Date-helper supports the various of time-format and time-zone helps .

How to call

$this->loadHelper('date');

Time zone

You can settup the timezone as default in configure.ini

$this->Date->getTimezone();

$this->Date->setTimezone($timezone);

$this->Date->getListOfTimezone();

$this->Date->getTimeFromTimezone();

How to use

Diplay function has several options for the format of time.

$this->Date->display($this->Date->time(),1);
$this->Date->display($this->Date->time(),2);
$this->Date->display($this->Date->time(),3);
$this->Date->display($this->Date->time(),4);
$this->Date->display($this->Date->time(),5);
$this->Date->display($this->Date->time(),6);
$this->Date->display($this->Date->time(),7);

Especially , if you choose the second parameter 6 or 7, it will diplay the time of difference from current time which is more like human readable format.