Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Okay guys try it again, same link and everything I just updated the file on garage, should be all good now; just updated one of my test units here without issue.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

That same download link is not working for me!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Try flipclock_0.9.5_armel.deb. Or look at the flipclocks garage download page

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Thanks, Nikem, your link works!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Jolouis, The latest 0.9.5 still has no alarms, after reinstalling 0.9.3 it now works. This seems to be the best version for me.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

jolouis: the fremantle flipclock runs, and it shows the correct time, but as soon as I touch the theme button, it crashes. I can flip between the various settings screens, but I didn't touch any of those buttons...

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

i like the seconds bar --the flipclock theme looks nicer now

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Insomniac mode

Jolouis, can you please explain how insomniac mode works? What it does? Now that I don't have that Advanced Backlight program, I cannot see if the dimness is set to minimum.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Why is that not in Extras-Devel? Extras-Devel still provides old 0.2.1-1.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Okay this is just driving me nuts now... anyone, with any devel experience... can somebody help me out here in figuring out why my package never makes it to extras-devel for Diablo?? It works just fine for Fremantle as far as I can tell, but with Diablo the autobuilder sayis "all OK!", built, etc... but then it never shows up in extras-devel!! What the heck???

The build log process is here:
https://garage.maemo.org/builder/dia...ipclock_0.9.5/
I haven't got time/access to get on IRC at the moment or in the next few days, but if anyone knows anyone else around here who uploads or maintains their own C-based packages please ask them to drop by and see if anyone can figure this out with me as it's driving me nuts...

Thanks!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

The difference between 0.9.3 and all versions after that is that the alarmD stuff got externalized to "flipAlarmSync" app and triggered by DBus calls; if you're saying nothing after 0.9.3 works then it suggests either your tablet has a problem with DBus not working properly, or the flipAlarmSync app is missing/not working properly. Let me spend a bit of time just double checking things in the package to make sure that on a fresh install everything is in the right place and working, and if I can't find any issues I'll let you know how to try troubleshooting on your end.

Thanks qole! I'll check it in the SDK and see, I don't remember actually trying to change themes I was more focused on getting the app to run and the alarms stuff working; I"ll see if I can track down the issue and get an updated Fremantle build out for you to try.

Agreed!

Explanation of Insomiac mode to follow...

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

From the "I just started but one day it'll be an instruction manual" for Flip:

Insomniac Mode

Flipclock has a special display mode called "Insomniac" designed for times when you want to have the clock running for long periods of time in a darker location, such as on your bedside table at night. This mode is only relavent to NIT platforms. In this mode the default brightness and dimming system settings are ignored, and the brightness controls of the screen are instead controlled by Flip directly.

When Insomniac mode is disabled no changes to default brightness or timeout settings are made. When it is enabled the following occurs:

• The tablet device will remain at the normal, system defined brightness level for the "brightness time" that you've defined on the system itself.
  
• Once that "brightness time" runs out, instead of changing to the default "dim" state of the OS, Flip causes the display to drop to the "Insomniac level" defined on the settings screen. This level is much more precise and flexible than the one provided by the OS, giving you a possible range of 3 (lowest possible brightness) to 255 (maximum brightness). By default this level is set to 3.
  
• The screen will remain at "Insomniac level" until one of the following occurs:
  • You interact with the device by pressing the screen or one of the hardware buttons
    
  • An alarm event occurs
• While at "Insomniac level" brightness, any interaction with the screen or device will cause a return to "Normal" brightness level. The event will not be interpretted by the Flip in any way. This means while at "Insomniac level" you can press any button or touch anywhere on the screen to return to "Normal" brightness without accidentally hitting a button or causing an unexpected action to occur; that is, in Insomniac mode, you can only interact with Flip while at "Normal" brightness.
  
• If an alarm event occurs while at "Insomniac level" brightness, the screen's brightness will gradually increase back to "Normal" level (same time frame as the alarm sound fade in).
  
• If an alarm event is running and the user selects "Snooze", the device will return to "Insomniac level" brightness as soon as the alarm display has been reset to the normal clock screen.
  

--- End Instruction Manual Excerpt ---

Also qole, I tried running Flip on my Fremantle SDK and everything seems to work just fine, I couldn't get the theme change to crash or fail... can you try running it from X-term for me and post up or PM me the shell output for the last few lines before it dies so I can try to see what's going on? Also, apart from that, do the alarms and things actually work??

Thanks!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

...so what's the verdict on 0.9.5? my tablet wants to upgrade but i see someone had an issue with it so i dont want to install yet if that version has a problem. otherwise things are working swimmingly at the moment.

cheers all!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

It works fine for me!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

I found another "bug" although I probably created it myself.

Last night I happened to set an alarm for this morning. I wasn't near my charger, so I just left my N800 unplugged. To save battery, I set the alarm and exited FlipClock.

**I modified one of the files on my N800 to give me the ability to 2x tap the power button and shut off the screen, while leaving network connections up. I need a long press on the power button to wake the screen up.**

When the alarm went off, the screen stayed off, I needed to long press the power button to wake the screen, then hit snooze, left the screen on, set it down. Subsequently, FlipClock worked as expected.

Mostly a "bug" of my own creation, and a pretty unique situation. I don't expect that much if any time should be spent fixing it, but thought I'd pass it along for informational purposes anyway.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Well depends on what coding you used to "shut the screen off"; Flip calls the libosso "osso_display_state_on" method to wake the screen when an alarm occurs; if your code does something to override the screen state (i.e. sets the brightness to 0 for example), then this code will not have any effect (the tablet will "Wake up", but the screen would still be at 0 brightness since that's what you had it set to before). If you let me know what code you used to modify your power button I can try and toss the "Wakeup screen" code into the app if it's easy. The other thing you can try is put Flip into Insomnaic mode, then set your alarm as usual and exit the app. Turn your screen off as you did before, and see if the screen comes back on when Flip's alarm is triggered.
(This might work since Insomniac mode automatically overrides the tablet's brightness level, but might also NOT work if your code has changed some system wide brightness configs).

0.9.5 is stable, I just goofed when I first posted it as I mixed up the Diablo and Fremantle packages. And I still can't get this darn thing to go into Extras-devel for Diablo!... no idea why!

Thanks!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Maybe Qole wants to host it then??

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Actually, I just edited mce.ini and enabled the 2x tap option that was already in the file. So I'm not really sure how it all works :)

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

I'm already hosting it, but my repository is an ugly hack / workaround. You really want to get it into Extras. I have only recently managed to get my packages to go through the maemo.org autobuilder myself using py2deb, so there's no way I could help anyone else. You could try Jeremiah...

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

OKay guys another quick update for everyone...

I've been talking to Jeremiah today (thanks for suggesting that Qole!) and will be working with him to try and get this up into extras as soon as possible (I suspect now that it might even be something really silly like I goofed on version numbering or something and confused the autobuilder).

On the Flip side of things (pun intended), I managed to get some good work done in the last few days on the clock settings page and some things that I'd been meaning to get to in a while, so I may try to push out another preview (that hopefully will make it to extras this time) in the next day or two. Key points are:

• Some minor caching to improve performance/rendering. I'd been thinking about this for a while, but finally got around to implementing it and it's well worth it. The alarm settings screen is much more responsive now (no more slight lags while changing between alarm days, etc), and all of the interfaces are just generally smoother running and less processor intensive. Side effect of this caching is that the rendering engine is now a bit more robust and that tacky background blocking the mood colour on the main screen is gone now.
• The clock settings screen is getting closer! I've implemented the max alarm volume and insomniac brightness level controls now, so you can tweak and customize those from the app. The graphics involved here still need a bit of tweaking, but I hope from a usability point of view you guys will be impressed as I did my very best to make everything as finger friendly and cool as possible (sticking with the whole goal of Flip in the first place). I've still got to add the theme browser and about/help buttons, along with that "intro" popup when you first launch..
• Some bug fixes and minor tweaks, along with a few graphic updates.
• Snooze indicator to show you in the alarm area that a snooze is active and how long remains; I may update this a bit to make the "Remaining snooze time" a bit larger/easier to read, but might also leave that for the night theme only, since that's where it's more important in my mind.

Still some work to do but I'm really happy about how things are shaping up now!

Thanks!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

@ Jolouis, Link to latest version . . . please!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

I wouldn't mind, in the future, seeing a weather icon/update integrated into the Flipclock main screen like this: http://androidcommunity.com/wp-conte...ia-540x400.jpg

After waking up..checking the weather is the first thing I do..having it on the same screen would be awesome :)

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

well the thing was in the air months ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmaCyWWcPNU

then time (aka money) issues took the scene but there is a chance I could work on that bit on december

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Perhaps as a theme???
Other themes: flip + stock info; flip + shopping deals info, etc etc

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Okay I know there's been some eager anticipation (always a good development incentive ;-) ) so as promised, the latest version Beta 0.9.6 is now available. You can grab it from Garage as a seamless update:
Diablo:
https://garage.maemo.org/frs/downloa....9.6_armel.deb

And Fremantle:
https://garage.maemo.org/frs/downloa...ntle_armel.deb

I've also had some discussions with Jeremiah about the autobuilder and he's assured me that things are getting back on track again (apparently there's a big upgrade scheduled for the entire system soon, which should help avoid problems like this happening again), but in the mean time things seem to be working so I've got 0.9.5 up in extras-devel, and with any luck 0.9.6 should be showing up there in the next few hours! Once it makes that far if you guys don't report any major problems over the weekend then I'll push 0.9.6 into extras as the first major Beta release (no more "previews" ;-) ).

I've outlined most of the changes previously, but just to re-iterate:

• Clock settings screen - Oooh you guys are going to be caught off guard by this one... I finally got around to adding all of the controls and options there! The only things that aren't functional yet are the Theme browser and About/Help buttons. I will give a break down of each option and what it does in a follow up post.
• Graphics changes - I also finally took some time last night to clean up the main Flip graphics that weren't as great as they could have been (i.e. finally the night mod and exit buttons match... sort of).
• Mood picker changes - Fixed the mood picker to give you a proper colour spectrum to choose from! There was talk before about having a few "preset" colours in addition to the spectrum for shortcuts; there's space for these now, but I don't know what to make them since the spectrum is pretty easy to get all of the major colours from. Feedback on this?
• Lots of changes under the hood - Caching to improve rendering speeds, etc. The alarm settings page is now much more responsive than it was, and things are generally a bit smoother.
• Snooze indicator - When an snooze is active, the "next alarm" date/time indicator will change to show you the word SNOOZE, and the countdown will be time until the alarm occurs again (snooze ends). I need to change the Night theme around to make that countdown easier to read though...
• Other minor bug fixes and changes that I've forgotten to mention here...

So play with it and let me know what you think! As I said, documentation on all of the clock settings options to follow soon once I finish writing it!

Thanks!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Well the key would be to pull that data from somewhere... i.e. stock info has to come from a stock site somehow, weather data needs to come from a weather site, etc. This all really gets beyond the original scope of Flip, since the whole point was to make this as a fully functional alarm clock, not a complete tablet control app... I just don't want to end up building another MediaBox (which has a giant clock display as one of it's screens while music is playing/etc).

That being said, I do like the weather thing... not even so much for the "weather icon" idea, as for some of the possibilities you could do with it. For example, I build a website years ago now that connected to an online weather feed and used that data to update the display of the site... so when the weather was cloudy or overcast, the site's colour theme blended with a gray/dull kind of overlay and the background had clouds gradually move in/appear. If the weather said rain, then there was a dark blue tint to things and rain drops began to fall randomly, etc. That would be pretty awesome to have going on...

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

I wholeheartedly agree - keep Flip simple with its purpose in mind.

Trying to comingle a clock with Weather, stocks, news, RSS, and what not will only make this crazy.

For the weather bit (if you must do it), maybe instead of getting weather info online, it could just take the weather data stored on the tablet from an already installed weather app (like OmWeather or Foreca Weather) and just work off that stored data in the way you mention (I loved that idea of the clock background showing the weather pattern).

So that way you could just leverage off the installed app (with a note to users that they need to have Omweather or Foreca installed for it to work.

Lacking that dedicated weather app, the Flip app would just work normally with normal backgrounds. So this way you do not have to make Flip a dedicated weather app too (or a stock app or a news app etc). Just keep Flip dedicated to being a clock.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

My thoughts exactly, agreed. This is a down the road thing anyways, but it shouldn't be hard to pull the data out of something like OMWeather; I'm surprised acually that somebody hasn't just made a generic "weather data" service yet that other apps can pull the info from via dbus- calls, etc...

Thanks!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

As promised, Flipclock documentation excerpt:

Settings Screen
The Clock Settings screen allows you to control the configuration of Flip itself; options on this screen are application wide (if you want alarm controls you need the Alarm Setup Screen). You can access the Clock Settings screen by either pressing the "Current date display" button on the bottom of the main clock screen, or by pressing your finger down on the clock digits and dragging downwards.


The options provided on the Clock Settings screen are described below:

• Clock Mode : This option allows you to control whether the Flip operates in 12 Hour (AM/PM) or 24 Hour mode.
• Seconds Counter: This option controls whether the seconds ticker/counter will be displayed on the main clock screen. This option only affects themes that support seconds display.
• Alarm Style : This option allows you to control the style in which alarms are setup and controlled:
  • Weekly (default): In this mode Flip allows you to define different alarms for each day of the week. Each alarm is distinct and can be independtly enabled or disabled. Alarms in this mode are not auto-clearing; that means after an alarm goes off, it will remain enabled for the specified day of the next week.
  • Daily : In this mode Flip allows you to define a single "daily" alarm. This is the same approach used by most "standard" alarm clocks; when the alarm is enabled it will occur at the next specified time. So if it's currently 8:00pm, and you set the alarm for 9:00pm, it will occur in one hour; if you set the alarm for 7:00pm it would occur at 7:00pm the next day. Alarms in this mode are auto-clearing, meaning that after the alarm goes off it will automatically become disabled until you manually activate it again.
• Max Alarm Volume : This is the maximum volume that you want Flip to play your alarm sound at. To help ensure alarms are always heard Flip overrides the normal device volume level, so this option lets you control the maximum that Flip will use.
• Insomniac Mode : This option controls whether Insomniac mode is enabled or not. For more information on this special display mode, see the Insomniac Mode help section. You can also toggle this option by pressing the hardware "back" button (looks like an arrow) at any point.
• Insomiac Screen Lock: This option controls whether the screen will be "locked" while in Insomniac mode. When this setting is on (default) if the screen is dimmed (at Insomniac level), pressing anywhere on the display, or any hardware button, will only cause the display to return to normal brightness. You'll then be able to interact with Flip normally. When this setting is off all interactions with the device will wake the display and perform their normal actions. For example, if this setting is on and an alarm occurs while at Insomniac brightness, you can roll over and hit anywhere on the display to wake the display up without worrying about accidentally hitting the alarm off or snooze buttons; if this option is off, you'll be able to hit the alarm off or snooze buttons while at Insomiac brightness.
• Insomniac Backlight : This option controls how dim (or bright) the device backlight will be when Insomniac mode is enabled. The default value of 3 is the lowest possible setting and provides optimal "in the dark" viewing, while a higher value might be desirable for "throughout the day" viewing.

You can change any value on the settings screen simply by pressing on it. For example, if you want to change the clock from the default 12 hour mode to 24 hour mode, simply press the "12 Hr" value, and it will automatically change. Some options, such as the Max Alarm Volume, allow for a more specific value to be defined, and so clicking on these will open the "Value slider" display, giving you a quick and easy way to select the exact value you want.

The Clock Settings screen also allows you to access some of Flip's other control screens via the large buttons:

• About Flip : Opens the Flipclock about/help screen.
• Select Mood : Opens the mood colour picker window. For more information on Mood Colours, how they affect Flip and how to pick one, see the Mood Colours help section.
• Select Theme : Opens the theme browser, allowing you to choose different themes for Flip. For more information on this see the Theme Browser help section.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Just did the upgrade to 0.9.6... first thing i noted is alarms are gone though it appears alarms still exist by the icon in the top display bar. I will give it a go and keep you posted. The app has matured nicely and should remain popular.

Thanks for the hard work and for responding to all of our comments.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

anyone else noticed in .6 that if you use the
swipe motion to access the alarm setting
or options screen then flipclock switches
to night mode. I get a very futuristic looking
alarm setting screen and a blank grey empty
options screen.

I would prefer that the swipe actions not
reset the theme but rather leave it as is.

Otherwise, seems better than ever.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

I noticed this today too, the swipe ranges need to be tweaked more. The problem is swipe left/right changes theme, up/down changes to alarm settings to clock settings. If you swipe diagonally (more than 40px to the left/right while going up down), you end up triggering both screen change and theme change! I will increase the left right swipe values to be MUCH higher so that you don't do this by accident.

Thanks!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Wow this is looking pretty good. Any chance a feature could be added so that instead of flipclock just playing one mp3 for the alarm that it could randomly choose one from a directory of mp3's? Perhaps each time it loops it could choose a different mp3 even.

Oh and a 20 minute snooze option would be nice :D

Great work!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Thanks for the feedback!

One of my original plans was to have an alert mode that would trigger the last playlist from media player, but further investigation found that the media player API was changing and I decided it wasn't worth it. Okay so here's the question for you guys then, what's better, playing files from a directory, or from a playlist file (i.e. ..m3u file)? A "random" option would of course be present too..

lol 20 minutes, never though of that, okay I'll add it. Actually, now that I have the slider interface, do you guys think I should change it to a slider value so that you can pick any snooze time you want (i.e. anything between 1 minute and 60?), or is it better to just have a few preset times to choose from? Feedback please!

Another interesting point... I noticed some other devels have started work on "MultiTimer, a clock/timer/stopwatch" application. I'd planned to add timer/stopwatch functionality to Flip down the road (after all it's easy to do, just had to change the functions that trigger time updates and provide an extra screen or two for the "timer/stopwatch" controls), but do you think the functionality of the two apps is separate enough to leave alone, or should we be working together to make one really good solid "everything to do with time" application?

In my mind it seems silly to be building two different apps that are so similiar in an open source community, but perhaps the use cases make enough sense to be separate? After all, not everyone who wants a clock wants a stop watch, and not everyone who wants a stop watch wants an alarm clock right? On the other hand, if they're willing I think it'd make a heck of a lot more sense to have those devel's working with me on making Flip the "Defacto clock/timing app" for Maemo so that users don't have to choose between applications that overlap in functionality so much.... I can just see that down the road people will ask the MultiTimer folk to add alarm clock support...

Thoughts on that one??

Thanks!

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

I can't speak to the development aspect, as to whether it's highly inefficient to have two projects instead of one. I suppose it is.

Overlap of function seems a common open-source outcome judging from the Maemo media players selection.

Speaking as a user, I don't care that they're separate apps. My use for a stopwatch or countdown timer are so different from my use for a clock or alarm-clock that I'm fine with going to two different apps. There have been times I've found it simpler to have functions in different apps than a single app that does more.

A lot of the pleasure in FlipClock is aesthetic. You could give it a different look for a stopwatch/timer, but the primary theme doesn't seem very apropos. For the stopwatch/timer, I'd prefer great simplicity.

Finally, they're developing specifically for Maemo 5; and, fortunately, you haven't abandoned us Maemo 4 Luddites.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Well either directory or m3u would be fine for me.

I think a slider from 1-60 would certainly be able to satisfy everyone.

Sounds fine to me, although I can't think of anything that I would use a stop watch for.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Playing files form a directory sounds really good and very easy to me.

Also a slider to adjust snooze to anything from 1-60 minutes would be greatly appreciated =).

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Can't think of any situation where I personally would use a stop watch on my tablet.

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

Jolouis, in version 0.9.6, I must hit “Alarm Off” twice before it turns off

Re: FlipClock Beta
 

How about a countdown timer? I already use one on the tablet.

But I don't care if it's built into Flip Clock.