DoubleTime
A replacement Macintosh clock
This week's star is the mongoose
Another entry in the "cute carnivore" series, we have the mongoose. Some mongooses are fairly smart and can learn simple tricks. They can be kept as pets to control vermin. (Your landlord will love you.) Mongooses giggle when mating. (I haven't tried that myself but I suspect it wouldn't go over so well.) One of their coolest features is that they are immune to snake neurotoxins because they have acetylcholine receptors! I guess that's why mongooses are sometimes used to hunt or fight venomous snakes.
DoubleTime is a replacement Macintosh menubar clock that displays local and UTC (Zulu) time simultaneously. Version 0.2.0 now includes a small preference panel and can download and display METAR weather reports for the airport of your choice.
I wrote this for two main reasons:
- I wanted to learn some Mac programming. This is my first real Mac application.
- I couldn't find a clock that did what I wanted.
So why would you want this? Well I wanted it mostly for flight planning, which deals in UTC a fair bit. Pilots will likely find it useful. Amateur radio operators might like it as well.
To use the METAR feature, simply click on the clock and choose Preferences from the menu. Enter the 4-letter ICAO code for the airport nearest to you, and click OK. To see the METAR, just hover your mouse over the clock.
Download
You can get DoubleTime from the downloads area. The latest version is "DoubleTime0.2.1.dmg".
Compatibility
DoubleTime requires MacOS X 10.2 or later. I built it on 10.3.9 (Panther). It uses the undocumented, private MenuExtra API and so requires something to unlock this interface and let you use third-party (i.e. non-Apple) MenuExtras. I've included the excellent MenuCracker which does precisely that, but if you already have a similar enabler then you probably won't need this. Installation instructions are in the dmg file.
Revision History
- Dec 2004: Initial version, 0.1.0. Clock only.
- Apr 2005: Version 0.2.0. Added METAR display and pref pane.
Known Bugs
- The preferences panel and about dialog don't always appear over other windows. Sometimes they are hidden under open applications.
- The METAR doesn't update right away after resuming from sleep.
Future Plans
Maybe someday I will extend it to allow different fonts, sizes, colours, and date/time styles. Being able to configure the second time zone (to be other than UTC) might be nice. For now, I like it just the way it is.