If you tick the box “Continuously updated day/night map” on the Time Machine, you will see how the earth looks like in real-time at a particular time and date. For practicality reasons we decided to have the earth flat so the changing of the light conditions according to the date and time is a full reflection of all the changes that happen from a geo-static point of view. Even if the earth was displayed as a globe you would still have to ask yourself the question where is the observer? If the observer is static above a geographical point, then the day/night shadow would simply move around the earth (similar to how it is now). So with this flat configuration an alternative of displaying time travel would be to keep the earth shadow in place and move the earth accordingly. This would equate to the observer being in a static position in relation to the sun and earth.

Regarding your second question, you find a number of buttons at the top of the map that give you control about the appearance of the map. There are a lot more settings that you can change, which you find under Tools > Options. They apply also to the clocks, report, etc.

And finally to your last question, as I mentioned above, a globe view of the earth did not seem practical to display time zones etc, but it is certainly something I will consider for a future release of World Time Manager.

Hope this answers your questions.

Cheers
Meini

Great stuff this

Johann