TLBclock: Date/Time Format Configuration & Skinning

For me, being able to see the current time and date is very important, but I admit that I am very particular on how it is displayed and formatted. I don't have the time nor patience to create my own skin, so I try my best to make due with tweaking TLBclock's default configurations. But still, I feel that much more can be improved in this plug-in! (Believe it or not, this plug-in is actually my #1 most favorite/important of them all, heh.)

My suggestions for improving the customization of TLBclock can be clumped into two categories: Skinning features/options, and the Default formatting configuration.

• Formatting Options for <Default>:
  
  
• Adjusting clock position on toolbar. Allow making adjustments to how it's positioned on the toolbar. I imagine the options consisting of 2 spin boxes that adjusts up/down and left/right by 1 pixel increments. Ex: -3 for up/down means position it down by 3px.
  
  -- Expanding on this idea, positioning of the specific clock items can be configured (items, such as: date, time, name).
  
  Deeper thoughts on the UI for configuring this feature... It's not unlikely that *someone* would try to make an extreme change in position that (most likely) produces an undesireable results. So, naturally limitations need to be installed for this feature. Perhaps the plug-in author will hardcode a max distance of 10px in any direction... Or the user can type in the max height and/or width of the clock's boundaries.
  
  
• Placement order of TLBclock's items. What if I want to have the <date> line appear above the <time> line, or any other combination of date/name/time...
  
  
• Suggested changes to the Date/Time format codes.
  The time format code "tt" results in either "AM" or "PM", whereas "TT" is not recognized as a format code and will simply display as is. It's a waste such formatting codes aren't implemented.
  
  
  Code:

  Here's an example of what I want, using the time format code "tt" (AM/PM):
"tt" ----> am/pm, "TT" ----> "AM/PM"
"t" ----> a/p, "T" ----> "A/P"
  ____
  
  Additional codes I'd like to see:
  ...An escape character, so that I can make a specific character not be interpreted as part of a formatting code and just as plain text. So, for example, the escape character is "^"... "ss" translates into the seconds timer with a leading zero. But say I wanted the seconds to look like "56secs" or "56s", but using "sss" doesn't work. And it seems to really not like it when specifying "(ss)s"... So by using the escape character "^", I can achieve "56s" with the format code, "ss^s".[/list:u]
  
  I actually have more suggestions for <Default> Time/Date Formatting options, but these suggest a pretty major change to the interface for time/date formatting input.... and I don't really have the time right now to try and put those suggestions into words. Perhaps later I will.
  
  • Expand Skinning Capabilities: a marriage with the Default (no skin) Config.
    
    
  • Support use of system fonts. Using images exclusively can make skinning very frustrating and limited. Currently, skinning for a digital clock pretty much requires that each digit/text be done in a fixed-width style in order for it to display decently in the skin. Skin authors can include the font file with their skin, and perhaps in the future, plug-in options can allow automated installation of fonts included with skins into the system.
    
    
  • Using fonts over images of course means skinners can specify the date and time formats just like in the <Default> formatting options.
    
    
  • Customizing a skin without becoming a skin author. There might be a skin you really like, but it'd be perfect if I could change: change the font used for <date/time>, or if it was formatted a bit differently. If the skin used specifies (and allows?) fonts to be used, then skin users can make adjustments to those items (user-prefs for the skin prehaps can be adjusted in TLBclock's Properties window by using the same interface for <default>'s formatting options).[/list:u]

You may not believe it but altering a skin or creating one is easier than creating the above post. Have a look here or perhaps someone may offer their help to create a custom skin for you. The link refers to the clockskin.ini file within each tlbclock skin folder.