The instructions below cover the following items
To add or remove a location first right-click over the Time Panel and select the Settings menu. The dialog that appears displays two lists under the Locations tab; the list on the left is a list of locations in the database while the list on the right is of locations selected for display.
To add a location select the location in the left hand Available Locations list and click the ">>" button. To remove a location select the location from the right hand Displayed Locations list and click the "<<" button. To change the order of locations displayed use the up and down arrow buttons.
For details on adding new locations or editing an existing location see the following sections on Editing a Location and Creating a New Location
Editing a location allows you to change the location's offset from GMT and change the locations daylight saving time rule. To edit a location first right-click over the Time Panel and select the Settings menu. Select the location you wish to edit in the left hand list of Available Locations and click Edit.
In the dialog that opens you can adjust the GMT offset by either entering a value or use the up-down arrow control. The offset range is between -12 and 12 and for half hour differences use the decimal .5. To change the daylight saving time rule select the new rule from the dropdown list or select "-No DST Rule-" if the location doesn't use daylight saving time. Click OK once done. The change is made to the locations database and if the location is currently selected for display it will also change.
Locations can also be edited directly in the database and here you can change the location name and also create and edit daylight savings time rules. Please refer to the section below The Locations Database File for further information
You can add your own locations to the database and then to the display. To add a new location first right-click over the Time Panel and select the Settings menu. Click New and in the dialog that opens enter a location name, the GMT offset and select the appropriate DST rule.
The GMT offset range is between -12 and 12 and for half hour differences use the decimal .5. For locations that don't use daylight saving time select "-No DST Rule-".
The clock face style can be changed to one of three styles: Modern, Victorian and Pocket Watch. To change the clock face style first right-click over the Time Panel and select the Settings menu. Select the Styles tab and then select the style you wish to use. Click OK once done and the display will update to use the new style.
You can set an alarm that will display a message at a certain time. To set an alarm right-click over the Time Panel and select Alarm. The Alarm dialog will appear. Set the hour (0-23) and minute(0-59) by entering values or using the up-down arrow controls. Enter a message to be displayed and click OK.
To clear an alarm that has been set open the Alarm dialog and just clear the alarm's message.
The list of available locations and daylight saving time rules for TimePanel are held in the file "WorldTimesDB.xml". This file is in XML format and you can edit this file to make changes or add new entries. It is possible to corrupt this file by mistakes in editing so if you are intending to edit the file please back it up. A copy of the file is also available for download. Also refer to the section 'Troubleshooting' below which has notes on how to fix a corrupt database. This section describes the structure of this file.
The root element is database. It has two sub sections worldtimes and
daylight-saving-rules which define respectfully the available locations and the daylight saving time
rules.
The worldtimes section contains entries similar to the following that defines each location,
<worldtime>
<location>Belfast</location>
<type>city</type>
<gmtoffset>0</gmtoffset>
<dst-rule>europe</dst-rule>
</worldtime>
The entry has four items
The section that defines DST rules contain entries similar to the following,
<rule>
<name>European</name>
<value>+1</value>
<type>event</type>
<start whichweek="last" weekday="6" month="3" hour="01" minute="00" />
<end whichweek="last" weekday="6" month="10" hour="01" minute="00" />
<description>Starts last Sunday in March, ends last Sunday in October</description>
</rule>
Each rule has the following entries,
If type has value 'date' then start, end have the following
attributes,
type has value 'event' then start, end have the following attributes,
If you have been using a trial version you can enter a purchased license key that will give you full product functionality. To enter a license key first open the Settings dialog by right clicking over the TimePanel. Select the License tab. Your current license key is displayed. Enter your new license key and click OK. You will receive a warning if the license entered isn't recognised as a valid license key.
Daylight saving time is used by some countries as a means of having a longer daytime during the summer months. Around March/April the time is moved one hour forward and then moved back in September/October. This is for northern hemisphere countries, southern hemisphere countries change their clocks between September/October to March/April.
Not all countries use daylight saving times and the rules that decide when the clocks go forward and back vary considerably from country to country and for some countries, year to year.
Further resources,
Occasionally some configurations can cause problems for the Time Panel. The majority of problems are due to errors within the database file. Certainly if you manually edit this file then you can easily make typos, duplicate entries etc.
When the Time Panel loads this file it will alert you to any errors and will also write a more detailed explanation of the error to a log file. This log file called 'timepanel.log' is created in the folder in which Time Panel was launched from, typically the installation folder. A log entry consists of a time stamp, the displayed error message and the root error message thrown by the compiler.