[Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Since there have been a lot of requests and demands for this and the current instructions aren't exactly clear for the basic user to understand, I made a simplified guide on how to get the HTC style Flip Clock/Weather Widget for your N900.

This guide is based on my personal experiences yesterday, and literally yesterday I had no idea on how to create this widget, but now I have done it!

The apps you need are QueenBeeconWidgets (QBW) available in app manager, and wget (apt-get install wget)

The rest is in this guide which I have broken down into four easy to follow sections.

I have also included an option to have this widget in portrait or landscape mode (not both) depending on your preferances.

Just follow the steps as I have written them and you should be fine!

Here goes...


Section 1:


1. Download the 3 attachments from here:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...postcount=2322

Save them to an easy to access location, such as desktop.

There should be 1 image zip folder and 2 text files.

2. Extract the zip file to a folder of the same name. In that image folder, delete ALL images/files/contents except the one called 'panel'. Rename this 'panel' image file to 'qbw_flipclock'

3. Put this image in /home/user/.queen_beecon_dir

3. One of the text files is for the weather, called "Yahoo Weather" (lolwut? yes really that simple), open it in notepad and look for something along the lines of "...yahoo.com/england/newcastle..." in the text.

This is the bit you need to edit. But don't do anything yet.

4. Go to yahoo weather, just google it to find the web address. On that website type your location (dont use post code as it can bug dont know why) to get the weather on your area, e.g London or Beckton to be more specific.

5. Once you can see the weather in your area, copy the link from the address bar and paste it into that yahoo weather text file you got open in notepad. Paste it between the "..." so it looks something like this:

"http://uk.weather.yahoo.com/england/greater-london/beckton-12201/"

6. Save and close this file. Now move both of these text files into /home/user/MyDocs

Thats the first section done. Now moving on to second section.


Section 2:


1.Click on this link

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...=qbw+flipclock

And download the following zip files:

qbw_flipclock_images_(GuyHoffman+No!No!No!Yes!).zi p

and

qbw_flipclock_beecons.zip


Ignore the other files.

2. Extract the qbw_flipclock_beecons.zip to a folder of the same name. It should contain 6 text files. Delete the first 4 files, so that ONLY the following files remain:

5_qbw_flipclock_day_digit.qbw.txt

and

6_qbw_flipclock_dash.qbw.txt


3. Move these two text files in to the /home/user/MyDocs directory

4. Extract qbw_flipclock_images_(GuyHoffman+No!No!No!Yes!).zi p
to a folder of the same name, it should contain many image files.

5. Firstly look in this folder for a qbw_flipclock image file, DELETE IT. Then put the rest of these image files in /home/user/.queen_beecon_dir directory.


Congratulations, section two complete. Now for section three.


Section 3:


1. On your n900 go to /home/user/MyDocs using filebox or file manager or whatever way you prefer. You should see the 4 text files you copied here. (2 files from section one and another 2 files from section two)

3. Open any of these files except
5_qbw_flipclock_day_digit.qbw.txt, so open any of the other 3. They should open in quicknotes or whatever notes app you use.

4. Copy the entire content of this file (press ctrl+a and then press ctrl+c)

5. Close this file but leave the MyDocs folder open. Go to add new widget and add the queen beecon widget to your desktop.

6. Click settings and go to advanced. Press yes on any prompts or warnings. Don't worry about reading them.

7. In this advanced window that opens, you will see a white dialogue box. Delete whatever is in this box and paste what you copied from your text file. (press ctrl+v)

8. On this same window, scroll to the bottom and you see another white dialogue box with some options above it.

9. On the options above this second box you have just seen, first click 'Export Command to Buffer' and after one second, click 'Import Buffer to Beecon'. Click yes to any warnings or prompts.

10. a) Wait. After some seconds it will show you a view of your desktop, give a quick success message and take you back to the settings window of the beecon you just created. See step 10. b) before touching anything.

10. b) At the moment you have created a landscape beecon, if you are happy with this, then just click the "Save and Run" option you see to the right.

But I want a portrait HTC style weather widget, so if you want the same, then on the window you are currently on, scroll down slowly and read the options, some of them will say Angle: 0*. There are 4 of these "Angle" options per beecon and all say 0*. Click the 0* and choose 90* on all of them. Then click "Save and Run" option to the right at the top of this window.

You have to do this while creating the widget, you cannot do it after, even though the option is still available after, if you change angle after creating the widget, it bugs and does not update. So do this while creating the widget, before you click Save and Run!

11. Repeat steps 1-10 once each for the other text files in MyDocs, except for the
"5_qbw_flipclock_day_digit.qbw.txt file."

Do not touch this file yet until you have repeated steps 1-10 for the other 3 files text files that you had.

12. You should now have 3 beecons/widgets on your desktop, one will be a panel/background, one will be a weather widget and one will be a widget displaying GPRS data/IP address.

13. Now repeat steps 1-10 for the
"5_qbw_flipclock_day_digit.qbw.txt" file. But you must do this a total of four times so you have four of this same beecon created on your desktop. At the moment it will look like four separate 0's on your desktop. This is fine.

Congratulations! Section three is done. Now for section four.


Section 4:


1. Click settings on each of the four "0" beecons you have. At the top of this window that opens, there is something in brackets like [id3]. Ignore the brackets and just note down the id's on a piece of paper or in your head.

E.g. in my case I noted down id3 id4 id5 id6

2. Now go to settings on the beecon that looks like a rectangular background panel. On this window click the "edit cmd" option.

3. A window should open up with two boxes, the bottom box looks something like this:

For example: y=id37 m=id38 d1=id39 d2=id40 w=id etc.

After each id number will be a funny symbol. DO NOT TOUCH OR DELETE THIS SYMBOL AT ALL

4. Just delete the id's of y m d1 d2 and w, leave the = sign in place so that it is in between the letter and the funny symbol, with no spaces.

5. It will look somethinglike this:

y=[] m=[] d1=[] d2=[] w=[]

I used [] to represent the funny symbol.


6. In the same box there is h1=id42 h2=43 etc. for example.

7. Doesnt matter what the current id's are, we will be using the four id's that you noted earlier.

8. My id's were id3 id4 id5 and id6 . Yours could be different or the same. Doesn't matter, you use your id's that you noted.

9. Enter the id's in h1 h2 h3 and h4 after the = sign, before the funny symbol sign, without any spaces. So mine looked like this for example:

h1=id3[] h2=id4[] h3=id5[] h4=id6[]

10. Once you have done this click "Save". It will take you back to the previous window.

11. Now scroll almost to the bottom of this window where it says "Update Policies and GPS Locations"

12. You should see a few options that say "No". Click the following four options, "Startup, Desktop, Sight, Click" and choose "Yes" on ALL of them. Also click "Interval" and choose "30 seconds".

Some people may say to tick/choose less options but trust me if you want your widget to update properly, then choose the options I have mentioned above

13. Once you have done that, simply scroll to the top of this window again and on the right you should see the "Save and Run" option. Click this..

14. a) You are done! Edit the sizes of the widgets if you like, to your preferances. If you do change widget sizes, please read step 14. b) and 14. c)!

14. b) If you change widget sizes, thats all fine and good. But after you have done that you must follow this step:

14. c) After changing widget sizes, go to the settings of the Background Panel Widget.

On this window that opens, scroll right to the bottom, there should be a box saying something like "Remember Me" or "Remember Me Value" and this box will contain some numbers.

Just delete all the numbers it contains, so that this box is completely empty. Then scroll to the top of this window again and click "Save and Run" once more.

You will need to do this step every time you change widget sizes so keep that in mind!

15. Enjoy your widget!

Congratulations!

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Weather App/Widget on N900
 

If you have followed the above steps correctly, you should get a widget that looks something like this (mine's laid out for a 'portrait' style desktop)......


:D

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Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

everything seems fine, except i have an image not found when loading the weather widget.help apreciated

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Success!! :D
Thank you so much for this tutorial, this is the first time I've used QBW and it worked at first attempt :)

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

@ ironm8 you will need to install wget to get the yahoo images,, from root..
apt-get install wget

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

My mistake, as mentioned already, you need to install wget.

I will fix my guide to mention this in the original post

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

I installed wget but it's still saying image not found

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

done ! thanks

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Just delete that yahoo weather widget and remake it from scratch. It should be fine.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Thanks mate, keep up the good work. support Noobs. hehe. I got the HTC style clock in my n900. I can show off my friends now. N900 is the Best.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Prozac786;993599
My Clock is not updating, what could be the problem, how do it set the settings??

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Your clock will probably only update when you refresh the desktop with a swipe.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Thankx mate, I changed the "interval' time to 30 sec. now it updates every 30 second.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Hey,

Thanks for this guide, really helpfully.

But, I have one question, if i try to change any options for example the widget size, the clock is no more works why ????

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

[QUOTE=notaridavid;993685]Hey,

Thanks for this guide, really helpfully.

But, I have one question, if i try to change any options for example the widget size, the clock is no more works why ????[/QUOTE

Reset the remember me value at the bottom once you make any changes and then click save&run.

Kind regards Qosmio

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Just to elaborate on what Qosimo said:

If you change any of the widget sizes, thats fine, but after you have done that, go to the settings of the Background Panel.

Scroll right to the bottom of this window, it will have a "remember me value" box, with some numbers inside it (date/month/year/time) etc.

The numbers do not matter, just delete them so that box is empty.

Then scroll to the top of the window and click save and run.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Yes thats right. In my guide I did mention to go to update policies and click yes on the 4 update policies I suggested, and also click update interval to 30 seconds.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

same here. apt-get install wget says its at the newest version too. Do I copy the flipclock images folder to the queen beecon dir or the individual files? Whats the fastest way to transfer the individual files?

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Just copy the image(s) within the folder(s) I mentioned in the guide. Don't copy the folder it self.

I use WinSCP to transfer files between my PC and N900. Its pretty fast and reliable

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

is the widget suppose to be one piece or several pieces bc i have a piece for each widget along with the n900 image. oh and i was wondering if you can change the time to 12hrs. mode instead of the one that goes to 24hrs.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

The widget is supposed to be several pieces. The N900 background is only there instead of the intended background panel because you missed a step in my guide. Unless you wanted the N900 background instead of the normal background panel?

As for the 12 hour clock instead of 24 hours, yes there is a script for it, I remember someone wrote it the other HTC clock thread, but I don't use 12 hour clocks so I honestly didn't pay attention to what the script was or where it was written.

Both threads are linked in my guide though, if you check them, I'm sure you can find the post with this script

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Really good tutorial!.

I've stumbled into one problem, my temperature is measured in fahrenheit, but I added this to the yahoo link: unit=c
How did you get it in Celcius? :s

I had the same problem first that my background was a n900.

When you download the GuyHoffman+No!No!No!Yes! image files there is also a image file named: qbw_flipclock.png
This one looks like a n900. Rename this one to qbw_flipclock2.png or something.
Then repeat step 1 to 3 and put the qbw_flipclock.png again the /home/user/.queen_beecon_dir
Then it will look like a HTC background.

I think the problem is that the OP used qbw_flipclock_images_(qosmio).1.zip
and not the GuyHoffman one.

Hope you can understand it since my english isnt that good.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

My mistake, fixed now, ammended it in guide.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

every time i change that rectangular box the clock went under the box like as in photoshop you do with the layers :p

p.s there should an option to merge all the beecon in one for the clock widget :P

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

That happens with all widgets on the N900 that overlap each other, the one that you drag or move becomes the top layer automatically. This is coded into the N900.

Just put the background in the place you want it to be, place the other widgets on top of it so they do not cover the 'settings' option of the background, that way you can click settings on it and the clock/weather will remain on top.

As far as making them all one widget, you will have to speak to the creator of the QBW app for this request. But somone recently asked him of this and as I understand, he said it is way too complicated to do something like that.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

thanks :)
well a question , already been asked but need to ask from a pro :P
how to get the hour and minutes digits to be attached ?
as in two beecons for hours and minuets as they are four now .

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

@Prozac786
thanks man! i always ignore QBW, my first impression is that it was too complicated for noobs. after trying your tutorial, found out that it rocks! here's a screenshot of mine.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Just used the weather widget to my liking.. :) Turned out to look great!!

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

I still havent managed to get my temperature in Celcius. I am using this link: http://weather.yahoo.com/netherlands...728940/?unit=c

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

For that you have to use the digits with no background and create the background separately for them, but thats something I didn't prefer to do. So I have no experience there.

It maybe best to ask Darkgunman for help on this as he has created his HTC style clock this way.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Thanks for an easy to follow tutorial. I was wondering does the widget keep updating the clock also when screen is locked / widget not visible? I hope not because of the battery consumption.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

thanks .
ok i hope you can answer it.
how to get the days and date on the clock widget ?
i only have the clock :$

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

The instructions to that are shown in the original flipclock thread, its linked in my first post.

I specifically made a guide to the HTC style flip clock only, ignorning any other features, such as day/week/date etc. Because that is what most users wanted and that is also what I wanted.

So you will have to download the other text files in the link on my first post, open, copy and run them in the advanced settings of a newly created beecon, just like you did with the time beecons.

Then you will need to note the id and write it in the edit command option of the background panel settings menu.

So creating them is the same as already explained in my guide. Just download the text files and follow the same method.

The id of the year beecon will go into y. So y=id7[] for example. Create two day beecons and put their ids in d1 and d2. Same with month's id in m. Save and run exactly like before.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Nope, it will only do it while you are on that screen. You can test this by going to you flip clock screen, noting the time and then going away from flipclock screen to any other screen. Then lock your phone for a few minutes. After that unlock it and go back to flipclock screen, it will show you the original time you noted for a second and then quickly update it to the current time.

So it does not keep running in the background endlessly so you won't have to worry about battery consumption.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

thanks alot .
and yeah how to resize the flip clock dash ?
when i resize it through hight and width it only increase transparency on the sides and above that rectangle :$

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

Click the settings spanner for the dash and then change the scale rather than the width and the height to resize.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

i tried the same way but this way the rectangal loses it's curve from the edges :$
well if it will lose curves for sure then i guess i have to compromise !

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

I take it you are trying to make it bigger then. If it is cutting the edges off, then you need to change the width and the height until you can see the complete widget.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

You need to increase the height and width and then the scale as well.

The height and width is the potential size it can occupy, the scale is the actualy size of the background.

If you just in crease the height and width, the background stays the same size. If you just in crease the scale, the background will stay the same size within the same frame and lose its curves.

So incresse them both to your requirement.

Re: [Noob Friendly Guide] How to get HTC Style Clock/Weather Widget on N900
 

thanks aloooot !