MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Any way to keep a persistant clock while reading?

NiLuJe · 06-20-2014, 05:14 PM

Okay, got a crappy POC working (thanks to FBGrab & IM).

I'm thinking wrap that in a forever loop, and each 30s check if the time changed, and when it does:

Snapshot of the current page:

Code:

fbgrab page.png

Composite a clock on it (default @ bottom, tweak the size per-device, cf. my BatteryStatus KUAL extension for the screen size detection code):

Code:

/mnt/us/linkss/bin/convert page.png -gravity south -compose src-over -background "#0000" -fill black -font "/usr/java/lib/fonts/Caecilia_LT_75_Bold.ttf" -gravity south -size "600x20" caption:"$(date +%H:%M)" -composite -quality 75 -define png:bit-dept
h=8 clock.png

Print composite page w/o flashing:

Code:

eips -g clock.png

Maaagic!

(Also, cleanup behind us, and write all that crap in a tmpfs, not the flash).

It's crappy because both fbgrab & IM are very CPU-hungry (i.e. the whole process takes between 1~2s @ 100% CPU on a Touch), and the design around a forever loop isn't terribly pretty (but I like the 'check if the time has changed every n seconds' better than a costly & ugly parsing of the logs to detect page changes, and it should be more transparent to the user, since it would then mostly avoid happening during an already CPU-hungry operation [page change] [EDIT: Err, okay, obvious downside: it disappears when you turn the page until the time change]).

Going with a lower PNG compression level (both for FBGrab & IM) would probably speed things up a bit, at the expense of bigger files, which might be something to investigate, since this is only intended for very short-term storage.

For now, I'm leaving this out there, I don't really intend to make anything end-user friendly with this, just throwing ideas around

.

Especially since both the real toolbar, or aosd or a proper overlay like the LUA idea would be much, much better

.

EDIT: For an idea of what the (mostly randomly chosen) size mentioned gives:

EDIT²: And with Futura-DemiBold instead, to match the font used by the framework on a K5 (don't mind the crappy fake BoldOblique of Libre Baskerville).

EDIT³: We could nearly do it without file I/O, if only eips could handle input from stdin...

Code:

./fbgrab -z 0 - | /mnt/us/linkss/bin/convert PNG:- -gravity south -compose src-over -background "#0000" -fill black -font "/usr/java/lib/fonts/Caecilia_LT_75_Bold.ttf" -gravity south -size "600x20" caption:"$(date +%H:%M)" -composite -quality 00 -defi
ne png:bit-depth=8 PNG:- | eips -g -

Code:

eips: paint_image> cannot open "-":can't fopen

06-20-2014, 05:14 PM	#43
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,506 Karma: 26047202 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	Okay, got a crappy POC working (thanks to FBGrab & IM). I'm thinking wrap that in a forever loop, and each 30s check if the time changed, and when it does: Snapshot of the current page: Code: fbgrab page.png Composite a clock on it (default @ bottom, tweak the size per-device, cf. my BatteryStatus KUAL extension for the screen size detection code): Code: /mnt/us/linkss/bin/convert page.png -gravity south -compose src-over -background "#0000" -fill black -font "/usr/java/lib/fonts/Caecilia_LT_75_Bold.ttf" -gravity south -size "600x20" caption:"$(date +%H:%M)" -composite -quality 75 -define png:bit-dept h=8 clock.png Print composite page w/o flashing: Code: eips -g clock.png Maaagic! (Also, cleanup behind us, and write all that crap in a tmpfs, not the flash). It's crappy because both fbgrab & IM are very CPU-hungry (i.e. the whole process takes between 1~2s @ 100% CPU on a Touch), and the design around a forever loop isn't terribly pretty (but I like the 'check if the time has changed every n seconds' better than a costly & ugly parsing of the logs to detect page changes, and it should be more transparent to the user, since it would then mostly avoid happening during an already CPU-hungry operation [page change] [EDIT: Err, okay, obvious downside: it disappears when you turn the page until the time change]). Going with a lower PNG compression level (both for FBGrab & IM) would probably speed things up a bit, at the expense of bigger files, which might be something to investigate, since this is only intended for very short-term storage. For now, I'm leaving this out there, I don't really intend to make anything end-user friendly with this, just throwing ideas around . Especially since both the real toolbar, or aosd or a proper overlay like the LUA idea would be much, much better . EDIT: For an idea of what the (mostly randomly chosen) size mentioned gives: EDIT²: And with Futura-DemiBold instead, to match the font used by the framework on a K5 (don't mind the crappy fake BoldOblique of Libre Baskerville). EDIT³: We could nearly do it without file I/O, if only eips could handle input from stdin... Code: ./fbgrab -z 0 - \| /mnt/us/linkss/bin/convert PNG:- -gravity south -compose src-over -background "#0000" -fill black -font "/usr/java/lib/fonts/Caecilia_LT_75_Bold.ttf" -gravity south -size "600x20" caption:"$(date +%H:%M)" -composite -quality 00 -defi ne png:bit-depth=8 PNG:- \| eips -g - Code: eips: paint_image> cannot open "-":can't fopen Attached Thumbnails Last edited by NiLuJe; 06-20-2014 at 09:19 PM.