[Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Advanced Clock Plugin replaces the standard clock in the status menu area.
Benefits of Advanced Clock Plugin are that it is easily customizable and offers a number of different "clock styles" like, binary or decimal clocks.
You can, e.g., choose whether to display seconds or use a "twelve hour mode".

This project is currently in a very early stage and hence may feature a number of pitfalls..
Please keep this in mind and only install it if you like experimenting and can tolerate possible bugs.

Advanced Clock Plugin initially started off as binaryclock-plugin.
Thanks again to Mentalist Traceur who suggested to extend this and make a general version.

Comments, suggestions etc. are highly appreciated.
Edit: Advanced Clock Plugin is available in extras-devel.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Looks nice, I will try this now :)

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

I always loved the binary clock widget but kinda saw it as cheating as you had the time in the menu bar anyway.

Will definately give this a go :)

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Ok, I just installed it, it works great and I like to have seconds displayed :)
But I have two suggestions:
-Make the settings appears in the phone's settings instead of taking precious place on status menu applets screen.
-Add an option to use the default font in decimal mode, or even a smaller one.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Hello,

This is very much appreciated. This is what I love about open source software development, and developers like you who are responsive to their users. :) I installed this the moment I saw it in the repo today. Works great.

I've been thinking about the settings option as megateriak suggested... I'm unsure. The space in the status menu is indeed "precious", but you can always scroll. I also modify /etc/hildon-desktop/status-menu.plugins to give priority ti things that typically get pushed to the bottom, like simple brightness applet.

However, MohammadAG's put out mods to increase the amount of
applets that show up by two (both in portrait and landscape, if desired), so that if you like more visible without scrolling, there's that too. So I'm of two minds. On the one hand, having it in the status menu is extremely quicker to access. On the other hand, how often does one access their clock settings, is a good question too, since most people probably don't change it that much once they settle on the one they like... *Shrug*

Megatariak: I'm sure that because it's python, it should be possible to both have it use default system fonts and resize the current used fonts. Just looking around right now, looks like all you need is marginal python knowledge and you can tweek /usr/lib/advanced-clock-plugin/clocks/DecimalClock.py to change the font size yourself from onboard the device.

Line 33 of that file, as I understand it: self.context.set_font_size(45)

Just edit with one of the avilable editors as root. Might need to restard hildon-status-menu, but most likely just switch to another clock style and then back.

I'm thinking if Maemo 5 stays alive just a while longer, and this gets popular, we'll see themse including their own clock styles and perhaps Theme Customizer can have an ability to plug in it's own clock styles, modifiable from within Theme Customizer UI? If Dlivil and Wonko are up for working with each other.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Cool stuff! Could this lead to the option to display the date as well as the time?

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Probably, yes. I mean, all you need is to know how to fetch the date from the system with Python, and you can write a clock 'style' that's basically the same as one of the other clock styles, but fits the date in there.

Actually, this also means you can stick in fancy things... Like, make a 'clock' style where the top half is the time, and the bottom half is, say, Internet data traffic, wifi connection quality, and cpu + mem usage (if python can display all those things without being too processor intensive... As far as I know it should be able to). Hmmm... I need to get on that python learning thing I've been meaning to do. ;)

- Edit -

Just keep in mind that you have space constraints - the N900's status area clock icon area can push everything else in the status-bar to the left, which means if you make your hypothetical clock style too wide, you'll make it impossible to press on the actual status-bar's area that a running application uses to possibly put its menus into, or whatever. Especially in portrait. Not a big deal, just something to be aware of for any python-savvy would-be clock style makers.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

I just uploaded version 0.2.0 to extras-devel.
New in this version are two more clocks to choose from: an analog clock and a decimal clock including the date.
Currently, the date format is "dd.mm.(yy)yy".

Furthermore, it should be straightforward to create custom clocks.
Just have a look at the provided versions in "/usr/lib/advanced-clock-plugin/clocks".
To get started it's probably best to simply copy an existing clock and give it a new name.
In the current implementation it is important that the file name and the class name are exactly the same (case sensitive).
The return value of the "get_name()" function is the name which is used in the selection dialog.

In order for the new clocks being available you need to restart the status menu:
If you want some more descriptive debug output just start it as follows:
Note: this will leave hildon-status-menu in foreground, hence, you have to terminate it with CTRL-C.
Else, you could append a "&" to that line.

Edit: Advanced Clock Plugin uses Cairo.
There are a number of tutorials out there, e.g.:
http://zetcode.com/tutorials/pygtktutorial/drawingII
http://www.pygtk.org/articles/cairo-...tk-widgets.htm

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Am i missing something because installing this only disables the default clock.

Edit: Works with the new version! :)

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

It is now almost perfect with date displayed :)
It just miss the little bell next to the clock when you have one or more alarms setted up.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Could you please post the output of
run as root.
Don't forget to kill it with CTRL-C afterwards.
It's also probably best to "restart" the whole status menu with
once you're done.


Yep, that's on my to-do list too. ;)
Also, it's currently eating to much battery.
Currently, the clock is not paused when, e.g., the screen is shut off.
So that's a major to-do as well.
Other things to do are, e.g., integration of the settings menu in the settings dialog instead of the status area pull down menu.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

I have the same problem as Lemonadium



Nokia-N900:~# DEBUG_OUTPUT=1 /usr/bin/hildon-status-menu
Home directory /root not ours.
ham-updates-status-menu-item.c (update_state): updating the state
ham-notifier.c (notifications_status): there's NOT new notifications 2
Home directory /root not ours.
ham-updates-status-menu-item.c (ham_updates_status_menu_item_connection_cb): got a connect notification 0
ham-updates-status-menu-item.c (ham_updates_status_menu_item_connection_cb): bearer = WLAN_INFRA
ham-updates-status-menu-item.c (ham_updates_status_menu_item_connection_cb): we're online

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

i have same error :(

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

This looks good so far.
Next things to check are:
Please post the output here as well.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Nokia-N900:~# tail /etc/hildon-desktop/status-menu.plugins
[connui-bluetooth-transfer.desktop]
X-Desktop-File=/usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu/connui-bluetooth-transfer.desktop
X-Status-Area-Position=15
X-Status-Menu-Position=17

[advanced-clock-plugin.desktop]
X-Desktop-File=/usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu/advanced-clock-plugin.desktop
X-Status-Menu-Position=22
X-Status-Area-Permanent-Item=Clock


Nokia-N900:~# ls -al /usr/lib/hildon-desktop/advanced-clock-plugin.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4816 Dec 24 18:44 /usr/lib/hildon-desktop/advanced-clock-plugin.py


Nokia-N900:~# ls -al /usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu/advanced-clock-plugin.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 174 Dec 24 13:47 /usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu/advanced-clock-plugin.desktop

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Latest update works fine for me, just FYI.

I figured out a few things by trial and error last night after I got off this forum, which I was going to post here when I came on today: I see Wonko already pointed out that you have to restart hildon-status-menu. I find killall hildon-status-menu works too, but I'll try the pskill one too, see what the difference is.

Meanwhile, I did notice a bug - or at least what may be a bug, unless this was the intent: Reboot/restart of the status menu doesn't save the clock you have selected before. So no matter what you select the next hildon-menu restart (reboots included obviously) sets it back to Decimal. This isn't too much of an issue - no rush to make it permanent if you even want to.

Also, I started experimenting through trial and error, and made my own clock ("Test Clock" - for obvious reasons). Nothing exciting yet, but I should be able to start making possibly useful clock styles soon.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Nokia-N900:~# tail /etc/hildon-desktop/status-menu.plugins
[connui-bluetooth-transfer.desktop]
X-Desktop-File=/usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu/connui-bluetooth-transfer.desktop
X-Status-Area-Position=15
X-Status-Menu-Position=17

[advanced-clock-plugin.desktop]
X-Desktop-File=/usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu/advanced-clock-plugin.desktop
X-Status-Menu-Position=22
X-Status-Area-Permanent-Item=Clock

Nokia-N900:~# ls -al /usr/lib/hildon-desktop/advanced-clock-plugin.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4816 Dec 24 20:44 /usr/lib/hildon-desktop/advanced-clock-plugin.py
Nokia-N900:~# ls -al /usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu/advanced-clock-plugin.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 174 Dec 24 15:47 /usr/share/applications/hildon-status-menu/advanced-clock-plugin.desktop
Nokia-N900:~#

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Yes, that's indeed not the intended behavior.
The reason is simply that I didn't have the time yet to implement this properly. ;)

Nice, am looking forward to see some custom clocks. :)


Meanwhile, I uploaded version 0.3.0-1 to extras-devel.
This version suspends the operation when the display turns off and resumes when the display is turned on again.
Consequently, the battery usage should be significantly reduced.

Furthermore, I added a missing dependency.
It would be nice if all of you who had problems so far could check if this version resolves the issue.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

I am in the same boat - my default clock disappears,,,,,,,,,, :(

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

The updated version works now.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

ahhh after the update it now works,

but I agree, settings needs to be moved to settings menu..

edit: also the clocks settings are reset to default when you reboot...

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

He's implementing both of those right now (this was just discussed on the previous page). He already said he's intending on figuring out the first one soon, and that the second one is something he was aware of and just hasn't gotten around to implementing.

But hey, it's early software, that happens.

I'm still impressed that three days ago this was just a binary clock widget copied over to the status bar - and now it's a completely plugin-able clock replacement. Awesome.

Meanwhile, Wonko, thanks for the fixes. What was the dependency your package was missing? Advance Power and Advance Interface Switcher also had the same issue right after PR1.3, except they'd screw up people's entire status menu. Last I checked we never did figure it out. (Also, I hadn't noticed the battery usage yesterday, but my battery did die quicker today, I noticed [ I only updated from 2.~ to 3.~ late in the day today]. I still had enough by the time I got home at the end of the day, so the phone didn't shut off, but it certainly dropped quicker than normal. Though I also am not 100% sure how much of that is it running off-screen, and how much of it is me doing other things, like editing my test clock and leaving a few terminals open with vi running in them for a few hours. *Shrug*)

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Can you make it so that when I click it on the status bar it would open the alarms menu?

ISO-8601 compliant version
 

Wonko you have done it again, :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
you deserve an icon and a lot of thanks for all this !

Getting a clock that shows seconds in the status bar is simply heroic.


Custom version here:
ISO-8601

Here is the hack of the original file:
(left some of the old code so the changes are apparent to everyone)



Which issue?
I ran it and have no problems that I can see:

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

yes, it is a great little app, love the analog clock!!

like MT said a few days ago it was a binary clock plugin........ look @ it now...

:D keep up the great work Wonko!

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Could you please change the self.context.stroke to self.context.fill in the Decimal Clock in future versions for nicer looking clock?

Keep up the good work!

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

I just uploaded version 0.4.0-0 to extras-devel.
New features in this version are:
- an alarm indicator, which shows whether an alarm is scheduled or not,
- a display which, in addition to the current time, displays the scheduled alarm time,
- the possibility to change the foreground color of the clocks,
- and an option to trigger whether stroke() or fill() should be used for painting.

Known "issues" of this version are, e.g,
- settings are still not stored,
- settings are still accessible via the status area menu only,
- the color selection dialog is not very "finger friendly" (as in optimized for a touch ui),
- the initial clock style may be random,
- and the alarm indicator was only tested for a single scheduled alarm.
Hence, currently, the behavior of the alarm indication is suspected to fail when more than one alarm is used.

If you want to use the new features in your own clocks simply look into the source files of the supplied clocks. ;)

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

The color picker wasn't behaving correctly for me.
Changing line 47 of clocks.py to divide by 255 worked for me:

self.context.set_source_rgb(self.color_r/255.0, self.color_g/255.0, self.color_b/255.0)

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

The new version works on my phone, thanks for a nice clock replacement! :)
However I have noticed that the color picker doesn't pick right colors, and it would be nice to have enable/disable button for alarm notification.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Version 0.4.1 fixes the color dialog issue.
I just uploaded it to extras-devel.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

how can i return to the original clock . is there any way except uninstalling the app

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

and could u add an option to change the font of digital clock?

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Lemonadium, try what zvogt suggested in the post above yours. Editing /usr/lib/advanced-clock-pluging/clock.py, in line 47, to make it what he said above.

I'm going to test this myself in a minute, will edit post if it works and solves it like it did for zvogt.

- Edit -

Oh, wait, looks like Wonko already fixed it. Damn that was fast. Wonko, you're awesome.

- Edit 2 -

Also, as the number of clock styles becomes more and more numerous (possible, certainly), since the clock styles do not actually need to be marked as executable, and don't need to have any user permissions, perhaps it may be useful to symlink the /usr/lib/advanced-clock-plugin/ folder, or at least the /usr/lib/advanced-clock-plugin/clocks/ folder, into somewhere in /opt, or even somewhere in the MyDocs partition, just so that they don't take up rootfs space.

Of course, right now the Clock Style scripts are tiny and there's only a handful, so it's not a big deal, but it may be useful in the future.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Wonko, your app is awesome.. this app was a surprise to me
Few wishes:
1>moving the advanced clock settings to the Settings folder would be nice.
2>Option to set beep for every hour (if that is possible)

Seasons greeting to you and all maemo lovers

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Leojab: He's getting the first one implemented, he already said that. The second one... might actually be possible, not sure if he wants to include it in this one. It should be doable in the clock style though.

Something like should work, if I understand it correctly:

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

This is coming along in leaps and bounds! A few suggestions/requests..

Could the date and time read across horizontally rather than one above the other?

Could the font match the one used with Theme Customizer?

Would it be possible to have the date format match the one suggested in "Language & region" in Settings menu?

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Sure, but it would probably take a lot of your status bar space, to the point where it completely hides the part to the right of the status area (the part where most applications put their menus) in portrait mode. Which depending on how much you like using your stuff in portrait mode, may be unconvenient for you.

In the meantime, I can quickly make a clock style for you that does what you're asking for. What size font would you like (don't have to give a number, just pick whatever already existing style has the font size you want, and say bigger/smaller if you'd prefer.

It's doable, yes. I am not sure if he wants to take it that way (though he probably does, he's very responsive to letting users have the options they want), but the main problem is probably integration. You'd have to look at DLivil's source code for Theme Customizer, see how it fetches/changes the system font, etc.

If you can make the clock (or specific clock style) read the system font and use it, then it will probably change with theme customizer changes (though it may require a hildon-status-menu restart whenever you make a change in theme customizer).

Same as before, yes, it probably would be, but you'd have to know where that setting it stored, and have a way for the python code to read it. I'm not sure how much effort Nokia put into documenting the way to integrate the Language & Region date format with other applications.

Worse case scenario, you edit the python code of the clock for which you want to change the date.

They're alwaysWhere X is the amount of spaces you want it to take at a minimum so if you want January to show up as 01 instead of 1, you use .zfill(2), etc. Y is the dividing character. So if you want Jan first of one CE to be like this: 01.01.0001, you'd put a . between the "" in the above code. If you want 01/01/0001, you put /, etc. And then you can arrange those around, so if you want that screwed up American way of doing it, with Month/Day/Year, you'd do:You may have to redo it with every update, but it works.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

So I'm not a python guy, but just a couple minutes on google turned up the strftime method. it seems like something like:
text = self.time.strftime("%X")
would be simpler than the brute force string manipulation I'm seeing in the current clocks/ code.
At the bottom of this page: http://docs.python.org/library/datetime.html is a table showing all of the valid format options.

I actually think it would be cool if the interface would allow the user to input a custom format string using the arguments from that table, and would just render that input as a custom clock.

Re: [Announce] Advanced Clock Plugin
 

Latest update has a font chooser and an alarm indicator checkbox. Great work!

As zvogt says, (if I understand correctly!) it would be great to be able to specify your own format from the settings too.

Great little plugin this.