Release [Upcoming] Pandora Clock

[ekianjo]

Some things that came to my mind when I took a brief look

• I don't think Network is an appropriate category (maybe see here for an idea)
  
• the clock seems a bit lost on the Pandoras Display -maybe increase the text size slightly (10% ?)
  
• Fullscreen Mode should be saved via profile.txt too - that can be done.
  
• interacting with it the feels real nice and intuitive - Thanks! What functions did you try so far?
  
• bottom bar is a real nice idea (sensible idea to dimm it after a certain time) - yeah I thought there would be no point to keep it lighted up too long.
  

All in all for me its a valuable addition to the Pandoras software collection. If a proper alarm system would be implemented, it could see this replacing my iPod touch as a alarm clock.


Edit:


Something I forgot:

• as there is no real mouse interaction possible, hiding the mouse cursor would be nice
  
• is there a special reason why the up/down buttons of the bottom bar aren't dimmed with the rest of the elements on screen ?
  

Ok thanks for the feedback ! A few comments :


- I wasnt sure about "Network". I chose Network in the end because this is very much an application using Internet for several functions, such as weather and time zone confirmation. But, true, it could fall in Accessories as well.


- Text size: are you talking about text size or the size of the time display ? Or all ?


- Saving full screen: that can be done. For beta testing I did not want to do that, since the app may crash at this stage or lock. One the last bugs are ironed out I will put this for the release in the repo.


- Interaction / thanks for the feedback - glad you like how it works! What functions did you try so far?


- Bottom bar - I thought dimming was a good idea since you dont need it at all times


- mouse hiding : good idea, I dont know how to do that but I will look for a method to do it.


- up/down buttons : not hidden when dimming : its beta I forgot to implement that, will correct this soon !


Thanks a lot for the great feedback !

 

[thatgui]

- I wasnt sure about "Network". I chose Network in the end because this is very much an application using Internet for several functions, such as weather and time zone confirmation. But, true, it could fall in Accessories as well.

In my opinion an applications category should orient itself on the main purpose of the application.E. g. many Games nowadays use the internet connection to store highscores, implement ingame shops and such things, but no one would place these games in the network category.

- Text size: are you talking about text size or the size of the time display ? Or all ?

Definitely the size of time display, but I'm not sure if it would look disproportioned if everything else would be kept in the same size

- Saving full screen: that can be done. For beta testing I did not want to do that, since the app may crash at this stage or lock. One the last bugs are ironed out I will put this for the release in the repo.

This is an important feature for me as I'm using MiniMenu 95% of the time, so non fullscreen apps can be a bit cumbersome

- Interaction / thanks for the feedback - glad you like how it works! What functions did you try so far?

As I'm at work currently (= no internet connection), just the basic stuff: changing colors, setting the alarm, undimming.


One other thing:


Currently the clock is closed via Fn + Q (=Esc) - maybe pressing Q could be enough ? (as all other functions only require on single press, this would be more consistent too)

 

[ekianjo]

I cannot use "Q" because i allow ESC in all situations, even when you are typing a city name - so Q would quit the application too when you type


If you dont mind, please check the internet functions one you reach home - this is where I spent most of the work on this app - I'd like to know if it works well.

 

[_wb_]

I'll give it a try when I can!


Small remark though:

License:


- Freeware / Closed Source.


I do not wish to open source this project since the source itself is very “dirty”, not well optimized at least in declaration/writing. It did not start as a full scale project but rather as an experiment, and in that sense lots of unplanned functions were added on top of the existing core program at a later stage. Besides, the code is hardly documented, making it very difficult for anyone else to understand what is going on. However I describe how Pandora Clock works below so that someone else can easily reproduce the same functions if they wish. There is no secret.

I totally understand these reasons to not release source, but imo you shouldn't worry about this. Open source is not only about making the source available for others to read and learn from (which your code might not be very suitable for), but it is also about allowing people to easily port it to other hardware (something you don't really need to actually see the code for, usually), and in general avoid the problem of having binaries floating around while the source is lost. So even if you're not happy with the code (style) quality, just add a some comment at the top of your code saying "sorry this code is unreadable/inefficient/whatever" and release it anyway. Nobody will think you're less of a coder when you release "bad" code - everyone has had experiences like that where you just start with an experiment and it turns out to work, and then you build on it and keep on building on it and in the end you get a dirty hairball of code. It's not even a big problem for applications like this.

 

[ekianjo]

Nobody will think you're less of a coder when you release "bad" code - everyone has had experiences like that where you just start with an experiment and it turns out to work, and then you build on it and keep on building on it and in the end you get a dirty hairball of code. It's not even a big problem for applications like this.

I know what you mean, but I feel ashamed of releasing it like this. I'm not happy with how it is presented, and there's redundancy where I could have implemented function or classes to be much faster. Really there's not much to be learned from my code, except that it was coded in a very dirty way


If I benchmark with the code I find on github in general, mine is way worse...

 

[_wb_]

Well it's of course up to you, but what's the worst that can happen? The worst thing that happened to me was this: http://www.ibiblio.o.../bgm-0.4.lsm a crappy bash/perl script that I made 14 years ago (back when I used the totally ridiculous nickname RAMbo_ML, lol) and still floats around on the interwebs...

 

[_wb_]

Just tried it: seems to work nicely! Also looks very good. I really like those pixelized weather forecast images.


Comments:


- when picking a city for the international clock thing, "new york" did not seem to work (but "newyork" did). Also pressing dpad buttons while typing a city name does not do what I expected (doing nothing would be fine)


- it automatically switches between today and tomorrow for the weather forecast. A button to switch this would be better imo.


- hide mouse cursor in full screen mode


- maybe make the alarm also flash the screen and display something to attract attention (I sometimes keep the volume all the way down)


- perhaps an alarm test button to check if the volume is ok

 

[peelie]

looking good! can you package next pnd so that it shows up somewhere under xfce menu system?


cheers

 

[ekianjo]

Just tried it: seems to work nicely! Also looks very good. I really like those pixelized weather forecast images.


Comments:


- when picking a city for the international clock thing, "new york" did not seem to work (but "newyork" did). Also pressing dpad buttons while typing a city name does not do what I expected (doing nothing would be fine)


- it automatically switches between today and tomorrow for the weather forecast. A button to switch this would be better imo.


- hide mouse cursor in full screen mode


- maybe make the alarm also flash the screen and display something to attract attention (I sometimes keep the volume all the way down)


- perhaps an alarm test button to check if the volume is ok

-> yes I should mention somewhere that space are not needed for the city


-> Yeah I have to add a few more exceptions for certains keys when typing


-> Switching between today and tomorrow is a feature I could make it manual as well, but I thought it was a good idea to keep it cycling.


-> hiding mouse cursos : yeah , will implement that, you are the second one to ask this


-> I actually had something flashing for the alarm during development, but I removed it because I did not think it looked good. I can make it again.


-> alarm test button: good idea.


Peelie -> will probably package it in accessories

 

[_wb_]

Cycling forecast is nice, but it would be nice to have a button to force a switch, because I don't want to wait for it. Not very important though.

 

[Christoph.Krn]

As for feature suggestions, I have yet to see a clock with built-in popsicle timer.


Magnums for instance taste better if they're allowed to thaw a bit after they're taken out of the freezer. If an approximate ambient temperature is known, it should be possible to determine a near-ideal (sufficiently ideal) waiting time.


Also, you could add some tips on good sleep, such as that sleep duration should be a multiple of 90 minutes, but not between 30 minutes and 3 hours.

 

[thatgui]

Tried it again, this time with a working internet connection:

• I tried entering an additional city, but then decided to not do it. So I pressed Esc(Fn+Q) and expected to cancel the add city operation, but instead closed the entire program. Seems not very intuitive to me - how can I cancel the "add city" operation ?
  
• I tried to add Sidney as an additional city, which worked ...kind of - as I ended up with Sidney - Canda instead of Sidney - Australia
  
• I entered "bbb" as a city and ended up with Bababo - Japan, nothing wrong with it, just wanted to share
  
• The weather icons are really great, and suite the retro character of the Pandora very well
  
• There is also one thing, which isn't an error in general, maybe inconsistent behaviour or maybe just me not knowing how to do it right: I set the clock to show the time in 24h format, then set the alarm to sound at 19:00 o'clock. After that it set the time format to 12h and the alarm went of on 7:00 PM, which seems logical. Now the other way round => set the clock to 12h format, set the alarm to 8:00 and then changed the time format to 24h. I expected the alarm will sound at 20:00 o'clock, but it didn't - how to tell the program on which part of the day (am or pm) the alarm should sound ?
  

other things:

• I second the idea of visualising the alarm - maybe by constantly inverting the whole display
  
• I also second the idea to have the ability to change to tommorows weather manually
  

last but not least an oddity: this is the first pnd I found that can't be opened with foxblocks PNDtools, but work none the less on the Pandora - opening it with 7-zip works though

 

[ekianjo]

Tried it again, this time with a working internet connection:

• I tried entering an additional city, but then decided to not do it. So I pressed Esc(Fn+Q) and expected to cancel the add city operation, but instead closed the entire program. Seems not very intuitive to me - how can I cancel the "add city" operation ?
  
• I tried to add Sidney as an additional city, which worked ...kind of - as I ended up with Sidney - Canda instead of Sidney - Australia
  
• I entered "bbb" as a city and ended up with Bababo - Japan, nothing wrong with it, just wanted to share
  
• The weather icons are really great, and suite the retro character of the Pandora very well
  
• There is also one thing, which isn't an error in general, maybe inconsistent behaviour or maybe just me not knowing how to do it right: I set the clock to show the time in 24h format, then set the alarm to sound at 19:00 o'clock. After that it set the time format to 12h and the alarm went of on 7:00 PM, which seems logical. Now the other way round => set the clock to 12h format, set the alarm to 8:00 and then changed the time format to 24h. I expected the alarm will sound at 20:00 o'clock, but it didn't - how to tell the program on which part of the day (am or pm) the alarm should sound ?
  

other things:

• I second the idea of visualising the alarm - maybe by constantly inverting the whole display
  
• I also second the idea to have the ability to change to tommorows weather manually
  

last but not least an oddity: this is the first pnd I found that can't be opened with foxblocks PNDtools, but work none the less on the Pandora - opening it with 7-zip works though

-> for Sidney, it should be spelled "Sydney" if you want the one from Australia


-> I will correct the ESC stuff when entering a city to stop the input. Good point.


-> bbb - I am not responsible of what the Api returns. If you enter wierd strings the Yahoo API still returns results sometimes.


-> In the doc I mentioned that the alarm has to be entered in 24 hours format. But true, its not clear in the program, and I should display it as am/pm when you change the mode.


-> about the PNDtools, I do not know why you cannot open it

 

[ekianjo]

OK, just implemented:


- adding fullscreen in the profile / works on loading as well


- a key to cycle the weather without waiting : "w". Works already.


- added a few more exceptions when typing to remove the keys such as "alt" showing up if you pressed them

Also, you could add some tips on good sleep, such as that sleep duration should be a multiple of 90 minutes, but not between 30 minutes and 3 hours.

I've heard this kind of things before, but is there any science to back these claims ?

 

[budweiser]

Excellent - Just keeps getting better !!!!

 

[ekianjo]

Magnums for instance taste better if they're allowed to thaw a bit after they're taken out of the freezer. If an approximate ambient temperature is known, it should be possible to determine a near-ideal (sufficiently ideal) waiting time.

OK, interesting feature - but doenst that depend from the popsicle composition ? If its mostly water of if theres lots of cream, the duration needed to reach the right time for eating would be different If you can send me a few magnums over I can make some tests however In Japan we dont have magnums unfortunately.

 

[ekianjo]

- Dimming the up/down arrows when the sleep mode is activated : fixed.


- Pressing ESC when entering city - now does not escape the application anymore but simply cancels the input


- Added support of temperature in Fahrenheit by pressing "T" to switch between fahrenheit and celsius. This is saved in profile too.


- Documented the additional functions in the bottom bar / Done


- Display the alarm in AM/PM mode when AM/PM mode is selected / Fixed


I will repackage it soon in a new PND following all these fixes.

 

[_wb_]

Looks like it's time to put this on the repo!

 

[ekianjo]

Allright, new PND in the first post of this thread


That should address a number of comments.


__wb__ -> good idea, will put in repo as well. It's functional enough

 

[ekianjo]

Update: Package is in the repo now, and after installation it appears in "Accessories" in your menu.


Appreciate if you could rate the application and post comments there too.