Bugzilla – Bug 9810
Large font during Screesaver (Date and Time, namely)
Last modified: 2009-09-09 03:40:54 UTC
I hope this isn't a duplicate - I searched and didn't find anything. One of the big differences between the way I'm using my boom vs. my SB3 is pretty basic: the boom is a night-time clock by my bedside. As such, it's nice to be able to have it use the big (1-line) font to display the time since I'm not interested in the date at 2am when I can't sleep :-) On the other hand, the biggest font is nearly useless for navigating music on the boom because of the screen size. It probably is on the SB3, too; I've just never tried. So, on my Boom I have my screensaver while playing, stopped, and off all set up for the Date/Time screensaver, and set up to be the big (full narrow) font while on standby, but standard narrow otherwise. Essentially I want it to always look like a clock. The problem is if I'm listening to music softly while sleeping, or even if the player is just on at night. I'd like the capability to have the time (screensaver) always display as one line. This could be solved either with * a new option like "Font During Screensaver" that I could then set to "full narrow", * or maybe just an option for the Date/Time Screensaver to have it display "Time Only", meaning that no matter what the current font setup is it would switch to a full 1-line font during the Date/Time Screensaver. This was discussed in the forums here: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53273 (hence option #1 above, proposed by Max.Spicer...although after reading bug 8359 I'm not sure they are the same since it is about the alarm)
Brian: is this one yours to take a look at? sounds like a nice feature to have.
Not sure this is for Brian. I didn't read the thread, but this sounds like a job for a plugin...
(In reply to comment #2) Hello again - I was just listening to my Boom looked up and saw the date and time and remembered this enhancement request...so I thought I'd check in. Since there are already two font options ("font" and "standby"), it seems to me like it would be confusing to bury this functionality, a third font option, in a plugin. Anyway, the reason I was writing in was that it dawned on me that another alternative to add this functionality would be to have a "Time" screensaver that is completely separate from the "Date/Time" screensaver; it would always go to the 1-line font no matter what state the display was in when it entered, and then just return to the display settings when the screensaver is exited. Just another thought. That way Date/Time can continue to display both and Time could just display the Time for those of us who don't want that much info on our Booms. Just a thought, -Aaron
I'm in agreement that there are serious usability issues with font sizing on the Boom. With the Boom's reduced width display, the largest font is virtually unusable for browsing and selecting music. So the main font size must be set to Standard or even smaller. But for use as a clock, anything smaller than the Full sized font just doesn't work. I wear fairly strong corrective lenses and without them I cant read the Standard sized font from more than about two feet away, making the Boom a very poor bedside clock substitute.
The plugin's there already: MusicInfoSCR.
Michael - That looks much closer. Personally, I'm having some issues making the MusicInfoSCR plugin work (both on my boom and on softsqueeze emulating the boom. Haven't tried it on my SB3 yet, though)...it seems to be merging the screen that I have configured (just currtime in the center of the display) and a large-display scrolling now playing screen that I can't for the life of me make go away! Anyway, this obviously isn't the forum for support on MusicInfoSCR, so I'll take that one outside of this bugzilla if I can't figure it out. Regardless, though, from what I can tell even with my particular display issues, it's not the same as the Date/Time plugin; it doesn't seem to display the alarm bell in the upper right, and it seems to maybe take a couple clicks of the snooze button to display when the next alarm is as opposed to the one click. I guess, to me it doesn't seem like it would be that uncommon of a request to have the Boom just look like a standard alarm clock most of the time (so, 1-line mode) except when you are interacting with it directly via the front panel or remote (which requires 2-line mode in the boom due to the small display). Even if I do get this working I'm not sure the average customer is going to want to do that much configuration just to have it display the time in a big font like their normal bedside clock did. Thanks for the tip on MusicInfoSCR, though, I'll keep playing with it to see if I can make it work for me. cheers.
Aaron - this issue (which was _no_ SC issue, but in my plugin only) should be fixed in the latest 4.3.5 release. For issues related to 3rd party plugins please contact the authors on the forums. Thanks.
Hello again - As I was replying to someone in the forums who was looking for this exact same enhancement request (see here: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=56735 ) I realized I hadn't updated this with a reply. The MusicInfoSCR plugin gets me tantalizingly close to what I'm looking for, but is lacking support for the alarm bell icon like the Date/Time Screensaver has. There's a couple other smaller remarks about MusicInfoSCR that I posted in the forums, but this isn't the place for that. Independent of that, this seems like something that should be supported by default with the Boom anyway, since it is marketed as a bedside alarm clock. Mostly I just want to confirm that I believe this is still a valid enhancement request.
I'm the user who entered the forum post mentioned above. I'm in the same situation as the original poster in that I'd like to be able to use the Boom as a clock most of the time. It works for this when off (one large time display, no other info) but when playing or stopped the two line display is too hard for me too read from across the room when half asleep. Another possible method of allowing this would be to allow the time/date display to be set to "none" in addition to all the other options. This would set the clock to one line, large font mode. Changing to FullNormal text size is not a good solution since, while the clock looks good the menus are practically unusable (this is on the Boom which I believe has a smaller screen). I'll certainly check out the mentioned MusicInfoSCR to see if it helps.
I will echo the request to allow the display of only the time in the largest font while the SB is playing. I use the Boom as a clock radio, when I wake up to it I do not have my glasses on and cannot make out the time if the date is displayed above it - heck, I don't even need the date displayed at any time, so an option of no date in the date/time display should allow the full-sized clock to display, preferably NOT as an add-on.
(In reply to comment #10) > I will echo the request to allow the display of only the time in the largest > font while the SB is playing. I use the Boom as a clock radio, when I wake up > to it I do not have my glasses on and cannot make out the time if the date is > displayed above it - heck, I don't even need the date displayed at any time, so > an option of no date in the date/time display should allow the full-sized clock > to display, preferably NOT as an add-on. I can only second the need for being able to display just the Clock in a large font - and the Alarm Icon - when the Boom is Off. And once the Alarm has activated and the music (or whatever) i splaying it would be nice to have the Clock clearly visible for those of us where the eyes are not what they used to be ;-) One little thing which I also could find handy would be to have the large Clock when in Off-mode along with the Alarm icon and then the alarm time in a smaller font below the Alarm icon? I know just a touch to the alarmbutton reveals the next alarm time, but it would be "handy" for a quick glance (when close enough)?