Coffee Timer documentation


Ê



 Version 1.1                                                                                                        April 1997 

©1995-97 Alessandro Levi Montalcini        Technical support, permissions, suggestions:
C.so Re Umberto 10                                     mailto:alm@kagi.com
10121 Torino                                              mailto:alm@torino.alpcom.it
Italy

Online shareware registration:                    Software download and information:
http://order.kagi.com/?67                         http://persoweb.francenet.fr/~alm
                                                                   ftp://ftp.alpcom.it/software/mac/LMontalcini
                                                                                                                                            

¥ Shareware: $10
×  This program is distributed as shareware and costs $10. If you use it, please save a copy of the Register utility with the button below and launch it. Enter your name, your email address (if available), and the number of licenses you wish to purchase. Save, copy or print the data from the Register application and send it to Kagi along with your payment. Kagi will process your registration and forward your payment to me. If youÕre on the Internet, an online registration site is also available at the above URL.
×  If you donÕt want to pay through Kagi, you can send your payment in cash directly to my Italian address. Please provide your name, your address, your email, and the name and version of the software youÕre registering.
×  You may want to get a copy of the complete ALM Share and ALM Free packages, which contain most of my shareware and freeware programs and can be registered at a very low price. The packages are available as two large compressed archives and can be downloaded from my web and ftp sites.
×  Please register: your support is the only way for me to keep working on cool shareware programs.

¥ Kagi registrations
×  Payments sent via email and through the online registration site are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when your registration is done. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days. You will also be notified by email if you provide a correct internet email address. Payments sent via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
×  If you pay with a credit card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is <sales@kagi.com> and their fax number is +1-510-652-6589. You can either copy the data from Register and paste it into the body of an email message, or you can save the data to a file and attach the file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, itÕs already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just print the data to the Kagi fax number.
×  You can also pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries, or with a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies. In both cases you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:

      Kagi
      1442-A Walnut Street #392-67
      Berkeley, California 94709-1405
      U.S.A.

×  If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You may want to highlight the line that reminds them to include a copy of the form with their payment.
×  Kagi cannot invoice your company. If you need an invoice, you must act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
×  Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate cash, check or invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.

¥ Introduction
×  The Coffee Timer is a very simple countdown timer I built after frying my third coffee pot. Like many other programmers, I often drink coffe while working - I mean Italian expresso coffee, the kind you make with a ÒmokaÓ coffee pot. However, I donÕt usually wait for the coffee to be ready before going back to work, which often results in the coffee pot being forgotten on the fire for hours. This is a programmerÕs solution to the problem: a simple countdown timer with a loud alarm and a couple of other useful options.
×  For those of you who need more flexibility in their timer, the Coffee Timer allows a KeyQuencer macro to be run when the timer times out. This lets you instruct your Mac to do pretty much anything at alarm time. The Coffee Timer works with both KeyQuencer 1.2.x and the forthcoming KeyQuencer 2.0 (which you donÕt want to miss!).
×  Quite obviously, the Coffee Timer is not limited to your daily coffee break. You can use it to remind yourself of anything that must happen in the near futureÉ filling the bath tub? taking a short sleep? delaying a fax? Just launch the Coffee Timer and let it help your memory and your watch.
×  You may even put an alias to Coffee Timer in your Startup Items folder to prevent yourself from sitting in front of your Mac for long periods of time. All you have to do is take a break every time the timer starts bugging youÉ

¥ Instructions
×  File menu:
  - Close: closes the timer window.
  - Quit: resets and quits the timer.
×  Timer menu:
  - Reset: resets the timer.
  - Display: opens the timer window if it was closed.
  - Configure: lets you change the name and duration of 10 different timer events.
  - Timers 1...10: sets the timer to a specific duration. This does NOT reset the timer.
  - OtherÉ: lets you quickly specify a timer duration without saving it in the one of the 10 timer events.
×  Alarm menu:
  - Show Timeout Message: shows a message when the timer times out.
  - Play Alarm Sounds: plays alarm sounds when the timer times out.
  - Keep Playing Forever: keeps playing forever instead of only playing 5 sounds.
  - Full Speaker Volume: brings the speaker volume to its top level before playing. The volume is reset to its previous value when the Coffee Timer quits.
  - Stop Playing: stops playing the alert sounds without resetting the timer.
  - Run KeyQuencer MacroÉ: runs a KeyQuencer macro when the timer times out. This requires the KeyQuencer macro engine to be installed (version 1.2.x or 2.0.x). You can leave the macro text field empty if you donÕt want to run any macro. Note that the macro text should contain the actual macro, not the name of an installed macro.
×  Options menu:
  - Auto Background: sends the Coffee Timer to background as soon as itÕs launched.

¥ Technical notes
×  The timer is based on the MacÕs internal clock. Its minimum time frame is 1 second, so donÕt expect it to be more precise than that. Specifically, the first second after you reset the timer may be partially cut to align the counter to the MacÕs seconds counter.

¥ Compatibility notes
×  PowerPC: Coffee Timer is a fat binary, containing both 680x0 and native PowerPC code.
×  System 7 and later: Coffee Timer runs fine on any version of the Mac OS starting with 7.0.
×  System 6: System 6 is fully supported by Coffee Timer, although the coffee pot icon is not drawn in the timer window.

¥ Version history
×  1.1 - Minor changes in the code. Switched the payment method to Kagi. Recompiled with CodeWarrior 11.
×  1.0.2 - Added an option to automatically switch to background upon launch.
×  1.0.1 - Recompiled with CodeWarrior 9 and updated documentation.
×  1.0 - First public release.

¥ Distribution
×  This software is ©1995-97 Alessandro Levi Montalcini. It can be freely distributed as long as it is not modified and thereÕs no charge for it, but it may not be included in any commercial package without my consent.
×  All online services and bulletin boards may make it available to their users at no charge other than the normal connection fees.
×  All non-profit user groups may distribute it at no charge.
×  All magazines may publish it on floppy disk or CD-ROM without asking me first, as long as I get a copy of the issue containing my software.
×  All CD-ROM shareware collections and CD-ROM magazines may include it without my prior consent, as long as I get either a copy of the CD-ROM or an offer to buy the CD-ROM at a discounted price.
×  All redistribution companies such as Pacific HiTech, AMUG, Celestin or Educorp may distribute it, as long as I get a copy of each media containing my software and a catalog of the companyÕs offerings (where applicable).
×  The latest versions of my stuff are on http://persoweb.francenet.fr/~alm or ftp://ftp.alpcom.it/software/mac/LMontalcini. The ALM Share and ALM Free packages, which contain most of my stuff and can be registered at a very low price, are also available there.

¥ Disclaimer
×  This software should never cause any damage, but youÕre using it at your own risk. As an independent software developer, I can make no warranties whatsoever on it.

¥ Have fun!
×  And donÕt forget to register your shareware, so that more cool inexpensive utilities can see the light in the future.