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--- blog:articles:raspberry:phys_marsclock:2020-07-01 [2020/08/04 17:11] – ↷ Page moved from blog:articles:phys_marsclock:2020-07-01 to blog:articles:raspberry:phys_marsclock:2020-07-01 Phil Ide
+++ blog:articles:raspberry:phys_marsclock:2020-07-01 [2020/08/30 15:19] (current) – removed Phil Ide
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-====== 2020-07-01 ======
-**Physical Martian Clock Project**\\
-I've just been informed that the power supply unit will be here tomorrow, and I do sort of need that to get moving on this project. but there are all sorts of hurdles to get through first, so I thought I'd talk about them today, since I'm going to have to tackle them sooner or later.
-===== Skins =====
-First up is the skin system. I've spent the day coding the mechanism that performs skin selection and installation (it determines which skin to use and invokes it), and separated that code from the clock code (the bit that determines what time it is). In order to test this, I had to actually create a skin, and hoorah, it works! Translating the code-monkey speak into English, that means I didn't break anything.
-Having created a pretty basic skin that tells the time and diplays about 6 other bits of information, I embarked on making a 'finished' and polished skin. Now one of the problems I face is that I can spend torturous hours moving bits of data around and then nudging them carefully into place so they all look perfect... until I put it on the Raspberry Pi. It's almost a given that it will use different fonts from my Windows machine. I have an Ubuntu Linux machine too, but although Raspian and Ubuntu are not too far apart, they are different builds and there's no guarantee the fonts will be the same.
-The clock is written in Electron, so this will be a supreme test of its cross-platform capabilities. Once the clock is up and running, will I have to adjust the skins to line everything up again?
-There is also the capability of the touch screen to display in a similar fashion to my HD monitor. I've heard that with generally bright images the screen looks a bit washed out. No matter, I'll have months (or years) of skin creation ahead of me. It'll just be easier and quicker if I can do it on one of my PC's before transferring it over to the clock.
-===== Hardware Updates =====
-The case and the touch screen leave the GPIO pins largely vacant. It may be possible to put an RTC (real-time clock) on later so it can remember the time for those moments when it reboots and can't access the net. I've thought about installing a time server on my Linux PC, but I'm not sure just how valuable (or difficult) that would be. An RTC solves the problem.
-===== Touch Screen Operation =====
-It may sound dumb, but I have no idea how the "touch" operations work on the screen. The documentation for it is almost non-existant and even though it describes how to install it, it does so very poorly. The instructions also conflict with the instructions for the case, which is designed to house the screen, but fails to mention at all any of the five cables I have left over. Does the screen convey touch action through the display adapter? Or does it finagle the GPIO pins via the aforemention five cables I've got lying in a box? Answers will be forthcoming when the power unit arrives and I can test things out. I hate poor documentation.
-===== Installing as a Service =====
-I have a linux computer, but I have never tried installing a service on it, so I have no idea how it's done on the Pi. I'm pretty sure I can just edit come config files and everything will be ok and nothing will break at all... Time to put some search engines to work!
-~~socialite~~
-~~DISCUSSION~~