Eclipse on the PPC?
Welcome to
Eclipse on the PPC?
Do you like an eclipse desktop for your pocket PC (PPC) like the image
left?
Here you get it: eclipse.tsk Download the
file, send it to your PDA an chose as today screen.
On the right you see my EclipseObserver for PC and PPC. The software is in an early beta phase, feel free to test it and share your comments. For further improvements i intend to release a camera with this software.
What do you else need? The Eclipse Calculator! A javascript calculator. Works fine offline on the internet explorer a PPC.
My latest eclipse project is the conversion of my old observation software,
written in PASCAL, so that it will run on my pocket PC (ppc). A nice developing
tool for this is BASIC4PPC. So i get
a Version, running on a standard windows-PC as well as on a ppc, with the
same source code!
Soon you can test and download both versions here on my homepage. I called the program "EclipseObserver". It reminds your observations by text message or sound output and it is also able to launch other applications eg. camera operating tools or meteo gatherig software.
All configuration data is stored in a textfile, "EclipseObserver.txt". You can edit this file either in advance using a text editor or with "EclipseObserver".
After starting the application you see the main form as seen above. In the upper left there are editable fields containing the contact times C1 .. C4 as well as the time of mid of eclipse, accessed to as "C0" in the calculations described later. Rigtht to these times there is displayed the duration from now to the respecting contact. Below this there is displayed the next contact event and the time to it in large letters. Events in the past are marked pale blue, upcoming events are black. If there are less than 5 minutes to an event, it ist marked red.
The field below shows the actual time.
The lower three lines show the last and the next two events or text messages from the user defined list, which can be acced to by the "Actions" menu button.
To
manage complex observation programs, you will like to add more events. A
click on the "Actions" menu opens a window a table, containing sounds or
program launch tasks and text messages to be displayed in the main window.
"Edit" opens a new form to change or add the selected task. With "Copy" the
selected item is copied and the copy will be edited. With "ok" the input
data will be copied into the task tables and executed. This may last some
time on slow machines. To save them click on "Save" in the main form.
Although it is possible to edit the table file (EclipseObserver.csv) manually,
great care should be taken for getting correct data formats. A better way
to edit these events is to use the forms in my software.
In the csv-file "C0" stands for the mid of eclipse. The contact event
may be followed by a time difference. Alternatively to this relative timing
you may use absolute times, started by "A". For playing sounds use the command
"PLAY" followed by the sound file name. For launching external applications,
use the command "SHELL".
Preparing the eclipse
It is very important for successful eclipse observations to be well prepared,
"EclipseObserver" supports you already at home. Check the "Training" box,
and "EclipseObserver" asks you for the time to second contact. Enter the
desired value and test your observation program in real time as often as
you like. You can switch off the training mode by unchecking the training
check box or via the main form menu.
Download the files for PC and Pocket PC, including source codes and example configuration files here. Copy them to any directory on the PC or PPC and execute them.
Known problems yet to be solved:
after a system predefined time, the PPC will turn off the display backlight illumination. Although the source code should prevent this (coorect values are written to the registry, but obviously they are not noted by the system), it seems to work not properly on all machines. In case of external power supply, backlight power down often deactivated. If not, after starting EclipseObserver, you should call the settings dialogs of the windows power management settings. However, the program continues running and announcing sound messages.
command line parameters for external application are not well supported yet
Another
small timing application is my interval timer. It plays sounds and can launch
an application periodically.
If you think it will be useful try and download intervaltimer.zip
© Dr. Wolfgang Strickling, Drususstr. 15, 45721 Haltern am See / Germany. Tel: +0049 / 23 64 / 16 76 91
My solar eclipse projects
My eclipse Organiser
page (in German, for the old Psion Organiser II)
Software for different (mobile) Computers are at
back to Wolfgangs Homepage (German)
last updade was on 2007-02-27
The original URL of this page is
http://www.strickling.net/eclipse_ppc.htm