A Graphical Pod Clock in New Territory

Paula465 · **Posted:** Fri Apr 23, 2010 2:20 pm

Do the Pod Ages function still? I caught the Dereno portal on time but when I walked through the symbol, nothing happened. It's been a while since I played, but weren't we suppose to be transported?

EDITED to Update: I managed to catch the Payiferen Pod portal and was transported, so must not have positioned myself correctly for the Dereno one to work. Have a couple of hours before the Tetsonot portal is to open.

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Sat Apr 24, 2010 1:54 pm

Zik Clock 1.1 is available on the App Store now.

New in this version, apart from the renaming:

Updated built-in estimates for MO:ULagain. The predictions may still be off by a few minutes though – this is deliberate! Do your own calibration or share calibration points with other explorers to make it more accurate!
Corrected KI time scale since the KI still follows old DST rules.
Better combination of observations and built-in estimates when there are not enough observations to base everything on them. Adding the first observation will now shift all predictions, not just those for the observed pod.

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Wed Oct 27, 2010 6:08 pm

Bump! Zik Clock 1.2 is released.

New in this version:

Added portal alerts on iOS 4.
Support multitasking on iOS 4.
Added “Today” button to return you to the current time.
Updated built-in estimates from recent data.
Adjusted KI time scale to follow old DST rules indefinitely.
Fixed extremely fast scrolling of the timeline after lifting the finger in certain circumstances.

wobuzhudao · **Posted:** Fri Oct 29, 2010 3:08 pm

The app works well, and looks sharp.

Anyone have any saved calibration files for sharing? I'm planning on a quick run this afternoon and hope to catch a portal, but I dont' have any calibration data.

tanshin · **Posted:** Fri Oct 29, 2010 4:05 pm

I have some partial calibration data. It contains three Tetsonots, two Negilahns, and one Dereno.

http://cl.ly/eaf11962666f96b32577

wobuzhudao · **Posted:** Fri Oct 29, 2010 4:09 pm

I only got Negilahn for now. It's funny how I start scheduling my day around portal sightings.

[spoiler]2010-10-29 19:23:41 Negilahn[/spoiler]

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Sun Nov 07, 2010 8:37 am

Thanks to everyone who came to the All Guilds Meeting yesterday and participated in the discussion! (It could have been a bit less chaotic though.

)

Here’s the chart again that shows my findings about the portal timing (deviation of the actual portal sighting from Zik Clock’s prediction plotted over time):
[spoiler=Click to reveal chart.]

[/spoiler]

A note (that I neglected to make in the heat of the discussion yesterday) to those who think it makes no sense that Zik Clock has to be calibrated using empirical IC observations and would rather have it incorporate Cyan’s source data and thus be accurate from the start: Pod Clock (the desktop version) is open source and you’re welcome to modify it to suit your likings, and I’m willing to make Zik Clock open source too if people ask for it.

Deledrius · **Posted:** Sun Nov 07, 2010 9:31 am

Thanks for posting the chart. So much easier to view in a browser!

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

Hi there, I just downloaded this on my iPad, and though it says iPad compatible - it only shows up in the little "you're viewing an iPhone app on your iPad" screen, and thus when I hit "2x" (to fill my iPad's screen, the default view is much too small for me) the text and images are blurry/have jagged lines/have artefacts, etc.

Is there any chance of an update to actually support iPad screen sizes? =)

As much as I disagree with the use of empirical data, it is a good app, and the interface design is top-notch. =)

As such, the user experience is pretty darn good even with the (in my opinion) silly calibration aspect.

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:29 pm

Thanks Kaelis! An iPad-native user interface is indeed in the works. For the moment I’m still working on the retina-display support, but iPad is the next step. I just completed the high-resolution textures this week and am integrating them now.

I won’t remove the calibration aspect, but as I mentioned, if you or anyone else wants to produce a version that works differently, I’d be happy to open the source.

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

I am interested, though competing with your excellent app seems rather silly, but as always - I'm always fond of the idea of it being open source - What license would you consider releasing it under? Also, would the graphical parts of the UI be under that license, or another? =)

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:50 pm

I’m thinking of something BSD-like – I think it was MIT that I used for Pod Clock. That would include the finished graphics. Whether to release the Photoshop source material for them, and under what license, I haven’t decided. I may want to be a bit more protective of that than of the code.

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

iirc, MIT is always good =)

CC-BY-SA might be a decent one for the photoshop source - if you decide to release that, depending on if you're fond of copyleft licenses.

I'd personally say the nc and nd (non-commercial and no-derivatives) variants of creative commons would be a bad idea for this use - and as far as many open source supports are concerned, they're also non-free (as in Free/Libre (free-as-in-speech, not as in beer) )

The source for the images would be nice - but then I've always been of the mind that digital art should be open just as much as code - and I've been known to practice what I preach, as well. =)

But, again, your choice, so go with whatever you feel is right. =)

(disclaimer: I'm a big proponent of Free/Libre Media (art, etc, not limited to journalism), Free Culture. Similar to Richard M. Stallman's (rms) "Free Software, Free Society" philosophy - in my personal views - cultural... things.. (can't think of the word) being open/Free(Libre) is just as important, or even more important than software being Free/Libre. So read my post with that in mind, but as always, let your own moral compass/mind guide you - it is your own content.)

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Sun Jan 16, 2011 7:15 pm

The source code for Zik Clock, including some artwork source files, is now available under the MIT license:

https://bitbucket.org/cwalther/zikclock

Enjoy!

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Sat Apr 02, 2011 9:41 pm

Would you like to help translate Zik Clock into other languages than the English and German it currently supports?

You can now do that at http://getlocalization.com/zikclock/!

Once you sign up on the site, you can add new languages, add text translations, and vote and comment on existing translations. I have no previous experience with Get Localization, so we’ll see how that works. If anything is unclear, you can use the built-in comment functions of the site, or you can contact me by e-mail or other means.

(It was originally planned to do this on the Uru Localization Project, but with OHB disappearing, I had to look for alternative solutions.)

A Graphical Pod Clock in New Territory

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