You could get an idea by looking around and comparing a quartz clock/watch with a non quartz one?

Jim,

While I truly appreciate your offer of giving beta testers a free keycode, I just purchased the upgrade from V 2.6 to 3.0. $9.95 is such a small amount to pay for such a great work of art! Thank you for all your hard work.

In the comments area during purchase I sent a note about two things, but I thought I'd post them here too, so they don't get lost:

During the purchase I clicked to create a new account. It was unclear how to best return to the purchase cycle once the account had been created. I looked around for a while and finally just hit the back button a few times.

Also, using IE 7 (I use almost every browser out there since I'm a web developer myself but I happened to open IE 7 for this purchase) I immediately noticed that I got a pop-up warning about an unsecure object - http:// - being loaded on the secure - https:// - page. (This warning does not appear on firefox - it just ignores/refuses to load the object in question.)

Examining the files I was able to find an image's full path hard coded into the site's "main.js" file. That image is what is causing the warning:

var Pic1 = new Array()
Pic1[3] = '/images/titlebar/TitleBarA.jpg'
Pic1[0] = '/images/titlebar/TitleBarB.jpg'
Pic1[1] = '/images/titlebar/TitleBarC.jpg'
Pic1[2] = 'http://www.prolific.com/images/titlebar/TitleBarD.jpg'

If you let prolific know to just change the last image path listed here to be the same as the ones above it then IE users won't be told something on the page is unsecure.

Thanks, I'll pass it along to Prolific.

What can I say? I just like the old clock from MA2.6 better! :)

However, since you've already done the hard part, it should be relatively easy to add a checkbox to the clock configuration tab, labeled "Smooth second hand movement" (or something like that). If it's checked, do what you're doing now; if it's not, then just reset milliseconds in the time to zero, before doing what you're doing now. Effectively, the second hand will be drawn in the same spot for 1000 milliseconds, before the "second" changes, and hand position is updated to a new spot. It should only take one line of code (plus the code to save and restore one more option) to make it work either way.

MA2.6 has the stuttering second hand; MA3Beta9 has the smooth (or sweep) second hand.

~Ralph S.

Why are you figuring milliseconds since the last screen refresh? The angle of the second hand (in degrees, with 0 deg = straight up [12 o'clock]) would be:

getSystemTime(systemTime)
numsecs = systemTime.wsecond;
if smoothSecondHand.checked then numSecs = numSecs + (systemTime.wMilliseconds / 1000)
angle = 6 * numsecs // 6 degrees per second

Now that you know the angle of the second hand, you can use normal trig functions to figure out exactly where the hand is supposed to be, at the current time. You don't need to figure out the elapsed time since the last refresh; you only need to know the current time.

Hope this helps, (and makes the clock code easier)

~Ralph S.

Normal trig functions......hahahahahahahahaha!

The analog clock code is already in and working, never to be revistited. Now I'm on to the digital clock.

Actually, having thought about it, you don't really want to call trig functions on every refresh cycle, because they're time-consuming, and very expensive (in terms of clock cycles). If I were doing this, I would create an array [0..59] of coordinate positions, representing the positions of the end of the second hand at each whole second. (The other end of the second hand is in the center of the clock, and remains constant.) This table gets initialized on startup; once you've calculated the positions, they don't ever have to be recalculated. On any drawing cycle, the "current second" is determined by reading systemTime.wSecond. For a stuttering second hand, you simply look up "position[curSec]". For a sweep hand, you can calculate the position by reading the milliseconds, and calculating the difference in position between position[cursec] and position[curSec + 1]:

dx = (position[curSec + 1].x - position[cursec].x) * systemTime.wMilliseconds / 1000
position.x = position[curSec].x + dx;

Repeat these two statements for position.y.

This code is fairly simple, it can be done entirely using integer operation (which makes it very efficient) and it's very easy to skip over the millisecond adjustment to convert from a sweep hand to a ticking hand.

I hope you'll reconsider your decision to "never revisit the analog clock code" again.

~Ralph S.

Nope.

Everything is perfect now. Thanks.

You will have many choices.

For what it's worth, I wrote a simple test program to show a moving second hand, including a checkbox to make it sweep or tick; it's "secondHand.exe" and can be downloaded from http://sickinger.net/download

The code for this has also been posted, it's "sh_main.pas". (Because I'm a pascal programmer.) The key code (that would be applicable to the MA3 clock) is less than 25 lines. (For initialization the lookup tables and drawing the second hand, with an option for sweep or ticking.)

~Ralph S.

It's REALLY time to move on to something else. This subject is a dead parrot.

philosopher - thanks for catching that HTML error. JimR has fixed it.

hello Jim, nice work on the MA3 crystal clock. I'm glad to report there are no multimonitor issues so far. on the other hand, is there any intention to allow the aquarium to be switched to nighttime lighting?

I vaguely remember you mentioning it but i cant really find the post/thread.

Thumbs up for the good work. Keeping the other thumb around for the grand finale and unveiling!

No Grand Finale or unveiling. Improvements will continue until they nail down the lid on my coffin.

There are all kinds of multimonitor issues, mostly having to do with users setting the monitors to different resolutions.

The user will eventually have much greater control of the background colors. The foreground "lighting" is more problematic, since MA3 uses Shaders now instead of the Direct3D lighting model. I'm working on it, though.

at this point, I almost wish I hadn't heard of the new version until it had progressed, or perhaps I should quit checking the forums.....it seems that everything but the fish and corals are important..music, clocks, multiple screens...yes, I understand it's all a process... yes, I understand that the bigger the group, the more problems get sorted out earlier....I'm just to the point where I'd like to see the gist of the aquarium move forward, and I'm in a bit of a crabby mood today, so forgive me for what sounds like complaining.....

iMark, - I second that. - Hence my 'Cromwell' comment!

I know what you mean iMark. I was just sitting down to bring the clams to life (fun) when I got a wave of complaints that the clock/calendar wasn't in yet (not fun). There are even those who want me to go back and tear apart the clock code, even though it's working perfectly.

You're Welcome
 

Jim,

You're welcome. I'm glad I could help out a little bit. I try to only comment when I think it may be useful and I can potentially provide some information that may be acted on.

Clams? It will be wonderful to see the clams moving! I know the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So here's a vote for letting you have some fun and getting the clams going instead of the clock/calendar additions!

I've got to finish up the clock/calendar first. At my age, I'll never remember where I was if I leave it half-finished.

By my reckoning, I'd say you were still up at around 4am this morning!

..... The sooner your wife gets back home the better! ... ;)

How can we ensure you only devote your time to fish and corals, once the clock/calender is finished?

..... How about we only respond to those items, and ban anything else, from all discussions! - And ban anyone who transgresses?

Fine by me :)

Well Jim we have been testing all the versions so far on different systems ( P4 and I7 ) with different windows version ( XP, Vista 32 and Vista 64 ), different graphic cards 9800 pro (older ), 8800 and HD4870 X2, 1 and 2 screens with configurations from 1, 2 and 6 GB int. mem. but so far only one bug i reported ( and a few people more ) about stripes in the lower half on the right side.
But all seems okay now also the install version no problems although i prefer my 2.6 key with more fish and no screen everytime asking for TESTFISH.
Thanks again and really looking forward for the new fish.
Greetz and thanks from Holland!

Guus Eberstadt van der Velden

A solution has been found!

Keycode 3.0 sorted, 10USD is not a lot for this fantastic update :D

hello Jim, thats great to know that you intend to have an iterative approach to this wonderful screensaver.

on the other hand, i advise having a "if-its-aint-broke-dont-fix-it" approach. there's endless ways to improve on certain aspects (eg the clock) but i feel once a certain threshold has been reach, efforts could have been better diverted to the next to-do rather than the stuff that has already been done because improvements, will at best, be marginal.

you have done a remarkable job so far!

Don't worry - those are my thoughts exactly.

Also, would it be possible to make the installer version of MA3 be able to overwite the previous installer version so no uninstalling is necessary. No big deal for most people but I feel that apps that do this seem far more user friendly than tell you to uninstall the older version first.

Thanks

Regards,
Neil

It should already do that.

excellent!

Clock progress - My first attempt at the digital clock was not entirely successful. I was trying for a slight glow to the numerals, but they just look blurry. I'll have to try a different tact.

Re: "would it be possible to make the installer version of MA3 be able to overwite the previous installer version so no uninstalling is necessary."

It does, and quite politely, too.

terrific that things will be moving forward..we do love the aquarium and run it on the flatscreens in the lobby of our office...however our clients are starting to ask if we're spiking the water with martini's, due to the wonky behaviour of the fish ...*wink....I will offer up that the whole project is brilliant, as usual....

Post a picture!

yeh, would be great to see!

Thanks.
 

Just wanted to thank Jim for his assistance in getting a MA3 key. :D

Jim I think that after your countless sleepless nights on this project you deserve some fun. So I say Clams ahoy....

I know the clock is important to some but, after all a real aquarium doesn't have a clock in it, unless you count the time I dropped my Timex in accidentally. It took a licking but kept on ticking.

I think a lot of people would rather have the fun stuff just like you do.

my 2 cents.

Cheers. :lol:

People complain the loudest when a feature which was in MA2.6 is missing from MA3. The two programs have almost nothing in common, so each feature has to be re-created from scratch. Either Will or Edgar did the clock/calendar in MA2.6, and even if I had their code, I wouldn't be able to understand it. So I've got to build this stuff from ground-zero. One more day to get the digital clock hooked up, then a day for the calendar, then a day for some sort of interface, then it's on to the clams.

Yer almost there, I see clams on yer horizon.;)

Jim, surely you of all people know better by now than to make a statement like that. ;)