hey jonmack,

I took a quick look at your code and the clock face problem should be an easy fix.



You are using the window width and height as your source_width and source_height instead of the clockFace width and height.

To get the width and height of your clockFace image do something like this


and then you would scale it like this


I hope that helps you out a little.. Have fun making your clock :)

Hi guys,

First, thanks for your inputs. I'm in a real rush to get to Uni, so I'll reply longer this evening :oops:, but v0.0.2 is ready :D ( same link as top post )

Hi Jon,

I looked at your code; mostly cool, but here is a few things I noticed that could be improved:

• Your ADeskClock::get*Angle() methods are not very efficient: you extract the time three time, using a total of six instances on the time object at each iteration (plus a int=>str->int conversion), when you could do something like:
  

  Code:

  
  angles = [(-math.pi/2)-(2*math.pi*frac/total)
            for frac, total in zip(time.localtime(time.time())[3:6],[24,60,60])]
  
  

  and get all the needed angles right in an array. Besides, multiple creation of time instances means potential discrepancies, since all the angle are not computed from the same measurement.
  
• You redraw the whole window image onto buffer at each step, including clockFace, when you could draw this onto background when it's needed (catching BackgroundGrab events) and forget about it altogether. Look at Events::background_grab from yab 0.0.2 for a commented example of this.
  
• In this case, there is no need to call ADeskClock::render() from ADeskClock::ready(), since ADeskclock::alarm() is called right after ADeskClock::render() returns anyway.
  

As for the rest (Configuration, possible amelioration, etc), it's up to you, really. :-)

Thanks for the repsonses,


Yeah, that's one thing I've been working on. I have already spotted the multiple time.time() things, and now just refresh one currentTime variable to be used everywhere. I don't quite know enough phython to understand how your condensed code example fully works, but it's all part of the learning process I guess. I will study it.

I did condense them all down into one getAngle(handType) method in v0.0.3, but then in 0.0.4 reintroduced separate get*Angle() methods, since the hour hand now work differently - it steps in quarter hour angles for more accuracy, whilst minute and second only ever point to integer minutes/seconds.


This is another thing that I'm aware of, but just not confident enough yet to try and seperate it. It's on my to-do list now though ;)


Hmm, me thinks I need to study the adesklets API a little bit more. Thanks for the tips.


Hehheh :D I know, I've put some "big dots and small dots" (tm) in v0.0.4 to help with that. I'm not really good with digital art, so the graphics could be much better.

---

The whole thing will most probably need a re-write at some stage, as I learn more about python and to clean it up/make it efficient. I'll put the latest two versions up now anyway. v0.0.3 just has a single getAngle() method, but I've had to put them back in v0.0.4, since I didn't know how else to have different calculations done for each hand.

Thanks once again guys, I really mean it. Your support has been great!

Regards,

Hi CitizenX,

Thanks for the input.

Well I'm not bad with the old fashioned paper and pencil, but when it comes to digital art, I'll be the first to admit that I suck ;) Hopefully one day some kind gifted artist will lend some better skins - or I suppose I could go hunting for some "open source" ones maybe.

When I get round to a config file you will of course be able to change the graphics. The hands are what might be a little tricky in the future - they don't automatically scale at the moment - but it's on the to-do list :)

:D It's on!! I will see about getting things together for an official entry later tonight ( hopefully ). I've been reading the requirements link you sent me.

I must say it is very good looking. :-) It is entirely your artwork? That's nice! Thanks for the screenshot submition on lynucs.org by the way.

Wow! :shock: Very nice skins CitizenX, I like them. Especially the see-through one, ClearSilver. If you want to share your work, I'd be thrilled to have them included with my adesklet. Would be nice for poeple to have a small collection to choose from straight away.

How are you finding skinning the hands? I guess it was not quite so obvious which way they should go from my symmetric ones :) They still pivot around the top-left corner, I'll be working on making it so they can pivot around any point ( so we can have hands that extend a short way in the opposite direction, if you get what I mean ).

P.S. Syfou... I'm trying hard to submit v0.0.5 ;) But I have no mail servers on my box, I'm just stuck with web-based mail right now, hotmail and gmail. I have absolutely no idea if they'll play nice. Hopefully it'll work when I send it now, but if not, I'll try again later tomorrow maybe.

Thanks jon. I'd be happy to share my skins with ya...I'm thinking of a few alternative designs (just to see what kind of trouble I can get myself into), so I'll send them along whenver you like.

The hands weren't a problem...yeah I had them backwards when I did Gold...but once I figured it out it was fine.

I've had to take a couple of shortcuts because they pivot from that corner, but it wasn't that big of a problem. I'd like to be able to pivot from any point, then I can model that central pin well...heck I can do it in the clockface, and give the first few pixels of the hands transparency...hmm.....

You know, gmail isn't just web-based...I use the smtp server all the time. Once I feel alright with upgrading python, mailer will take the place of my torsmo script (dont like the cron job I have set up for it...too many resources to run.).

Using Python built-in mail transfert agent (MTA) or a third-party one is your choice, since both cases can be handled by adesklets_submit.



[EDIT]

I just signed up to gmail myself, so I can give you the information:

• 
  
• smtp server: smtp.gmail.com
  
• smtp port: TCP/465 or TCP/587
  
• encryption layer: SSL (TLS v1)
  
• account name: your Gmail username (including '@gmail.com')
  
• password: your Gmail password
  

As you see, this smtp server is not anonymous, as it requires authentification. Since I didn't include this facility in adesklets_submit, you need to use an external program to send it to gmail's smtp server. It can very well be any properly configured email client, but just make sure it doesn't alter the message (potential attachments, line breaks, etc.). Alternatively, you can very well install locally a simple relay-only MTA supporting smtp over ssl with autentification (such as esmtp) and use it.

Regards,

Hi everyone!

Sorry I've been gone so long. 2 weeks... 2 months. Same difference ;)

So anyway, my last year of University is over now, so I have time again to pick up my hobby projects. I've started work on adeskclock again. So far I have clock-hand pivot points working quite well, so it looks much nicer. I'm in the process of adding config files per skin, and the skinable/switching code is almost done. Also trying to fix the next version of my website with a proper page for this thing, so no more temp page. Expect more news and hopefully an actual release ( :roll: ) very Soon(TM)!