Position

[flyeric777]

Hello,

Could you please add a "Lock position" for it as it moves sometimes and have to put it back often at the right position.

Thank you.

[Kolcha]

what do you mean by "lock position"? clock should keep its position...

clock can move slightly depending on what skin used. if skin has numbers with different sizes (like for example most of the fonts and "font-like" skins), clock will move slightly, this is especially noticeable if you are using "alignment = right" or "alignment = center". but there is an "origin" point which is kept the same (like (0, 0) position), this is not always top-left corner as you may expect, this is some other point that depends on the skin. this is intentionally done to keep the "baseline" (basically Y coordinate of that "origin" point) the same.

if clock changes position completely, this may be a bug.

please provide more details how it changes the position and under what conditions. this is totally unclear now what is happening.

[flyeric777]

I have positioned the clock (with the date) at the bottom right of my screen. I am encountering two issues that bother me.

1. When resizing windows or when I put Windows to sleep and then wake it up, the clock is no longer at the bottom right but in the middle of the screen.

2. This problem is partly my fault because sometimes, by clicking on the clock without meaning to, it follows the movement of my mouse and moves.

My suggestion was therefore (as is done with some applications/widgets) to lock the position of the app/widget with a "lock" option in the menu so that an accidental click or resizing cannot move the clock.

Was I clear enough?

Thank you very much.

[Kolcha]

thank you, this is much more clear.

the 1st case (about restore after sleep) sounds for me as a bug, this is something to look at. as workaround, try to disable "prevent out of screen position" option, maybe during restore from the sleep state screen resolution changes for a moment, and this triggers move. at least it worth checking.

for the 2nd case, you can make clock "unclickable" by enabling "transparent for mouse events" option. in such case clock just "doesn't exist" and all clicks will reach to the window behind it.

[flyeric777]

Thank you Nick :-)

I enabled "transparent for mouse events" and this is perfect, i am now unable to drag the clock, yesss !
I desabled "prevent out of screen position".
Also, when i put the computer in sleep mode and wake it up, the clock i sstill at the right (good) position.

Thank you very much for the fast help, problem solved :-)

[flyeric777]

Hello Nick,

I come back to you because, after multiple try, even if "prevent out of screen position" is disabled, unfortunately, when wake up windows, the clock's position moved from bottom right to center.
I still confirm no more mistaken moves because of "transparent for mouse events" is enabled.

Sincerely, i don't know if it is a windwos graphic driver from my side (it is possible but i don't have any graphical bug).

Thank you very much :-)

P.S: for information, i have "simple sticky note" with some notes always displayed on my desktop and when i put the computer on sleep mode and wake it up later, the notes doesn't move.

[Kolcha]

ok, understood. will try to figure out what happens during state restore after sleep, maybe there is some event I can handle (or just somehow detect that state restore has happened) and then adjust position.

this is not strictly can be a bug in drivers, maybe this is the way how things work (I don't know anything at all about this sleep mode and how it works). but I assume that on state restore graphics card is not yet initialized (or maybe drivers not loaded at all) and it starts with low resolution what makes Windows to move windows in the visible area (only windows outside this area are affected), so clock is moved. then drivers load or configure the graphics card and everything becomes fully functional as it should be, but windows remain at the same positions as they were moved previously, as there is no reason to move them again (all of them are visible). this is just a my theory, nothing more.

also similar things may happen if some scaling is used (again, just a my theory, nothing more).

in any case, it worth checking what actually happens and how to recognize this situation and then adjust the position. for now I have no answer.

[flyeric777]

Thank you very much for your delailled answer.
Maybe it is my system ?
So, to avoid a waste of time, it could be nice to know if someone could reproduce my "bug" or if the problem come only from my computer ?

[Kolcha]

Maybe it is my system ?

unlikely, if the root cause as I assumed, it will be almost everywhere, at least with the similar hardware (where similar drivers are used). so, it worth some investigation at least.

[flyeric777]

Thank you Nick.

For information, i use Windows 11 24H2 with I9-13900H but note that the GPU is integrated in the CPU, it is Iris Xe.

[KartmanOW]

Hello Nick,

i have just installed Clock 5.
When I start it, I get the error message:
The procedure entry point "CreateDXGIFactory2" was not found in the DLL "dxgi.dll."
I'm still using Win7 Build 7601.
And I still have Digital Clock 4 installed.
Do I still need to copy the dxgi.dll into the DLL directory?

And another question:
Where do I change the properties? e.g., "transparent for mouse events."
I'll probably have to reset it to correct the clock position.

Regards

[Kolcha]

Hello,

unfortunately, this error says about incompatibility - dxgi.dll is one of system .dll files (you can find it in Windows/System32), part of DirectX. I'm not using this stuff directly, but Qt (the framework I'm using) does. you can try to update DirectX runtime using web installer, but it is unlikely that the issue will be solved. Windows 7 is not supported by Qt 6, Windows 10 is required, sorry.

see this document to find where clock stores its settings. it is about Digital Clock 5, but 4 uses the same places. application must not be running while you are editing/removing any options.

[KartmanOW]

Thanks Nick for the quick reply,
but these entries aren't there.
I've pinned the clock entries I have.
And like Kolcha, the position changes for me too.
I've changed these two entries, but to no avail:

• clock/opacity
• misc/show_hide_enabled

The position should be above the Windows clock, but I can't move it anymore.
The position only changes after a restart.

It's a shame that Clock 5 no longer works with Windows 7, but Clock 5 is actually enough for me if I can adjust it again :-)
Best Regards

[Kolcha]

position change after sleep (or sometimes after reboot) may happen, unfortunately. and this is not controlled by me too. the nature of the issue is still unknown to me, but it looks like some windows move during early app startup may lead to unexpected position or even entirely ignored by the system. I found no cases of wrong provided position.

you can't move the clock because "transparent for mouse" is enabled ('transp_for_input' is 'true'), you need to disable it (set to 'false').

also I don't see 'stay_on_top' alongside 'transp_for_input'. I highly recommend to enable it, as this option enables a lot of hacks to make "stay on top" at least semi-stable (unfortunately, this simple feature doesn't work stable anymore since ~2015, even whatever old apps are affected, the problem is somewhere in the Windows itself), especially if you want keep the clock above Windows taskbar. also disable 'win_on_top' plugin, it makes the situation with unstable "stay on top" even worse, and it doesn't make clock on top of all windows.

if you want more details about the problems with "stay on top", follow the links from here.

some keys can be missed in registry, only modified values are written there. if you don't touch some option - it will never appear in the registry.

if you are changing values in the clock and looking for the change in Windows Registry Editor, you will see nothing. Windows Registry Editor doesn't update values on change, you have to refresh view or even re-open it.

if you want to change some values manually (i.e. using Windows Registry Editor), exit clock app first. by I don't recommend to do edit settings manually unless you have a good reason to do so (like need to reset settings).

Digital Clock 4 is not maintained since the end of 2020 (the last release), if something worked before and now stopped working, the problem is caused only by some change in the system.