Plugin.ClockViews 1.0.1

Plugin.ClockViews

A collection of self-drawing analog and digital clock views for .NET MAUI, with live ticking, countdown timers with alarms, and a set of themed/animated faces.

Targets .NET 10 for Android, iOS, Mac Catalyst and Windows, plus a plain net10.0 target that carries the platform-agnostic drawing/logic so it can be unit-tested without a platform head.

• Author: Paul F. Johnson
• Version: 1.0.1
• License: DILLIGAF (see LICENSE.txt)

Install & initialise

Add a reference to the package, then call UseClockViews() in MauiProgram (this registers the audio backend used for countdown alarms):

using Plugin.ClockViews;

builder
    .UseMauiApp<App>()
    .UseClockViews();

The controls themselves need no registration — use them directly in XAML or code.

xmlns:clock="clr-namespace:Plugin.ClockViews;assembly=Plugin.ClockViews"
...
<clock:ClockView IsRunning="True" IsSecondsShown="True" />

Clock views

All digital clocks flash the : separator every half-second and show the date in their own style (valve = glowing filament, flip = a flip card, melt/dematerialise = styled text, 80s watch = 7-segment numeric, Apple/Pixel = text). The date is half the height of the time (except analog and watch).

Shared properties (ClockViewBase)

Every clock inherits these bindable properties:

Events: TimeChanged (each tick / value change), CountdownElapsed (countdown hits zero).

Methods: ResetCountdown() restarts the countdown; supports Start/Stop via IsRunning (Stop freezes the remaining time, Start resumes).

Async getters: every publicly-exposed value has a thread-safe async accessor that marshals to the UI thread — e.g. GetTimeAsync(), GetIsRunningAsync(), GetClockColorAsync(), GetCurrentTimeAsync(), GetCountdownRemainingAsync(). (Bindable getters stay synchronous, as MAUI data binding requires.)

View-specific properties

World clock (MultiTimeClock)

Shows the local time first, then up to three time zones from ClockTimeZone. Each zone is rendered as a mini clock face of Face with the timezone name (e.g. "London", "Brisbane") centred above it. Faces lay out in a 2×2 grid, except Valve which stacks the clocks vertically. All zones update from the same tick. UTC and Unix time do not apply to this clock.

<clock:MultiTimeClock IsRunning="True"
                      Face="Analog"
                      ClockTimeZone="Europe/London;America/New_York;Asia/Tokyo" />

Timezone ids for ClockTimeZone

ClockTimeZone takes system timezone ids, separated by ; or ,. Any id accepted by TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById works — IANA ids are shown below and are accepted on all platforms (.NET uses ICU, so IANA ids work on Windows too). The label shown above each clock is the part after the last /, with underscores turned into spaces (e.g. America/New_York → "New York").

To list every id available on the current device:

foreach (var tz in TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones())
    Console.WriteLine(tz.Id);

Countdown & alarm

<clock:FlipClock x:Name="Timer"
                 IsCountdownTimer="True"
                 CountFrom="00:05:00"
                 AlarmSound="{x:Null}" />

// Supply the alarm sound (resources / file / URL):
Timer.AlarmSound = AlarmSource.FromResources("alarm.wav");
Timer.AlarmSound = AlarmSource.FromFile("/path/to/alarm.mp3");
Timer.AlarmSound = AlarmSource.FromUrl("https://example.com/alarm.mp3");

Timer.IsRunning = true;   // start
Timer.IsRunning = false;  // stop (freezes remaining)
Timer.ResetCountdown();   // back to CountFrom

At zero the clock raises CountdownElapsed and plays AlarmSound for five seconds.

Enums

• SciFiTheme — DrWho, StarTrek
• WatchTheme — EightiesDigital, AppleWatch, PixelWatch
• WatchBorderThickness — Thin, Medium, Thick
• MultiClockFace — Analog, Valve, Flip, Melt, Beam, Watch
• AlarmSourceKind — Resources, File, Url

Solution layout

src/Plugin.ClockViews          The library (multi-target: net10.0 + platform TFMs)
tests/Plugin.ClockViews.Tests  NUnit tests for the platform-agnostic logic
samples/Plugin.ClockViews.Sample  MAUI sample app demonstrating every clock and option

Building

dotnet build src/Plugin.ClockViews/Plugin.ClockViews.csproj   # all targets incl. Windows
dotnet test  tests/Plugin.ClockViews.Tests                    # unit tests

The Windows target is enabled unconditionally (EnableWindowsTargeting), so it restores/compiles on any host; producing a Windows app still requires a Windows machine.

Changelog

• 1.0.1 — Added world time clocks (MultiTimeClock).
• 1.0 — Initial release.