PSION CD 2/PsionCDVol2.iso/Programs/652/ClokSwp.txt

Text File | 2001-03-18 | 7.2 KB | 168 lines

I Searched the internet for something that did what this program does ,
couldn't find one - so wrote my own !

Primarily intended for use on the Psion Revo , all it does is quietly
sit in the background and constantly swap the clock display in any
current toolbar between the time and the Day/Date . Why? Well on my
old Series 3 ( and the Series 5 ) it was possible for the clock to
show both the time and the date at the same time - on the Revo because
of the restricted space given to the clock in the toolbar this is no
longer possible , I seem to NEVER know what the date is so I was
constantly tapping the clock to swap between the time and the date .
Now I have ClokSwp it 'taps' the clock display for me - every 3-4
seconds switching between the clock and the date automatically . I
have tried the program on a Series 5 and it works perfectly , but only
swaps between the analogue clock and the digital one - I expect it
would do the same on a NetBook / Series 7 but can't prove it . Either
way no harm should come of it .

To install , simply Unzip all the files , and double click on
ClokSwp.sis from Windows Explorer .

Or if downloaded directly to the Revo , Unzip the file package and
then select the SIS file and press enter .

When ClokSwp is started , the display should show a welcome notice
and a clock in the lower right corner of the screen , this should
change between the time and date once every 3-4 seconds .

If you look at the clock in ANY toolbar you should see it also
change from the time to the Day/Date every 3-4 seconds .
ClokSwp is now running normally !

While ClokSwp is running it causes some of the veiws in Agenda to
flash each time the clock display is updated , if using on the
Series 5 it will badly affect the Year view , for this reason if
the Agenda program comes to the foreground , ClokSwp will
'go to sleep' and stop changing the display over , once the Agenda
is no longer in the foreground ClokSwp will resume its swapping
action once more . It is possible to set the frozen Agenda display
to either the time or the date by pressing Ctrl+T ( time ) or
Ctrl+D ( date ) when the ClokSwp program is displayed . As this
can cause the Agenda display to flash ( once only ) while the
Time or Date is brought to the foreground , you can set this to
Auto with the Ctrl+A command . Once set to Auto the display
will be frozen on which ever item was displayed when the
Agenda program came to the foreground , if set to Time or Date
then the display will be changed if neccessary then frozen
on the selected display while the Agenda is in the foreground .

Obviously while the Agenda view is displayed , tapping the
clock/date display will manually change it over as normal ,
overridding any settings in ClokSwp .

ClokSwp is initially locked . This means that the System screen is
unable to close it ( displaying the 'Open Files' Dialog and trying
to close ClokSwp will show that the program is 'Busy' ) it will also
NOT be closed when a backup is performed . The reason for this is
that the backup program is unable to re-start ClokSwp if it has
been closed for a backup , so I was constantly having to re-start
it myself.

When a backup is first attempted while ClokSwp is running
( and is locked ) it will try to close ClokSwp a couple of times
and then continue with the backup , after the backup is completed
a message box will notify you that the ClokSwp.app file could not
be backed up and ask you if you wish to retry , if you click on
the 'No' Button then backup will not ask the same question any more
in the future .

For this reason I recommend that you perform a backup
*****************
IMMEDIATELY AFTER
*****************

first installing ClokSwp and

******
BEFORE
******

running the program . In order to allow you to have at least one
backup of the ClokSwp program files .

ClokSwp is closed ( if required ) by moving to the program and
pressing the Ctrl+E , pressing Ctrl+L locks or unlocks the
program ( once unlocked the System Screen and the backup program
can then close the program on request ) and pressing 'Enter'
hides the program and you can continue to use your Psion in the
usual way .

NOTE

In order to minimise the battery consumption to the absolute
minimum there will be a delay of 5-6 seconds from pressing a
key before ClokSwp acts on it , this is unavoidable .

If the ClokSwp screen is displayed immediately following
( or during ) a backup this delay could be as long as 30 seconds
due to the lock mechanism filtering out the messages from the
backup program asking it to close down .


ClokSwp is freeware , I use it on my Revo permanently ( I NEVER
close it !! ) and I have not suffered from any unusual growths,
injuries or data loss as a result .
I cannot promise that you won't either .

Copyright Mark Stevenson 2000 [e-mail]

History :
( If you're interested...)

V0.1 May 2000
Figured out how to change the clock display programatically
and proved that it could work at all .

V1 1st July 2000
Released on the unsuspecting public ( poor things.. )

19/09/2000
Alerted to the 'flashing' Agenda displays problem .
Asked for assistance via various newsgroups but nobody
could think of an answer .

Tried a few things which didn't work ; resigned to failure
yet again :-((  (deep depression)

V1.1 28th Sept 2000
I eventually found a way of reading the program name and UID
of the foreground application , used this to freeze the display
when the Agenda was currently set to the foreground . No more
flashing to-do lists - Hurrah !

V1.2 19 Oct 2000
It was requested that the time display was set , when the Agenda
came to the foreground , rather than being a random selection .
I did this , adding the facility to select the 'frozen' display
between either time , date or auto . The reason for the auto
setting is that if when the Agenda comes to the forground , the
display is not as the user setting , the Agenda display will flash
as the correct display is selected . When Auto is selected , this
does not happen , the display is simply frozen showing either
the time or date , whichever happened to be displayed at the
time .

V1.3 22 Oct 2000
Proper menus and shortcut commands at last ! ClokSwp no longer
opens and closes immediately on starting , giving a little time
to explore the menu commands and read the keypress delay
warnings .

31/10/2000
Sysram1.sis now installed if required automatically . This
file is also included inside the 'SIS' installation file .

01/03/2001
V1.3a I found that it is possible to force EPOC to load a second
copy of a program with some nifty keypressing ( I did it by
accident ! ) with most programs this is not a problem , as
ClokSwp forces an update of the screen after a predetermined
delay this can have the effect of causing the clock not to
swap as it should , but to appear to freeze on either the
time or the date , and if one version of ClokSwp is asked to
display the time while Agenda is displayed while the other is
asked to show the date who knows what you might end up with !
ClokSwp now checks to see if it is already running , if so a
message is displayed , a beep will sound , and the last copy of
the program to be started closes itself down .