The windows Task Bar. You see it everyday... bland, grey thing with buttons all over it... but it doesn't have to be bland and grey, oh no! Hell, it doesn't have to have buttons on it. Welcome to the world of tClock :D




Before tClock, and...


...after! w00t green and yellow ownz!



tClock allows you to change the default settings of the task bar and start menu. On the right are a variety of desktops, each with different colours and styles on the taskbar (and some l33t background pics, hehe). If you want to do something similar, just follow our instructions :).

There's a veritable plethora of options to choose from, so I guess I'll go through them all... bah, so boring ;)

Colo[U]r and Font (damn american spellings):



The programmer has made it fairly simple, but we'll take a look at the options on this page.
Background1 and Background2 are the two colours used for the background to the clock on your taskbar. I have chosen two marvellous shades of blue darling, and a Text colour of "Button Face". That means its the same colour as the taskbar itself, on my system that means a delightful timid grey. Font is fairly self-explanatory, I have chosen Verdana - a personal favourite - a font Size of 8, and Bold styling. The Adjustment options set the positioning of the time and date... play around with them until it looks right...
Can you tell what it is yet? My settings look like this:


Sweeeee.

Next up... Format:



The Format options allow you to change the way the date and time are shown. The Locale drop down menu-box-thing allows you to choose from a load of presets, or you can use the checkboxes below.
More fun is to use the "Customize format" (that's "customise" for all you english speakers) to choose your own layout.
I chose a fairly orthodox "dddd, dd mmm hh:nn:ss" which gives "sunday, 16 Sep 03:31:36" (actual date may vary, no purchase necessary contact blah blah... mwuh? sorry...).
You can insert any words u like, so if you wanted "w00ty m00pd00p, the dat0r is Sunday Sep 16!" you would insert into the box ""w00ty m00pd00p, the dat0r is" dddd mmm dd", although why you'd want that is beyond me...


Right, format section down, next!

Alarm:



Never made use of this function meself, but it allows you to set an annoying sound to play at a set time. I'm sure y'all can work it out. What's that you say? "I'm stupid, please help me"? Oh ok, just for you. First, you need to check "activate" or else it won't, well, activate now will it.
Use the boxes to pick the time you want the alarm to go off. You can also choose to have the alarm go off hourly... kinda like the "bEEp bEEp" you hear from crappy casio watches when you're on the bus. You can make the taskbar blink too... like i said, never used it ;D.

Mouse settings:



This is kinda nifty. The "Drop files" function means if you drag a file onto the clock you can make it perform one of the fuctions in the drop down box, most useful imo being "copy to..."
Below you can choose what happens if you click or double click on the closk. A double click takes me to Date/Time properties, whereas a single click opens the windows "run" dialog box. A setting to open tClock properties this way would have been nice... but you can also choose to shut down, copy files, or synchronise the time with an internet clock, which is nice.
The ToolTip box is what comes up when you place the mouse over the clock... in my case, this:
Sweeeeee ;D

Taskbar:



This is the main stuff. Customize start button means you can choose an alternate icon and text... a flame and "Crash" are a personal fave, but you can choose what you want. The "Hide Start Button" does away with it altogether, and you instead click on the clock to access the start menu, or use the Start key on your keyboard. "Flat Start button" and "Flat Task switch" are just so cool you have to use them. They remove the stupid 3d look from buttons and make them more uptodate looking, like all menus have in the new windows versions. Why m$ didn't do this I have no idea.
If you use windows 2000, you can also make the taskbar semi-transparent! I have seen pics of this, and it looks sweet :D.
Finally, you can change the image on the left of the start menu... take a look at some of the screenshots on the right to see what I mean.

Synchronize... goddam Z's everywhere:



This allows you to syncronise your clock with internet time... I haven't set it up yet, but you need to find a time server, and insert the address here. You can choose how often to sync. with the "adjust regularly" options, or simply tell it to sync when you want. It can play a sound when syncing, and log what it does. Useful features... I just haven't bothered yet ;)

Misc:



Options here to remove all clock customisations, and to make the customisation occur after a set amount of time... a peculiar option I feel. I have no idea what the "Desktop Calendar" crap is all about, so I won't bother trying ;D. The "create shortcut in startup folder" button should be pressed immediately! It means tClock with run when you start windows, so no more icky 3d buttons ;)

About:



Well, saves me writing it all out! :D That email is kazuto.sato@nifty.ne.jp
and the url is http://member.nifty.ne.jp/kazubon, although it doesn't actually work hehe... use the link at the bottom, it does :)

So there we have it. It's all, of course, purely for looks. But I reckon it adds a lot to the overall aesthetics of my desktop, and is something m$ could easily have implemented but didn't. tClock gets a worthy full marks 8)

mrplow, 6-9-01.