Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Oh yea I forgot to mention... somewhere in one of the last releases I turned on the setting to make the alarms appear in the task bar... unfortunately there's no way to control which application gets launched when you click that task bar icon, so the default "clock" app always loads up and shows no alarms (since flipclock alarms don't count as "clock" alarms). So in one sense it's pretty pointless... but on the other hand, it does at least act as a way of reminding you that you have an alarm set...

Nelson, sounds like either a really short sound file or a file that gstreamer can't play for whatever reason, as you discovered already. I make no guarantees about compatibility of sound files for it, so while it's not the expected behaviour I'm not going to consider that a flaw/bug with flipclock itself... if you find a common trait between the songs that don't work though let me know I can try to see if there are any known bugs/workarounds for gstreamer...

Didge, that's a bit odd that it went off early... could be a leftover alarm from a previous setting or something maybe? One of the last things I'm going to cram into the next release will be a hidden "factory default alarms" feature that will clear up any flipclock alarms that have been set, either from current install or any in the past, just to make sure as I'm sure a few of you who have been playing around with the various versions might have one or two that have gotten lost track of but that still ring...
Didge, let me know if that happens again or if it was a one off...

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Ill try to dive into your code and generate the graphics needed, since I have to check the coords anyway Ill probably manage to modify deirectly the sources (and regenerate for fixing/refining) + see if I can optimize to the pixel the screen refresh and keep as snappier as possible. Ill probably try to make the slot alarm machine numbers sliding

Im still trying to find a bit of time/mood to play with the svn so we can try to work a bit togheter (never done before) and see if I can understand how use the web space on garage (another new thing for me)

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

The sound file is a full song. I ripped the song off a CD with the same settings as other songs that do play. At first I thought it may be because the album folder had a comma and a period in it. I removed those but it didn't change anything. Tonight I'll try and do some investigating.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Hey jolouis


Not sure what i did but i could not get the program to work after uninstalling and installing. So i flashed my NIT and loaded only that program and it works great.
Many Thanks

-k

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

pohlmeyr, that's a little bit drastic there! But if it fixed things up and it's all working now then s'all good!

I'll be interested to see if you can find any patterns there Nelson with the songs, I have to admit I haven't tried all that many myself (just found one that worked that I was kind of used to waking up to and left it at that) but if there are issues at least we'll be able to either work around them or make sure everyone's aware so that you know it will or won't work properly.

Ciro, I've setup the SVN and loaded up the current version I've been working on up there; I've never used it either but it's pretty straight forward, you just have to remember to use the svn commands to do things instead of the regular file commands (i.e. if you create a new file or directory, or delete an existing one you have to do things like "svn add theFile" or "svn del theFile" instead of just "rm theFile"). Other than that's it's pretty simple. And I finally got the packaging stuff sorted out properly on my devel machine, so anytime you make some changes and want to push to extras-devel just let me know and I can sync up your changes and publish to the repo in like two commands ;-)

When you start poking through the code you'll see that a lot has changed... namely, there are almost no full screen refreshes anymore, only when they're really needed. The clock interfaces themselves are the last bit where it does get redrawn once per minute, but the alarm screen for example does not except when you change which alarm you're setting. All the buttons and things are very straight forward, you should be able to get a handle on it without too much effort at all (I hope). After I got that screen change animation going my next thought was to make the alarm digits smooth scrolling like you said, but I don't know if it's really worth it as you can't really see them under your finger anyways... but I'll leave that up to you!

I've still got a lot of cleaning up that I want to do to the code (a lot of your original code is still there as I left it until I was absolutely sure that it wasn't needed anymore), so a lot of that can probably go to help clean things up, but if you like I can just leave it alone for a while and let you go at it so that we don't end up overlapping things as I'm pretty happy with the functionality and bug fixes right now.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Just a few questions:

Can flipclock ever support the "Clock" alarms? That would be so cool, if it was possible.

Where IS flipclock made, Italy or China!! My brains are melting.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Thesandlord, just to confuse you even more most of the "guts behind the clock" is made in Canada ;-)

It all depends on what you mean by "support". The problem with the clock alarms is that they're setup to trigger the tablet's built in alarm mechanism. While flipclock uses that same mechanism to trigger it's own alarms, we'd have to basically make it so that after you set the normal "clock alarms" flipclock would then have to be manually launched and somehow "hijack" the alarms you'd set so that instead of triggering the normal clock they'd trigger flip... the problem with that being, once flip takes over as the action of the alarm, the normal clock app no longer shows the alarms because they're not pointed at it anymore... it's one of those catch 22 sort of things. So as it stands, the flipclock alarms do everything the normal "clock" alarms do (and are much better of course ;-) ), the only thing you can't do is edit them directly on the desktop by clicking the little clock icon...

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

:D:D:D lol

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

the whole thing started out as rock and roll and now it is out of control

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

well, the entire premise of this clock was based on useless blotaed pointless gimmick exercize :)

If you mean the 'native nokia clock alarms' I think would be great and just let people fight with it (let the OS managing all the troubles and receive all the complain) but Im not sure how hard/possible the integration can be.
Anyway I have more than 1 complain about the reliable of maemo os, the led notify, powersetting, alarmd seem working pretty randomly on my tablet (keyboards always on/always off, screen that should stay on stay off and viceversa, led stop blinking at all, random dead of alarmd, battery check that trigger weird service and notifies, os not always aware of charging status... ). an HUGE mess if you ask my wortless newbie opinion and I really love having to deal as less as I can.
Said this the integration still have huge advantages (and have more sense looking at the future in next OS version) and one of the reason I started the app was because I feel terribly sad and the actual maemo alarm input dialog (pretty impossible to use without the stylus).
Like I already said in a previous post (really exist people that didn't read all the previous 400 posts?) the alarmd betrayed too many time and Ill keep my own version that will directly trig the alarm only when the application is on but Im pretty convinced that the alarmd version is the one should go in the Extra repository.

By now the application is made in Italy, UK and somewhere in US (not sure were Jolouis is), look as cheap as a chinese clock (check the old wood 'theme' to see when the made in china showed up the 1st time) and it is been made in Finland for a while but I removed that after I 'get pissed' after a brief discussion about using the nokia logo. [brains?]

I dont understand if 'out of control' in a positive or negative way :)
in any case Im never been able to keep things under control: let the chaos reign

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Good point! though I don't think it's really all that useless or bloated at the moment...

The biggest problem with alarmD isn't alarmD itself, but the lack of clear concise documentation about how to use it properly and the "hack together" attempts that others have had to come up with as a result. The "random crashing" happens anytime alarmD tries to execute an alarm that 1) wasn't entered into the cue properly, because the person who built an app that tried to use alarmD didn't know what they were doing or didn't test properly... which comes back to that horrible lack of documentation 2) the program or action that is set to be run by alarmD crashes/fails for whatever reason, and drags the whole alarmD daemon down with it. Same causes as #1.
For anyone who's experienced a lot of "Random alarmD crashes" I'd strongly recommend you backup your old /var/lib/alamd/alarm_queue.xml file, and then delete the normal cue file. Restart alarmd (/etc/init.d/alarmd restart), and then see how reliable alarmD apps are... I bet crashing problems will be gone...

Now, that all being said... a few updates for the app:
1) Added a "usealarmd" option. After running flipclock, if you open the config file there's a setting that says "usealarmd = 1". If you set this to 0 instead of 1, no more alarmD, all alarms and things are handled internally by flipclock. Ciro, that's all for you buddy ;-) Keep in mind this is not the recommended way of doing things, and should only be changed if you have a very good personal reason to... however I've tested it and it's just as reliable... you just don't get any auto launching or anything like that.
***NOTE*** make sure you go into flipclock and turn off ALL ALARMS before altering this setting... otherwise you will end up with alarms in alarmD that will be impossible to disable later on through flipclock!!

2) Updated the "next alarm" display thing to show the time and day of the next scheduled alarm.
3) Added the countdown timer back in; same thing, it counts down to the next scheduled alarm, or N/A if no alarms are turned on.
4) Added "Insomniac mode" that causes clock to stay on at the "dim" setting all the time, so that if you like to look at the clock in the middle of the night/etc you can use this mode. Keep in mind that this does have an impact on battery life!! So if you're not connected to a charger, you've been warned!. You can toggle Insomniac mode on/off by pressing the hardware "escape"/"back"/"reload" button (the one with a picture of an arrow sort of curved around and facing backwards).
5) Minor bug fixes and continuing code cleanup/etc.

I've got a lot of the development process cleaned up a bit more too, so from now on new releases will just appear in extras-devel... this one will be version 0.2.0 and should be up soon...

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

great post J, I thanks a lot for the time u spent on writing this (and all the time on the clock). Ill try to add an alarmd restart at the init at the clock just for my own use and see if I can take two birds with one stone (solve my alarmd idiocracy and make the clock's alarms more reliable)
I had an hell of a week, Ill hope to have a better state of mind for the weekend to finally put here the new graphics and the informative about (alarms setting and mp3 list). I guess we should freeze here the features and release something definitive and let the app rest a bit :)

@jolouis: do u prefer the nick or the real name on the about page (email? home address? girlfriend to thank? face picture? dna sample?)
and congratulations for the nearly 21000 thread's views, great job on keeping the people's interest high.
Buona domenica

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

One small problem: Even after exiting FlipClock, the tablet stays in "Insomniac mode", not turning the screen off anymore, just dimming it, which do drain the battery quickly. FlipClock should revert the tablet to non-insomniac mode when it's closed.

Also, IMO, using the entire screen (except the snooze bar) to stop the alarm is not good for people having a hard time to wake up (like me). Inadvertantly touching the screen when trying to reach for the tablet half awake is a sure way to fall back asleep. The stop alarm should be a button, or a very small zone on the screen (I suggest the +/- buttons that are not in use in FlipClock) so there is no risk to stop the alarm when you don't want to.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Seems like utf-8 and AM/PM support broken. If I set alarm to 21:00 PM it displayet as 33:00 (%
If LC_DATE is ru_RU, or somethig other with utf chars then date looks like ****. And some strange behaviour with LED.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

привет Vasily and welcome (Добро пожаловать ?) to the forum:
I noticied some issue with AM/FM/alarm setting too: I hope having the entire 7 alarms list in the coming about screen will help to test all the conditions.
I never thought about i8n: if maemo programmers worked well should not be too complicate but Ill have to consider this if I would change the messages font.
LED: 'strange behaviour' in MY dictionary is the exact translation for 'feature' :). All the LED choices are pretty random (I should try to switch from beer to vodka, seem make people more aware to particulars). I beginned to write this clock then Jolouis toke the control since version 0.1.7. Jolouis have an N800 (only monochromatic blue LED) so he can't check anything about. Ill give a look when Ill touch the code again for update the graphic.

dasvidania

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Yea I hear you, one of the reasons I've been trying to focus on getting all the little stuff taken care of is that I know I'm not going to have anywhere near as much time to work on this in the coming weeks, so better to get more done while I can!
The SVN is all setup on garage, so as long as you're using that to make the feature changes/etc then it doesn't really make a difference as we can always "roll back" to other versions. I think what we have at the moment is pretty solid (2 comments with minor issues, compared to like 10 comments with things like "clock crashes!"). I've been using it every day for the last week and half now and not had any stability issues either, so... pretty happy.

Krystan: That was my biggest concern with this... the code is there to switch back to your previous settings when you close/exit the clock, but if for some reason the app crashes or tablet locks up/your force close app/whatever, then those settings don't get reverted, and the only way to fix it is to manually change your display settings again from the tablet display menu thing. Two options I'm thinking about: 1) make it so that you can only enable "insomniac mode" when tablet is connected to AC... and if in that mode and you unplug, it automatically turns off. (only problem here is that if you exit flip, then disconnect, settings won't be reverted) 2) Make it so that anytime you exit flip if it's still set for insomniac mode and doesn't know what your previous display settings were (for reasons mentioned above) it displays a little warning and just defaults to like 1 minute or something...
Thoughts?

Yea, this is a big concern of mine too! For a while I was even thinking about switching the snooze and alarm off things, so if you hit the digits it would come up and say "Snooze!!", or you hit the little bar at the bottom to actually shut it off. Could move it to the +/- buttons, but then personally that early in the morning I'd never be able to shut the thing off as they're pretty tiny! ;-) What about if there was another bar on the top (above the digits) to say "stop alarm", or something like that? (and it would be a little shorter so that you don't hit it if you grab the side of the screen). Only other thing I can think would be to make either a confirmation "Really stop alarm?", or make it so you have to press twice or something...
Again, thoughts??

Not sure about the fonts/date thing, but Ciro, you seem to have that one covered I'll leave it in your hands ;-) For the about screen btw just throw my actual name and (jolouis) up there, that's fine; I think we'll get more feedback here than anywhere else anyways!

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Insomniac mode: What about writing in a file the original display setup when FlipClock start, plus a flag in the same file that's turned on when FlipClock start, and turned off when FlipClock has stopped. This way, when FlipClock start it will know if it exited properly or crashed the last time, and eventually reload the original setup.

Stop Alarm: I like the +/- buttons for the exact reason you don't like them. If I can't find them, it means I'm not awake enough and the alarm should keep ringing. I would even go with a complex combination of keys on the keyboad, just to be sure. What about leaving the choice for the user (and add a second, long due, setup screen for rarely used options).

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Good idea, though I'm still a little concerned with the potential for problems here because if you externally change the display settings (i.e. from the little icon on the taskbar) then it will throw the whole flipclock temp file thing out the window. Right now it already automatically tracks your current settings (when you open flip), and restores those when you exit. I'll just add a little check so that if you launch the app and turn insomniac mode off, if it doesn't know what settings you had before for whatever reason it will just give you a warning and say that it's gone back to defaults because it was confused (and of course appologise); that way no matter what it will always go to a "Safe" setting; and you can always tweak it back afterwards. In any case the chances of all of this going wrong should be pretty low so this is all safety measures...

Fair enough! I can add the extra option and make it user selectable, but for the moment it'll probably be a manual configuration setting until Ciro finishes updating the graphics and coming up with the new long awaited config screen. I'll probably go with options for "bash screen in semi-conscious haze", "+" key, "Dpad center button", "+" and "-" key together. Can't get too crazy beyond that since the N800 doesn't have a full keyboard... (and I'd still like to be able to turn my alarms off ;o) )

Thanks for the feedback!!

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

I finally managed to have a bit of time to take a look at the application.
The jolouis code is really revolutioned: I surrender to his developing skills and let him add the new settings/buttons/gadgets/features: I can barely recognize the code :)
I will try to understand how the led functions are called by the various modules and see if I can do something for a bit of i18n.
I tried to reorganize a bit the alarms setting page to make a bit of space for more controls.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3416/...ce12e865_m.jpg
the main screen is here:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3307/...0304a1cb_m.jpg
[linked to the real deal full resolution pics on flickr]
I already prepared the new 'slot machine numbers'.
I just have to prepare the graphics for the new little slide buttons (to make our lifes easier maybe we can use them like simple buttons for a while :) ) and the about graphics.
In any case Ill keep study the code to learn something new

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Hey Ciro, glad to hear all is well I was a little concerned when I heard about that earth quake over your way.
Yea sorry the code has changed around quite a bit... I wish we'd been using the svn earlier so that you could have seen the progression of it, but it started with me just commenting and figuring out how your stuff worked, then trying to make it a little easier to organize and manage, and finally it just kind of migrated into this whole object-oriented crazy thing (which I think is pretty cool actually). If you want some help explaining what's going on or what's what or anything just let me know, I tried to comment the code but there's still a lot of bits that probably could use further explanation/etc... in any case I'd be extremely happy to help!! After all, this still is your baby, I'm just here tweaking things a bit behind the scenes from time to time ;o)
The LED stuff should still be fairly easy to spot, it's in the ci_alarmNew.py file near the end I believe... gets called either from ci_clock or... somewhere, I'd have to go back and look again lol
I really like the re-organized layouts, when you've got them to a "happy point" just make a new directory on the garage SVN and upload them and I'll roll them into the code and adjust things accordingly if you like; feel free to have a go at it yourself too eh, as I said this is still your awesome clock man, I'm just trying to help out to the ideas into reality ;o)
Looking forward to the updates!

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Thank you Rob, yes im fine Im something like 300 miles from the earthquake but still hurt watching all that people in pain.

I wasnt complain about the code dhanging :) I just understand even more how hard is to touch other people programs: this make your works on the application even more valuable.

Just learning a bit the svn and still make me a bit nervous...but Im sure Ill be able to make a directory and post there all the graphics.
If no one came with some weird idea Ill try to prepare everything as soon as P and let you play a bit.

I launched the clock on a ubuntu and still look pretty decent :p: we should think to prepare a package for desktops and spread the maemo name around but I dont know how difficult would be to adapt all your alarmd code to the cron

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Don't worry about the SVN, it's a lot harder to mess up than you think... and I've got all my local backup copies and things just in case ;o) (Plus we can always pull it back out of the deb's too, that's not hard). Sure whenever you get a chance to get the stuff up just let me know and I'll take a crack and changing things over (shouldn't be very hard at all)

Should actually run on any linux OS without a hassle (infact since that last update if you run it and change that config setting to tell it not to use alarmD it should run perfectly no problemos with alarms and everything... you just can't close the clock and have it auto launch); I've never actually tried it, but in theory it should work... I mean I can do a little more work to clean up and be 100% sure, but I think we'll get the maemo one working 100% first, then clean up for everyone else (after all, we have many many fans here who deserve to be treated first!)

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

i like new setting layers...nice captain and more button for...more setting WOOT WOOT Nice work always!

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

I was waked to early once again this morning! :-(
jolouis: Is there some way to remove all alarms from alarmd, so I can set them new and have only one timer per day?

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Hey Didge, let me roll that "hidden clear all alarms" thing into the latest build option for you; I'll then post up a new version that you can install to let you clear up that pesky extra alarm. The girlfriend's out of town until the weekend so it's a good opportunity to bury myself back into this app and try to get Ciro's new graphics and things rolled into it; I'll let you guys know how it goes!

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Any progress on this? I seem to have an alarm scheduled for Tuesday mornings. The last several Tuesdays, I have grabbed my tablet to find that Flipclock has loaded. I don't think it is playing any sounds (as my wife hasn't complained).

There doesn't appear to be any alarms enabled in flipclock itself.

Help??

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Sorry guys, I've been doing little bits on and off but have been really busy with other things of late. I will try to get out a quick release (without the new graphics yet or anything) just to let you manually clear any outstanding alarms; keep an eye out.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

I would just like to mention that I have been using the latest version 5 days a week flawlessly. I set the alarms once and since then it has looked after itself.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Hmm I'm using the latest one in extras-deval (.20?) and there doesn't seem to be a way to change mp3..or change colors/themes. Do I need to delete the configuration file or something?

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

We're still working on an "about/help/any kind of documentation at all" thing, but you should be able to go to the alarm settings page and press on the large word "Sound" and wait a second, the file chooser dialog thing should open up letting you pick a new MP3 to use. You can change "theme colours" by clicking on the random multicolour box in the bottom right of the alarm settings screen (right above the "Made in Italy"). Clicking on this box will cycle through the 5... 6? theme colours.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

I figured so since that's how I changed themes in the past. But it doesn't seem to work anymore. So I was asking if there was any configuration file I could delete and have the program re-create a default one?

I'm thinking something happened during the update/upgrade.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Well you can try removing the /home/user/.flipclock.conf file, but make sure you've got all of your alarms TURNED OFF first, or you'll end up with Lemmy's problem of having alarms set in alarmD that you can't control anymore. (still working on it buddy, I'm doing my absolute best to get you a solution before next Tuesday!!).

The other thing is to try running from xterm and see if you notice any errors coming up when you try to change the sounds/etc.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

jolouis

Thanks for the effort, don't rush it. As I mentioned, I don't think it's playing any sound (or at least not loud enough to be a disturbance). It's just a quirk, not even an annoyance.

Come to think of it I probably did a uninstall/delete old files and reinstalled for some reason I can't think of now. Likely my fault.

This Tuesday or next, or even next, no worries.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Ok they work now. Though I seem to notice that the display will dim but not shut off anymore when Flipclock is running.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

You're in insomniac mode. Press the "back" button to switch between normal and insomniac.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Ok guys, sorry it's been a while but got another small "maintenance release" to help Lemmy and anyone else who's got weird/random flipclock alarms going off on them. Version is now 0.2.1 and should be up in extras-devel in the next few minutes; also will be available on the garage page very shortly.

The main change here is the addition of some simple command line options. So if you're having weird/random alarms, upgrade to the latest version of Flip and then open up xterm and type:
flipclock -f

If all goes well it should pop up a dialog once flip loads telling you about any erroneous alarms it's found and asking if you'd like to try and fix them; clicking Yes should solve the problems.

Still working on the graphics updates and optimizations, but I wanted to get this out in the meantime... (Sorry I'm a day late lemmy!)

Thanks!

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

jolouis,

Thanks for the update. I appreciate all the hard work. I ran it with the -f from xterm twice. No popup dialog :( ...however, I don't think it activated yesterday morning (Tuesday) either??? Perhaps the alarm was cleared somehow prior to the update? I'll keep an eye on it. Of course now I feel kind of silly. Like when you car is acting up and you get to the mechanic and it runs fine for them.

PS It did take a while to find in the app manager. I have diablo extra-devel enabled, but had to enable chinook extra-devel to get it.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Hey Lemmy,

Yea the Diablo auto builder was taking a nap yesterday... it got up into Chinook extras-devel in like 2 minutes, but Diablo one (even though there were no other apps in the queue) took all day...

If you run it from the command line with the -f option it should list off saying something like "Monday's alarm is valid", etc for any alarms that you have set; the popup only appears if it finds one that's definitely not supposed to be there. Anyways, glad to hear that it seems to be sorted, it shouldn't be a problem that comes up again anymore, but at least that -f option is there just in case!

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

I didn't have any alarms set, so I set one and tried it again. No pop-up or confirmation of good alarms, although I did notice that a clock icon shows up on the status bar. (Not that it shows any alarms though). Not overly worried about it. Opening xterm and typing "flipclock -f".

Just thought I'd pass the info back to you. Thanks again.

Re: Flip clock pre pre pre pre release
 

Sorry I should have clarified about the "Good alarms" thing... it should be printed out in the X-term session, not as a popup; the popup only appears when things are bad ;-)

i.e. on my tablet here I've got:
(Hmmm I really have to clean up some of those pygame errors and things... is that just my old install of pygame, or do those errors appear for others too?).

Yea, last version of the flipclock added that alarm Icon thing, but since it's tied to the native clock app, you can't really do anything with it, it's just there to remind you that you do have an alarm set. One of the long term features down the road will be to add a custom "status bar" icon for flipclock alarms, so you get the icon and a way of setting/clearing flipclock alarms more directly... that's still a long way away at this point though.