Weird.....Anyways, I agree. At least it works now

It's 2 AM here and I just had a random idea. What do you think about the ability to set a series of songs or sounds to play instead of just one. Kind of like playing a playlist and loop that or snooze that?

I don't know - that seems too much to me

Yeah, maybe you are right.

Do you think of developing other panels ? Or you prefer finishing the Alarm panel first ?

I thought about it, but I have limited time while school is in session, so I'm sticking to the ones I already made (you know, to clean them up, add features, fix bugs, etc).
I thought about the birtday reminder panel. I just need time, like the summer, to work on it.

I also have big plans for the Alarm panel. I have considered merging it with the clock panel. So it would have a digital and analog clocks from the skins, same alarm functionality, but it will look a lot nicer. Maybe if I have significant time one day, I will work with prism to make it a C++ program and get rid of .NET overhead, but I would need mattisking's help for that too.

I'm ready to help.

Awesome! Maybe by the summer I'll be ready. It depends on a lot of things. I also haven't used C++ in a very long time.

I'm already working on a panel which also can be used to alarm about birthdays. But I don't mind if you do another one too

I also thought of learning C++ this summer but I'm still not sure. C# is easier and faster, although it's limited. But C++ sounds interesting.

Oh go ahead and do the birthday panel. Technically, you can do a one time only alarm or a how long until item for it, but a specific birthday panel is a really good idea since it only takes up as much space as for the number of birthdays coming up. And it is not year specific, although it might want to keep track of ages.

No , it's not a Birthday panel. It's a panel which shows contacts in DS so one of its features will be to alaram before a contact's birthday. I already need the contact's birthday so I thought it'll be a good idea to add a Birthday alarm option. But yes, people can also use your panel for that.

Ohhh ok. I get it.

Aren't both of these ideas sort of like the "Time until" panel? I think having the ability to put multiple people's birthdays would be neat, because last time I used the Time until panel I went back to the computer a month or two later and it was at -40 days or something til the date. Having a smart function that could tell you their age and stuff would be neat, and you might also add in anniversaries and things like that.

Yes, but the Time Until panel is year specific. If you wanted to do recurring birthdays, you have to add them every year. This panel woudl avoid that.

Update on v4.3:
- Initial Task directory in properties.
- Bug fixed in alarm set dialogs - it allowed you to set an alarm without specifying the necessary date.
- Alarm dialogs look a bit cleaner now that I re-did them - they now include AM/PM radio buttons that are invisible unless AM/PM option is selected in properties!
- Properties dialog upgrade
- Command Line arguments - can specify command line arguments for the tasks in the alarm set dialogs
- AM/PM
- Auto-delete expired alarms
- Bug fixed for One Time Only alarm not being set for the right year.
- Bug fixed for One Time Only alarm not working if set for more than a day after creation.
- Bug fixed for sounds not being stopped when you delete an alarm while it is playing its sound.

In progress:
Custom alert dialog (2%) - can enable this if you want the alert to stick around till you close it. I'm hoping to make it translucent, or load in the background....haven't started working on it though. I'll do it last.

Suggestions and comments are welcome

As for the series of songs/sounds idea, if your panel uses the default player (WMP or Winamp) then all you have to do is set a .pls or .m3u file as the alarm "sound" and it will play the playlist. If you don't want to wake up to the same 5 songs in a row you can also set your Winamp to shuffle.

Just some thoughts.

I'm looking into it. The mp3 stuff doesn't use any media player. I wonder if it will work with a task though....

I just figured out what has been plaguing the One Time Only Alarm. The logic was a little off and I think I fixed it. It will be in the next release which I hope to get out by this week or next. Also, apparently there is some bug about music not stopping when you delete an alarm while it is playing a sound? I didn't think I would have released a version that had a bug like that, but apparently one got by me. I think I have it fixed in the next version. See post above for updates on 4.3.

yyy - I finished the auto-delete option. It deletes when an alarm doesn't play a sound, doesn't loop its sound, or is auto-silenced. Otherwise, it should play till you stop it.
merciciao - I redid the dialogs in the next version. I hope you will be able to see the buttons this time. I haven't released this one yet, but when you get it, let me know if your problem was fixed.

Can someone using v4.2 confirm the following bugs? They will be fixed in the next version, but I want to see if it was just me, or everyone.
1) Set an alarm to play music. While it is playing music, right click on it and select delete. Does the music stop playing? (If yes, great, if no, you will have to close DS to reset it - should be fixed in v4.3)

2) Right click, select Daily Alarm. Set title, hour, and min to whatever, check show alert window, give whatever text, then check Play sound file. DO NOT SPECIFY A FILE. Click Set. Does the panel give you a message box saying to specify the file or does it just close and add the alarm to the panel? (fixed in 4.3)

3) Set a new One Time Only alarm for a few minutes from now. Close DS and reopen it after the trigger time. Does the alarm now say it is set for '06? Or is it disabled? (will be fixed in 4.3)

4) For people with a lot of time - set a new One Time Only alarm for at least 24 hrs away. For example, if it is 10:15 PM on 4/26 now, set it for 10:17 PM for 4/27. Does the alarm go off or does nothing happen? (fixed in 4.3)

Thanks - eitaneko

Thanks for adding the auto-delete option Just saw it now I'll test the panel later to confirm these bugs.

Thanks yyy. Let me know what you find out.

I've just tested your panel and here ar the result for your first 3 questions:

1) It keeps playing even after I delete the alarm

2) No message box, although there's no file specified

3) Shows 06 and isn't disabled.

Sorry but I have no time to test the 4th one.

I understand yyy. Thank you for your help. I may ask you to beta test v4.3. It is close to being finished.

Ok, I'll be happy to test it when I find some time

Following GoMa's suggestion (but a bit of browsing on my own) and I came across TaskbarNotifier by Robert Misiak at The Code Project. He gives permission to modify the code, as long as I keep his name attached to it.

What do you think of this as a custom alert, if you can specify the drawing method (solid or gradient), text and background color(s), and gradient direction? (Supposedly, this grabs the close icon used by your current theme, so it should match that already)

I think this is great, but don't you think it's a bit of an overkill to entirely replace the alert window for just the feature of not dismissing it until the user clicks ok (at least that's what I understood from your post in the Dev&Req forum)?
Also, please let us choose between this version of the alert and the "normal" one. If the alert window implementation will be changed in the future and have better features, it will possible to use it without changes to the panel.

Perhaps it is overkill. The point of an alert is to tell the user the alarm is going off visually. However, if the person walks away for a second, goes to the bathroom, or grabs a drink from the kitchen, they might miss it and not realize it has gone off. I just wanted it to stay, and DS doesn't do that right now. Of course you will be able to choose which alert you want. I just wanted to include it b/c it is a useful feature. Does that make sense?

I probably could have just told the alarm to keep showing the alert till the user clicks it, but that would involve another timer, and changes to auto-delete, snooze, etc.

Of course. If you want, do it - it's just that if you have more important things to do (I mean in the panel), this should be pretty low priority.
That's what I think at least. I mean, probably there users which would think this is pretty significant.

Well, I'm sure there are many features that people don't use. If they just want an alarm to play music, that has been there since v3. All I have left to do is fix the DST problem and then this alert thing before I release v4.3 (after some tests of course).
Once all that is done, I will work with antu for an idea for a GUI for the panel so that it will look a little nicer than just text. The alert window was probably going to be a part of that too. I just got it working much faster than I thought I would.

Version 4.3 has entered into beta phase! Any volunteers to test it out? (It would not hurt to test it out, as it contains many fixes to many bugs and two critical ones)

Here is what will be included:
*All dialogs have been redesigned.
*Initial task directory options in properties dialog.
*AM/PM support.
*Command-line arguments.
*Property options to turn off activation of panel and scroll to row.
*Auto-deletion of one time use alarms.
*Custom Alert window that won't disappear until you close it. Fully customizable in properties!
*Fixed bug in checking of values on alarm dialogs.
*Fixed bug in One Time Only alarms not working sometimes and changing to '06 incorrectly.
*Fixed bug that would make a One Time Only alarm set to next year when loading DS after trigger time.
*Fixed bug that alarms would not be corrected for Daylight Savings changes.
*Fixed critical bug that would not stop sound when an alarm is deleted while it played a sound.
*Fixed critical bug where Custom Daily wouldn't reset to next day if it triggered on the wrong one.

No responses. I guess people have lost interest?

I think so, eitaneko. I think this panel has all the important features an alarm panel needs and it's kind of done with this version's features and fixes. I don't mean any offence, but if you're still interested with DS development, I think you might want to start thinking about a new idea for a panel.
Again, please take that as advice and nothing more.
I am willing to test 4.3 though if you need.

Thanks GoMa. I've been thinking about that for a while. Since I have been in the middle of exams, I have only modified what I have already done to add featrues and fix bugs. I want to work on the Wireless panel to get it complete. You are probably right. I think I'll put this one aside for a little while and find something new to do. I don't take offense to what you wrote. I've been feeling this panel has been losing a following for a while now. I must have missed when my panel went from "eager to be improved" to "good enough".

Thank you for this panel.

I have the following comments:

1- It would be nice to have a monthly alarm with facility to select: specific date, a specific first day (sat,sun,mon,tus,wed,thu,fri) or week of the month.

2- It would be nice to have a yearly alarm with facility to select: specific date, a specific first day (sat,sun,mon,tus,wed,thu,fri) or week of the year.

Thank you for the suggestions. They are on my TODO list.

We use two calendars gregorian (school start day, national day ...) and hijri (birthday, riligious activities...). Both calendars are available in windows. It would be extremely nice to be able to set alarm's events in both

I'm afraid I don't understand, Walid53. You mean when setting a date, to use a different calendar? Hmmm....That might be tricky. And also, just b/c it is available through windows, doesn't necessarily mean I can get it through code, but I will look.

For everyone, I am going to complete work on 4.3 soon. I am adding 3 alarms:
1) Hourly, with the option of Every Hour or a range of hours per day.
2) Monthly, with the option of Every Month, or a range of months.
3) Yearly, no options, I think it is a bit silly
Also a new property for turning off confirmation dialogs.

This is in addition to the list of things mentioned earlier in the thread.

He means that the religious events are defined by one calendar, and the rest of the events are in the Gregorian calendar.

He wants to set an alarm which will be defined by his calendar.

I'm not really sure it's possible, though.

Thanks for clearing that up Prism. There are a few classes in .NET that might interface with Windows culture settings. I have to look into it, but it would mean recoding a lot of what has already been done.

For your own interest - update status:

Yearly Alarm - complete
Monthly Alarm - 85%
Hourly Alarm - 0%

Hmmm. What about a modification of the timer alarm, which will be set by interval, repeatedly? It will be used instead of the yearly, monthly and hourly alarms.

I might be able to do that to the Timer alarm for the hourly option, but monthly and yearly are too long for it. The only reason I planned to do a seperate alarm type was because I wanted to take the responsibility of turning off the alarm from the user and put it on the panel, by making the option of setting a range of months or a range of hours for an alarm to go off for. That way, someone who wants an hourly alarm for the workday, won't have to make 8 of them, but just one. It's really easy as I just pretty much copy code and modify it just a little.

Monthly alarm is done.
When I finish the Hourly alarm, I will release it. This is rich with features, so be ready....

Dumdeedum, me again...

I agree, it has all an alarm panel needs, and it was done much more than well done.

So I snare back with the appearance requests... Dumdeedum...
[Make it look more classic than this iconstuffed post, you know my screenies...]

Oh, and if you'd start with a new panel idea, hell yeah! This one was done so brilliantly,
can't wait to get a hand on a new eitanekonian...

thats cool!
i'm searching for something like that. whats the actual state of this implementation? i have installed the releas 4.2 from this website, but in this release this feature isnt integrated.

but i still have also an big problem with this plugin. allways when i want to configure it, desktop sidebar hangs up an i have to kill ds in window taskmanager. i have uninstall and install it again. but alarm panel doesnt work.

I think I'm doing something wrong with the installation files...I'm looking into it. I think version 4.3 is done, so I will release it soon. Maybe this will fix your problems.

thank you.

Introducing version 4.3! Instructions and file on the ExEx
I have heard that there were issues with past installations of my panel. I have tried my hardest to make sure DS will know this is a new version, and there should be no problems. If you don't see the features below, or your version crashes, please try to uninstall the panel completely before installing it again. Report any problems here.

New Features in v4.3:
3 News Alarms! Introducing - Hourly, Monthly, and Yearly Alarms
All dialogs have been redesigned.
One line for each alarm in panel list.
Details Window contains more information about alarms.
Initial task directory options in properties dialog.
AM/PM support.
Command-line arguments.
Property options to turn off activation of panel and scroll to row.
Auto-deletion of one time use alarms.
NEW Custom Alert window that won't disappear until you close it. Fully customizable in properties!
Option to turn off confirmation dialogs.
Fixed bug in checking of values on alarm dialogs.
Fixed bug in One Time Only alarms not working sometimes and changing to '06 incorrectly.
Fixed bug that would make a One Time Only alarm set to next year when loading DS after trigger time.
Fixed bug that alarms would not be corrected for Daylight Savings changes.
Fixed critical bug that would not stop sound when an alarm is deleted while it played a sound.
Fixed critical bug where Custom Daily wouldn't reset to next day after current day check.