Howdy, gang;
After almost two weeks of sitting in Apple's approval queue, my new app Timebar is finally available.<p>I think it has a pretty innovative UI feature, so I wanted to float it by Hacker News.<p>It's a timer app that turns your Mac's menu bar into a sort of virtual hourglass. Your menu bar starts out tinted blue (or whatever colour you pick) and it slowly drains from right-to-left until your time is up.<p>It works very well for situations where you want to keep track of time, but don't need to be super precise. The menu bar is easy to glance up at, and it doesn't take long to happen subconsciously.<p>Here are a few promo codes. I'd love to hear you you think. :)<p><pre><code> MYE99WJXFW4R
936LKT4MF49W
PLKYNNKH4ETN
</code></pre>
Your pal;
— Mark<p>Web site: http://whimsicalifornia.com/timebar/
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timebar/id617829225?mt=12
Twitter: https://twitter.com/timebar
He's the link to the app store from OP:<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timebar/id617829225?mt=12" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timebar/id617829225?mt=12</a>
Pretty awesome.<p>Some suggestions:<p><pre><code> * Pause? (possibly autopause on screensaver/sleep/lock)
* Re-label "Cancel" as "Stop". When I accidentally started a timer longer than I
meant I overlooked it and quit/reopened the app instead (Maybe I subconsciously
assumed cancel would just dismiss the window/popover?)
* The slider is not a very rapid time entry method, if you expect to ever want
different times. I'd suggest instead:
* basic time parsing for rapid entry (e.g. '5m', '15m', '1.5h'). This would be
more useful, to me, than being able to label the reminder.
* or hotkeys for common lengths (e.g. ⌘1 for 5m, ⌘2 for 10m, ⌘3 for 15m when
popover focused -- or user configurable alternative)
* combined with a global focus hotkey (possibly assigned through an external
handler), this would make starting a timer for a given length without taking
hands off the keyboard possible... which seems worthwhile to me
</code></pre>
Anyway, just some thoughts.<p>Overall, super cool.<p><i>Edit</i>: Alfred workflows (which I saw you mentioned below) for common times would also do a pretty good job of what I was saying
Indeed the UI is quite nice; liked the snooze button too.
Do you know if iOS supports anything similar? I know that it allows for app specific colours for the status bar, but perhaps this sort of control is impossible...because I'd like this on an iPad too :).<p>Off topic: Does DragonDrop (your/your company's other app) still under dev/support? It stopped working for me after Mountain Lion hit and I miss it.
This is simple but awesome. I like this way better than my current pomodoro timer. I left a review.<p>I don't want to see the app all bloated up or anything, but an audible alarm would be nice, as would having a few saved timers (so I could start a pomodoro or a break with a single click).
I just bought it; great idea and execution! Some feedback:<p>- Pause: say I set it to two hours and sometime later a client rings and we have a 30min conversation. A pause button would be very helpful.<p>- Full screen mode on 10.7: the bar isn't narrower than on normal mode.<p>- A way to set the default snooze length<p>Good job!
I assume it should work fine with something like "30 seconds" or "1 minute", right? It's moving very slowly. About 2 inches in the past minute (set for 1 minute).<p>Oh another thing, I like that you offer a snooze when the timer runs out. I think that you probably left it silent because noises may seem to defeat the purpose. It wouldn't be terrible to allow the user to browse for an audio file, though.<p>I want the subtleness of the gradually emptying menubar, with maybe pulse.ogg to play at the end, or something. Just an idea.
Excellent! Thank you for making this. Visual timer's are so much more useful than numeric ones.<p>A suggestion: Could you add an option (if possible) to have the narrow line on the main menu bar like you have on the full screen instead of the full overlay. It would be lass distracting I think.<p>Also, I'm using it to get a feel for my full working day so (the current maximum of) 8 hours is bare minimum. Just thought you might be interested in that 'use case'.
Very clever! Some feedback:<p>* Text can get truncated sometimes: <a href="http://f.cl.ly/items/1G3L1F2D3P032T2F3m3E/Screen%20Shot%202013-04-02%20at%2011.40.04%20PM.png" rel="nofollow">http://f.cl.ly/items/1G3L1F2D3P032T2F3m3E/Screen%20Shot%2020...</a>
* Is it possible to change the actual menu bar color? The overlay kind of makes it hard to make out the other items in the menu bar. Maybe an opacity setting would help.
This is a pretty neat idea and I can definitely appreciate the time you've put into it! The only reason I didn't pull the trigger to buy it is because I'm a heavy full screen user, so I hardly ever see my menu bar while working. I suppose I'm not your target user, but feedback nonetheless.
Good idea! Two things:<p>- Spotlight searches makes it flicker<p>- Make it narrow for non-native (i.e. not only lion style) full screen aswell. It's awfully disturbing together with full screen iTerm, MacVim etc.<p>Other than that it's quite neat! I'd rather have it fill than empty though, maybe make that an option? ;)
Creative idea. Would you consider releasing it under the GPL in the future?<p>I bought it anyway, it's just that open-sourcing the app would allow other apps to (possibly) link time functions into it, which I think would be really, really neat.
Cool.<p>A kind of similar app that I used when I used Mac: <a href="http://www.grandtotal.biz/Alarms/" rel="nofollow">http://www.grandtotal.biz/Alarms/</a><p>One of the few things I miss on Linux and one of many I miss on Windows.<p>(Please let me know if you know about replacements.)
Great work! This will be my first attempt at a timer based approach to task management. I've been meaning to give it a try for a while and this UI was just too neat to not try.
Wow....this is not what I expected, but it is surprisingly clever.<p>I accidentally bought it - and immediately thought....oh crap, I am going to regret it.<p>But...after seeing the clever use of the top menu, I don't.<p>Good job!
I don't need this at the moment, but I think it is a very nice idea!
At some point in the near future, I will probably find a use and buy it ;)<p>+1 for adding a screenshot on the website.
There's something strange going on with your website...<p>I expected to scroll a bit to read more about the App and see more screenshots, but as you know that wasn't possible.
Nicely unobtrusive. And the approach of showing progress rather than a pedantic number is a clever innovation - much more relevant for many uses.<p>Is there a way to pause it?
Only just realised what it actually does after looking at the screenshot closely.<p>Very clever indeed, you definitely need to get an animation of it in action or something on there because I visited the site earlier from your Reddit post and I thought it just put a little clock timer in the menu bar.
The idea is novel, and I certainly commend you for being audacious with the UI. However, this is not worth the money for me. The app's functionality is not particularly distinct from any other timer app. The UI is nice, but I honestly don't see how it's worth what you're charging, at least for the way in which I use timing apps. Timers generally tend to be utilitarian and pretty trivial in their functionality. I'm perfectly content with a free timer, irrespective of the UI.<p>You might have a hard time attracting customers, especially in a market so overcrowded and with so little room for differentiation.