Great Time Clock Contents
The Great Time Clock (Table of Contents)

Preferences

System Time

System Info

Alarms

Message (Alarm)

About

Short Cut Key Description

With The Great Time Clock having focus, that is the clock being the foreground application, you can use some short cut keys to bring up the specific dialog boxes used to set clock options.  The following are the short cut keys for doing this:

     To bring up

          Preferences - Alt-P

          System Time - Alt-T

          System Information - Alt-I

          Alarms - Alt-L

          Messages (Alarm) - Alt-M

          About - Alt-A

Quitting The Great Time Clock

To quickly quit The Great Time Clock hold down the ALT key and press the left mouse button on the clock face.  This is the same as going to the preferences dialog box and clicking on the "End" button.

Quickly Brining Up Preferences

To quickly bring up the Preferences dialog box press the right mouse button on the clock face.

Moving the Clock on the Screen

 If you press the left mouse button on the clock face the "Drag and Drop" titlebar will show up.  If you click the clock face with the left mouse button with the title bar active the titlebar will disappear.  Grab the title bar and drag the clock outline to the desired screen location and drop the clock.

Screen Location

You can position the clock anywhere on the screen, even extending the clock off the edge if you would like.  You can click on the clock face with the left mouse button and the "Drag and Drop" titlebar will appear.  Grab this titlebar and move the clock where you desire.

Recommendations

I recommend that the clock be placed on the menu bar of a maximized application on the far right to the left of the maximize and minimize buttons.  I prefer blue background with white letters in Helvitica font at a point size of 9.75.


About
About The Great Time Clock

DEDICATION

I dedicate The Great Time Clock to a woman I fell in love with, Diane Elaine Levin.

DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

This clock was written in Visual Basic for Windows 1.0 and then converted to Visual Basic for Windows 2.0.  It was written without the use of any third party custom controls nor any third party dynamic link libraries (DLLs).

CREDITS

I wish to acknowledge credit to the authors of the book "Visual Basic How-To", by Robert Arnson, Daniel Rosen, Mitchell Waite, and Jonathan Zuck, published by The Waite Group.  Also, I would like to thank those of you who have cared to send me information about problems with the program and suggestions to future enhancements.

DISCLAIMER

Users of The Great Time Clock must accept this disclaimer of warranty:

"The Great Time Clock is supplied as is. Jim Blaich disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. Jim Blaich assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of  The Great Time Clock."

The Great Time Clock is a "freeware program" and is provided at no charge to the user.  Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system.

Jim Blaich reserves the right to deny the use of this program to any person regardless of reason.  This overrides all other rights of any individual using this program under the terms of this disclaimer/agreement.

DISTRIBUTION RESTRICTIONS

The Great Time Clock is distributed as freeware.  All rights to the program are reserved.  The program should not be considered public domain.  You are free to use the program without any requirement to send the author money.  The program can be distributed to any other user or business as long as the distribution media contains this document and the program unaltered in any way.

This program must not be contained in any media where the cost to the end user is greater than $3.00.  That is, including all other contents of the media; including this program and its supporting document the cost to the end user cannot exceed $3.00.  The only exception to this restriction would be any distribution through a BBS system.  If the cost of the BBS subscription is greater than $3.00 the program can still be distributed through the BBS legitimately.


System Time
Setting the System Time

One of the bigest advantages to using The Great Time Clock is that it is just about the only existing program that acts like a TSR that allows you to quickly pop up a dialog box to change the computer's system time.  This can be done by using the Windows control panel but it requires that you go back to the Program Manager or File Manager and actually run the Control Panel then select the time option and then change it.

Setting the System Time is about as easy as it comes.  Select the hour and use the scroll bars to increase or decrease the hour display.  Select the minutes and use the scroll bars in the same way.  Select the seconds and use the scroll bars in the same way also.

Selecting the "Ok" button then sets the time.  Selecting "Cancel" aborts the system time setting.


System Info
System Information

System Information displays current information about your current session.  Most of the information is pretty self explanatory.

Windows Directories

This is where your Windows is being executed from.  The name chosen at the install time is not allways the default "C:\windows."  In the case of Word Group for Windows one might choose "C:\winwgp" instead.

Windows Mode

This indicates whether you are running in "standard" or "386 Enhanced" mode.  Standard mode is primarily used in Windows 3.1 on a 80286 CPU and 386 Enhanced mode is used on 80386 32 bit CPUs.

CPU Type

This indicates the CPU type.  If you have an AT 80286 then you are using a 16bit 80286 CPU.  If you are using a 80386 based AT then you are uisng a 32bit 80386 CPU.

Math Chip

This indicates whether you have a 80287 or 80387 chip installed.  If you have a 80486 then you have a match chip installed.

Available Memory

This indicates the total amount of free memory on your system.

Keyboard Type and Number of Function Keys

Keyboard type is the type of keyboard specified at the time the Window program was installed.  The number of function keys indicates how many function keys are available on the keyboard.

Screen Capabilities

This indicates what your screen resolution is and the the number of colors available.

Printer Capabilities

Indicates the capabilities of your printer's output.  On dot matrix printer you will see the printers resolution and the number of colors.  Probably on two for dot matrix and black and white laser printers.


Alarms
Setting System Alarms

Setting System Alarms

As you can see there are 8 possible alarms that can be set.  Each alarm can be independently turned on or off.  The only way to enable an alarm is to enter a valid time.  Be sure you don't enter a time that is before the actual time and check the "On" check box because the alarm will then be triggered.  When you exit The Great Time Clock these alarms and their state will be saved.

You enter the time in military or 24 hour time.The system won't allow you to enter an invalid time.

You can specify the number of beeps between 1 and 99.  Be advised that if you select a number as high as 99 you could be listening to the computer beeping for quite a while.

From the main clock face you can press ALT-L to bring up the Alarms dialog box.

From the Alarms dialog box you can press the "Messages" button and bring up the Messages dialog box.

See Also:

Messages


Messages
Messages (Alarms)

Alarm messages are maintained through the current session.  You can scroll through the messages using the scroll bars.

Whenever an alarm goes off you the messages dialog box is displayed.  The alarm date and time is displayed in the title bar and the title bar flashes.  The messages are seperated from one another by a small section showing the date and time and then a paragraph showing the message and these sections are then seperated by a dashed line.

Alarms can be set via the Alarms dialog box

You may have to scroll down to view the current message.

See Also:

Alarms


Preferences
Preferences Dialog Box

24 Hour

Check to select to display time in 24 hour (military) format.  For example "18:00:00" indicates 6:00 pm.

Seconds

Check this to select to display the seconds in the clock face.  Selecting this will cause the clock face to be updated more frequently and can cause flicker with larger font sizes.

Date

Select this to display the date in the clock face.

English

This refers to how verbose the clock date will be.  Selecting this will show the day of the week, the month of the year, the day of the month and the year in long format (1993).

Stay on Top

Select this to keep the clock face displayed over other windows.  Recommend that the clock be moved to some screen location that does not interfere with normal program execution.

Bold

Select this to give the clock face a bit more emphasis.  Deselect this to make the clock smaller.

Beep (every 15 min.)

Instructs the clock to beep using the system sound driver on every 15 minute interval starting at the top of the hour.

Font Selection

You can select from any of the fonts in your system to display in the clock face.  I do have a couple of words of advise.  Don't expect every font to show up perfectly.  Some of the fonts are not very attractive and probably shouldn't be considered as an option.  (Personally, I've chosen to stay with the default fon't with my system.)   The default  font is "Helv" or "MS Sans Serif."

You can select from several point sizes.  This process is quite simple; you click on the point size drop down list box and select the point size you desire from those listed.  Be aware that the clock face will resize to the right, and portions of the clock face may be moved off the screen.  You should select preferences and move the clock to a better screen location.

Select the Type Face to use in the clock face and the point size.  The type face is read from the internal listing of fonts.  The point sizes are determined by me.  Some systems just cannot display the full clock display with the largest possible font, making the clock useless.  Using large font sizes consumes more system resources.  The maximum font size is 48 points.

As you can see the clock can grow from a very large clock to one that is very small. Certain font sizes don't look good but others are excellent.  The larger the clock the more flicker you'll notice.

Typically the clock can be sized to 9.75 points with the Helvitica type face and moved to the menu bar, far right.  This should keep the clock out of the way but present you with a good look at the time whenever need it.

Color Selection

When you select to change from the default colors (black background and white face) you may select  from any of the colors available on your Windows session.  Use the Red/Green/Blue horizontal scroll bars to select colors.  The clock's attributes will automatically change when you manipulate these scroll bars.  You can select optionally to change the foreground color and the background colors.

Color selection is used to determine the color for the clock face and the clock letters.  You select the foreground color by default.  The foreground color is used to determine clock face letters.  The background color is used to determine the background of the clock.  Please note that some colors don't appear the same on every video card and color monitor.  Not all colors, out of the 256 available, are allowed on all systems, specifically those only capable of displaying 16 colors.

Moving the Clock

You can move the clock type pressing the "Move Clock" button.  The titlebar of the clock will reappear and allow you to grab it and move the clock around. When you choose to finish the move you simply select the "Seat Clock" button.  If you press the left mouse button on the clock face the "Drag and Drop" titlebar will show up.  If you click the clock face with the left mouse button with the title bar active the titlebar will disappear.

Cancel Button

Pressing the Cancel button tells the system to put all option changes back to what they were when you first brought up the preferences dialog box.  Anytime you select "Ok" you set the current settings to the default settings.

End Button

Select the "End" button to end this application session.  You may also choose to quit the clock using the "Quick" exit option.

Alarms Button

Use this to bring up the Alarms dialog box.  You set the 8 possible alarms with this dialog box.

See Also:

System Time

System Information

Alarms