SOLVED - display clock recommendations

[kent_dorfman766]

First, I don't want to debate the merits of different desktop environments. This is what I'm looking for:

a liteweight X11 display clock that has stopwatch and countown timer functionality with second display accuracy. Not a toolbar widget, but something that has a real digital interface and allows the fucntionality I've describe above. I don't want the encumberance of a bunch of desktop environment libraries, but something that is build for a lower level widget set...Does debain have a standard package already built that provides this, or am I gonna have to build it from scourcode?

Thoughts?

[oswaldkelso]

Not in Debian but you might like peaclock
https://github.com/octobanana/peaclock

The nicest timer is utimer. I always install it. I'll give you the slackware link as the slackbuild may come in handy
https://www.slackbuilds.org/repository/ ... sc/utimer/

[CwF]

I don't want the encumberance of a bunch of desktop environment libraries, but something that is build for a lower level widget set.

It is an amazing omission in one sense but if graphical X11 is the requirement then we need some kind of back end to run on like qt or gtk or ncurses, so going to entangle something. The most agnostic in my opinion requires the awesome and archaic tk libraries, almost never installed by most 'modern' users, so package 'Stopwatch' for millisecond accuracy!

[oswaldkelso]

I agree. Why is it that hard to install something as simple as a clock with a few basic features. It's damn nigh impossible with out installing crap loads of bloat. The only way seems to be to dig back to older applications where size and speed was more of a concern. Anything newer that is not to fat seems to have potential tm/freedom issues like in Rust and Go

dockapps are always worth looking in to. iirc Depending on your DE/WM they can be made to float. I used to run a single dockapp (bubblemon) when I ran evilwm.

wmtimer is supposed to do the clock, alarm and timer but I've not used it.

https://www.dockapps.net/category/time
https://github.com/bbidulock/dockapps

[kent_dorfman766]

Well, it was worth a try...@oswaldkelso recommended a couple that are not packages in debian, but they are text apps, not basic X11 so no joy.

Qt5 is about as heavy-weight as I'm willing to go, although there is some primal nostalgic satisfaction in doing something with X11/motif...it's been more than a few years. Oh, what I're really getting at is that I'll just end up coding something myself, which I too often end up doing anyways. LOL

[CwF]

Qt5 is about as heavy-weight as I'm willing to go,

I think that is as heavy as it gets!

Just saying, tcl/tk is glorious. Tickle! By far the fastest to method to an end result. And mostly DIY.

[oswaldkelso]

wmtimer was the lowest memory use that I could find. coming in at 4MB in ps_mem.py alarm-clock-applet was 25MB for comparison. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a low resource small gui alarm. That was not built in either Rust or Go. Crazy you have to go back over 20 years to find some thing.

[kent_dorfman766]

Qt5 is about as heavy-weight as I'm willing to go,

I think that is as heavy as it gets!

Just saying, tcl/tk is glorious. Tickle! By far the fastest to method to an end result. And mostly DIY.

Eh...With a real lite-weight window manager it's not bad...and as long as I don't have to invite any gnome drivel into my desktop world then I'm happy...KDE always seemed slightly more polished but still way too much.

In the end I'm just writing my own in PyQt and may convert it to C++ later.

[oswaldkelso]

For the life of me I couldn't remember the name of the program but knew it was on my old D2 hard drive. Then I though I'd just open the case of the Mrs old Dell blow me if I hadn't left the drive inside when I swapped it. Anyway I found it and here's the source if it helps.
Also a fork that does Alarm

https://xyne.dev/projects/pystopwatch/
https://github.com/CartoonFan/pystopwatch_mod

this is what I use

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
echo
echo "The time format = hours colon minutes e.g 07:30 for 7:30AM!"
echo
printf "What time are you setting this alarm for? "
read date
echo
echo "Okay! Alarm" set for $(date --date="$date").
echo
echo "Volume will be set to 100%" 
sleep $(( $(date --date="$date" +%s) - $(date +%s) ));
for x in `amixer controls  | grep playback` ; do amixer cset "${x}" 100% ; done
echo
echo "Wake up you lazy bum!"
echo
echo "Wake up you'll be late for work!"
echo
echo "Wake up your dog will start barking"
echo
echo "Wake up your crazy wife will shout at you!"
echo
echo "Wake up you lazy bum and switch the alarm off it's Sunday!"
echo
while true; do
# set your player aplay or mpv etc. then set the path to your sound file. 
  /usr/bin/ogg123 ~/.free-software-song-sleeping-memories.ogg 
  sleep 1
done