Fullscreen Digital Alarm Clock

[nhandler]

I'm looking for a fullscreen clock application (as well as a fullscreen clock screensaver). The clock needs to be digital. If it has an alarm feature, it would be even better. The idea, if it wasn't obvious, is to be able to use my laptop as a full alarm clock. The reason I was after the application as well as the screensaver, was so I could activate the clock at will, and so it would go on automatically after a short period of time. If anyone knows of a program that could do this, could you please let me know? The only ones I found were for windows. Thanks.

[Bragador]

I'm looking for a fullscreen clock application (as well as a fullscreen clock screensaver). The clock needs to be digital. If it has an alarm feature, it would be even better. The idea, if it wasn't obvious, is to be able to use my laptop as a full alarm clock. The reason I was after the application as well as the screensaver, was so I could activate the clock at will, and so it would go on automatically after a short period of time. If anyone knows of a program that could do this, could you please let me know? The only ones I found were for windows. Thanks.

There are none. Sorry.

I've been looking for one myself but nobody made something like that.

:(

[nhandler]

That really stinks. I might try to make my own. I'm starting to learn some java, and could always use cron for the alarm part. But it stinks that no one has already made one.

[fuscia]

i don't get it. why would you need an alarm clock to be fullscreen? (isn't that like wanting your face to be one giant nose?)

[Bragador]

You might want to read that to see what I mean.

There are solutions alright but they stink.

ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/01/22/how-to-use-your-linux-machine-as-an-alarm/

[Bragador]

i don't get it. why would you need an alarm clock to be fullscreen? (isn't that like wanting your face to be one giant nose?)

When I train I use my computer clock to count my heartbeats. Having a fullscreen clock would be quite useful indeed :)

[fuscia]

When I train I use my computer clock to count my heartbeats. Having a fullscreen clock would be quite useful indeed :)

i thought it might be something like that. i was hoping for something like that to time tabata exercises. i ended up using dumbell swings which take about a second anyway, being somewhat like a pendulum.

[Bragador]

i thought it might be something like that. i was hoping for something like that to time tabata exercises. i ended up using dumbell swings which take about a second anyway, being somewhat like a pendulum.

Maybe someone will make a decent clock for Ubuntu someday...

Anyway, thanks to you I've just discovered a new kind of training. I had never heard of tabata exercises before. A kind of super intense interval training it seems. I wonder how good they really are though. Since it's only 10 seconds of rest it must be hard. I'll have to try it.

[Gen2ly]

I like this idea. I typically prefer to fall to sleep with a radio station on Exaile and am unable to use its Alarm Clock. Also if you travel with a laptop this can be useful. hhmmmm

[ssavelan]

Yeah, I'm just looking for an alarm clock that I can use on my laptop. Doesn't need to be fullscreen or anything.

[nike984]

Maybe you want something like this?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/da5zeay/362250979/

there are a PC & Mac version for this clock,but not linux yet.
http://davidseah.com/archives/2007/01/17/a-chindogu-clock-for-procrastinators/

However, you can still use it with wine, I' ve just tried and it worked fine.
http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif

[nhandler]

Maybe you want something like this?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/da5zeay/362250979/

there are a PC & Mac version for this clock,but not linux yet.
http://davidseah.com/archives/2007/01/17/a-chindogu-clock-for-procrastinators/

However, you can still use it with wine, I' ve just tried and it worked fine.
http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif

That looks fine. The only problem is the 15 minute fast part.

[crimesaucer]

When I train I use my computer clock to count my heartbeats. Having a fullscreen clock would be quite useful indeed :)

You could write a .conkyrc for a large digital clock that you could run when you work out...and then turn it off when you're done...just an idea...

[init1]

Try my script. It can be executed in command line environment for fullscreen.


tar -xf time.tar
sh time.sh

edit the timer.sh for the alarm.


sleep 5m;xterm

this waits 5 minutes and then executes the xterm.

[cody50]

for an alarm clock (without the clock) I use sanduhr (its in the repos) it is just a timer with an hour glass telling you how much time is left. you can set it for a specifiic time (your wakeup time) and what I do is have it launch vlc and play a song. It works well for me.

[nhandler]

Try my script. It can be executed in command line environment for fullscreen.


tar -xf time.tar
sh time.sh

edit the timer.sh for the alarm.


sleep 5m;xterm

this waits 5 minutes and then executes the xterm.

That is a nice script, but I'm looking for a clock with a GUI, not a terminal based one.

[Tundro Walker]

i thought it might be something like that. i was hoping for something like that to time tabata exercises. i ended up using dumbell swings which take about a second anyway, being somewhat like a pendulum.

Wow. I just got done reading some google about the Tabata method. That's insane! I've always know that time & intensity were the key factors to training, and ramping up intensity was usually better, otherwise (if you ramp up time) you end up with these annoying 3 hour workouts. But that Tabata stuff is insane! It's almost like the bodybuilder routine, except at a perverted pace. (IE: bodybuilders usually go with very short rest periods, to train the muscle to maximize volume for storage and recuperation rather than strength, which is longer rests). I usually do some high-intensity interval training when I work-out, but I think I'll try that Tabata thing. Maybe with some squat thrusts or something (something w/o weight for starters.)

Awesome, Fuscia!

[Tundro Walker]

Aren't there some screensavers that show a huge clock? I remember some analog clock screensavers, but there must be a huge digital clock screensaver.

Get it, and then get Brightside, which will let you use screen edges/corners to do things. Set it so when you toss your mouse into (let's say) the right corner, your computer will automatically go into screensaver mode, your huge clock will show up, and you'll be ready to rock.

[Golyadkin]

Tundro, what you mean is maybe the T3D hack of xscreensaver? An analog clock made of 3D bubbles.

[Tundro Walker]

EDIT: I noticed my first mistake...I used "hh:mm:ss" for the time format, and Gambas treats "mm" as month...LOL! I corrected that by using Gambas' default "long time" format, which does hh:mm:ss properly. I've updated the .zip with the newly compiled project.
~~~~~~~~~~~
I've attached something I whipped together in Gambas real fast (Gambas is Linux's Pseudo Visual Basic IDE). The "Clock.zip" contains the "Clock" project folder, and the "Clock.sh" is the executable, which you run like a shell script (IE: usually by just double-clicking on it and selecting "Run" instead of "Display"). If it works right, you should see is a black window popup with green time on it (see attached screenshot). (You'll also see an annoying console window popup, which, if you close it, will kill the time window. Not sure how to get rid of that yet.)

While it's an executable shell script, I'm not sure if it requires some dependencies to work. I know Gambas installed all kinds of crap on my system, and uses QT-based GUI's for development. But, after dumping the project into an executable, I noticed a JAVA form and such. I guess everything it needs to run is right there. But, maybe not. (Translation: it works fine for me...then again, I have Gambas fully installed. Your mileage may vary. I'm not a Computer Science major. I'm a computer / programmer hobbyist. So, don't bag on me too much.)

It's a dinky little program that just updates the clock / timer each second. Nothing fancy. You wanted an alarm in it, which I could probably do given more time. I'm thinking the following options might be interesting to pursue...

1) first & foremost, add an "Options" button, preferably something that's invisible until moused-over in the corner or something. That way it's not obtrusive. On options menu, allow user to adjust the following..

2) Background / Foreground colors of clock

3) Allow various date / time formats (military time, standard time, date + time, date only, time only, hh:mm, hh:mm:ss, milliseconds, etc)

4) Allow several 3 alarm times, and let use set which ones will chime off and which won't. EG: You could set alarms for 6am, 12pm & 6pm, but only have the 12pm one set to go off. When alarm goes off, could make screen blink a few times, or (not sure how yet w/o working in more lib's) have it play a sound. (I'd like to be able to do that w/o linking in some external code libraries, but might not work.)

I'm thinking someone could do this better in C++. But, if you'd like me to pursue this, I've got some free-time available for a fun little side-project... (Been looking for an excuse to learn Gambas anyways.)

[nhandler]

Well, I can't run it. When I double click it and hit run, nothing happens. If I launch it with ./Clock.sh, I get some error "bash: ./Clock.sh: /usr/bin/gbx: bad interpreter: No such file or directory"

[Golyadkin]

I get an error about clock.sh not being in any known character encoding.

[Tundro Walker]

Woo-Hoo! Let's hear it for DLL Hel...I mean...Dependency Hel...I mean...

Looking in the repo's, I think you need to install the "gambas-runtime" package. Reason I suggest this is because of its repo description...


This package includes the Gambas interpreter needed to run Gambas applications.

It looks like a pretty small download (98.7kb d/l ... 274kb uncompressed & installed)


sudo apt-get install gambas-runtime

Toss that in a terminal and run it. That should install the package (along with any dependencies, which looks like there's a libC depen.) Or, open Synaptic, search for "gambas-runtime", and install it.

If that doesn't work, then I'll probably scratch this project, as I don't want to play "chase the tail" trying to figure out how to get a Gambas executable to run. (I was already annoyed with Gambas as it is, as it didn't like about 90% of the code I imported from my other VB projects.)

[Gen2ly]

Hmm, nice work. This probably work best though as a screensaver.

Login the the gnome-mailing-list and ask them about it.

http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/screensaver-list

[nike984]

Maybe you want something like this?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/da5zeay/362250979/

there are a PC & Mac version for this clock,but not linux yet.
http://davidseah.com/archives/2007/01/17/a-chindogu-clock-for-procrastinators/

However, you can still use it with wine, I' ve just tried and it worked fine.
http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif

This might be another choice
http://www.zachleat.com/Projects/alarmd/

It is a full screen alarm clock embedded inside a web browser,
This clock is well introduced in this page
http://lifehacker.com/software/notifications/wake-up-to-a-youtube-video-with-alarmd-271043.php

[Tundro Walker]

See...NOW someone comes up with a viable option! LOL!

I think I'll mess with this this weekend anyways. It'd be nice to have something that isn't web-reliant.

I know Gambas has a built-in sound lib, so I should be able to get it to play a sound as alarm. And a "silent" alarm of flashing the screen would be easy enough.

Not sure if I could get it to play a movie. I'm thinking it would be more trouble than it's worth. IE: I know Gambas has to have an "execute" command, so I could get it to execute an application, like Totem, to play a movie. But, that would require someone has the specific app installed. Since there's like 15 different movie-playing apps a person could have installed, it'd be annoying coding it to find specific ones, and then figuring out the exact command-line executions for each to get them to play the movie. I'll look into that if I have time, but having it play movies as an alarm is not high on the priority list.

[edeion]

I think I have what you wanted (and the funny thing is that you are very likely to already have it on your computer). As always the simpler the better. Issue this command in a term, and you'll see :

xclock -digital -fg white -bg black -brief -face Courier:size=200 &

Hope you like it !

Vincent

[nhandler]

I think I have what you wanted (and the funny thing is that you are very likely to already have it on your computer). As always the simpler the better. Issue this command in a term, and you'll see :

xclock -digital -fg white -bg black -brief -face Courier:size=200 &

Hope you like it !

Vincent

Thanks a lot! I haven't really tried xclock in the past. It looks like this should do what I want. I just need to find a way to make it look better when I make it fullscreen. Thanks again.

[edeion]

I guess you'd like to get the time centered in the window... Unfortunately, I read in the manpage in the bugs section : « When in digital mode, the string should be centered automatically » which means that some others want it centered too but also that noone has corrected it yet. We should try to fix it... But I have no time at the moment :-/

[K.Mandla]

dclock (http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=dclock).

[edeion]

Oops, I missed that one ! Well, it crashed when I maximized the window, but it looks rather promising. Thanks Mandla !

Vincent

[KennedyWarren]

My colleague is a techie and loves gadgets but he is always late for work as the shift timing does not suit him. Is there an alarm clock that has interesting features that I can buy for him that would suit the different needs of people?

[JackieChan]

I know a few alarm clock apps, but they aren't full screen. You should try making your own if you know a thing or two about java.

[berteh]

Old post, but if anyone still looks for that kind of app I like
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/TimerScreenlet?content=99412

count up/down, scalable size, customizable text, neat interface:
http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-m1/m99412-1.png

Install "screenlets" from package manager (eg synaptic) and add this timer to your active screenlets.

[nhandler]

I realized I never followed up with this thread. In the end, I ended up using dclock. I created a small script that kills any running instance of dclock,launches dclock, and then makes it fullscreen. I then bound the script to a keyboard shortcut to make it easier/faster to run.



#!/bin/sh

killall dclock
sleep 1s
dclock -nobell -nomiltime -tails -noscroll -noblink -nofade -noalarm -seconds -bd "black" -bg "black" -fg "red" -led_off "black" &
sleep 1s
wmctrl -r dclock -b add,fullscreen,above

[Austin25]

i thought it might be something like that. i was hoping for something like that to time tabata exercises. i ended up using dumbell swings which take about a second anyway, being somewhat like a pendulum.
You have a pendulum of one meter?

[weegreenblobbie]

I wanted to use this from my mail client's calendar as an alarm that will get my attention. I also wanted to display a message so I would know why the clock poped up. One problem with xclock is that it's strftime format does not handle the newline characther '%n', so I couldn't fit a message properly in the display. So I created two small Python scripts that add those features I wanted:

1) Launch the digital clock with a custom message specified on the command line

2) If the clock was already launched, running the script again will terminate the existing clock

Launching script (~/bin/my_alarm):

#!/usr/bin/python
# :mode=python: jEdit modeline

import os
import sys
import subprocess
import time

if __name__ == "__main__":

not_active = True

# Check if the alarm gui is up

p = subprocess.Popen(['ps','u'], stdout = subprocess.PIPE)
stdout, stderr = p.communicate()

lines = stdout.split("\n")

for line in lines:

if "my_alarm_gui.py" in line and "/usr/bin/python" in line:

not_active = False

tokens = line.split()

pid = tokens[1]

os.system("kill -TERM %s" % pid)

if not_active:

os.system("~/bin/my_alarm_gui.py %s &" % " ".join(sys.argv[1:]))

time.sleep(0.5)

os.system('wmctrl -r "My Alarm Gui" -b add,fullscreen,above')
my_alarm script launches the digital clock implemented in Python and TK (~/bin/my_alarm_gui.py):

#!/usr/bin/python

from Tkinter import *
import sys
import time

def tick(title):
global time1
# get the current local time from the PC
time2 = time.strftime(title + '%n%F %H:%M:%S')
# if time string has changed, update it
if time2 != time1:
time1 = time2
clock.config(text=time2)
# calls itself every 200 milliseconds
# to update the time display as needed
# could use >200 ms, but display gets jerky
clock.after(200, tick, title)

if __name__ == "__main__":

root = Tk()
root.title("My Alarm Gui")
time1 = ''
clock = Label(root, font=('courier', 96, 'bold'), bg='black', fg="white")
clock.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=1)

title = " ".join(sys.argv[1:])

tick(title)
root.mainloop( )
Example usage:

$ my_alarm Some kind of message
# The message is displayed and becomes full screen
# Switch to another desktop screen, open a shell
$ my_alarm
# The fullscreen digital clock will disappear.

[overdrank]

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5451/necromancing.jpg
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