NTP-clock

Download: ntpclock.zip

Analog clock with NTP-support. It will use ip-api.com geolocation to find your timezone, then get the current time from ntp.org. Finally it will set the clock to the correct time for your timezone. DST is also handled.

There is no way to specify manually which timezone to use. However, if you're not comfortable with geolocation then you can disable this in settings. This also means that it won't fetch the current time from ntp.org. You can instead use the included .ttp to fetch the current time, as it has an option to disable geolocation.

Requirements

• Working STiK/STiNG/GlueSTiK internet connection.
• A multitasking AES is not required, but the application makes little sense without.
• Not a requirement, but it's made for larger screen so it probably doesn't make much sense to use it on standard graphics hardware.

Usage

Run

ntpclock.prg

. A clock will be displayed in a window in the center of your screen. Click somewhere on the clock to display a popup-menu with the following options:

• Sync now: Will get your timezone and current time and set your computer's clock accordingly. Only available when NTP is enabled in settings.
• Iconify: Iconify the clock window. This only works with XaAES and MagiC, as other AES'es does not support this iconify mode.
• Always on top: The clock window will "float" ontop of all other windows, even when it doesn't have input focus. XaAES only.
• Settings: Opens the settings dialog, see below.
• Quit: Quits and saves configuration and position (if changed).

Settings dialog

• Automatic date & time: Enables geolocation and NTP. Your timezone and correct time is fetched when ntp-clock is started, and then every hour. The GEMDOS clock will be set.
• RTC: Will also update your computer's RTC (if present) when ntpclock exits.
• Seconds: Enable display of seconds. Not recommended.
• Colours: Here you can set the colours of the hour, minute and second arms, as well as the hour marks, timezone/date and clock face. When you pick a colour you can also choose "Disable", which will disable the drawing of this particular element. "Shadow width" sets the shadow offset in pixels.

Settings are saved automatically when the program exits.

Window location and size

The clock window does not have any widgets, so moving and resizing is not done as for "normal" windows.

• Move: Click and hold somewhere on the clock, then drag it to it's new position.
• Resize: There's two ways to do this. With XaAES you can grab one of it's window corners or edges and drag to resize. With any other AES you grab the lower right corner of the clock and drag to resize. Please note that there's limits to the clock's size and width/height ratio.

Position and size is automatically saved when ntp-clock exits.

Bugs/limitations

• If STiK/STiNG/GlueSTiK is installed but no internet connection set up, ntp-clock will halt for quite some time when attempting to reach the geolocation/ntp servers.

ntpclock.ttp

This is a small commandline NTP-client for TOS/MiNT/MagiC with a working STiK/STiNG/GlueSTiK internet connection. Run it from the commandline, mint.cnf or autofolder to automatically set your clock to the correct time. Needless so say you must run it after the network has been set up.

Usage

ntpclient.ttp -tz <offset> -q

All parameters are optional.

• -tz <offset>. offset is an offset from UTC in the format -00:00 or +00:00, indicating the number of hours and minutes before/after UTC. Please note that DST is not supported when timezone is set manually, so you will have to manually adjust the timezone offset for DST.
• -q. Quiet-mode, ntpclock doesn't output any text.

If -tz isn't specified ntpclock will use geolocation to determine your current timezone, DST included.

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Feb. 2025, joska@online.no