Looking for a clock app (yes, really)

[davidconrad10]

There are dozens of clock apps for the Palm (I use a TX), but as best I can tell, none of them do what I want--maybe because what I want is so simple. It's a bedside clock for nighttime use.

By that I mean a clock app that will display the time in digital format, with numbers large enough to fill the screen in landscape mode, with absolutely NOTHING else on the screen. Ideally, it would also automatically dim the screen to a very low brightness, although I can of course do that manually if need be. And I can live with the toolbar still present too, if need be.

The result would look something like this: http://www.chumby.com/guide/widget/Blue%20Digital%20Clock
only without the octopus in the background, and without the large "AM" (though I could live with that), and with larger numbers. But otherwise, just about like that one. Or like this one: http://www.chumby.com/guide/widget/Sun%2FMoon%20Clock, but without the sun/moon icon for am and pm and again, with bigger numbers.

It seems crazy to me that there isn't such an utterly plain clock available already, but I can't find one. Does anybody know of one?

[Joel]

All I can think of is Watchmaker (http://steilberg.eu/page2.htm) (free). It has a digital clock mode that is configurable.

[davidconrad10]

All I can think of is Watchmaker (http://steilberg.eu/page2.htm) (free). It has a digital clock mode that is configurable.
Thanks -- I have looked at that one, and in fact keep it on my TX because I like it. But it leaves the DIA up, using only 320 x 320 pixels. And it's impossible to dim the DIA enough for nighttime use without making the clock disappear.

[davidconrad10]

So ... assuming that there's no plain and simple clock application available, like I'm thinking of ...

I can't program in C, but I can do okay in a couple of other languages (VB Script, mainly). But I've no experience programming for the Palm.

From time to time I've seen write-ups of Palm software development environments that operate at a higher, more script-like, level than C. Are there any of those still around that might make it possible, without a huge learning curve, for me to create my own clock app?

[Shrink]

Try contacting Jaap Steilberg, author of Watchmaker and BellTime and ask him about the possibility of developing what you want for one of his apps:
http://steilberg.eu/index.htm
He is very accommodating and will surely give it some thought.
Keep us posted.
alan

[Tomohawk]

the trouble with a clock app like you are suggesting ( always on, but dimmed) is that the Palm will either shut itself off after a few minutes, or the battery will run down. You can plug in the charger to keep the battery charged, and you can use a dimmer app that will dim the screen, but the Palm will still shut off. You'd have to create a clock app that does all that for you.

If I wanted to use my Palm by the bed, I would just have to press the select button for a few seconds, and the Palm clock app will turn on for a few seconds, which uis what I do when I have my Palm with me but not my watch.

[nottooloud]

the trouble with a clock app like you are suggesting ( always on, but dimmed) is that the Palm will either shut itself off after a few minutes, or the battery will run down.

If it's an older Palm, there's a setting to have it stay on in cradle.
Old Palms in obsolete cradles running Watchmaker make lovely desk clocks.
Butler has a setting that will make Treos stay on in cradle.
I never rely on hotel clocks.

[Tomohawk]

That's why I wear my waterproof (100m) watch when I go travelling. It also has 26 time zones on it, 2 race timers, stpwatch, and thermometer, but who cares when you're sitting in a big comfortable chair with a bird & a pint? :D

Sorry, no laser beams or magnetic attractor thingies. I'll leave that to the British Secret Service :p

[davidconrad10]

If it's an older Palm, there's a setting to have it stay on in cradle.
Newer ones have the same setting: my TX PREFS includes a setting for "On While Charging" which you can set to "ON" (meaning it stays on in the cradle or whenever connected to power).

Anyway, for what it's worth I have found something that comes close to what I want--probably as close as I'll get with existing clock software. It's SplashClock, from SplashData. SplashClock was last updated several years ago (though the company remains in business and is quite actively marketing lots of products for mobile devices), but I bought it back then and had forgotten about it. You can set it to come on automatically when charging.

Though I had never used it this way before, it will let you display a digital clock with nothing else. I'd always used it with photo backgrounds (i.e., to look like a screen saver) and with a tiny analog clock and the date overlaid on the photo. But you can tell it not to display any photo, and it will provide a solid black background. You can also tell it not to show the date, and to use a digital clock display.

Finally, you can specify the amount of clock "opacity," which is designed, I suppose, so you can control how clearly you see the photo in the background. But I just discovered that if you (a) omit any photo at all, and (b) set opacity to the lowest setting (10%), you get a very dim display that is perfect for the nighttime use I had in mind.

Only two things fall short of ideal for me: The numbers, even when set to the largest size, are not terribly big. And although the whole screen is black in portrait mode, for some screwy reason when you shift to landscape mode, a blank white area appears where the DIA would go. Bye-bye dimness. But it doesn't matter anyway, because the whole reason to use landscape mode was to get a really large clock, and with SplashClock, the size of the digits doesn't change.

(I have no affiliation with SplashData.)

[Tomohawk]

I've been using a freeware app called "Chime" (www.redwood-creative.com) which will turn on the Palm and announce the time with a person's voice. You can set the announcement interval ( quarter-hour, half-hour, or on-the-hour), and you can even set a schedule for when it will announce, like from 8am - 8pm, M-F.

I don't think there's an alarm feature, but the developer is still active, IMO.

thx

[sgosnell]

Try Palmary Clock. It's not free, but I think it will do what you want. Lots of options, and pretty configurable. I use Watchmaker, but YMMV.

[davidconrad10]

I've been using a freeware app called "Chime" (www.redwood-creative.com) which will turn on the Palm and announce the time with a person's voice. You can set the announcement interval ( quarter-hour, half-hour, or on-the-hour), and you can even set a schedule for when it will announce, like from 8am - 8pm, M-F.

I don't think there's an alarm feature, but the developer is still active, IMO.

thx
Just when you think you know who all the Palm developers are, you find another one: Redwood. Amazing. Thanks for the link. I'm downloading a bunch of their products to take a look at right now.

I don't think I'll want to use Chime, at least not for what I've been thinking of, because I want to be able to look at a clock any time I wake up--I don't want to BE waked up by a voice in the middle of the night. But I'm glad to know about the company. Their MemoLeaf app sounds familiar and looks interesting also (though it's not, of course, a clock app).

Thanks again.

[davidconrad10]

Try Palmary Clock. It's not free, but I think it will do what you want. Lots of options, and pretty configurable. I use Watchmaker, but YMMV.
Thanks. I've known about Palmary clock, but always figured it displayed too much stuff on screen. After your suggestion, I took another look at the 7-day trial version. With a good deal of fiddling with menus and options and preferences, I got something pretty close to what I want. I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the picture in the background, but I suspect that if I read the manual I could find out how. The numbers are pretty large--a little larger than SplashClock--though they fall far short of what's possible: the height of each digit is roughly one-third of the available space in landscape mode.

In any event, it is certainly closer to what I want than I thought it would be, but for my purposes, not enough better than SplashClock (which I paid for ages ago) to make the switch. And I did discover that SplashClock will indeed hide the DIA area in landscape mode--I must have hit various buttons in some peculiar order to have caused it not to do that when I first tried it.

Thanks again.

[Jaap Steilberg]

http://steilberg.eu/img/bigclock.gif

Like it?

Jaap

[sgosnell]

I do. Does Watchmaker now fill the entire screen? The version I have doesn't, but I would certainly like that. I've been using Watchmaker for a long time, because that wasn't the most important thing to me, but the OP wanted fullscreen, so I couldn't recommend it here. It's what I've settled on for a clock for my uses, though.

Or is that a Bell Time prototype? I hadn't seen your new app. I've just been rolling along with Watchmaker, and haven't looked at your site in a long time. I should get out more often. ;)

[Jaap Steilberg]

It's BellTime: http://steilberg.eu/page5.htm

[Joel]

I think BellTime is the closest solution. The freeware version should be enough.

Thanks for replying Jaap!

[Tomohawk]

I'm still using the alarm clock I bought my first year in college- Mar. 1983! It will run for 4 or 5 years on one AAA cell.

[Clie Patra]

There are dozens of clock apps for the Palm (I use a TX), but as best I can tell, none of them do what I want--maybe because what I want is so simple. It's a bedside clock for nighttime use.
Take a look at Ohler Clock (http://www.freeware-palm.com/download-ohler-clock-v1-2.html). You can switch from analogue to digital by tappng the screen. It even has a (very limited) alarm fuction. At 10756 bytes and $0 it might be worth a shot :)

[Joel]

@Clie Patra, great suggestion!

[davidconrad10]

Take a look at Ohler Clock (http://www.freeware-palm.com/download-ohler-clock-v1-2.html). You can switch from analogue to digital by tappng the screen. It even has a (very limited) alarm fuction. At 10756 bytes and $0 it might be worth a shot :)
Thanks for the link--I tried it. It's nice and simple--that's a plus. I'm still looking for big numbers that will spread across a Palm TX's 320 x 480 screen in landscape mode, though (I want to be able to tell the time in the middle of the night without putting on my glasses!). Ohler clock, like WatchMaker, is strictly a 320 x 320 application. And even if the numbers were large enough, I don't want the distraction of the DIA showing. (Yes, I'm picky.)

[davidconrad10]

http://steilberg.eu/img/bigclock.gif

Like it?

Jaap
Now we're getting closer! What exactly is this screen: it looks like a Win Mobile app ... ah, I see that it's a Windows-based emulator, is that it?

1. Can the little row with numbers 1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 be hidden?

2. Can the numbers be made taller?

3. Can the tool bar be hidden?

(Those aren't complaints or anything -- they're just questions.)

dc

[FerdFerd]

3. Can the tool bar be hidden?

This has nothing to do with your primary quest, but you could use either mySkin or myKbd, which has an option to hide the status bar (tool bar as you say) by tapping at the bottom edge of the screen. I am reasonably sure that function persists even after the trial period is over, making it effectively free. Not 100% sure, since I am a very happy registered user.

This would work in pretty much any DIA-aware app, not just a clock.

[davidconrad10]

This has nothing to do with your primary quest, but you could use either mySkin or myKbd, which has an option to hide the status bar (tool bar as you say) by tapping at the bottom edge of the screen. I am reasonably sure that function persists even after the trial period is over, making it effectively free. Not 100% sure, since I am a very happy registered user.

This would work in pretty much any DIA-aware app, not just a clock.
Good thought -- I'll check it out. Thanks.

[davidconrad10]

Now we're getting closer! What exactly is this screen: it looks like a Win Mobile app ... ah, I see that it's a Windows-based emulator, is that it?

1. Can the little row with numbers 1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 be hidden?

2. Can the numbers be made taller?

3. Can the tool bar be hidden?

(Those aren't complaints or anything -- they're just questions.)

dc

Just downloaded Bell Time. Tried both freeware and trialware versions, but couldn't make it look like your example. Was your example a proposed future feature? Or did I just overlook a setting for it?

[davidconrad10]

In case anyone has trouble picturing just how simple a display I'm after, here's the one (SplashClock) that's closest to that vision:

http://hardysystems.com/beta/splashclock.jpg

This one would be just about perfect if the digits were larger.

[Jaap Steilberg]

Just downloaded Bell Time. Tried both freeware and trialware versions, but couldn't make it look like your example. Was your example a proposed future feature? Or did I just overlook a setting for it?
Sorry for that, it's a prototype only.

About your questions:
1. In BellTime you can set all colors, so you can set components to background color to hide them.

2. The problem is the amount of memory large fonts take. BellTime has a small footprint but large fonts will just blow it up. The soluton would be the use of vector graphics like in Watchmaker. The skins "Digital" or "Digital LED" of Watchmaker are examples of vector graphic. Some screenshots here: http://steilberg.eu/page2.htm

[sgosnell]

For me, it's easier to interpret the time quickly with an analog display than a digital one, especially without glasses in the middle of the night. I use Watchmaker, and am torn between ClassicXL and Modern Times. ClassicXL is the easiest to read quickly, but I like the quirky look of Modern Times, with the ability to see the exact time in numbers if I want.

What I actually use as a clock is a projection atomic clock I bought at Walgreens for about $19.95, which projects the time on the ceiling or wall, plus it shows the inside and outside temperatures. You can make it very big by projecting it on a distant surface, or smaller by getting it closer. For the price, it's a very good deal, and very handy. I project it on the ceiling above the bed, and my wife and I can see the time without even moving. For alarms, I use my cellphone.

[davidconrad10]

For me, it's easier to interpret the time quickly with an analog display than a digital one, especially without glasses in the middle of the night. I use Watchmaker, and am torn between ClassicXL and Modern Times. ClassicXL is the easiest to read quickly, but I like the quirky look of Modern Times, with the ability to see the exact time in numbers if I want.
Agreed. I just figured I'd find a much bigger digital display than I would ever find as an analog display, though, and that's why I set my quest on a digital display. And I find the presence of the DIA on-screen along with any clock display to be annoying and distracting, so don't like Watchmaker for this nighttime purpose (it's only 320x320 and so always shows the DIA).


What I actually use as a clock is a projection atomic clock I bought at Walgreens for about $19.95, which projects the time on the ceiling or wall, plus it shows the inside and outside temperatures. You can make it very big by projecting it on a distant surface, or smaller by getting it closer. For the price, it's a very good deal, and very handy. I project it on the ceiling above the bed, and my wife and I can see the time without even moving. For alarms, I use my cellphone.
You know, I've often wondered about those things. Somehow, I always thought they'd be a half-a**ed gimmick that wouldn't work as well as they ought to. But I may have to reconsider, after your comments. What make and model do you have, if you remember?

[sgosnell]

Sorry, I don't. I'm at work, and won't be home for 10 days or so. I think they all work pretty much the same, though. They project a red LED display, and sync with WWV nightly, so the time is always correct, or within a second or so worst case. That technology has become very cheap.

[Jaap Steilberg]

Agreed. I just figured I'd find a much bigger digital display than I would ever find as an analog display, though, and that's why I set my quest on a digital display. And I find the presence of the DIA on-screen along with any clock display to be annoying and distracting, so don't like Watchmaker for this nighttime purpose (it's only 320x320 and so always shows the DIA).
I'm not suggesting to use Watchmaker for this purpose. I just show you what method could be used to make large numbers on the TX landscape display.

[davidconrad10]

I'm not suggesting to use Watchmaker for this purpose. I just show you what method could be used to make large numbers on the TX landscape display.
And the large numbers looked pretty good, too. But they're not (yet) available anywhere, are they?

[Jaap Steilberg]

And the large numbers looked pretty good, too. But they're not (yet) available anywhere, are they?
I think I've the lite version (BellTime 1.1) with the clock within a week. I just include the automatically hiding of the header(1234) and the control bar.

[davidconrad10]

I think I've the lite version (BellTime 1.1) with the clock within a week. I just include the automatically hiding of the header(1234) and the control bar.
Well that's great! I'll look forward to whatever you come up with. Thanks for listening to my concerns.

Lately I've started thinking about why no one has ever come up with the sort of very simple clock I'm looking for already. Here's my theory:

Most developers, I suspect, think in terms of putting a clock on the Palm's display. Their focus is on what sorts of colors, features, buttons, etc., they can come up with in order to show a clock on the Palm display. They don't think about the issue from the other direction: how to make the Palm display look like a clock. It's not the same thing.

(That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.)

[Treo Musketeer]

Version Tracker says I can purchase Bell Time for $10, yet the only place I can find it is at the developer's site for 10 euros or just under $15. Anyone know of a third party vendor that sells Bell Time for $10? I think Version Tracker may be just confusing its euros and dollars.

[mvaldar]

Ideally, it would also automatically dim the screen to a very low brightness, although I can of course do that manually if need be.

I have just released my freeware application called BrightTools2 that automatically control the brightness of the screen depending on the time of day. This might help.

Matt