마스터 (Eighteen)

It's nice when people help out... much like Johannes did for German,  Jonathan volunteered to review the Korean strings.  Hopefully that will help him and the other 45 people that are using my app in Korean.  


Besides that, a minor fix to the night clock that might have been causing it to force close when dimming.  Also, Martina from Munich requested a one minute update on the background image.  I think that it's a little short, but as it was a very simple change I added it in.


I'm also hoping that this update might fix Don and Scott's docking issue (even though there was no change).  


I'm still looking into the alarm issues and I have at least one more thing to look at for omniwolf (Sorry to leave you hanging mate!)

A cause for alarm

First, a little note about the update from Friday.  There was a small fix on the preference screen where I was trying update the GUI from a background thread (that's a no-no).  The other fix was that I sat down last week and wrote my own translation app using a combination of .NET, LINQ and Microsoft Translation.  Much like Desk Clock Plus, it was me writing up something to fill my need, so hopefully this will keep all the strings in sync with all the different languages.

Next, Scott left the following comment:

Worked great before the last update Doesn't open automatically when docked anymore. Have to manually open it now. Also, the alarm turns off after every update.

Thankfully he (or someone else named Scott) followed up with an email.  I think his docking issue is something at his end as nothing with that has changed with that ever.  (Update) I got another email from someone else who said that there was an update for the same device (Galaxy S) and after that he was having docking issues.

The reason point of this post is the side bit of information that Scott tossed in about the the alarm turns off after every update.  This was actually a really big thing to me... I had had another user in the comments state:

Dont rely on alsrm The clock is nice BUT DONT RELY ON THE ALARM. It only goes off about a quarter of the time.

That comment was made right around the time that version 1.0.0.7 came out and there was a signification amount of code churn and updates being pushed.  If something is happening with the set alarms after every update then this comment makes a lot of sense.  I don't use the alarm feature of my application very often as I use it at my desk at work (hence the name Desk Clock Plus).  So, I've never set a recurring alarm and therefore never had a recurring alarm set when the application is updated.  As I said when Version 1.0 was released, the Alarm code was taken straight from the Google Source and honestly, I never took the time to review it / understand it.  I think my other two scrolling dock enhancements will have to wait until after this gets taken care of...

Next Batch

Version 1.0.0.4 is now in the market.

Once again just a couple of fixes and enhancements

• Dark Clock (Screen Saver) - I got an email from a user saying that the night clock no longer dimmed, but it did dim, just so very little  you couldn't tell.  When I incorporated the better dimming for the "Smoke" level on the main screen I changed it to take an integer (ie 30%) while the Dark Clock's dim was expecting a decimal (ie .30).  Yes it was very Micheal Bolton of me to misplace the decimal...
• Dark Clock - I added an option to keep the screen on when in the Screen Saver mode.  Some people want it on, others want it off, so now there's an option.
• Strings - I've had an on going error log pop up that I haven't been able to put my finger on.  It turns out (or so I believe) that when I did the string translation the substitution strings (minutes %s until alarm) got messed up and I think were causing issues with setting alarms.  I've fixed all of those and I'm hoping that goes away.
• Translation - Sergio from Chile contacted me awhile back saying that my Spanish translations were off and that some did not make sense (this has happened before).  He offered to fix things up and those are now in place (there are some new strings that haven't been reviewed yet).  I wanted to tell Sergio 'Gracias' for his help!  This prompted me to put a link to this page asking for translating for other languages.

This leaves me with one other big bug left with the purchasing service, which someone left a note in the report that "wasn't even doing anything with it." which might mean that something is just not being set or caught correctly...

After knocking that issue out I've got these two enhancements for the dock extension:

• Launch a specific app when removed from the dock.
• Tablet Dock Mode by this I mean stretch the dock the entire width of the device and use a gallery for the icons.

Desk Clock Plus Version 1.0 Released

I am very happy to announce that I have published the changes for Desk Clock Plus that I've been working on for the past 6 months or so (remember, I'm only a lunch time developer so things take time).  So what's new?  That's a very big question....

The big thing is the addition of 'Application Extensions'.  The basic features of Desk Clock Plus (ie the features from the versions prior to this and what the 'Stock' clock app does) will always remain free.  I don't feel it's right for me (or legal) to charge for that*.  However I understand that there are some users who what more from this application that others don't need.  I think the dock configuration is a good example of that.  Some users have asked for this and I would image that others wouldn't care if they could do that or not.  So for one US dollar (or your approximate equivalent) you can purchase this extension for your devices.  As I said before, I don't see myself getting rich off of this application, but with the holidays coming up and more importantly the office holiday beer exchange I could use a couple extra bucks.

One more thing to note about this... I am a little sketchy about how the code for this works.  I'm pretty sure that I have it implemented correctly (the Pay-Pal system was much easier to work with and debug).  If you have a problem please contact me (or leave a comment) I don't want to leave someone who has paid for this (or is trying to pay) high and dry.  There are a couple of bonuses with this.

1. When you purchase this extension, it should work across all your devices that are connected to your account.
2. If you get a new phone or second device, you should just need to go in to the 'Purchase Extensions' screen for things to be reset internally, so you will not have to 'repurchase' this extension.

Now, on to the changes for this version:

• Scrolling Dock Button Extension - More documentation to follow, but the quick over view is that you can go into the settings --> Scrolling Dock Configuration to set the number of docks and to configure the docks.  Swipe the dock left and right to change docks.  Additionally you can long press a button change a button's:
• Action - internal to Desk Clock Plus
• Application - Launch a 3rd party app
• Clear - Clear action or application
• Add Dock -  Add a new empty Dock.
• Delete Dock - Delete the current Dock.
• Scrolling time / Weather - As a bonus for anyone who purchases an extension I also enable the feature of swiping the time or weather to change it to Digital Time, Analog Time or Weather (I'll add more 'windows' as I add more paid extensions.

• Reorganized Settings Screen - I grouped everything into sub-properties instead of the sub groups, this way you have smaller pieces to deal with at one time.  Everything is still grouped the same way, just organized a little different.
• Redesigned GUI - This should be pretty much be transparent to everyone, however some people should notice that fixes issues with 3 digit temperatures and long city state names.
• Translation - I changed how I translate this application into other languages.  I originally sang the praises of Androlate.  There was some problems with it.  First, it was pretty slow.  Second, it didn't handle multiple string files very well.  Third, it doesn't work anymore (it was only a beta anyhow).  For this go around, I used a Chrome Extension Android Multilingual translation tool.  I was very happy with it as it fixed the 3 issues above, however it doesn't handle string arrays, so those are still in English for the time being.  I also don't know if translations are any better (I'm going to check with other users)
• Background Images - I made a major change to how background images are handled that should drastically reduce the memory that I'm using and should reduce if not eliminate the out of memory issues you would get when loading images.  This has also worked its way into the slide show.
• Performance Boost - I think this comes from the changes for the background images, but the application seems to be running much faster which is always good!

Some other things to note, I updated everything on the Android Market page added a new featured graphic, new screen shots and re-wrote all the text.

Stats wise, I'm very happy with what Google is telling me (22k downloads, 5k installed and an average review of 3.7)

As always, what's next?  Probably over the next week or two it's going to be a number of updates for bug fixes as people start using the new version.  I might have some language updates depending on how well the chrome extension did.  I have a couple more ideas for the dock configuration extension that I want to implement.  I have a security issue that I need to resolve and then hopefully some more extensions.

As always, I'm very happy that 5,000 people are using this application, so if you experience any issues or have a suggestion, please email me!

*I am happy to note that everything except for the alarm & alarm screen was written by me.  The alarm code was taken from the Google source.