Appaerntly, there is something broken with the MP3 stuff. I will look at it later today.

The MP3 will not autosilence or be able to be stopped if snooze is disabled in panel properties. I'm looking into it. Can anyone reproduce this?

Yes, you are right. It doesn't stop after snoozing.

MP3 problem should be fixed in version 4.3.1

Get it at the Extension Exchange:
http://www.desktopsidebar.com/ffdetails.php?id=178

Please let me know if there are any installation problems or any other problems for that matter. This panel is pretty complex, so if you find a bug, please let me know about it, so I can iron it out.
Thanks.

No installation problems

Thanks yyy, is the bug fixed for you?

Yep - I can stop the mp3 file by snoozing the alaram Good work - just one tip: I think it's more logical to set the value of the hours/minutes/seconds as 0 in case no value was entered

That wouldn't be a very useful alarm if they were all zero. It wouldn't make sense for all alarms. I could preset the values to something, but it might get confusing.

So at least if there's a value for the seconds - whenever I want to set a timer for just a few seconds I need to enter 0 for the hours and minutes and I always forget I suggest this: if there's a value for the seconds and not for the minutes and hours - set them to 0. If there's no value in the seconds, minutes and hours text boxes so show the warning message.

Makes sense, I think I can do that for the timer alarm. I don't see how it could work really for the others though.

Ok - that's enough Thanks.

I think there are more problems with snooze, (minor ones) like the counter not going away if you manually stop the alarm from playing. I'll have to do more tests. This is weird b/c i tested it pretty well before I released it. Wow.

What do you mean? I see the counter is disabled after I stop snooze the alarm

With properties of Autosilence checked and Snooze unchecked, when an alarm is playing, show the details window and then click on the title to stop the mp3. does the autosilnce timer stay or disappear?

Oh yes it stays - I though you ment something else...

EDIT:
That's weird - I have set a timer alarm to play an mp3 file, played with the snooze a little bit and deleted it. After a few minutes the file was played, even though I saw no item in the panel's list and the counter was set to 0

That is weird. Let me look into that.

I think I fixed some lingering bugs in the panel. Version 4.3.2 released in the Extension Exchange.

I have a big problem. I installed Alarm Panel. But if I alter anything in the properties like switching on the loop or automatic deleting of once only alarms and I exit the properties the whole Desktop Sidebar freezes and I have to shut it down. Nothing happens, the clock freezes and he does not remember the changes I made when I restart it. Can you help me?

I most certainly will try. What version of Sidebar are you using?

Version 1.04 Build 75

I read that some other people had similar problems in the past?

Yeah, and I've been unable to figure them out. Are you interested in upgrading to build 92 at all?

I don't know. What's the difference to Build 75?

There's a huge difference. Try downloading it from: http://www.desktopsidebar.com/files/sidebarb92.msi

If I do, what will happen to the 75 sidebar and my preferences? Should I copy the folders before trying the 92 version?

That is a good question. Once I went past 75 though, I haven't thought about going back. Anyone else know?

Nothing should happen. Some said the icons in the Toolbar panel change their place, but I don't think there's anything which can be done to fix it. I can't promise anything, but I see no reason for your settings to change. If you want to be sure, back up this folder: "C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Desktop Sidebar", assuming you use only one instance of DS.

Thanks yyy. I never had to worry about it b/c I didn't think I'd ever want to go back to an earlier build.

Okay, I'll try. Thanks.

Please let me know if it works. I would like to figure out this problem.

It worked! Sidebar does not freeze anymore and the only change I noticed are the icons on the menus but that's irrelevant! Thank you so much!

I'm glad it worked. I'll have to look at the code to see what could be causing it, but thanks for letting me know how to fix this. Enjoy and if you have any other questions/problems, please let me know.

Are you using the SetRightToLeft (don't remeber the exact name) method of an ITextOutput (not list output) maybe? I think that was added later.

Yeah I think I do. Maybe you are right.

Finally I've got the chance to play with this panel. Job well done on improving the UI. I use the custom alert window alot cause it's much better than DS. I wish I can set how fast it shows/hide.. the current speed is to slow for me. It also need a close button.

Great job!

I hope to do more on the UI if I ever finish my OS assignment for school. I like the custom details window as well. I am thinking about moving the color stuff out of properties and into a skin item. I might need your help with that when I get to it. The alert window is supposed to have a close button and it's supposed to match your current theme, and if there is a problem, it uses the windows default. Can you post a screenshot of the alert window?

I will look into the speed issue. I think I slowed it down, b/c it was drawing funny on my computer. I can change that.

Does the close button is taken from DS skin or the VS im using? The bottom image shows the comparison between Alarm Panel and DS usage of Alert Window. Notice that the text displayed by the panel is way too high. You might want to adjust that.

BTW, I'm currently using WB.

Don't worry, I'll help you with the skin stuffs

It is supposed to get the close button from the current Visual Style. I don't use WB, so I don't know if that is what causes the problem. I can adjust the text. I don't do anything special to it, I just pass it to DS to display in the alert window. I can add some newlines for you if you want.

please insert into description that .NET Framework is needed, thx

The description is on the download page in the Extension Exchange, and it says that one of the requirements is Microsoft .NET Framework. It's already there, what would you like me to do exactly?

Since I want to be able to say I've finished work on this panel, I'm going to begin cleaning up the code and working on a UI upgrade to the way it looks. Now, if you have new features you would like to see, please let me know.

Re: integrating with the clock - I don't want to redo what KiethI's world clock panel does. If you have a good reason as to why I should continue with this feature, please share it.

Re: chimes - I don't think this is a bad idea to include in this panel. I will prob disable them by default and let you choose which files you want to use for playing sounds on the 15,30,45, hour marks.

Misc - I'm thinking of adding an option to the timer alarm, to repeat it. So instead of counting down just once, it will reset and repeat if you want. I'm thinking of finding a way to tell if an uptime alarm should be reset after a restart.

What are your thoughts on these ideas, and what other things would you like to see?

I don't have any new features request, but I do know one thing: if it works - don't touch it!

Oh, of course I'm going to make a backup of the version that works. I just want to clean it up a bit to make fixing bugs a bit easier. It's a little haphazard right now.

Very suitable for birthday or anniversary reminder Other than this one, I have nothing more to request. The current features already suits my needs

Hello,

Not sure if it has been asked before, I tried to search, but there are LOTS of results returned and I admit I didn't read them all.

Is it possible to create a custom recurring alarm that only runs on specific days of the week?

I would like to set up an hourly alarm (to remind me to stand up and relax) that only goes off on the weekdays (since I don't have to work on the weekend).

Thankss.

Hmmm....Not currently. There is one that goes off at one time on specified days, and there is one that goes off every hour, every day....I've been looking into ways of merging all the types of alarms so that you can pick which "module" to add to any alarm...Sorry you can't do what you want. You can set an hourly one, and just turn it off for weekends. I'll look into it.

Hi There,
Sorry if this sounds silly and has an easy fix but when i run the download on the latest version I get this:

Cannot install package .......\AlarmPanel4_3_2.dspackage
Error: End of central directory signature not found. Either this file is not a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive......
Unzip DLL: cannot find zipfile directory in .......\AlarmPanel4_3_2.dspackage
and cannot find .....AlarmPanel4_3_2.dspackage.zip, period.

Any ideas greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Schmeardo

Quite often when you download things from the DS website the download becomes corrupted. If you download the file again you should find that everything is OK. I don't think that anyone knows why this is.

If you are using a download manager or accelerator then it would probably best to temporarily disable them.

Recently found this panel, and downloaded the latest version (4.3.2) and defined four alarms, one daily, and three monthly. Problem is that the alarms keep turning themselves OFF across reboots. Right now all four of them are OFF, despite me setting them all ON 2 days ago. Anyone else seen this behaviour?

Mike

That is mighty odd.
Does this happen by just closing DS and restarting it?

Hmm. You'll have to be a little more specific. Which alarms shut off? The daily one should never turn off unless you shut it off. The monthly ones I can understand. Let me know.