Hi! O'Clock is a simple freeware analog clock that I wrote, just for the heck of it. O'Clock's claim to fame is that it lives in a real, live circular window! (Hence the name.) O'Clock 1.1.0 runs on Systems 7.0 and greater.
O'Clock can run both in the foreground and in the background, so you can keep it running all the time, if you wish. The clock can be dragged and resized, and collapsed to a convenient icon size. To resize O'Clock, simply drag the lower-right edge of the clock's frame, much like you would a grow box in a normal window. Drag anywhere else within the O'Clock window to move the clock around. See the (Balloon) Help menu for more information. If you rename the file "Victor's O'Clock Prefs" to "O'Clock Prefs" (without the quotes, of course), and put it in the Preferences folder in the System folder, you can see the ugly colors that I like to use. I wouldn't use it on a black and white system, though.
All I ask is that if you use O'Clock, please write me a note letting me know. I look forward to any feedback or comments you might have. I've tried to test as much as possible for compatibility, but please let me know if you see any anomalies.
Updates since O'Clock 1.0.3
First, sorry that it's been so long since I've come up with an update. Among other things, I got snagged on supporting offscreen graphics for smoother redraws. In particular, I was fighting a problem supporting offscreen GWorlds on older black and white Macs, so I gave up! Anyway, here is a list of some of the key updates:
• Color selection for various clock parts
• Use a preference file (O'Clock Prefs) in Preferences folder
• Added Show date preference
• Added Show second hand for normal & Iconize mode preferences
• Double iconize hand width preference for easier viewing
• Auto-switch to Finder on startup preference
• "Live" updates for preference/color changes
• Double-click in window toggles iconize/normal mode
• Full support for Balloon Help, including dialog box items
• Periodic beep (okay, it's pretty lame, but it gives me something to improve on)
• Offscreen bitmap support for smoother graphics on Macs with Color Quickdraw
• Keep separate locations for Iconized size and normal size
• Clock still runs when a modal dialog box is up
Things to do for the future (maybe!)
• Add an option for O'Clock to always float above all other application windows
• Add an real alarm-like function (sorry it's not there yet!)
• Allow the user to customize the look of O'Clock's parts (tick marks, hands, etc.)
Things I won't be doing:
• Making O'Clock into a screen saver
• Anything that makes O'Clock take much more than 128K minimum
Many people have commented on how they like that in its iconized state, O'Clock floats above the Finder's desktop icons. Of course, this is simply because even in it's "iconzied" state, O'Clock is still a window, albeit a small one.
By default, O'Clock uses 128K of memory. This should be fine for black and white systems. Color Macintosh users may wish to increase this number (200-300K is a good amount) using the Finder's Get Info feature, to allow for smoother, flicker-free updates for larger clock window sizes.
I've tried to test as much as possible, but inevitably someone finds something that's not quite right. Not much testing has been done on black and white systems, because I do not have direct access to one. If you find a problem, let me know and I'll try to fix it ASAP.
