC awareness.

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,