latest news

(older "latest news" has been moved down to the bottom of this page)

11/29/04

gtubeclock 0.9.1 has been released (RH9 rpm here).

I have added a few options to handle functions that would normally be handled by the window manager, but had not been working when using the default "no border" mode. -x and -y can be used to specify the position of the clock, and now the position will be saved when you save your gnome desktop. You can also choose "all desktops" mode (via the menu or with the -a/--sticky command-line option) to have the clock show up on all your virtual desktops, and you can use this in a clumsy way to move the clock to a different desktop. And finally, when using "no borders" mode, there will not be a taskbar entry.

11/23/04

gtubeclock 0.9 has been released (RH9 rpm here). Only a minor change: If the default size is too big for your needs, you can now scale it down by an arbitrary factor, rather than just half-size.

I'm working on a couple of other features related to the gnome panel. They'll make the clock more useful to me, and hopefully to you too. Keep an eye out here.

8/23/04

No news is good news. The lack of recent updates means that the current version is working pretty well for me. The remaining bug fixes in the TODO list are for minor features that are not really necessary anyway. Code cleanup is no fun so I haven't spent any time on that :-) Artwork is not my forte, so I haven't spent any time on that either.

I guess eventually I will release 1.0, but it will not be significantly different from 0.4.

6/18/04

gtubeclock 0.4 has been released. This integrates the sawfish fixes, adds a .desktop file for menu integration, and has a little bit of cleanup (more to come). Also, for the first time I have provided a binary package -- I'm interested in feedback as to how well it works. This was built on Red Hat 9.

6/7/04

Gack! Michel Strasser found another install bug, where if ${prefix}/share/gtubeclock does not already exist, the gtubeclock.settings file gets installed as ${prefix}/share/gtubeclock. 0.3.2 has been released which fixes that. But, it contains no other changes, so you can also just manually create that directory before doing 'make install' in earlier versions.

Also here is a patch which may make the borderless window mode work properly under sawfish.

Introduction

I have always liked the look of so-called "nixie" tubes, those old numeric displays they used to use before LED's. When I saw a nixie tube clock in an article on SuperKaramba, I had to have it!

Not wanting to install everything needed for SuperKaramba, though, I set out to make a slightly more minimalistic version using the same artwork, which was originally by Bob Borries in a widget for Konfabulator (Mac only).

I thought about any of the various scripting language extension libraries that are wrappers around various gui toolkits. But I had gnome and glade (the interface designer) on my system already so I set out to see how difficult that would be. Initial attempts at drawing the digits were pretty simple, so that's what I stuck with (even though it got surprisingly more complicated to add the background behind the digits!).

Well, using gnome/glade makes this less-than-lightweight (there are lots of dependencies to build it, most of which I don't think really should be necessary but are part of the glade framework and gnu build system), but for anyone who has gnome on their system already, this will probably be fine. KDE users can just use superkaramba instead of gtubeclock if they don't want to install all the prerequisites. Memory usage is what I would consider high for a clock (about 3 megs private and 11 megs shared with all the other gnome apps); this could be reduced somewhat by always reading the images in from disk rather than keeping them in memory; I don't like that idea since I'm considering a seconds display, which would thus require much more frequent access of the digit images.

This was developed on Red Hat 9 linux, also can be built under Solaris (see README.solaris in the package, I'll put a link to it here soon), and should be buildable on other linux variants with Gnome 2 desktops.

features

Right now the clock is simple but usable. It has a 12/24 hour mode and you can choose between two display sizes. A few more features are coming (see TODO in the distribution). I don't plan on making a full-featured clock with alarms and the like.

However, because the clock is really just a frontend to displaying images representing the digits and background, the look can easily be changed, given new artwork. If you want to contribute new artwork, let me know!

documentation

There is no man page yet, but here is some brief usage info.

Version 0.1 has no command-line options. later versions have a few. Try --help. They're pretty self-explanatory.

Once gtubeclock is started, click any mouse button anywhere in the window for the menu. The menu lets you toggle between 12 and 24 hour mode, toggle between full and small size, or quit.

Note that if your window manager supports it, gtubeclock will be borderless (as seen in the screenshot above). Most window managers will let you move windows by holding down a key such as alt while you drag the left button. Also, usually you can bring up your window manager's window menu by holding down a key such as alt and right-clicking in the window. And, in 0.2 you can toggle "show borders" mode, which lets you move it as you would any other window.

Note: Currently, if you're using the sawfish window manager, the window manager's border settings will override what gtubeclock asks for. Alt-middle-click in the window border or anywhere in the window will let you choose whether you want borders on your window via the "Frame Type" submenu. Here is a patch you can apply to any of the 0.3 versions of tubeclock if you use sawfish or another affected window manager. 0.4 and later versions should work.

If you want "small size" to be anything other than half-size, you'll probably want to edit your gtubeclock.settings file. See the README file for details.

download

README -- the latest

Binary packages:

gtubeclock-0.9.1-1.i586.rpm -- RPM built under red hat 9 (installed as if --prefix=/usr).

Sources:

gtubeclock-0.9.1.tar.gz Source for 0.9
gtubeclock-0.1.tar.gz Source for 0.1. This is the GTK-only version (GNOME not required, just GTK+ and its dependencies).
Browse the downloads directory for other versions.

links

For some info on real nixie tube clocks, go here: http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/nixiegallery.html This is a great gallery of real nixie tube clocks. Be sure to check out the other links he references.

I have begun collecting parts to build my own clock. You can see my ramblings, notes, construction details, and pictures here.

history

(older "latest news" entries)

6/18/04

gtubeclock 0.4 has been released. This integrates the sawfish fixes, adds a .desktop file for menu integration, and has a little bit of cleanup (more to come). Also, for the first time I have provided a binary package -- I'm interested in feedback as to how well it works. This was built on Red Hat 9.

6/7/04

Gack! Michel Strasser found another install bug, where if ${prefix}/share/gtubeclock does not already exist, the gtubeclock.settings file gets installed as ${prefix}/share/gtubeclock. 0.3.2 has been released which fixes that. But, it contains no other changes, so you can also just manually create that directory before doing 'make install' in earlier versions.

Also here is a patch which may make the borderless window mode work properly under sawfish. 5/27/04

I have uploaded version 0.2. Functionally it is almost identical to 0.1. The main difference is that it now uses gnome support functions which let me add command-line options (try --help), and integration with the GNOME and other session managers (meaning it remembers your settings if you save your desktop state).

This means if you do not have GNOME installed, you can still install 0.1 (as long as you have GTK, glib, and GTK's other dependencies) and not miss too much.

6/4/04

I have uploaded 0.3.1. This fixes some big memory leaks from 0.2 (~225k per minute) and adds the facility to choose between different look & feel sets at startup. Only one alternate look is provided, and it's just an ugly work-in-progress to demonstrate the capacity. 0.3 had a multi-line literal that prevented compilation with some compilers, and has been superseded.

contact

I'm glad to hear from you if you like or don't like gtubeclock, if you have feature ideas, etc. Bug reports are helpful because I can't test it on all platforms. If you want to contribute binaries or new artwork, that would be great too!

Andrew Tefft