I’m new here and I’m needing help regarding GWD/GWS (actually I’m using GWD 1.7.1) I want to try designing a watch face with changeable hands but with fixed tapping area (like at 5’oclock or 7 o’clock area) . Is it possible in GWD? I saw some designs with changeable hands with fixed tapping area. Does it require tag expression or something? Actually, I’m not familiar with tag expressions so I don’t know what that can do or what formula to put. I hope you can help me on this. Thank you very much. Cheers!
Hello,
to make watch hands changeable in GWS, you do not need to use expressions, but there are some major limitations. https://developer.samsung.com/galaxy-watch-design/studio/tutorial/dev-button.html#Watch-Hand-Limitations
Basically it means, your touch areas wont be fixed to 5h and 7h and what is even worse, the hands layers have to be in order like the smallest on top and the largest in the bottom, which in traditional watches is exactly the other way out. Also the largest watch hand working area usually covers the background almost completely, making it unreachable for tap to change.
There is workaround using the older GWD version (1.6.2), where it could be made using images, set to rotate with expressions and also set as button for change (this is no longer working option since GWD 1.7. Back then those images could be placed to the mentioned positions (where the touch area was fixed) and set to display centered again with help of expressions.
The watch faces that change use a combination of tag expressions and button taps that was in GWD 1.6.x but was removed in all later versions. GWD 1.6 requires 32 bit Java so it isn’t a simple remove and install the older version. The current process is by setting different tap-able areas for watch hands see the TUTORIAL on that.
GWS 2.1 will be out this summer and I know that other customization features to address this are planned but I do not know if they will be available in GWS 2.1 or a future version. You may want to wait until it is released before making the drastic change of going back to 1.6.x
Hi @Peter, thanks for your kind reply. I really appreciate it. I already saw that tutorial link you sent me and tried it. My problem is the tapping of the watch hands. It is hard when it is moving that can overlap with other shortcut buttons. Regarding what you just mentioned workaround using the older GWD version, is there a tutorial how to do it? I haven’t tried expressions before so I really don’t have an idea how to do it and what to put. I really want to try setting a fixed touch area. If I can go back to 1.6.2, I will. I really want to try it. Thanks a lot in advance if you can guide me further.
Hi @r.liechty_SDR, thank you too for your above reply. Greatly appreciated. As mentioned to @Peter too, I want to try setting a fixed touch area so I might try to install the older version of GWD 1.6.2. If you can guide me further on how to do the expression thing, I will greatly appreciate it. Thanks Ron.
I would not dramatize it so much and call the change drastic. It has its pros and cons as everything. I just removed GWS from my second windows PC and reinstalled GWD 1.6.2 to try how hard it was. And wonder happend, it just runs without any problem, no reports, only the test designs made with newer versions can not be opened, which I kind of expected. Maybe it worked so, because I already had it here earlier, before GWS. But I understand the java versions can cause some trouble first time.
Thank you so much @Peter. I’m sorry for the trouble, but I will really appreciate it. Yes, I’m also surprised that we have a new forum already when I signed in today. Looking forward to your next reply. Thanks again.
Alright, lets assume you are willing to sacrifice some new features and could fight trough possible complications that may emerge while installing and connecting GWD version 1.6.2 to watch.
All this is based on a feature that was considered not compatible with further development of the GWD. Version 1.6.2 is last of those, where it is possible to use expressions for placement and rotation of element, while it is set as button. And the touch area of such button is fixed to the original placement of the element, while it can be displayed elsewhere.
The hands will be inserted directly as images not as watch hand element (the hand pivot point has to be in centre of the image). Then they will be made to rotate using expressions.
Expressions for rotating the watch hands images:
hour hand: [H]*30+[m]/2
minute hand: [m]*6+[s]/10
second hand: [s]*6 (in v1.6 this cant be made smooth)
Placement of the hands images - note the x,y coordinates values are composed of two parts.
First is the “fixed” for where the touch area will be, the second is for the expression - in this case there goes just plain number for how far has the image to be shifted from the fixed position, to display as centred. (this can be applied also on backgrounds overlapping with dial numbers and tick marks and so on)
Edit: note, that when building the watch face, there will be automatically generated screenshot added to it for a preview when selecting installed watch faces on the watch. This one is made from the working preview not from the run preview. You may want to replace it with custom one, saved from the run preview.
Hi @Peter, thank you so much for your last. Greatly appreciated. I will try to do this to better understand it because I have no idea about this expressions haha. I will get back to you once I tried it. For now, as I understand it from your explanations, I can position the hands somewhere else (like on the sides) but I can make it appear that it was centered, am I correct? I didn’t know that expressions are this powerful. Amazing! Thanks again Peter. You are very helpful. Cheers man!
Yes, where you position the image, there will be the touch area (button), but with expression you can then make it display where and how you like. Expressions would be even much more powerful, if there were some tags, that could be directly changed with tap.
Do you need advice how to install older version?
Or how to make watch hands with fixed tapping area? This I already tried to explain few replies earlier. If something its unclear, just ask.
I was trying to figure out how to download and older version, but I found out how. Now I’m having issues getting the watch hands to work. I use an expression to change the position of the watch hands and it works in the test phase, but it doesn’t work on the actual watch, but I think you addressed this further down the thread. I’m gonna give that a read, but I’ll post a screen shot of what I’m dealing with just because.
From what I see on the screenshot you have your hour hand inserted as hand element. Those do not work well with setting as buttons in that version. As I wrote earlier you have to insert it as plain image of hand and set its rotation using mentioned expression according the hand.
Sorry, last question. I updated the preview image like you said when building the watch, but this is what I is shown when you select a watchface from the wear app. The watchface hands are missing and you can only see the shadows underneath. The actual watch works great, but the preview image when selecting the watch from the wear app is broken. Any idea how to fix this?
What does the icon look like if you create it in the Preview Window? By the way I only see two of your watch faces when I did a search. Please contact me on that.
Ron
Samsung Developer Program
Samsung Developer Program
I just realized my watch face was from an older build before I updated the preview image. Its all working correctly now. I’ll email you about the lack of other watch faces now, Ron.
