Author Topic: DONE: Windows system tray clock replacement (Read 68,608 times)

superboyac · « **on:** December 28, 2005, 05:30 PM »

Can someone make a small program to replace the system clock in the windows system tray? Something where we can customize exactly how to display the time and how much information about the date it shows. I know mouser or someone has a clock utility that goes in the titlebars of windows that does this exactly like I'm suggesting, so maybe they can incorporate that into the system tray.

There are programs out there like 1st Tray Clock, and CLock Tray Skins, but they do too much, with alarms and everything, and they are too expensive for what they do.

Thanks.

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** December 28, 2005, 08:36 PM »

i've used the freeware tool tclockex for many years to do exactly as you say, and love it.
http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/index.htm

superboyac · « **Reply #2 on:** December 28, 2005, 09:46 PM »

Perfect, thanks! I looked pretty hard to find one but I couldn't find it.

LuckMan212 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 29, 2005, 01:05 AM »

only problem with the excellent TClockEx is that it does not integrate properly with XP's default "blue" theme....

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** December 29, 2005, 06:22 AM »

yeah, he says so on his page; there is probably another free app somewhere that does..
if you use classic mode display (as i much prefer), then it looks perfect.

superboyac · « **Reply #5 on:** December 29, 2005, 08:35 AM »

Hmm...mouser, are you sure. I'm using classic mode display (I think) and the TClockEx is pretty buggy on my XP machine. Not only that, but some of the memory usage meter stuff is not available in the options. I'm showing 3 lines in the date display and even though I have them centered, they keep shoving over to the right whenever the taskbar autohides and reappears. It's a little buggy.

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** December 29, 2005, 09:00 AM »

hmm,
i include a picture from my system tray - i have used it for maybe 5-10 years without issue, but i only use it one particular way so who knows..

LuckMan212 · « **Reply #7 on:** December 29, 2005, 11:58 AM »

you may also want to look at AlfaClock ..... it offers XP compatibility and other features such as alarms and atomic time sync.

http://www.alfaclock.com/

brotherS · « **Reply #8 on:** December 29, 2005, 12:33 PM »

http://www.alfaclock.com/ looks nice too, but as mouser, I have used TClockEx for about 5 to 10 years. It's almost perfect, just needs to be reloaded manually when explorer.exe crashes (not too often)

I use Windows 2000 here.

mouser · « **Reply #9 on:** December 29, 2005, 12:46 PM »

alfaclock free version does look nice... might be worth a try.

nudone · « **Reply #10 on:** December 29, 2005, 01:01 PM »

alfaclock works for me - nice find there brotherS.

i think TClockEx works okay depending on how you've already got your windows appearance settings, i.e. whether it's classic view or not. am i right - maybe it's just how it works on my system.

(i'm just talking about how it blends in.)

superboyac · « **Reply #11 on:** December 31, 2005, 10:28 PM »

TClockEx did not work right for me on XP (the appearance was buggy, all the functions were working properly however). Anyway, there's a very similar program called TClock which did work for me, so now I am using that. It can also do cool things to your taskbar, like customize your start button and other little things.

Unfortunately, TClock does not have a calendar function, which is annoying. So now I am looking for a calendar system tray program. The absolute best I have found is one called TrayDay. It's exactly like I want...just a calendar, nothing more. You can customize it's look, it's lightwieght, it can show 3 months at a time. However, it's $15 which is a bit much for something of that nature. Maybe someone can recommend a similar program? Or if it doesn't exist, maybe could do it as a new coding snack?

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** December 31, 2005, 10:52 PM »

did you try alfaclock free? (see link by nudone above)

NigelH · « **Reply #13 on:** December 31, 2005, 11:10 PM »

Another suggestion to try - DS Clock.
I'm currently using it on XP Pro sp1
http://www.dualitysoft.com/dsclock/

They also sell a great calendar tool called Calendarscope which, obviously, is not free.
http://www.calendarscope.com/

superboyac · « **Reply #14 on:** December 31, 2005, 11:19 PM »

whoops! I forgot to look at alfaclock. It's great! Problem solved. Now that's a nice program.

nudone · « **Reply #15 on:** January 01, 2006, 12:17 AM »

er, sorry, i said above "nice find there brotherS" in response to 'alphaclock' but i've just realised i should have been thanking LuckMan212. sorry about that.

looks like mouser has been taking the same medication as me as he also referred to me instead of LuckMan212.

bizarre.

LuckMan212 · « **Reply #16 on:** January 01, 2006, 12:27 AM »

haha... thats OK ... thanks for giving me credit nudone!

actually I have used alfaclock for years, I actually registered it a couple yrs ago when he was selling a "pro" version, which has now been discontinued temporarily while he works on Version 2.0. The free version he is giving away now is essentially the v1.0 of what used to be the "Pro" version. Kind of confusing but the end result is you wind up getting a really nice program for free...........

I emailed him and at least he said he will give a discount for previous owners to upgrade to 2.0 when its released. so thats good.

The one feature I do miss from TClockEx (I used to use that) was the ability to display systemwide variables next to the tray clock. So for example you could use a script or batch file to set something like %MyVar% and then TClockEx can show "MyVar: 341" or whatever, in the tray. Pretty cool idea, too bad he stopped developing it anymore.

kimmchii · « **Reply #17 on:** January 01, 2006, 01:14 AM »

i use tclock2: http://www.shii.org/tclock/

have tried nearly all of them, tclock2 gets my vote as the best.

mouser · « **Reply #18 on:** January 01, 2006, 06:00 AM »

whoa! nice find kimmchii!
source code included with tclock2, so it can be modified. excellent.

superboyac · « **Reply #19 on:** January 01, 2006, 09:41 AM »

tclock2 is nice also. But alfaclock is much better if you consider the calendar functionality also...you can show multiple months. Tclock2 is better if you like to do some fancy graphical things with the taskbar and start button and stuff. What I would like to see in either of them is the ability to show cpu resources/mem usage using a graphical bar like in TClockEX. Alfaclock can do it, but just with text.

LuckMan212 · « **Reply #20 on:** January 01, 2006, 04:01 PM »

have you tried CPU Usage Service from Outer Technologies? it's free and uses very little resources... it shows a small icon in the tray indicating CPU usage. Maybe it will suit you:

http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=3

aphoria · « **Reply #21 on:** January 03, 2006, 08:29 PM »

Here are a couple others...

TClock Light
- http://homepage1.nifty.com/kazubon/
- Translated via Google http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhomepage1.nifty.com%2Fkazubon%2F&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

LClock
- http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=157465

I've used TClock Light for a couple years on XP with no problems at all. It's very similar to TClockEx, but works correctly with the new taskbar in XP.

Josh

LuckMan212 · « **Reply #22 on:** January 03, 2006, 08:52 PM »

and we also have TrayMeter........... which shows a histogram-style view and is pretty nice:

http://www.thmundt.com/traymeter/

thomthowolf · « **Reply #23 on:** January 03, 2006, 09:50 PM »

I have been using tclockx about as long as Mouser, though I have had some small irritations since switching to XP. For a simple calendar app I have used AMP calendar for a while.

http://www.ampsoft.net/utilities/Calendar.php. Very simple calendar display and nicely customizable.

longrun · « **Reply #24 on:** January 05, 2006, 03:09 AM »

Just another vote for TClockEx, especially if you keep your taskbar on the right side of the screen, where nature intended it to be.