Release Alarm Clock (WIP)


pmprog

DNF (Did Not Finish)
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Apr 25, 2011
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I've been working on an MP3 alarm clock app. Don't know if people are interested. It's still incomplete, so here's a list of things is does and doesn't do


The "Does":

  • Displays the date and time
  • Plays MP3s from %appdata%/alarmclock/playlist.m3u; retaining last played song
  • Can dim and undim the screen using Select/Control, for making it easier to sleep
  • Sleep Mode (activate by pressing Start/Alt), which will dim the screen, and start decreasing the volume over the next 20 or so minutes
  • Volume can be controlled using Up/Down on the DPad
  • MP3 playback pauses at the end of the song if the volume is all the way down at 0% and resumes as soon as you put the volume back up
  • Can set alarms for days of the week


The "Doesn'ts"

  • Can't delete alarms (though just switch off for each day of the week atm), and can't set them for anything other than weekday based
  • Doesn't retain the original brightness upon starting. So when you quit the app, you'll have to manually reset the brightness using Fn+I, or the XFCE button
  • Can't modify the playlist from inside the app yet (or shuffle tracks)
  • Can't change settings (such as brightness levels), or disable the music (other than removing the playlist file)
  • No decent/clear instructions or documentation


I was originally going to put the Pandora to "Sleep" when the sleep mode completes, using the RTC to wake it up before any alarms are due, however, my limited tests hadn't got this working yet.


Anyway, if anybody wants to have a quick look, you can grab the PND here. It'll go in the repo when it's more feature complete, but I'll appreciate any feedback.


Quick summary of keys:

  • Escape (Fn+Q) - Quit
  • Up - Volume Up
  • Down - Volume Down
  • Start/Alt - Sleep mode (dims screen, and slowly decreases volume)
  • Select/Control - Dim/Undim screen
  • Any of the game-buttons to access the menu / edit alarm options
  • A - Set alarms


Screenshot attached

preview1.jpg
 
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Any chance of making it wake pandora up from sleep mode when the alarm hits? :)


Nevermind, missed it on the first read :D
 
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Any chance of making it wake pandora up from sleep mode when the alarm hits? :)

I was thinking about this, I'm kind of torn between leaving the Pandora in a really dimmed state doing the least possible and putting it in sleep mode. After all, if you put it in sleep mode, if you wake before the alarm goes off, you can't see the time; but at the same time, the Pandora, if running off battery might not survive the night...


Dilemmas! ^_^
 
Nice! Good to see that someone is working on this!


Feel free to use whatever code from my little flashlight application if there's something useful there - I'm about to upload version 0.3, which has a clock (no alarm though).


If you switch the backlight off and reduce cpu activity to checking a few times per second for keypresses, you can probably get power consumption low enough to survive a night and have enough left to do 10 minutes of music and full brightness if the battery was above, say, 20% or so when the night started.
 
Haha, this is really funny. I have been working on something super similar for a week or two. Even the looks are almost identical!


Mine will have a few different features, but at least people will have the choice!
 
Haha, this is really funny. I have been working on something super similar for a week or two. Even the looks are almost identical!


Mine will have a few different features, but at least people will have the choice!
What features are you having? How far along are you? Wondering if it's worth combining our efforts?
 
Flipclock is awesome, but as soon as you want to select an alarm sound, it freezes (looks like it can't show the file requester).
 
Also please upload it to the repo. I wonder how many PNDs are floating around on obscure URLs, how is anyone supposed to know they exist?
 
I was talking about the FlipClock. The AlarmClock should go to the repo too, but that can/should wait until it is more finished.
 
PmProg,


This is my software in development :)


pandoraclock.png


Features:


- AM:pM or 24h mode


- internet connection to get weather information on all cities worldwide (display today and tomorrow's weather) -> displays icons for weather + temperature in C


- different colors for display (red, blue, green, etc...)


- Possibility to add 2-3 additional clocks in other geographies to monitor the time difference + weather difference


- Alarm function


That's about it, I guess. The weather lookup took most of my time. :)


To answer your questions, by the way, i'm almost done. Would be ready to release in a week after bug hunting. I am still working on additional features but I'll launch something first.


I'd be interested to know if you manage to put the Pandora in sleep mode (not just screen blanking) since I have no idea how to make that work :p
 
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