Actually, I do have need for it. LOL. Or the folks in the office next to me would like it. I wasn't in my office for an hour while the alarm was in loop so they got to hear NIN - Broken like 20 times.

I assume, I_M, that you are referring to the automatic shut off feature? I'll see what I can do.

OK, decision time. Should I release the beta that everyone said worked well on Build 86, or should I continue work and add new features? Here's what I'm working on since the last beta:
1) Timer alarm looks different and you can now set the number of seconds as well.
2) Made the icons on all the Alarm dialogs consistent by removing them .
3) Implementing an "auto-shut-off" feature, so that you can set how long you want an alarm to go off before it is automatically turned off. This will be customizable in the properties dialog. You can turn it on and off and set the number of minutes.
4) I am going to try to add RTL support to the panel. You can currently use a RTL language, but you can't view it in the details window, so I'll look into that...
5) The ability to run a task on alarm trigger. This was a popular request so I'll see what I can do.

So what do you think? Release the current beta, and work on a new version, or wait a little longer?

Just release it, and remember that a developer's job is never done.

Yes - if everyone says that it works so there's no need in the beta. The last realease was almost a month ago

OK. Let me do some final testing on the minor changes i've made since the last beta and then I'll release v3.0!

Yes - v.3

OK. Hopefully the last beta of v3.0. I want to make sure everything is good before I post it on the ExEx. If you downloaded the last beta, this one has got some new feature and fixes.

New Feature:
Time Alarm now includes a text box for inputting the amount of seconds desired.

Fixes:
Timer Alarm dialog now looks different from Daily Alarm dialog.
Icons were removed from the Add Alarm dialogs.
FlatStyle.System was enabled on controls that support it, on all dialogs. Should make buttons and checkboxes look like the rest of your system's controls.

Enjoy. Please give me feedback, even if it works fine, so I know I can post it. Please check to make sure the FlatSyle has been enabled on all controls in all dialogs, in case I missed one. I don't use it, so I can't test it.

I'm already using it for about 10-15 minutes and everything looks just perfect You did a great job - the panel was really updated and now much more professional and much more useful than its previous versions
Great job - continue to develop such great panels I haven't found any bugs so far.

BTW, just a small suggestion - if the user tries to add more alarms than he/she can, set the panel not to allow him/her to add it even before he/she fills the "New Alarm" form. I think it will be more reasonable that way.

Can't wait to see more panels from you

No problem

I'm still having the problem that when I right click on the panel, it crashes DS (sometimes). I had this happen before. It used to happen whenever I deleted an alarm from the list. Just now, I set an alarm, then I went to look at the details window, and when I released the mouse, it was okay for a few seconds then it crashed DS. I am using Build 85, I have installed and reinstalled DS several times, I uninstalled and reinstalled the alarm panel...there is no log because the log only works while DS is running, and not after it crashes.

We discussed this earlier in this thread here.

I've been testing the latest version on build 86, which I think yyy is using as well. I think GoMa mentioned once that build 85 was a bit buggy. Perhaps you should upgrade? Have you tried that? The installer is in the General forum.

Where is 86? I did a search and can't find it. I looked in the General forum. The Homepage rolled back to 75.

Here you go:

Build 86

Thanks. I found my post in that thread here.

It turns out that I actually did install 86. But I put it on my other PC, the dual boot one with XP and Longhorn. It worked great on that machine. But I have since then had that PC die on me, and I have ordered a new AMD64. I never did install 86 on this one, nor did I save it in my downloads folder on this machine, only on the other one. I'll try it now. Thanks for reminding me. I was so caught up in working on that PC that I forgot to put it on this one.

Good luck, and let me know if the Alarm Panel works when you upgrade. Thanks

I have no idea what is going on. I have been trying to reinstall the Alarm Panel. Whenever I have been installing any panel, I change the .zip to .dspackage and it installs. It did just a few minutes ago when I installed the AlarmPanel to the previous build.

This time, it wouldn't install as a .dspackage. So I reverted back to the old method. I extracted the zip into my Application Data/Desktop Sidebar/Plugins folder. Then I did a regasm on AlarmPanel.dll. The dll rgistered correctly. I tried it with DS open, I tried it with DS closed, I rebooted, I downloaded it about 6 times, and it still doesn't show up in my Add Panels list. I get the error message "cannot install Alarm Panel." Now I cannot install the volume control panel either. I've been working on this for an hour.

Why don't you save it as a dspackage? All you do, is when it asks you to save the file, type "AlarmPanel.dspackage" with the quotes, and it will save it with that name. This hasn't failed for me with any panel.

This is how I was trying to save it:
AlarmPanel_beta_v3_a.dspackage

That's the filename on the previous page. It wasn't working. I'll try AlarmPanel.dspackage

I get "Windows cannot open this file." I have always been able to open dspackage files. I don't know what is going on.

Me either. I'm sorry it's not working for you. Can you install other panels?

No. This has never happened since we instituted dspackage. I've installed a hundred panels and skins this way. Suddenly Windows won't install a dspackage since I upgraded to Build 86 to try to reinstall the Alarm Panel.

Well, 3 hours later, I have rolled back to Build 75. I went to install the Alarm Panel dspackage and it installed perfectly. Why dspackage files would not install with Build 86 and do with Build 75 I have no idea. But they are installing now.

So I set an alarm, and then I deleted it. And DS crashed again. So I am still having the same bug that I posted about earlier and also on this page. That is where you were able to reproduce the error, eitanko. I don't know if you remember.

Yeah, I remember. What OS are you using?

Windows XPSP2.

That is very strange. Everything works fine for me.

Oh, well. Thanks for the help, anyway. I really appreciate it. The Alarm Panel is one of the few that I use all the time. It has saved my a** many times, since it is now the only alarm that wakes me up in the morning! I just set a nice loud, annoying sound on loop and I'm good to go! Great panel.

Thanks. I hope you can fix the install problem. Maybe one of the other guys can help you fix it.

Version 3.0 released!

READ THE FIRST POST FOR INSTRUCTIONS!

As usual, feedback is welcome and very helpful. I recommend build 86, b/c an annoying Right Click error is fixed in this build. It should work on others, but I don't know how extensive this error is on previous builds.

Enjoy.

Extension Exchange

Oh, and if you downloaded the last beta, you should get the latest version from the EE, as it has yyy's latest suggestion of telling you that you are out of alarms, before you fill out the whole add alarm dialog.

I already found one bug. If you set a timer alarm for less than 10 seconds, it displays without a preceding 0 in the panel list. It's not critical, but I've already fixed it. \

I've also finished work on an auto silence feature which you can enable and disable at will in the properties dialog, and you can set how long you want it to play till it silences the sound. Also, thanks to yyy, Alarms are saved to the settings file right after you make them in case DS crashes...

Ever played Tekken and smashed an opponent without gettin punched yourself?
If you managed to do so, the off-speaking judge shouts: "GREAT!"
That's exactly what I yelled bout last release!
No serious: Everything works great!

Wow, you are so willing to consider new suggestions (and get them done) like nearly any other developer does.


[hardly hearin: Maybe you consider the panel surface now, err, my screenie, you know?
With the icons, that on mouseover tell you the alarm?
I guess, yyy was right the work never stops, but again: Great work so far!]

excuse me, I have got a problem of it
why can't i see the "yes" or "ok" button?

Thank you JeffSmart. I'm thinking of looking into the visual aspect of my panel at some point after I get all the features I want into the panel. I also have an idea for another panel as well, so we will see.

mercichao - that is definitely a problem. what build of DS are you using, and do you have any visual style sofware currently running? I certainly can see the buttons for this type of alarm on my computer. Let me know. Do you have this problem with any of the other alarm dialogs?

Does anyone else have the missing buttons problem?

OK. The end of my TODO list is coming up. As of right now, I have the following to finish for v4.0:
1) Auto-silence feature - DONE.
2) Right-To-Left text support
3) Snooze

If there are any other requests, please post them.

A note on the chimes idea: I've really been considering this feature. Chimes on the quarter hours technically is an alarm. I still strongly feel that the clock is more capable of performing this feature, and perhaps any sounds for the clock panel should be requested in the New Features forum. I'm really sorry, but the way this panel is coded doesn't lend itself well to having chimes played.

I'm glad you can see them yyy. I don't know what mercichao's issue is. I guess it is a local problem. GoMa thinks it might be a problem with his display settings. I can work with him on that individually as no one else is reporting the problem.

I think that such bugs happen when something gets wrong while creating the dialog box. But maybe it is something else. Maybe he doesn't have the latest version of .NET or maybe he uses v. 2

Great plug-in! Haven't found any problems with it yet, so great job!

Thanks for the feedback! I am glad you are enjoying it.

I think I may have found the cause of mercichao's problem. The only difference between the other dialogs and the one time only dialog was the fact that the Min/Max size was set explicitly for OTO and they were set to this.Size for the others. I hope this fixes it. It will be in the next release mercichao.

You shouldn't see more than 3 types of alarms if you are using v2.0. I don't use StyleXP so I don't know if that could even cause the problem. For some reason, I think many other users have StyleXP and no one seems to have had your problem. Anyone familiar with StyleXP know if that could be the reason why mercichao can't see the buttons on the add alarm dialogs?

Ok ever since I installed this panel it has been randomly shutting DS down. Some times it happens when I go to adjust the sidebars options sometimes it just randomly shuts down.

Specs:

DS build 75
XPSP2
512 ram
1.6 p4

Any ideas as to why this keeps occuring?

Hi DH350. There is a bug in Build 75 and below that basically closes DS without an error message when you sometimes right click on a third party panel. It has been fixed in Build 85/86, but these builds are both betas. I can't do anything about it, unless you want to upgrade. Otherwise, you will just have to wait for the next stable release of DS.