Aaron Hall, 17 January 2008
Hello, and thanks for downloading HappyPlusClock! HappyPlusClock is a full-screen analog and digital clock program designed to run on a compact Mac. It should run on any version of the Classic Mac OS from 4.2 to 9.2.2, and on any model back to the Plus. (It has been tested with 4.2, 6.0.8, 7.0.1, 7.5.5, and 9.2.2.)
On a classic Mac (with a 512 by 342 screen), it runs full-screen. On systems with larger monitors, it runs in a window.
After you start it up, the clock will appear, along with a couple of icons at the bottom of the display. The icons will disappear after a few seconds of inactivity. Move the mouse to bring them back.
To switch between the analog and digital clocks, click the clock icon in the lower-right corner. To quit, click the Mac icon in the lower-left, or press Cmd-Q. In windowed mode, the File menu is available with a Quit item.
To reset the clock, you'll need to set the system time in the Control Panel. The digital clock will respect the system's 12 vs. 24-hour clock display settings. It's not localized for non-English display, though.
The clock display switches between white on black and black on white every 12 hours, at 6AM and 6PM (see the Technical Notes below for more on this.) This is to avoid burn-in on older CRTs; the clock can be left running indefinitely and no pixel should be active more than any other, avoiding the burn-in effect.
The date display at the top of the screen can be made to show permanently, or go on and off with the icons at the bottom, by click on the little pin icon to the left of the date.
There is no preferences dialog box yet, although for the ResEdit crowd there is a preferences resource in the "HappyPlusClock Preferences" file (stored in the System Folder or the Preferences folder, depending upon the system version).
The '+PRF' resource in the "HappyPlusClock Preferences" file mainly
stores preferences which are set through the user interface (such as
whether the date display shows all the time). A few additional settings
are not exposed through the user interface.
The '+SRS' resource is no longer used, starting with version 0.85.
Hold down the option key as HappyPlusClock starts up to change it from its default windowed or "full-screen" mode to whatever the default isn't on your system. This isn't particularly useful (the only practical effect is to make DAs and the About box accessible through the Apple menu), but it's there.
0.86: 22 January 2008
0.85: 17 January 2008
'+SRS' resource is no longer used. Display inversion
times are now given in the '+PRF' resource, and continue
to default to 0600 and 1800.0.84: 15 August 2007
0.83: 8 August 2007
0.82: 29 July 2007
0.81: 28 July 2007
0.80: 21 July 2007
This is an early release with the basic clocks running. A future possibility is to add an alarm function of some sort, or other types of clocks (binary, anyone?). Other ideas welcome -- please e-mail me at ahall@vitaphone.net.
I intend to release the 1.0 version of HappyPlusClock under an open-source license, possibly the Artistic License 2.0 or the GPLv2.
Again, thanks very much for downloading HappyPlusClock. Vivé lé Plus!