Today's release of SBSH Clock is the initial release of a new product that we plan developing intensively targeting a full clock/watch/timepiece application that will follow the SBSH style and design and will be designed with the help of our users on the forums, following feature requests and reports on issues as we do with our additional products.
Version 0.9 include SBSH Clock Today screen plugin and the initial SBSH Clock options section. According to the SBSH Clock product design plan, the main section that SBSH Clock will feature will become a stand alone application, similar to PocketWeather's WeatherConsole application.
When this section will be ready for release, SBSH Clock stand alone application will present more advanced alarm features, world time section, timer/stopper features, a few of the advanced alarm tweaks that were requested in the past on our forums and so on... Since we are still developing the SBSH Clock main section it is still not included with the first public beta version, but we will be including this with upcoming public beta builds as we will progress towards the official first release of the product
All of SBSH Clock public beta versions can be downloaded for free from our site for all of our forums members (registering our forums is of course free too
). The reason for this decision is that we want as many of our forums members as possible to take part in the design of the product, like we do with our additional products, targeting the download for forum members will be the best way for us to get comments and ideas from maximum number of users, and eventually I believe will lead to the best product result that we can achieve
I believe that from our experience on the forums and our products until today, working with users has proven to be the best way to reach the best product, after all, those are the users that will also use the software eventually and together we will be able to create the best result.So, after this start, lets move to some more interesting stuff
What is SBSH Clock 0.9?
1.Today screen pluginSBSH Clock Today screen plugin offers two display modes, expanded and compact.
The expended mode offers four analog clocks display for tracking multiple time zones. Each clock can be configured to track a different time zone, include a custom caption for it (the decision to allow custom captions instead of automatically offer a pre defines list of cities is to allow users to include any caption they would like to each clock, for example using the caption "Home" instead of a city name and so on), and you can force each clock to use it's daylight saving time for that clock (more information on this option will be included below).
When using compact mode SBSH Clock Today screen plugin will present the current date using the device long date format and on the right side it will also present the current time. This addition should also help those of you that use the new phone edition devices where the time field was removed from the top tray bar. (although SBSH Clock won't replace another smaller solution for a time field addition that was discussed on the PB forums).
When installing SBSH Clock, it will automatically replace the default Date Today screen item that comes with the device. Clicking SBSH Clock plugin icon (the top-left clock icon) will open a context menu allowing to switch between the two modes and enter the SBSH Clock options section. Clicking anywhere else on the SBSH Clock section will open the device clock control panel section, like the default Date plugin.
When using the D-Pad and highlighting SBSH Clock, clicking the D-Pad enter button will also popup SBSH Clock context menu, as if the plugin icons was clicked using the stylus.
2. Skins
SBSH Clock today screen plugin can be fully skinned
Skinning SBSH Clock can't be easier
all that needs to be done is create a clock background TGA image and two TGA images that will be painted on top of the background image for the hours and minutes hands. Both pointing to mid-hour. Unlike other clock applications today that support clocks skinning and require to create 60 different images for each of the hands positions, with SBSH Clock we've decided to implement a much more advanced code that will rotate the two hands images on run-time with anti-aliased calculation, which results a really great looking rotating effect (pretty much the same way that rotating is working with applications like Photoshop and so on..). The important aspect of this decision, apart from the fact that designed won't need to work that hard to create each clock hand imaged on 60 different positions, is that SBSH Clock skins are really small in size! And instead of loading 120 different images SBSH Clock can skin any clock using 3 images only
thus consuming MUCH less memory and less memory consume on the device for each skin For those of you that would like to start playing with SBSH Clock skins, I will be posting on our site the simple skinning guide with the default skin files as a sample in about three-four hours and I'll post back on our site when this will be ready and posted.
3. SBSH Clock options section
The options section currently offers a skin option, which allows you to choose any folder on your device where the skin files you wish to load are located in. If the necessary skin files can't be found on the selected folder, SBSH Clock will simply revert to the default skin.
On the clock settings tab you can configure the four clocks details that you wish to present. Using the top combo box on this setting page you can choose which clock details to configure and below you can set the clock details.
The option to force day light saving time usage is designed for time zones where the transition date between daylight and standard time is not define (for example Israel where it is defined each year differently, by the government I believe, but I'm not sure about it...) and therefore SBSH Clock can't know when it should use the day light time bias for this location and when the standard time should be used.
Downloading SBSH Clock
IMPORTANT: After installing SBSH Clock you will need to refresh your Today screen items to activate it (this will become automatically with the next build of SBSH Clock). To do so, you can either soft reset the device or enter-exit the Today screen plugins section.
SBSH Clock can be downloaded from free from our site in the following URL:
http://www.sbsh.net/products/clock/index.php?page=download
SBSH Clock supports Windows Mobile 2003 first and second addition devices and Windows Mobile 5 devices.
SBSH Clock product pages on our site can be located in the following URL:
http://www.sbsh.net/products/clock/
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