This is an analog/digital clock display. The clock can use any 256 color bmp
for its clock face and can be customized for hand size, position and color.
The clock can be set up with five alarms along with hourly, half-hourly and
quarterly chimes and even a "tick"& "tock" sound.
For Win95 only.
This program is freeware.
By Patrick Dugan (patrickd@ipa.net) or (patrickd@usti.com)
The clock program was written because I wanted an analog clock display to which
I could apply any clock face. The clock options to move the hands, resize,
change color, etc. came slightly later and then came alarms and sounds. When
you use a new clock face you must create a bmp file that is 256 colors and no
more than 3 meg in size. You can also use the wallpaper background as the
"clock face" so the clock hands and date appear by themselves. Obviously the
clock faces are left up to you. I supplied a few faces and sounds but the idea
is that you will want to create your own. Company logos, team logos,
advertisements, love ones faces, etc. are just some uses to which
it can be put.
If you wish to reach me via email write to:
patrickd@ipa.net or patrickd@usti.com
Installing
Simply copy the files within this archive to the directory of your choice and
create a shortcut to anyclock.exe. Typically all the files should be copied
into the same directory, however you may wish to only copy the EXE and HLP
files to avoid overwriting any configuration files you might have from
previous installations.
When AnyClock first starts it uses default clock face and settings. Once the
clock appears on your screen simply right-click on the clock and a menu
window will appear. If you double click the clock face it will hide the clock.
Clicking the tray icon will bring the clock back and right clicking the tray
icon will bring up the menu.
This window allows you to access various options for customizing your clock.
The six light blue buttons bring up new windows, the blue "Help" button brings
up the help file you are now reading. The Gray "Set Time" button will bring
up the Windows set date and time window. The last red button stops the program
entirely. You can close this window (or any of the others) by pressing the
small "x" in the upper right hand corner.
When you press the first light blue button "Clock Face" it will open a new
window that allows you to select a new clock face from a bmp file.
The bmp file can be no more than 256 colors and can be no larger than 3 meg in
size. Typically the bmp you use would be square to create a perfectly round
or square face, but you can use rectangles in which case the clock will be oval
or rectangular in shape. The top selector box allows you to choose the drive,
the second box selects the directory and the last box selects the bmp file.
The drive/directory information will be stored so it will return to the same
place you loaded from last. The Clock shape radio button box at the bottom
allows you to pick either a round clock face, a square or both. The "both"
selection allows you to have a "rounded square" clock that can be adjusted for
rounding off the corners by the corner size. You can also set whether the
window position is always on top, none (no priority) or always on bottom. You
can hide the application from the taskbar and also allow the clock to be
dragged about by the mouse. On the bottom is a feature that allows you to
"steal" the background so the clock appears to be transparent. The small
checkbox to the right of that button determines whether the transparency will
remain when you restart the clock. You can specify the size of that clock face
by the TWidth and THeight. Those settings will not affect a clock face that
uses a regular bitmap. Rather than explaining further you should try each
setting and see for yourself what happens.
The next window is the Hands Setting window is next. This window allows you to
adjust the hour, minute, second, date, day and month hands.
The "Hand Options" on the left side of the window control overall settings for
the hands. The "Secs on top" checkbox determines if the second hand appears on
top of the other hands or below them. The "Center" checkbox will try to place
the hands in the center of the bmp file for you. The "Mirrored" will cause the
clock to appear in mirrored format. This includes the hands, date and day.
This options is useful in creating a clock that might appear in bars or barber
shops. If "Smooth" is checked the clock will display the second, minute and
hour by smoothly moving around rather than "jumping" from second to second. To
create that effect the program must try to update the clock 100 times per
second. Depending on the speed of your computer and other tasks that may
require attention the "smooth" movement may sometimes jerk. Although "smooth"
makes a more visually pleasing display the amount of attention it requires from
Windows can be intense. The "Auto Size" if checked will attempt to adjust the
hand size to match the bmp you are using. Usually this is sufficient but if
not you would un-select that option and adjust the "length and width" for each
hand. The "Together" option which by default keeps the hands together. You
can un-select that option if you want to separate the hands for some reason.
(e.g., a pocket watch face might have a second hand located below the hour and
minute hands and would be smaller.)
The "Left" and "Top" numbers to place the hands where ever you desire. The
left setting refers to how far left or right the item will appear. The top
setting determines how far up or down the item will appear.
The right hand portion of the screen contains the individual hand settings.
The first column are checkboxes that determine if the hand in question will
appear or not. Next the color button allows you to choose a color you desire
for that hand. After that is the "Length" and "Width" settings (how tall and
wide the hands are.) Next the "Left" and "Top" settings allow you to position
that hand wherever you desire within the clock face. The "Style" checkbox
allows you to select either a straight hand or a more diamond shaped version.
The last checkbox is whether the hand will have a "Tail."
The Digital Displays window allows you to place the hour, minute, second, date,
day month and year on the clock face. Even the colons between the hour and
minutes can be used.
Each display has a "Show" checkbox which determines whether that display is
visible or not. Next the "AutoP" will cause the program to attempt to place
the locations. The "TransP" checkbox allows the display to use a transparent
background. The "Military" under the Hour display determines whether the hour
will appear in military format or not. The "Blink" checkbox determines if the
colons are blinking on and off. The"LongN" checkbox determines whether the Day
or Month names appear in full or are abbreviated. The "4 digit" checkbox
determines whether the year is shown as a 2 or 4 digit display. Below each
display is a "Left" and "Top" where you can indicate the position of that
display. The "Color" button below that represents the background color of the
display (ignored if TranP is set.) Lastly the "Font" button which allows you
to choose the font and color of that display.
The next window is the alarms/sounds window and here you will select the sounds
that you would like associated with various events.
There are 4 chimes, 5 alarms and even sounds that can be attached to the tick
and tock. You press the browse button (which will open up a small browser
window) to locate a wav file to attach to the event. You can press the test
button to listen to that sound to see if it is acceptable or not. The
check box next to the event should be checked or that sound will not play.
Since the tick and tock have to occur quickly the sounds associated with them
should be very brief. (Under one second) The tick & tock sounds are more for
fun as they tend to be hard drive/cpu hoggish. The hourly chime will repeat
the wav file according to the number of hours or play only once depending on
the "Chime number of hours" check box. All the other chimes play only once.
The next selection is the configuration window.
This window allows you to load or save clock configurations to a file. These
configurations will contain ALL the settings that are currently in place
including alarms, hand settings, etc. This will allow you to save the settings
that you may have developed for your custom clock so you can quickly switch
back and forth between various clock designs without having to reset everything
again. To load a file simply double-click it to load it in place. To save a
file simply type in the name (if you click once in the filename box above it
will copy that filename to the save name box so you donÆt have to retype a
name already present) and once named press the save button and the new
configuration will be ready. The file saved is a simple ASCII text file and
if it becomes corrupted or fails to load you can delete it and create it again.
I supplied a few configurations already for you to try that demonstrate various
clock designs. The clocks were either saved from photos of clocks/watches or
were generated by graphics programs. In the case of the larger clocks I used
a program called Pov-Ray to create the images. Obviously when you create a
new clock face you should remove the hands so this program can fill them in.
The final screen is the "Set Time" window. This allows you to set the system
date and time. This window is the same one that would appear if you
doubled-clicked the small clock on the far right of the task bar.
Of course the best way to learn about the various options is to play with the
settings and try to create your clock faces and settings.
Another program is included with Anyclock called ALock. This program allows
you to lock and unlock the configurations menus used in AnyClock. This is
handy when you are using Anyclock within an organization and you need to keep
the settings from being altered by other people. When the menus are locked
and the right mouse is clicked on the watch face they will be given the option
to exit the program and nothing else.
Version History:
1.6
September 2, 1998
Whew! Added a lot of new features. Added hands for day of the week, day of the month,
and month of the year. Added digital displays for hour, minute, second, Month and year.
Now has two different hand styles. You can set the system clock within the program.
The various screens have been cleaned up and reduced in size. They did not lose
any functionality, but in some cases gained many new options. The new digital
screen (replaces the date screen) can now allow a clock or watch that is digital
in appearance.
1.5
August 21 1998
Added a "smooth" ability so the hands can display by smoothly moving around the dial rather than "jumping" from tic mark to tic mark. Cleaned up the various windows so they can display the lettering correctly regardless of the system fonts you are using. Added a "lock" ability so that if the program is "locked" you cannot right click the clock face for options. This allows manager types to set configurations and then they can't easily be tampered with. I say "easily" becuase the program that accompanies Anyclock called ALock.exe allows you to "lock" and "unlock" the options menu. As long as the users don't get the program then they can't tamper with the settings. Fixed a bug when you minimize the clock then restore it as soon as you moved the mouse over the clock the clock would "latch" onto the mouse and you had to click it back down.
1.4
February 9 1998
Some clock configurations were initially designed on a large screen mode and consequently
became "unseeable" on smaller screen sizes. The clock is now designed to move itself
back into view if it finds itself "off screen." Added transparency to clock face and date
backgrounds. Added mirror function so clock can be viewed completely backwards as though
viewed in a mirror. Improved/simplified the color selection for hands and date backgrounds.
Added a "chime hour once" so you can choose to ring number of hours or chime only one
time.
1.3
Never generally released
Made a few changes to allow mirror functions and keep clock from appearing
"off screen."
1.2a
January 20 1998
Correcting some of the font saving problems. Also corrected the sound if a "tick tock"
sound was playing you wouldn't hear the alarm. Also "tick tock" sound wouldn't play on
each second it was playing too fast.
1.2
January 2 1998
Placed the WAV sound playing event into a thread. What that means is the clock's hands
do not stop while the sound plays. Added a "hands extend" feature that keeps or removes
the "tails" present on each hand.
1.0
May 15 1997
First version. Allowed any clock face to be applied to an analog clock. Lots of features
