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ZoneMinder / zmNinja

High performance, cross platform ionic app for Home/Commerical Security Surveillance using ZoneMinder
http://zmninja.zoneminder.com
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Show actual (server) time in visible in full screen (desktop) #346

Closed hsingfoo closed 8 years ago

hsingfoo commented 8 years ago

As per title (sorry for bad spelling ;-) ), when running zmN in full screen (Desktop) there is no actual (server) time visible anywhere to be able to compare the e.g. event/picture/still against the actual time. A good spot would be inside the blue menubar? Just a suggestion.

Thanks for a fantastic app!

pliablepixels commented 8 years ago

Hi - thanks for the appreciation. I am not sure I fully understood - all the images show timestamps from the zoneminder server as part of the image which keeps changing - is that what you are referring to?

hsingfoo commented 8 years ago

Hi, I'm referring to the current time, not the event time. I would like to be able to see what the actual time it is (like my wrist watch) and what time the events was. Just like the clock in any windows manager in the menubar or taskbar. Running zmN in full screen those are no longer visiable, so I would hope you would be able to display one in the zmN menubar. Makes sense?

pliablepixels commented 8 years ago

Ah ok, understood. Not that this cannot be server time - it can be desktop time. There is no way for me to know what time it is in the ZM server.

pliablepixels commented 8 years ago

So I thought about this a bit more. There are two types of full screen: a) When you tap the "rectangle" button of zmNinja in the header bar - that completely removes the header bar and zmNinja takes up the full window. If after that you tap on the OS full screen button, it takes up the full screen and there is no header.

b) When you only tap the OS full screen button - in this case the header shows and you can add a time.

I am however concerned that the time will confuse people. The may think its the server time (not true, its the desktop time) and the timestamps on each image may be different leading to confusion. They may also think that because the time is moving, the montage images are also being updated (which may not happen if it gets stuck for some reason).

hsingfoo commented 8 years ago

Understood. Maybe an option in settings that users have to opt in for specifically? (so they know what they are doing ;-) )

pliablepixels commented 8 years ago

The other problem I'm trying to be conscious about is not to put in a toggle for every option - I'm trying to make sure they are useful for a larger set of people. To be honest I'm not fully convinced that showing system time is super useful when the OS presents other ways to show it via widgets, system bar etc. The fact that is disappears if you remove the header in full screen also makes it less useful.

However I think I've found a happy medium: a) The time will only show up if your screen is wide enough (700px or above) so it doesn't look bad on phones b) I am updating the time only when the montage screens are refreshed - that way its also a debugging tool - if people complain their montage are not being refreshed, I can tell them if the time is being updated, then zmNinja is also refreshing the montage (and if its not being refreshed its not a zmN bug)

I'll keep it implemented this way and see what people feel.

pliablepixels commented 8 years ago

done

hsingfoo commented 8 years ago

Hi, thanks for the changes and the new release!

It seems however that the time displayed in the menubar is the DESKTOP time and not the remote zoneminder server time?

TIA

pliablepixels commented 8 years ago

Right - that is exactly what I mentioned above - its Desktop time not server time - there is no way for zmNinja to know the server time and which is why I did not find it very useful

PartialVolume commented 8 years ago

If your looking at the camera live view or montage, the server date/time is already embedded in each camera image, so is already on screen. To make it more legible I tend to select large font in each cameras settings. So in the case of a live view isn't remote server date/time info effectively already visible on screen ? usually top left corner unless the settings have been altered. Of course this embedded info reflects the actual time the image was taken so doesn't represent server time when looking at old event images.

pliablepixels commented 8 years ago

so given @hsingfoo wanted server time and there is no way to do that, should I remove desktop time ? I do think its of no practical use.

hsingfoo commented 8 years ago

I do think it of practical use, for watching events shows the time embedded in the camera and of the event at the time, not the current time. Not a killer issue, just indicating the usefulness.