T-Clock 2010 (download)

[Jibz]

Not sure, but maybe installing the previous SDK and setting VS 2010 to compile using that might do the trick.

[Stoic Joker]

Not sure, but maybe installing the previous SDK and setting VS 2010 to compile using that might do the trick.

-Jibz (December 20, 2010, 01:30 AM)

I'm still trying to give VS2k8 a fair shake as it still has one of the features (split clipboard) I've come to depend on. I can have one thing on the clipboard and still do a drag copy/move with another thing without dropping the clipboard contents...This incredibly handy feature (because I tend to loose track of where I'm at while working on-the-fly at times) was oddly missing in VS2010.

One the minus side, VS2008 can't seem to handle an external file edit for shit. Every time I change something (usually resource.h) and then let VS2k8 catchup it crashes. Which tends to have a rather adverse effect on the undo/redo history.

Now if VS2005 would work with the 2010 SDK so the manifest files would behave...that might be a solution worth looking into. I'd just have to find some info on how to do it properly so I don't turn my dev box (or VS for that matter) into a smoking crater...

[Stoic Joker]

Greetings
    As is also noted in the version history. It occured to me that 12/23/2010 is the end of 2010 ... So I either need to release this thing or change the name. So... the now currently posted build 90 is not (supposed-to-be...) a beta. So while 90 is to be the final build of 2010 ... the Suggestion Box is still open.

   The most important part of build 90 is the the Fuzzy Font bugg has been killed by adding a Font Quality option to the Clock Text Tab. This allows newer OS's to use the newer ClearType font rendering options, and eliminates the need for me to try and pick a (hard-coded) best rendering option for all OS's across-the-board ... Mainly because there isn't one. So, pictures being better than words...:







   The most fun addition (at least for me) was the request for a more visual alarm event in the form of a bouncing window. This conjured up an image of a Jack Russel Terrier (small highly energetic dog) boncing wildly in an almost cartoonish fashion...Which is an image I could not get out of my head.

    So, I added it.



   There is a good bit of granularity in the bouncing behavior but the chosen defaults seem to me to work the best. The ricocheting (Dialoggie) window does pull focus so simply hitting enter will stop it ... But then you can't read it. This is why the default behavior has the window bouncing for 3 seconds, and then stopping (center screen) for 3 seconds to give the user time to read and respond to it. Both Bounce and Pause (Paws...) periods are adjustable as are the speed, movement (delta), direction (skew),  and nature (Randomize Bounce Height) of the Alarm window's antics.

[Stoic Joker]

In keeping with the "I'm running out of time" theme, I slapped together a quickie (rush job) website for the (semi) final release of T-Clock 2010 with screen shots and general info.

[xcopy]

Thank you so much for the font-option. Works great!

Btw.: no need to restrict the Alarm labelling  on sound files, this also works great with all other applications:
   

[Stoic Joker]

Btw.: no need to restrict the Alarm labelling  on sound files, this also works great with all other applications:
   

-xcopy (December 28, 2010, 01:10 PM)

lol ...I never thought of trying that. But will make a note to explore it as an option in the future.

While time did not allow for the inclusion of the display timers feature you requested in the current build. I'm still looking into it as an option ... This is why Kazuto Soto's TClock Lite has now been included in the T-Clock history page. I'm trying to make sure all of the relevant previous authors (TClock did branch a few times) get proper credit.

[mouser]

if you want to add super simple optional update checking, im happy to help show you how to use dcuhelper.

[mouser]

ps thank you for the hourly charm feature -- i was just about to request it and figured i should make sure it wasn't already implemented.  

for those that are interested, i found a nice non-distracting chime from freesound.org which i am using: http://www.freesound...Single.php?id=106983

[Stoic Joker]

if you want to add super simple optional update checking, im happy to help show you how to use dcuhelper.

-mouser (December 28, 2010, 04:35 PM)

I'm thinking I should probably have an installer before I go that route. But I'll keep it in mind as is is something I'd been toying with doing.

[erikts]

I use T-Clock 2010 but I don't have external speaker. 
My wish: Allow user to use PC Speaker's beep for hourly chime. 

[mouser]

my wish: get erikts some external speakers 

[Stoic Joker]

I use T-Clock 2010 but I don't have external speaker. 
My wish: Allow user to use PC Speaker's beep for hourly chime. 

-erikts (December 29, 2010, 08:22 PM)

I can't guarantee a time-line, but I will look into it as an option.

[mouser]

if you do want to allow use of pc system beep instead of a wav sound file, a universal solution that would require no change in the UI would be too allow person to specify: "BEEP" as the sound file name, and when you see that beep the speaker instead of trying to play a sound file.  If you want to get fancy, allow different numbers of beeps, like: "BEEP3", which could be useful for alarms, etc.

[Stoic Joker]

hehe - Been thinkin' about this a bit huh? - I was pondering something much the same but using a custom file extension and file header check (both already exist). Then playable tone files could be created to play through the PC speaker.

The chances of this going (way) out of scope quickly are high ... But I'm thinking.

[freaky44]

Hi,

the new T-Clock version is really cool!

But i have two feature suggestions:

- I use the drop to recycle bin feature, and it works great! It would be great to have the option to see the size and number of files of the recycle bin in the Mouse-over Tooltip Text. (e.g. "10 Files, 135 MB").

- I would love to have the option to set the action in mouse-properties to "open files/folders (with command-line switches)". Just like you can do it in the "Menu Item Details". Then i could empty/open the recycle bin with just one click.

Little Bug report:
Middle Mouse Button Actions doesn´t work.


Thanx in advance!  

[Stoic Joker]

the new T-Clock version is really cool!

-freaky44 (January 06, 2011, 12:14 PM)

Thank you.

But i have two feature suggestions:

- I use the drop to recycle bin feature, and it works great! It would be great to have the option to see the size and number of files of the recycle bin in the Mouse-over Tooltip Text. (e.g. "10 Files, 135 MB").

-freaky44 (January 06, 2011, 12:14 PM)

Hm... There is grand potential for this to lag badly if there are a large number of files in the recycling bin. But I can try playing with it for a bit and see what happens.

- I would love to have the option to set the action in mouse-properties to "open files/folders (with command-line switches)". Just like you can do it in the "Menu Item Details". Then i could empty/open the recycle bin with just one click.

-freaky44 (January 06, 2011, 12:14 PM)

Sounds reasonable enough, I'll look into it.

Little Bug report:
Middle Mouse Button Actions doesn´t work.

-freaky44 (January 06, 2011, 12:14 PM)

That's actually a "Known Issue" ... That I forgot about... I'll have to go through my notes and see what the original issue was/is. I'm thinking that the middle button/mouse wheel was asigned to bring up a task list in Windows 7 by default so I'd given up on/disabled it at one point. But it isn't doing it now (it could have been just me...) so I've not a clue. *Shrug* I'll look into it ... Thanks for the reminder.

[freaky44]

But i have two feature suggestions:

- I use the drop to recycle bin feature, and it works great! It would be great to have the option to see the size and number of files of the recycle bin in the Mouse-over Tooltip Text. (e.g. "10 Files, 135 MB").

-freaky44 (January 06, 2011, 12:14 PM)

Hm... There is grand potential for this to lag badly if there are a large number of files in the recycling bin. But I can try playing with it for a bit and see what happens.

-Stoic Joker (January 06, 2011, 05:35 PM)

A solution for the lagging problem could be, when the recycle bin is checked on a regularly base (e.g. every 10 seconds) and these information are written to a file. Then the informations have only to be read from this file on mouseover. It´s just an idea. I´m not a programmer.

- I would love to have the option to set the action in mouse-properties to "open files/folders (with command-line switches)". Just like you can do it in the "Menu Item Details". Then i could empty/open the recycle bin with just one click.

-freaky44 (January 06, 2011, 12:14 PM)

Sounds reasonable enough, I'll look into it.

-Stoic Joker (January 06, 2011, 05:35 PM)

Great!   

Little Bug report:
Middle Mouse Button Actions doesn´t work.

-freaky44 (January 06, 2011, 12:14 PM)

That's actually a "Known Issue" ... That I forgot about... I'll have to go through my notes and see what the original issue was/is. I'm thinking that the middle button/mouse wheel was asigned to bring up a task list in Windows 7 by default so I'd given up on/disabled it at one point. But it isn't doing it now (it could have been just me...) so I've not a clue. *Shrug* I'll look into it ... Thanks for the reminder.

-Stoic Joker (January 06, 2011, 05:35 PM)

In "T-Clock x64 v1.01" the middle button worked under Win 7.

[DesElms]

TO:  Stoic Joker

I'm the guy who did this...

http://www.greggdeselms.com/tclock.html

...and you and I have had brief (and pleasant) email chat about it in the past... though I'm having trouble remembering how it ended.  I think we both just got busy and never completed it... but, again, I can't remember.

You've mentioned/complained in this thread, and back in our email chat, that your hosting is unreliable.  And it's true that I, for one, can't get at your site half the time, for whatever reason.

Interestingly, today, I tried to get at it and it failed; but succeeded when I used a proxy.  That's a new one.  Any light you can shed on that would be helpful.  It was only from deft Googling that I stumbled onto this thread today.

The reason I'm posting is to ask if you need more reliable hosting; and to make my official offer (and I think I offered it in our previous email chat, too) to let you have some hosting for free.  I mean, your gift of T-Clock to the world is really nice, and so the least I can do is offer you a free hosting account on one of my servers...

...which are located in the big Peak10 data center in Jacksonville...

http://www.peak10.co...sonville/default.asp

...and so, believe me, it would be reliable.

It would be a standard cPanel type account... nothing fancy.... but fully functional in every possible way.

My only proviso would be that it would remain free for only as long as it doesn't use-up so much bandwidth that said bandwidth starts showing-up as its own line item on my monthly data center bill.  At that point, we'd have to discuss your defraying the cost somehow...

...though, frankly, since it would be at my wholesale price (I'd only charge you that... with no profit to me), you'd get, for $5 or $10 or $15 per month (whatever it came out to) that which any other hosting provider would charge three to five times as much.  Or, if the bandwidth was mostly just from all the downloading, it would be easy to find an alternative method of providing downloading bandwidth... from such as cNet or SnapFiles or MediaFire or whatever.  But we can cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

I'm not, to be candid, really in the hosting business as my means of income.  I only have professional servers in a rack in a big, high-end data center, with cPanel -- and am as serious about it as if I were in the hosting business -- because back in the late 1990's I wanted a way to help-out my management consulting clients who needed web sites and hosting, and I got tired of referring away the business.

I've had servers (with cPanel) going in that data center (er... well... in a data center in New Jersey, at first, but then in Jacksonville) for pushing 12 years, now.  And now, ever since my ministry (of agency and advocacy to the homeless, disabled vets, the elderly, the prostituted, recent parolees, and others similarly in need)...

http://tinyurl.com/deselms-card

...has gone pretty much full-time, I kinda' just give away the hosting (and domain names... see the next paragraph) at my wholesale cost, no profit to me, to worthy not-for-profit organizations and others who are for whatever reason deserving.  And I figure that your gift to the world of T-Clock makes you deserving.

I'm also a domain name reseller for one of world's largest ICANN-approved registrars... I'm seriously like... literally... their reseller number 6 or something like that... signed-up right after they first launched their reseller program back in... geez... maybe 1999, or 2000, or something like that.  So I'm kinda' grandfathered-in to the absolutely lowest prices it offers...

...which I'd happily pass along to you, if you wanted to move your domain name over to an account, directly on the registrar's web site, but "beneath" my reseller umbrella (so that I may set your pricing down to my wholesale price, rounded-up to the nearest $.99, plus the registrar's mandatory roughly $1.30 in credit card processing and whatever other fees), which will allow me to charge you only around ten bucks a year for your domain name, if you want... again, no profit to me.

And I can pretty much guarantee that your site's IP address will not be on some kind of blacklist... which is what I'm now wondering might be the reason why I can almost never get to your site normally, yet I was able to get to it via a proxy (something I only tried for the first time) today (I'd have to look it up).  I'm a friend of the anti-spam community...

http://www.spamlinks.net (see the reference to me at the absolute bottom of the page)

...so I can pretty much guarantee that none of my IP addresses are in any blacklists; and/or that if any of them end-up in one, I know how to get it out.

I'm not sure I ever explained it all to you in past emails as I just have, here, so maybe that's why you didn't take me up on it.  Then again, maybe I hadn't gotten to the point in our emails that I had even offered it yet... I just can't remember.

But I'm tired of people writing to me, in their emails thanking me for hosting an alternative place from which to download T-Clock, that they just couldn't make your site work.  So, I'm offering, now, to help you with that, if you're interested.  According to my server logs, I've already been hosting tons of T-Clock downloads on the unofficial page linked-to at the beginning of this posting; so I'm sure it wouldn't be that much more bandwidth to just let you have a full-blown hosting account -- at least for T-Clock, and maybe even for everything you do -- in a shared hosting account on that same server.

Let me know.

Keep up the good work, in any case!

Peace.


_______________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com

[superboyac]

T-Clock is awesome!  Thanks Stoic!  I may...er...have a list of very particular feature requests soon!  I used to use betaclock, but it's not being developed anymore and there were a few minor issues I had with it.

[Stoic Joker]

T-Clock is awesome!  Thanks Stoic!  I may...er...have a list of very particular feature requests soon!  I used to use betaclock, but it's not being developed anymore and there were a few minor issues I had with it.

-superboyac (January 30, 2011, 05:46 PM)

Thank you, ...But we have to finish your other project, before I can get back on this one

Currently T-Clock (development) is scattered across 3 different projects as I try to get various things (requested features etc.) figured out.

[Stoic Joker]

TO:  Stoic Joker

I'm the guy who did this...

http://www.greggdeselms.com/tclock.html

-DesElms (January 30, 2011, 05:35 PM)

Yes, I do remember you. I sent you an Email about a year ago shortly after I'd gotten the T-Clock project back on the rails.

...and you and I have had brief (and pleasant) email chat about it in the past... though I'm having trouble remembering how it ended.  I think we both just got busy and never completed it... but, again, I can't remember.

-DesElms (January 30, 2011, 05:35 PM)

That does sound about right, as work keeps me pinned down about 90-104% of the time.  

You've mentioned/complained in this thread, and back in our email chat, that your hosting is unreliable.  And it's true that I, for one, can't get at your site half the time, for whatever reason.

-DesElms (January 30, 2011, 05:35 PM)

Back then I was having issues with a DDNS service which I shortly thereafter decided to quit using. I still am self hosting on a residential connection which has been known to go down about once every 6 months. But this is a necessary evil, as it is part of a lab I have here at home for testing purposes. This is also why my site points to here as the download location so it can be reliably linked to/found.

Interestingly, today, I tried to get at it and it failed; but succeeded when I used a proxy.  That's a new one.  Any light you can shed on that would be helpful.  It was only from deft Googling that I stumbled onto this thread today.

-DesElms (January 30, 2011, 05:35 PM)

Now that is incredibly odd...Which error did you get, DNS or page request failure? I frequently check the page hit counters haven't noticed (uptime stats, server logs, page access, etc.) an outage in quite some time. With the exception of Windows update reboots, but that only takes a minute or two (last one was almost a month ago). If it is a DNS issue, then it may be my registrar (which handles DNS) that is dropping the ball.

I suppose it is possible my ISP (which has changed hands/names more times than I can count) is having TOS issues. But I think that would be a bit more (Total Black-out) permanent... I also frequently check for any blacklisting issues as a side effect of running a mail server.

It would be interesting to see if my IP was ping-able when the site was not (DNS vs. routing/server issue). Also would help if anyone else could comment regarding their level of success accessing my site. Maybe I could get a better handle on what is happening.

The reason I'm posting is to ask if you need more reliable hosting; and to make my official offer (and I think I offered it in our previous email chat, too) to let you have some hosting for free.  I mean, your gift of T-Clock to the world is really nice, and so the least I can do is offer you a free hosting account on one of my servers...

...which are located in the big Peak10 data center in Jacksonville...

I'm not sure I ever explained it all to you in past emails as I just have, here, so maybe that's why you didn't take me up on it.  Then again, maybe I hadn't gotten to the point in our emails that I had even offered it yet... I just can't remember.

-DesElms (January 30, 2011, 05:35 PM)

I do recall you mentioning something to that effect (at length), but I think I just pondered it a bit too long and forgot.

But I'm tired of people writing to me, in their emails thanking me for hosting an alternative place from which to download T-Clock, that they just couldn't make your site work.  So, I'm offering, now, to help you with that, if you're interested.

-DesElms (January 30, 2011, 05:35 PM)

Currently T-Clock is still in an active development stage so I'd like to keep things running through here so people can see (the history of...) what's happening. If you've read through much of the thread I'm sure you can see I've got a hell of a to-do list.

The latest builds of T-Clock that I release here are perfectly safe for public consumption, and are considerable more stable than the previously released v1.01. After Vista x64 SP1 (and up through Win7) v1.01 started crashing the shell when certain property tabs were viewed.

According to my server logs, I've already been hosting tons of T-Clock downloads on the unofficial page linked-to at the beginning of this posting; so I'm sure it wouldn't be that much more bandwidth to just let you have a full-blown hosting account.

-DesElms (January 30, 2011, 05:35 PM)

I truly do appreciate the offer, and may take you up on it at some time in the future. But I really need to ascertain exactly what issue (if any) I'd be resolving by making a change before I do (i.e. If my registrar's DNS is borked changing the target won't help). In the mean time feel free to send folks here so they can download the latest available version and yell at me in person...

Thank you,
Stoic Joker

[movrshakr]

Hi, just installed it in Windows 7 and it looks really excellent.

If you are open to suggestions,

a. option for a comma after the date would be good

b. option for an "A" and "P" in addition to "AM", "PM" for 12-hour mode would also be good  (make width narrower)

c. if time < 10 (1 to 9) in 12-hour mode, do not show the leading zero; do show it in 24 mode, as in 0455; colon not needed in 24 mode--also shortens the width.

Not critical; just ideas (nice ones if I do say so myself..... )

Do you have a donation link somewhere?

[Stoic Joker]

Hi, just installed it in Windows 7 and it looks really excellent.

If you are open to suggestions,

-movrshakr (March 06, 2011, 01:41 PM)

Glad you're enjoying it, and most of T-Clocks coolest features started as suggestions.

a. option for a comma after the date would be good

-movrshakr (March 06, 2011, 01:41 PM)

If I understand you correctly, that is already covered in the Custom Format string options. You can basically put anything you want in the string. I use:
h:nn:ss - dddd\nmmmm d, yyyy

Which displays as:
3:13:07 - Sunday
  March 6, 2011

b. option for an "A" and "P" in addition to "AM", "PM" for 12-hour mode would also be good  (make width narrower)

-movrshakr (March 06, 2011, 01:41 PM)

Sounds reasonable enough, I'll see about tossing it in.

c. if time < 10 (1 to 9) in 12-hour mode, do not show the leading zero; do show it in 24 mode, as in 0455; colon not needed in 24 mode--also shortens the width.

-movrshakr (March 06, 2011, 01:41 PM)

Took me a bit to figure this one out, but yes the default strings for 12/24 hour modes probably aren't as ideal as they once were. But if you enable the Custom format string option on the Time Format tab of T-Clock properties you can modify it to make the clock do just about anything you can think of.

Not critical; just ideas (nice ones if I do say so myself..... )

-movrshakr (March 06, 2011, 01:41 PM)

Indeed, and I appreciate your taking the time to share them.

Do you have a donation link somewhere?

-movrshakr (March 06, 2011, 01:41 PM)

Yes, two options exist, and either is fine. The donations system on the board here being the first, and there is a PayPal link (bottom left) on the main page of my web site (www.StoicJoker.com).

Thank you,
Stoic Joker

[movrshakr]

Ah, hadn't seen the custom format field, even though it is right there in front of me! 

?Where is a list of the mnemonic codes that can be used in it...

like (made up examples) mm comes out 09, m comes out 9, MMM comes out SEPT, Mmm comes out Sept, etc

[Stoic Joker]

While a proper help file is still in the "Planning Stage"... The currently available Custom Format option are listed in the T-Clock Help.rtf file that was included in the download.