Forum: General Topics
Forums / General Topics / Stopwatch.
| Subject: | Stopwatch. | |
ChrisM 11:33 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Stephen, I like the big calculator style text, very retro! :-) Now that there is a dedicated 'stopwatch' screen, would it be possible to add the ability to start/stop/(reset?) the stopwatch directly from that screen (say with the 'fire' button?), rather than having to go into the menu? Don't know what you think, but it just seems intuitive to me to be able to do that...?? I know I could configure the zero button to do this, but I already have that constructively employed to change the profile... On a completely different subject, something I've been meaning to ask you for ages... Does Java support any sort of 'zoom' function on graphics? On the map screen, it would, on occasion, expecially when driving, be useful to zoom in on the map. As my phone's screen is quite small, it is sometimes a bit difficult to see fine detail when the phone is mounted by the windscreen. The ability to 'magnify' the centre of the screen would helpful in these circumstances... It wouldn't even need to be 'live' (ie updating the track/position), just a zoom-in on what was being displayed at the time the 'magnify' button was pressed. Regards, Chris, | |
Stephen 21:48 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Chris, I actually had the same idea whilst on a train today, about the Fire button starting/stopping the stopwatch on that page. Since it has no other function on the text pages I might as well add it. I guess it should only have any effect on pages which actually show the stopwatch (the NAVIGATION page shows it as well)... The map zooming is a tricky one. J2ME has pretty rubbish graphics handling - it can't do any sort of scaling on-the-fly so this would have to be done manually, probably by initially painting to an off-screen buffer and then repainting this to the screen pixel-by-pixel. Fiddly huh! MobitrackPro, the program which initially got me started on the TMJ project had a similar zoom function to your suggestion, whereby it would constantly enlarge the centre 10%-ish of the map. To be honest it was a bit rubbish (due to Java, rather than the developer, I hasten to add!!) - it just made the pixels bigger, and looked quite 'blocky'. I'll put it on my list, but veeeery low down!! ;-) Cheers, Stephen | |
ChrisM 23:12 Location: Phone Model: | " I might as well add it " Thanks! :-) " I'll put it on my list, but veeeery low down!! " No worries. It sounds like a bit of a 'mare!(I was hoping Java might have had some sort of scaling functions built in) Cheers, Chris. | |
shchenka 17:09 | Hi, I've briefly tested the stopwatch function today and my impression was that all the options "stop", "pause" and "keep running" do the same, i.e. they pause the recording. Which is probably the most useful option anyway. | |
Stephen 19:17 Location: Phone Model: | Hmmm, they shouldn't do, seems a bit odd!! Just tried them again on my W910 and in the N95 emulator and the three options seem to work okay here. How are you exiting TMJ - Menu/Exit or via the red 'Hangup' button? That might make a difference...? | |
ChrisM 21:14 Location: Phone Model: | FWIW, the three options seem to work fine on my Sony Ericsson W610i I always quit the program via Menu->Exit. It also seems to work if I quit the program by holding the 'back' button down and selecting 'Quit Application' (phone function, rather than TMJ), though this rather strangely seems to make the timer jump BACKWARDS by 20 seconds or so?? Regards, Chris. | |
shchenka 23:04 | I'm trying to exit via the menu as much as I can. I'm using a N95. What should be the effect of the "stop" option as opposed to "pause" ? | |
markpenders 13:54 Location: Phone Model: | On my Nokia 6234 stopwatch seems to be working okay. Adding the start-stop function to the screen would indeed be "logical". One thing I noticed: the digits seem to enlarge in font size every now and then. As far as I can tell randomly. A bug or a feature? Cheers, Mark. | |
shchenka 18:33 | One other thing I've noticed is that when stopwatch is on, sometimes (maybe every minute or so, but did not check this yet) the numbers in the stopwatch screen get replaced with some large, multi-digit numbers for a split of second, Too short to read them. Then immediately the regular readout returns. Not annoying or anything, I'm only reporting it just in case. | |
Stephen 20:07 Location: Phone Model: | The 'Stop' option should completely stop the stopwatch on exiting and it will still be stopped after restarting. The Pause option stops it on exiting but then starts it again on restarting. Not quite sure what the multi-digit numbers are that you're seeing though, sounds a bit odd!! Mark, the new fonts are drawn as large as possible to fit the available space. The problem with this is that if the text being drawn contains fewer characters on a particular frame, eg some of the readouts hide the .0 text when writing 5.0 so it might read 4.8, 4.9, 5, 5.1 etc on successive frames, then the frame that just reads 5 might be drawn larger. I need to fine-tune it a bit more - I possibly released it slightly too soon!! Cheers, Stephen | |
ChrisM 20:13 Location: Phone Model: | schenka, just to answer your earlier point. As far as I can tell, PAUSE means when TMJ is restarted the stopwatch will continue from wherever it was when you exited. STOP means exiting the program will stop the timer, so when you restart the program, it will be stopped at whatever time it was at when you quit... clear as mud?? I've watched the stopwatch screen for several minutes, and I haven't seen anything strange happen with the numbers. Just h:mm:ss in large font, and thousands of a second in a font about half the size. The thousands only update approx every second, but I guess that's just to do with screen refresh rate. (If I hold the 'C' key down, it seem to update much more often). Chris. | |
ChrisM 9:06 Location: Phone Model: | Been thinking about the stopwatch controls a bit... Could this work; (assuming you are on a screen showing the stopwatch) -Pressing the 'Fire' key briefly starts and stops the stopwatch. -If the stopwatch is stopped, then holding the 'Fire' key down for(say) 5 seconds resets the stopwatch... Cheers, Chris. | |
Stephen 12:38 Location: Phone Model: | Its not so easy (with the current key-handling code) to use the key press duration. TMJ only listens for when a key is initially pressed (rather than when is it pressed and then released), so when you hold down a key for a number of seconds it would still fire the initial 'keyPressed' event (and therefore start/stop the stopwatch as well). I might use the Clear key to reset the stopwatch as this doesn't have any other particular use. Or otherwise the zero-key shortcut menu can easily reset it by pressing 08... | |
ChrisM 14:27 Location: Phone Model: | " TMJ only listens for when a key is initially pressed " I did wonder if it might work like that... Not to worry. I've been playing with using the zero key to bring up the shortcut menu rather than just changing profiles, and it is actually very usable! Might start using it like that from now on, so resetting the stopwatch is going to be easier to get at anyway. Would still be nice to have the fire button to start/stop the stopwatch though as that is very accessible(on my phone at least) esp. when driving or similar. Cheers, Chris. | |
ChrisM 9:20 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Stephen, Just thought I'd mention that today I saw the problem shchenka mentioned earlier in this tiread about the multi-digit numbers flashing up while the stopwatch was running. I was in the car driving at the time, so I couldn't pay that much close attention, but I noticed the following: -It seemed to be the total distance figure that was affected. -The number that flashed up was something like 65335 -It seemed to happen as the mileage passed a whole number (eg between 6.0 and 6.1) -The two times (in several miles) that I saw it happen it was when I was travelling quite quickly (~60mph) and the mileage was less than 10. I'll just repeat what shchenka said, in so far as AFAIC it's not a problem. It flashes up so quickly that you barely notice. Just thought I'd tell you what I noticed in case you wanted to investigate... Cheers, Chris. | |
Stephen 18:21 Location: Phone Model: | Ok thanks Chris, I've been looking out for this myself but haven't seen it yet. If you find that it does it fairly regularly, could you try if possible also monitoring the stopwatch readouts on the Navigation page as well as the large font page. I'm trying to work out if it is a glitch specifically related to the large fonts or whether its the stopwatch code itself (which I think is probably more likely)... | |
ChrisM 21:39 Location: Phone Model: | Saw it again on the way home, but managed to disprove pretty much everything I said this morning; It happened when the trip milage was 11, and I was travelling at about 5 mph. It DOES only seem to happen when moving though. I've yet to see it happen when stationary. Will try and observe the 'normal' stopwatch screen (as opposed to the 'bug font' one, and will let you know what I see... Cheers, Chris. | |
Stephen 14:06 Location: Phone Model: | I finally noticed this myself yesterday! As you say, its a bit too brief to easily see a cause or pattern. I'll keep an eye on it... | |
ChrisM 9:06 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Stephen, Saw it on the 'normal text' screen today, so I guess the bug is in your 'stopwatch' code, rather than the 'big text' code... Cheers, Chris. | |
Stephen 17:27 Location: Phone Model: | Hi Chris, Think I've finally sorted this now... Turned out to be a minor blip that would occur if TMJ was in the middle of displaying the stopwatch distance on screen at EXACTLY the same time that a new trackpoint was being stored. Hence the total randomness in its behaviour! Cheers, Stephen | |
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