T-Clock 2010 (download)

[power1power1]

OK, this bug happened again and now I can say: While, the calendar doesn't open through Tclock, both 64bit and 32bit versions, can open manually.

[WhiteTigX]

sounds very strange^^ How do you open the calendar btw? You may also try to use middle mouse button or button 4 or 5^^
I don't know why T-Clock shouldn't be able to execute the calendar... the "hide on lose focus" feature could explain it because it can indeed close the calendar fast enough that you wouldn't even notice.. but you've said it's not related...

[power1power1]

I usually use left mouse single click. I added middle mouse single click rule and both wouldn't work after a couple of hours.

[WhiteTigX]

well.. without "Close calendar on lose focus" checked, it should work^^ That's the only thing I know about that can and "will" cause this... Otherwise I can't reproduce that...

[movrshakr]

Have used T-clock on Windows 7 and I think back on Vista.  I just put it on a Windows 8.1 machine and am having some difficulty.

I state right up front that I have Classic Shell and a theme in to make the laptop usable--the theme required to change taskbar text from white (completely unreadable for me) to black.

My Tclock problem is that it does not even show (though it is there unless I select white or a few of the other colors--which all render in white.  Black, maroon, etc produce NOTHING at all--but right click brings up tclock menu--so it is there, just not showing.

I love tclock (donated to Stoic and Donation Coder when I first started using it), but cannot see the white rendering (taskbar is a light grayish blue), and that is all I can get.

Atch shows the lower right corner.

[WhiteTigX]

I know about this problem and will fix that soon.. (a few weeks though... same for the Calendar problems)
And it's not entirely true that black produces nothing.. well in fact it produces pure transparency xD Everything else is also a bit transparent.. (that's why colors aren't bright), only white might be fully opaque.

The problem isn't an easy fix though... if T-Clock were to use the Windows theme font and color... it would be fine, but no way to adjust the font or color... it will render the same as the original clock then...
The current function used to render text needs to be replaced completely.. GDI doesn't handle transparency well So we might have to use GDI+

So I guess I will add a new option... to use theme settings using DrawThemeText or use our custom stuff via GDI+ functions or something like that... Default would be to use DrawThemeText then...

Technical stuff about it:
Windows Vista+ supports the use of full transparency without using layered windows. For this a Windows needs to be a WS_POPUP window... you can then draw in WM_PAINT with full transparency... while GDI doesn't know about transparency and sets the alpha bit to 0 (full transparent)... For compatibility reasons, Windows handles the fact and sometimes still shows stuff when alpha is set to 0 but color isn't black... GDI+ what so ever supports the alpha bit and could be used... same for functions like DrawThemeText which is used by Microsoft on the original clock.

Win < 8 seems to handle it slightly different than 8... while WS_POPUP works the same.. Anyway, 8 got some improvements on handling drawing and that like, that's one reasons why you can't disable aero anymore. It's not necessary

[movrshakr]

Ah, thanks very much for that explanation.
Can I bribe you to put it way high on your todo list (I really miss having the date there)?  

From a personal standpoint, I will be happy so long as I can have black and get it to be large (eyesight issues).

Oh, an aside...I found that you can do some adjusting within Windows 8.1 in the Region>Additional Settings>[Time | Date]. Wonder who put time adjustments in the 'Region' dialog?

But time and date are completely separate--you cannot make the display into one string.  I tried to do "d-MM, h:mm tt" in the time spec (since with the narrow bar, all I see is the time showing), but it would not accept date specs in the Time tab.  So all I can get is the time to show, due to having the narrowest taskbar, which causes date to not show.  It is in unreadably small size anyway, so even if date were there naturally, I could not read it easily.

I also wonder if they copied Tclock.  I wonder because of the "tt' to include AM pr PM.  "tt" does not seem to be an intuitive variable spec.

Lastly, where do I watch to see when the modified version is posted?

[WhiteTigX]

Normally I will post a reply here... I might also start to do that with all "major" changes...
Otherwise I'll do it at least as an answer to a bug report or feature request posted here.

You could also watch the Github page... I also thought about integrating a update checker into T-Clock itself.. will probably not happen though xD

And nope.. you can't bribe me for that.. sry... currently busy with other stuff and changing T-Clock in that regards might also take some time... sry about that. What color does your windows clock use btw? Is it still white or also black?

[movrshakr]

...What color does your windows clock use btw? Is it still white or also black?

-WhiteTigX (July 23, 2014, 01:24 PM)

Black and tiny size.  But that is due to theme I installed (uxstyle and employing Aero 8.1 Rounded Default from deviantart)...to eliminate the WHITE font hard coded by Redmond in Windows 8.1. with no inside OS way to change it. Not sure the size is style controlled--if it is, I sure wish I knew how to edit it.

That's the two problems even using the style: Although I got the black color, all taskbar font is balck but tiny, and I cannot see the date part unless I use the double height taskbar; no to that.

[crumpuppet]

Hey everyone, I've got a question about T-Clock 2010. Is there a way to programmatically refresh it? Perhaps a DLL call I can do which will mimic the action that happens when clicking the "Refresh T-Clock" option from the context menu.

To make a long story short, I want to inject my own bit of custom code into the CustomFormat registry key, and refresh it every couple of minutes.

thanks

[WhiteTigX]

you could send the CLOCKM_REFRESHCLOCK message used internally.. it's defined as WM_USER+1
Send that to the child-window with class "TrayClockWClass" and you'll be fine I guess...

Otherwise.. sending IDM_REFRESHTCLOCK (285) as a WM_COMMAND to TClock's main window with class "TClockMainClass" should also work
like so:

Code: C++ [Select]

1. SendMessage(FindWindowA("TClockMainClass","TClock"),WM_COMMAND,IDM_REFRESHTCLOCK,0);

[crumpuppet]

Oh yeah this looks like the kind of stuff I need. Unfortunately I'm not having any joy though. I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to this kind of thing, so I tried plugging in those commands in every possible way, but no dice.

I'm sending the commands using AutoIT, with the following code:

Code: AutoIt [Select]

1. $hWnd = WinGetHandle ('[Class:TClockMainClass]')
2. $result = _SendMessage ($hWnd, $WM_COMMAND, 285, 0)

$hWnd does get populated with the handle of the class, but the _SendMessage command doesn't refresh TClock. My test is changing the value of the "CustomFormat" and "Format" keys in the registry.

I've also tried sending this command using test apps (like this) with the same effect.

Any idea where I'm going wrong?

[Stoic Joker]

I think that's the wrong window to send the command to. Here is the part of the code that T-Clock uses to refresh itself:

Code: C++ [Select]

1. void RefreshUs(void) {
2.         HWND hwndBar, hwndChild;
3.         char classname[80];
4.  
5.   hwndBar = FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", NULL);
6.  
7.         // find the clock window
8.   hwndChild = GetWindow(hwndBar, GW_CHILD);
9.   while(hwndChild) {
10.                 GetClassName(hwndChild, classname, 80);
11.                 if(lstrcmpi(classname, "TrayNotifyWnd") == 0) {
12.                    hwndChild = GetWindow(hwndChild, GW_CHILD);
13.                    while(hwndChild) {
14.                                  GetClassName(hwndChild, classname, 80);
15.                                  if(lstrcmpi(classname, "TrayClockWClass") == 0) {
16.                                         SendMessage(hwndChild, CLOCKM_REFRESHCLOCK, 0, 0);
17.                                         SendMessage(hwndChild, CLOCKM_REFRESHTASKBAR, 0, 0);
18.                                         break;
19.                                  }
20.                    } break;
21.                 }
22.           hwndChild = GetWindow(hwndChild, GW_HWNDNEXT);
23.   }
24. }

You have to grab the parent, and then walk into the child IIRC.

[crumpuppet]

I think I may have fried my brain trying to get this to work. I'll just have to face the fact that I'm scratching where I shouldn't

I found a UDF that helps finding child window handles, but it doesn't matter which handle I send the message to it just doesn't refresh. Even showing a list of all current windows and their handles and sending the message directly to the static handle of the TClock window still doesn't refresh.

Thanks for the help anyway!

[WhiteTigX]

should work^^

Code: AutoIt [Select]

1. #Include <WinAPI.au3>
2. const $WM_COMMAND=0x0111;
3. const $IDM_SHOWPROP=282;
4. const $IDM_REFRESHTCLOCK=285;
5. _SendMessage(WinGetHandle('[CLASS:TClockMainClass;TITLE:TClock]'),$WM_COMMAND,$IDM_REFRESHTCLOCK,0);

you could also try to use _WinAPI_PostMessage but both should actually work.
Also.. if this doesn't work, try IDM_SHOWPROP instead of IDM_REFRESHTCLOCK. The former should open options.

[power1power1]

Yes, it works. Thank you!

[mixza-81]

There is something weird in T-Clock (Redux v2.1.0 build 57)...

When Custom Format is: h:nn
Output is: 20:37
--> That's correct time.

When Custom Format is: h:nn @@@
Output is: 21:37 @775
--> There is something wrong in this time... Clock shows one hour more that it is.

When Custom Format is: @@@
Output is: 775

Has anybody other noticed this?
What could cause this?
My timezone is UTZ+02:00

Edit: Fixed some errors in text

[WhiteTigX]

sry for my late reply... never got an email about new posts

@power1power1
what was your "Yes, it works" related to?

@mixza-81
thanks for finding out this regression, will release a hotfix tomorrow/today.

[power1power1]

I was referring to post #589 and saying that the piece of code there worked for me for which I thank you very much.

[WhiteTigX]

you didn't even ask for that code xD

[power1power1]

Yes, I didn't know such thing would be possible else I would have asked about it I guess I have to thank crumpuppet for asking it, as well

[WhiteTigX]

well... I've told you (mixza-81) about a "hotfix" coming "tomorrow/today" and we wrote the 28th of August... well guess I'm "slightly" off
Problem wasn't the fix itself, actually that was done already at the time I wrote that post before.

It's because I don't think a hotfix alone is worth it, so I decided to take some time and do more... I had to look at the code anyway so why not do some more while I'm still used to it?

And so it happened to be a week.. or almost a week...

In the next few days (I hope not more then 1-2) I will put a new version on-line, but because of all the changes and unforeseen consequences, it'll be tagged as "beta" (as opposed to my previous "release candidates".. who never reached "release" status )

Upcoming improvements and fixes include those reported by:
stanislay33
trlkly
movrshakr
mixza-81 (besides his reported regression, also one related to colors fixed^^ hope it's the last of that kind, it certainly wasn't the first)

The clock will behave and look even more like the default clock on at least Win8 (guess actually Vista+)
T-Clock should also be able to run again on 2000... though only tested on Win8 and XP (UxTheme isn't mandatory now but loaded if available)
Calendar also receives some fixes... but probably not the focus bug as I've tried to fix it before and couldn't (and Stoic Joker tried before me. I just made it worse thinking it's fixed^^ Well it was fixed.. but only if the clock wasn't running for a few minutes ) Maybe I'll find it out anyway.. but I will only invest up to one day trying to fix the calendar focus stuff... but why not using the system's inbuilt calender, it's better anyway


When the beta is out, I would like you all to test it thoughtfully because it's hard to track functionality if you're rewriting a lot and having problems with something not working right for days and trying to figure out what's wrong until you'll completely loose track and mess everything up^^ So stuff tested a day before might be broke the other day
You WILL notice differences... and probably not all of them in a good manner... Basically you can start to re customize your clock from scratch because the clock is now smarter itself So all your offsets and clock sizes go nuts. The clock should now stay centered at all times as long as all clock size and position values are set to zero (0) It should even more or less detect the correct color to use and also keep it on track.

TL;DR : well.. then don't

[WhiteTigX]

So there it is finally Version 2.2.0#84
https://github.com/W...tag/v2.2.0%2384-beta

I've also added multi-monitor support on Win8+ As requested by Baegus here: https://github.com/d...ngf/T-Clock/issues/2

As said, this one is a beta now, it should be stable since I've tested it, but I might have overlooked one or two things... A fix for the calendar isn't really included though... will have to look at it sometime later

[movrshakr]

Installed in Windows 8.1, and got a block from the OS.. See image

[movrshakr]

Wait... The MORE button in that window lets you run it anyway.  I did and it seems to install  AND I HAVE BLACK TEXT....YAHOO!

LATER--worked with it a few minutes and I LOVE it.  Now can see it in Windows 8.1.


Question: the three selectable black colors that have writing in them...what are the differences between them?