Watchface Designer

Jul 19, 2017 8:29:13 GMT 1 CableLeecher said:
——————————————————— LET‘S SUPPORT THE WORK OF MPMF! ———————————————————

Hey guys, how about the idea to sponsor an Android SmartWatch to mpmf?
If just anyone who uses his program would donate 1€ / 1$ / 1£ to him, he could easily buy himself an Android SmartWatch for testing and debugging purposes…

mpmf : Do you have a PayPal Account or something like that?

Cheers
Mike aka CableLeecher


 
Hey, thanks. However, I don’t think many people use this app, which would make this donation thing not work. I may be wrong, of course… I’ve never received donations, but I do have a paypal account. I’ve created a paypal.me link:

paypal.me/mpmf

Is this correct?

But, again, while having an Android Smartwatch would be great, I’m doing this for the fun and as a way to payback for all the watch faces this community has given me, not for making money.

Jul 19, 2017 18:22:36 GMT 1 @stevew said:
Hey mpmf, Your a genius! Just created 2 watchfaces for my ZeBlaze, working brilliant! Did a welsh flag face and an Omega James Bond watchface for a bugger challenge last night. Really happy with the results and you have a brilliant program.

One thing which I’m noticing is in the bottom panel, the digits are truncated slightly. I have attached an example of this.

I have also attached my two watch faces which I am very proud of!


Thanks for your kind words and for the bug report. That didn't happen on Linux, so I had not noticed it yet.  I've fixed it in version 0.3.2, now available on the first post.

I’m glad you’re enjoying this app, and… keep up the good work

Version 0.3.2 of WatchFace Designer is now available.

This is a bugfix only release, so no new functionality. The major bug fix happened while saving the watchface to a xml file. Not all characters were encoded correctly, making it impossible to open back the file. The other bug fix was an aesthetic one and just fixed the input fields height on properties that were being truncated on the bottom when running on Windows.

As always, the most current version is available on the first post.

Jul 20, 2017 0:09:08 GMT 1 mpmf said:
Jul 19, 2017 8:29:13 GMT 1 CableLeecher said:
——————————————————— LET‘S SUPPORT THE WORK OF MPMF! ———————————————————

Hey guys, how about the idea to sponsor an Android SmartWatch to mpmf?
If just anyone who uses his program would donate 1€ / 1$ / 1£ to him, he could easily buy himself an Android SmartWatch for testing and debugging purposes…

mpmf

: Do you have a PayPal Account or something like that?

Cheers
Mike aka CableLeecher


 
Hey, thanks. However, I don’t think many people use this app, which would make this donation thing not work. I may be wrong, of course… I’ve never received donations, but I do have a paypal account. I’ve created a paypal.me link:

paypal.me/mpmf

Is this correct?

But, again, while having an Android Smartwatch would be great, I’m doing this for the fun and as a way to payback for all the watch faces this community has given me, not for making money.


Hi Marco,

I just donated 20 € to your PayPal account to make a start for your first own Android Smartwatch

COME ON GUYS, SUPPORT MARCO AND AT LEAST DONATE A FEW BUCKS IF YOU LIKE AND USE HIS WATCHFACE DESIGNER!

It‘s not meant as a payment, it‘s an appreciation for your hard work.

Thanks and Cheers,
Mike

Jul 22, 2017 16:00:06 GMT 1 CableLeecher said:
Hi Marco,

I just donated 20 € to your PayPal account to make a start for your first own Android Smartwatch

COME ON GUYS, SUPPORT MARCO AND AT LEAST DONATE A FEW BUCKS IF YOU LIKE AND USE HIS WATCHFACE DESIGNER!

It‘s not meant as a payment, it‘s an appreciation for your hard work.

Thanks and Cheers,
Mike


Thank you for your support and kind words. It’s a great help. 

I’ll keep working on improving the app. I’m implementing dynamic watchface resolution right now

Version 0.4 of WatchFace Designer released

Get it here

This version had a lot of changes. As always, I’m open to suggestions to improve the application.

So, what’s new on 0.4?

  • Dynamically change watch face resolution.

The watchface will automatically rescale all the layers without loosing quality (except ImageLayers, where quality depends on the selected image). This allows the user to design the watch in a lower resolution (where rendering is fast), and when finishing change the resolution to a higher value (where the rendering is slower) to export layers to images or even the ClockSkin. As a side effect, this also allows the user to design a watch with ClockSkin in mind (400x400 pixels) and later convert it to a .watch standard size (512x512 pixels) without having to redo anything.

  • New Brush Effect.

Now it is possible to select a Star brush effect. In this case, the effect emulates brushing metal from the center to the outside.

  • New Brush Depth option

This emulates lighter or heavier brushes on the metal

  • New Glow Effect

This effect allows the user to make lighter colors “glow”, while darker colors remain “unglowing”. The threshold of what defines “light color” and “dark color” is defined by the user, as well as the “glow” ammount.

  • Easier save/open/export files

Now, the program remembers where you’ve last opened or saved a watchface designer file, or an image, or exported a ClockSkin, and automatically shows that folder when opening/saving/exporting files again. It also only shows files with the correct extension (.xml for watchface designer files, .png for images). Also, when exporting a ClockSkin, the application will automatically create a folder with the same name as the currently editing file. Finally, it also shows what file the user is editing in the title bar.

  • Support for counter-clockwise autorotation and rotation multiplier

It is now possible to specify to wich direction the autorotation layers rotate, and at what speed it rotates. This also solves a problem where power autorotation was rotating 360 degrees on preview, but only 180 on the real watch.

  • Made all ranges (TicksLayer’s skip ticks and Tachymeter’s speed), coherent.

The user may now specify the numerical elements on TicksLayer’s “skip” and Tachymeter’s “speeds” properties in several different ways:

number

=> isolated number

from-to

=> sequence starting at “from” up to, and including, “to”

from-to-stepSize

=> sequence starting at “from” up to, and including, “to”, “stepSize” at a time

[from;to]

=> sequence starting at “from” up to, and including, “to”

]from;to]

=> sequence starting at “from” (excluding it) up to, and including, “to”

[from;to[

=> sequence starting at “from” up to, and excluding, “to”

]from;to[

=> sequence starting at “from” (excluding it) up to, and excluding, “to”

[from;to;stepSize]

=> sequence starting at “from” up to, and including, “to”, “stepSize” at a time

number;from-to;[from;to[ => any combination of the previous, separated by ;

On ranges ([x;y] or x-y), it is also possible to specify a 4th element, indicating the grouping. For example,

[0;100;10]

=> represents the sequence 0, 10, 20, 30, …

[0;100;10;5] => represents the sequence 0,1,2,3,4, 10,11,12,13,14, 20,21,22,23,24, …

  • Two new Rotation Styles for text

Previously, all the text rotation was done letter by letter. Now it is possible to select ALWAYS_ALL or INVERT_BOTTOM_ALL and the text will rotate as a whole, instead of letter by letter.

  • minor UI improvements

Minor UI improvements, such as properties order and mouse wheel scroll speed on the properties panel, and toolbox reflow when window is small

Hi mpmf, congratulations for your program, I have a question for you: how do I insert the current date? (for example 18 or 25 or 2), I can’t find the method to do. Thank you so much.

Jul 27, 2017 9:52:07 GMT 1 santibailor said:
Hi mpmf, congratulations for your program, I have a question for you: how do I insert the current date? (for example 18 or 25 or 2), I can't find the method to do. Thank you so much.

Thank you. To insert the current date you use a Digital Clock layer. On its Clock Type property you'll find different options on what to display, including day, month/day, and year/month/day. I've made a quick demonstration of it in order to better show it to you. Watch if in fullscreen to be able to better read the options:

Thanks Mpmf for response and video, the fault is mine which I did not see the option I needed, thank you again friend

Edit:
The date can only be placed straight, would it be perfect if you could put the “rotation” slider to tilt it as you want, or is there a way to do it? (sorry but I’m learning now)

Jul 28, 2017 6:54:49 GMT 1 santibailor said:
Thanks Mpmf for response and video, the fault is mine which I did not see the option I needed, thank you again friend

Edit:
The date can only be placed straight, would it be perfect if you could put the “rotation” slider to tilt it as you want, or is there a way to do it? (sorry but I’m learning now)


For now, it is only possible to place Digital Clock layers straight. To me it would be super easy to add rotation (and preview it) but ClockSkin does not directly support rotation of such elements, and a hack needs to be done in order to make it appear rotated. I’m still studying how that hack is/can be done, and if I can mechanize it, I will add it to WatchFaceDesigner. Again, not having an Android Smart Watch to test, makes it a little bit harder for me to verify all these bits.

WatchFace Designer v.0.4.1 released

This is a very small release.

What’s new on 0.4.1?

  • Noise, while still random, is repeatable so that it doesn’t change when modifying effects applied on it.
  • Fixed ClockSkin export bug that appeared when multiple sequential layers had the same “AutoRotation” value
  • Decreased the size of the .xml save files (removing unnecessary data on them).

As usual, I’ve updated the first post to include the link to this version. It’s available here.

Hi!
I just have to, once again, praise you for this program! I’ve just tried V0.4 (and soon 0.4.1) and now I have no more need for other programs to add battery level, steps, etc.

You’ve obviously done a great job with the UI-design - so easy to use and understand. The fact that you’re also fixing bugs and adding features so quickly impresses me. (I’m a developer myself)

Thank you!

Ok. So here may be a bug (V0.4.1):
When reselecting Weather or Moonphase the settings do not appear correctly if you’ve chosen images instead of text.
The Text checkbox is unchecked as expected, but the file selector button is now an empty text field.
Checking and unchecking Text brings back the button -but not the image.

Also: Should the prompt “Crescent” actually be “New Moon”?

Suggestion: Unless I’ve overlooked something - I cannot find an easy way to reuse a selected color. Now, I must write down the RGB values and retype them to get the same color whenever I want to reuse it.

Is there some easier way? If not, would it be possible to make this easier?

Regards

Jul 28, 2017 17:31:47 GMT 1 arb2040 said:
Ok. So here may be a bug (V0.4.1): When reselecting Weather or Moonphase the settings do not appear correctly if you've chosen images instead of text. The Text checkbox is unchecked as expected, but the file selector button is now an empty text field. Checking and unchecking Text brings back the button -but not the image.

Also: Should the prompt “Crescent” actually be “New Moon”?

Suggestion: Unless I’ve overlooked something - I cannot find an easy way to reuse a selected color. Now, I must write down the RGB values and retype them to get the same color whenever I want to reuse it.

Is there some easier way? If not, would it be possible to make this easier?

Regards



Thanks for the bug report and the suggestion. Yes, crescent is actually New Moon (I’d just copy-pasted from the clockskin docs, which were obviously wrong). I’ve corrected it. I’ve also corrected the re-selection on Digital Clocks with images. This is the problem of quick releases… not enough testing. Also, not having an Android Watch to test doesn’t help at all

So, solving these problems (and, being a <1.0 release, surely having many others), here it goes:

WatchFace Designer v. 0.4.2 released

What’s new on 0.4.2
(Thanks to arb2040 for the bug report and suggestion)

  • Bug fix on re-selection of a digital clock with images
  • Bug fix on export to ClockSkin (mulrotation tag was not exported)
  • Corrected the first moon phase name to “New Moon”
  • Added a new tab to the color chooser showing recently selected colors, so the user can easily re-select a previously selected color.

The link, as usual is in the first post (you can also click here).

+CableLeecher kindly suggested supporting this app with a donation so that I can buy an Android smartwatch and better test the app. Just as a gentle reminder, if anyone wants to help, the donation page is at paypal.me/mpmf. However, don’t feel obligated to it. Starting with the next release, the about box on the app will list all donors as a thank you note.

mpmf , as always you’re great.
I’ve one question, what “in minutes” tick box means for?

Just testing new version, I could not open some old .xml files.

Jul 29, 2017 5:57:21 GMT 1 vrmagician said:mpmf , as always you're great. I've one question, what "in minutes" tick box means for?

Just testing new version, I could not open some old .xml files.


Hi vrmagician. The "in minutes" check box allows the user to specify the angle in minutes, instead of degrees. For instance, suppose you want to write some text centered around the 20 minutes mark. Which angle would you define? While you could do some quick calculations (or you could just eye ball it), it would be easier to just specify "20" in the TextLayer "Start angle" property. The angle is still stored in degrees, and if you later re-select the layer it will show it in degrees, so the checkbox is just a quick "helper" tool.

About the old xml, I’ve been making some changes. Maybe I made some mistake. Can you send me an example .xml that wont open so I can see what happened?

Here is more ‘noise’ from me:

  • When reloading the XML, the Weather or Moonphase images are not shown.

  • It seems that the first image “Sunny Day” or “New Moon” is saved for all other images, as well. Looking at the XML, it seems the image value is identical for all - so this may be the bug. Exporting after a reload also confirms this. (But exporting immediately after the images have been selected works perfectly)

  • It might also be useful to display the directory/filename that an image was loaded from. Makes it easier to keep track when using several sets of images.

Regards

Version 0.4.3 of WatchFace Designer released.

The previous versions contained a major bug on saving watchfaces. Please update to this version as soon as possible in order to not loose work on Digital Clock layers.

(Thanks to vrmagician for the bug report)

  • Fixed a MAJOR BUG on saving watchfaces that contained DigitalClocks with images
Jul 29, 2017 14:29:02 GMT 1 arb2040 said:
Here is more 'noise' from me:
  • When reloading the XML, the Weather or Moonphase images are not shown.

  • It seems that the first image “Sunny Day” or “New Moon” is saved for all other images, as well. Looking at the XML, it seems the image value is identical for all - so this may be the bug. Exporting after a reload also confirms this. (But exporting immediately after the images have been selected works perfectly)

  • It might also be useful to display the directory/filename that an image was loaded from. Makes it easier to keep track when using several sets of images.

Regards


Yes, that was the bug. I was saving the wrong image to the xml file whenever images were used on Digital Clock layers. This is fixed now (I hope  ).

About displaying the directory/filename, it should be possible, but it will require some refactoring, so I’ll leave it as it is for now. But it is definitely going to the TO DO list.

about the moon phases: the names are not that important. the watch engine does not work. or, at least, I’ve never seen a working moonphase on a full android watch face.
about the post on rasc on same kind of hand and rotation direction: it’s not a CSM bug. it’s a clock engine bug, and CSM (like with other watch engine bugs, i.e. the battery level, see my clockskinmaker tests on g+) tries to replicate the behaviour of the watch engine, be it “correct” or not.
CSM is just a skin maker, it can’t correct or add things to the clock engine. the best it can do is just replicate the way the clock engine works.

my csm tests page is here:
plus.google.com/u/0/collection/k8myPE