Nixie Clock -- Version 1.61

Description

This simple little desktop clock displays the current date and time in a 'nixie tube' styled display in various time formats that you can customize. (For those of you into old 1960's vacuum tube display technology)

This started as just a fun little excercise, but I found it was actually a useful program that I've been using as my own desktop clock for years.


New in 1.60: right-click popup menu

Source Code

You can download the 1.61 source code to compile it yourself. (The tar file also includes pre-compiled binaries for each of the supported platforms.) To compile the source, you'll need the fltk 1.1.x or fltk 1.3.x library installed.

For more info on building the code, see the README.txt file in the tar file.

Download

You can download the 1.61 source code here.

Or, you can download individual pre-compiled executables for your operating system here:

Current Release v1.61	Old Release v1.51
Windows NT/2K/XP/Vista/Win7	Windows NT/2K/XP/Vista/Win7
Mac Tiger,Leopard,Snow Leopard.. Universal Binary for intel/ppc	Mac Panther,Tiger,Leopard,Snow Leopard.. Universal Binary for intel/ppc
Linux 32bit Fedora3 and up, etc.	Linux 32bit Redhat 32bit 6.x/7.x/8.x/9.x
Linux 64bit Centos 5.5, etc.
	Old Mac old "PPC only" binary
	Irix 6.x
	Linux 64bit Ubuntu 7.x, Fedora8

Latest Features (1.60 and up)

A right-click popup menu was added to let you choose different time formats interactively.

Nixieclock now remembers where you last positioned it on the desktop. It also remembers which time format you last specified, and various other preferences, which are saved in ~/.nixieclock. This way if you close and reopen the clock, it re-opens with the last position and settings. This way you can invoke the clock without any arguments (eg. from a shortcut), and the default will be the 'last' settings used.

There was also a signficant code cleanup in this release; the clock was broken out into a separate class, and bracing style now follows the FLTK coding style consistently.

For more info on changes in this release, see the release notes.

How It Works

To move the clock, just click and drag it to where you want it. To kill it, click the clock (to select the window) and hit the ESC key. To view the available command line options, use 'nixieclock -help'.

The program supports several command line arguments that can be used to alter the clock's behavior. You can set just about any custom time format using strftime(2) to specify your favorite. This can include full day and month names, timezone info, etc. For instance, 'nixieclock -s "%A %B %d, %Y"' will yield:



You can run 'nixieclock -help' from the command line to see the list. As of version 1.61 the command arguments are:

Nixieclock -- Version 1.61 (C) Copyright Greg Ercolano 2000, 2009. (GPL V2 LICENSE) USAGE nixieclock [options] OPTIONS -d # digit date mode (eg. 07:57 07-30-01) -s <timestr> # use strftime(3) date format -t # test pattern for alphanumeric display -n # no background mode (don't fork) -geometry <pos> # sets geometry (x windows style positions) -a # above all windows (not supported on all platforms) -b # enable window borders -nb # disable window borders (default) -v # enables verbose mode/debugging -h # help FILES Previous settings are saved in ~/.nixieclock EXAMPLES nixieclock -- 07:57 Sat Feb 07 nixieclock -d -- 07:57 07-30-01 nixieclock -s %c -- Locale specific: Mon Jan 01 23:59:59 2000 nixieclock -s "%I:%M %p %m/%d/%y" -- 12:59 PM 12/31/00 nixieclock -s "%H:%M:%S" -- 23:59:59 (counts seconds) nixieclock -s "%H:%M:%S %a %b %d" -- 23:59:59 Sat Dec 31 nixieclock -s "%a %b %m %H:%M:%S %Y" -- Unix format; Mon Jan 01 23:59:59 2000 nixieclock -geometry -0-0 -- position lower right nixieclock -geometry -5-5 -- position 5 pixels lower right nixieclock -geometry +0-0 -- position lower left

Nixie Text Viewer Demo

The code comes with a little demo called 'nixie-text-viewer' which will load up a text file and display it in the nixie font. You can page through the file with the arrow keys.

This test app demonstrates how the NixieDisplay FLTK widget can be used for other things besides a clock, and demonstrates how the widget's font supports (most of) the ascii character set, including lower case.

By default the app loads one of the clock's header files as a demo (pictured below):




FAQ

1) How do I make the nixieclock show up on top of all other windows?
Currently only Windows supports this 'always on top' feature.

(New in 1.60): The new right-click menu for the clock lets you choose 'Always on top'. Once selected, it will be automatically be remembered for subsequent invocations of the clock.

For older releases, you'd need to invoke nixieclock with the '-a' flag. To make this work from your desktop, create a shortcut to nixieclock on your desktop, then configure the shortcut to include the -a flag. So for instance, after creating a shortcut on your desktop to nixieclock:

            1) Right click on the shortcut, choose Properties.

            2) In the "Target" field, add the "-a" flag at the end 
               of the line. So in other words:

                BEFORE:  Target: "c:\some\path\nixieclock.exe"
                 AFTER:  Target: "c:\some\path\nixieclock.exe" -a

               Note you need a space before the -a flag.
        

2) Are the tar files for the older releases still available?
Yes, here's links to all the tar file releases to date, from oldest to newest:
• 1.40 - Feb 2002
• 1.42 - Aug 2004
• 1.44 - Dec 2005
• 1.45 - Jan 2006
• 1.50 - Nov 2009
• 1.51 - Feb 2010
• 1.60 - May 2011
• 1.61 - Jun 2011






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