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Steampunk Clock/ Calendar MkII version development underway |
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Tuesday, 04 January 2011 |
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The Steampunk Clock/ Calendar MkII version is on the way. This is the
first change to the MkI version and the first modification is to remove
the preference change check from the one second timer that controls the
clock operations. This will reduce the CPU consumption of the running
clock.
The next big change is the resizing of the clock so that you can have
it
any size you want on your desktop. This change is underway and it
works.
It makes the widget a bit bigger in size as I have added a lot of lines
of extra code to do the actual resizing.
The new MkII version (beta 1.1) will be available for download soon. It
will be worth the wait.
The changes that will be implemented:
1. reprogram the pendulum to use less cpu
2. change the code to handle preferences correctly
(onPreferencesChanged) - largely done
3. change the timer handling to reduce the overhead of continuous
checking - partly done
4. move chimes to separate timers
5. add math to the slider, replacing ranges
6. change the clock so that the first bell ring is dead on the o'clock
7. add resizing of the whole clock, hoffset, voffset, width, height.
8. ticking will be synced by running a modulo 30 count
9. add screen images based upon time spans and images specified in a
file
10. JSLint the code
11. only move the second hand every second, others don't need to move
until the specific time
The majority of this new stuff are some improvements implementing what
I learnt whilst programming in Javascript for the first time. The
proposed 'real' changes will be the ability to resize the clock and the
addition of images whilst in 'time machine' mode.
Now that the clock /calendar is largely complete I am now thinking what
the next item of a PC's functionality that needs to be steampunk'd. If
you have any proposals for a new tool/utility then I'd be pleased to
hear from you.
Suggestions:
o Steampunk monitoring console, monitoring resources, cpu, memory
&c
o Interface to control panel
o Replacement to start menu, application triggering GUI
If you have any ideas for the next tool then let me know. If you get me
started while I'm still keen...
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Last Updated ( Friday, 16 September 2011 )
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