Date & Time 1.2

25 Responses to “Date & Time 1.2”

1. Chestercl Says:
   October 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 am

   This is so nice- Thank you for putting in the multiple alarm choice- was wondering- to make this gadget perfect- is there any way to say- set an alarm to go off Monday- Friday and not weekend for say a semester. I have been watching this gadget grow and this would make it perfect for my class change alarm. I guess i could close out the gadget on the weekends and this would work.
   Thanks again for your labors.

2. The Staff Says:
   October 23rd, 2009 at 2:18 pm

   Hi Chestercl, We are glad that you like the new update. As for the functionality that you are referring to, we had reviewed what it would take to make the recurrence options more sophisticated but it did not make sense at this point. We are going to review again when we do our next update. That said, it is possible to set it up alarms that will meet your needs using the events system. You would just need to set up multiple events that recur weekly at the appropriate times. The only downside is that you have to set up numerous events but once they are in there, it should work as you need it to. Let us know if you have any other thoughts or comments.

3. Elric Says:
   October 25th, 2009 at 6:01 am

   Using Win7×64, have noticed at some point, the “custom alarm sound” no longer functions – alarm goes off but no sound… however no issue on default alarm settings. Have tried everything, from moving btwn x86 & x64 Sidebar, removing Date & Time gadget and reinstalling, running Sidebar as Admin, moving the Gadget from the App Data location to the actual Windows Sidebar gadgets directory….. no love no matter what I try. No audio issues being experienced anywhere else, so don’t think is an OS issue.

   Any ideas?

4. Howard Says:
   October 27th, 2009 at 12:25 pm

   This is a really great gadget that I use everyday.

   Was wondering if it is possible to show the Title of the event when the alarm goes off, without having to open the fly off window, and the ability to add Label to an alarm that will be shown when the alarm goes off.

   Also for the analog clock, is it possible to include date information as well.

   Thank you again for creating such a useful gadget.

5. The Staff Says:
   October 27th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

   Hi Elric, Our apologies for the problems you are having. It sounds like you have done a very thorough job of troubleshooting already but a few quick questions… 1) What is the file type that you are using? 2) Have you tried changing the location/path of the file in question? 3) Is it not working with any file or has it been specific to a single file? I am pretty sure you’ve already tested these parameters but if you could confirm, it would be helfpul.

6. The Staff Says:
   October 27th, 2009 at 3:13 pm

   Hi Howard, We are glad that you like the gadget and appreciate your suggestions… they are all quite good. We have logged these in our suggestion sheet and will consider them with our next update. If you have any other suggestions, please drop us a line as we review them any time we do an update.

7. Bruce Says:
   October 29th, 2009 at 12:54 am

   Win 7 Ultimate x64 – had same problem as Elric. uninstalled, rebooted, reinstalled and made sure file was mp3 and sound works fine again. (with Rush Subdivisions how could it not!) what formats will it play?
   hhhmm maybe each alarm could have different sound file? hhhmmm
   i’m not into gadgets much, but this is one excellent gadget! thank you and i’ll follow your work.

8. Jan Says:
   October 29th, 2009 at 1:21 am

   Hi, good stuff, I also raise my hand for the need of an alarm titling option.

   What bothers me slightly is the analog clock, why does the short arrow not move in smaller increments than 1h? it can be quite difficult to judge the time when looking quickly at the clock now if time is close to f.ex 8:30 (e.g. is is 8:30 or 7:30?)
   And finally, will other analog clock layouts be added at some point?

   Thanks for a very useful gadget

9. The Staff Says:
   October 29th, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   Hi Bruce, Glad to know that the reinstallation worked for you. We are still going to do some troubleshooting to see if we can determine what is causing the problem in the first place. You should be able to play any type of format that is supported by Windows Media Player. Please do let us know if you have any other thoughts or suggestions.

10. The Staff Says:
    October 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Hi Jan, We’ve got the alarm titling option on our list for future improvements. It is certainly one of the most frequently asked for items we’re seeing. Apologies for the shortcoming on the analog clock. It is due to a limitation in the way the graphics were produced and to fix it would have been fairly tedious and time consuming. The hour hand is literally going to stay exactly at the hour it is on until the hour changes. We will review this in a future update and maybe we can come up with a way to design without this issue. Other analog clocks are on our list for a future update. Thanks for your feedback and let us know if you have any other suggestions for us. Glad you like the gadget.

11. TomC Says:
    November 4th, 2009 at 7:03 pm

    The non-moving hour hand on the analog clock is a very serious flaw. The whole point of an analog display is to be able to quickly see an approximate value. With your analog clock the answer is wrong, by a full hour, half of the time. If you can’t come up with a good fix, it would be a small improvement to move the hour hand at the half-hour point. And guess what – good programming IS tedious and time consuming.

12. The Staff Says:
    November 5th, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    Hi TomC. The issue that you describe is due to the fact that we needed to use image replacement to generate the analog clock. This was done as to support the multiple analog clock feature which was one of the most requested features we received. We certainly understand that this is less than perfect. Please understand that because we provide our gadgets for free, we sometimes have limitations on our development. Your point about the hour hand being moved has been passed on to our development team and if it is economically feasible, we will look at implementing it. Thanks for your feedback and let us know if you have any other thoughts/suggestions.

13. Ted Says:
    November 7th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

    Really? How hard can it be to make a working hour hand? As a developer, I can tell you it is not complex. I don’t think you should have even put it in if you weren’t going to make it work. The rest looks great though.

14. Woofa Says:
    November 7th, 2009 at 6:45 pm

    Same criticism as for the System Control gadget, show something representative of what the gadget looks like not some nonsensical icon. Having said that this application can be so good in so many ways, mainly the calendar but so poor in others such as the display limitations of the clock, in particular the analog clock. It’s really pretty half-baked.

15. duli Says:
    November 10th, 2009 at 6:55 am

    guys…this has been my alarm clock for a long while now…and a big improvement for me was to have the alarm go off just monday through friday.
    To Chestercl’s response, I was trying to acomplish what I needed by making 5 alarms for every working day and have them repeat weekly but unfortunately the repeat options are daily monthly and yearly. Do I need to set up 20 alarms to get what I need?

16. The Staff Says:
    November 10th, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    Hi Duli, The recurring option for the alarm is something that we need to address. That said, you can set up a workaround using Events instead of Alarms as they have a weekly recurring option. When we have updated the Alarm options, we will post here. Let us know if you have any other thoughts or suggestions.

17. duli Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 8:46 am

    Thanks for the quick reply guys! I set up 5 event reminders that kick off weekly. Mission accomplished! To that point though if you guys can add a day selection check box for the alarm for the new version and a start and end date (which would work for chestercl’s semester issue ) that would rock. It’s still my one and only alarm clock. Nice work guys.

18. Suhardi Says:
    November 13th, 2009 at 1:23 pm

    I use Win7 RC 32bit (will use Win7 Ult 64bit – no stock at this time).

    My computer timezone is UTC +7 (Bangkok, Jakarta).

    When I try the gadget with several timezone, some of the timezone display the wrong date/time.

    Example, my comp date/time (local/GMT+7): Nov 14, 1:00 AM.

    If I use timezone “local”, the date/time : Nov 14, 1:00 AM. ===> OK
    If I use timezone “GMT +7/Bangkok, Jakarta)”, the date/time : Nov 13, 8:00 PM. ===> Wrong
    If I use timezone “GMT +8/Beijing, Hongkong”, the date/time : Nov 14, 2:00 AM. ===> OK
    If I use timezone “GMT +8/Singapore), the date/time : Nov 13, 11:00 PM. ===> Wrong

    ???

19. The Staff Says:
    November 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    Hi Suhardi, Try resetting the clocks and then adding them again. To do this, go to the Settings panel, click the Reset tab, click ‘Restore Gadget Clocks’. Then just add your clocks again. Hopefully this will fix the problems you’re having. Please let us know if you continue to see the same.

20. Suhardi Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 12:16 am

    Already try to reset the clock and the problem still there…
    The results still same, GMT+7/Bangkok, Jakarta late 5 hrs from the rite time (local) and GMT+8/Singapore late 3 hrs from the rite time (GMT+8/Beijing, Hongkong)

21. The Staff Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Suhardi, have you tried a full on reset of the XML file for the gadget as well? Settings -> Help -> Follow the instructions on the bottom and delete all of the files in the directory.

    There are two possibilities: The first is that the clocks are still somehow set to their offsets instead of their region codes, a full reset should be able to disprove this or fix the issue.

    The second is that your computer is feeding faulty time data into the gadget. Not likely, but still possible as the gadget is only as accurate as the data from the sidebar API.

    Try a full reset though, I have a funny feeling those clocks still aren’t getting set to their appropriate region codes somehow.

22. Suhardi Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 4:03 pm

    Try to full reset, still not rite.

    Try uninstall and download from this site, install again, still not rite.

    Check with Win7 Date and Time Additional Clocks, all okay, nothing wrong.

    Maybe I wait until I get my Win7 Ultimate and try again.

23. The Staff Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    Suhardi, That is certainly odd, yeah, definitely give this another shot when you get the newer version of Win 7. We’ll try to think of anything else that might have caused this issue, but right now, we’re drawing blanks on it. Hopefully a non-RC version of the OS can help.

24. marciton Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

    Hello
    I love your gadget but :
    1°/ the weeks number are not good this year (if we use outlook as a reference)

    2°/can we have the week start the Monday as an option (Europe …)

    Thanks

25. The Staff Says:
    November 16th, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    Marciton, the gadget is using an older calendar system we modified from a free download, so apologies if it can’t be set specifically just yet. Someday we’ll be able to use either an updated system or code our own version. Could you clarify what you mean by your first point?