Author: david

What are natural breaks in Time Out, and how do I configure them?

“Natural breaks” are when the Mac is not being used; idle.

By default, Time Out will wait briefly then count backwards when you are having a natural break, to give you credit for not using your computer.

If you do a lot of reading on-screen, that doesn’t cause keyboard or mouse activity, you can change the app to disable this behavior by choosing Continue Countdown from the popup menu on the Break Appearance page of the settings.

Or if you’d prefer to have it just pause the countdown, instead of counting backwards, or reset the timer, those are also options.

Why isn’t my Simon Email Notifier working?

I seem to get more queries about the Email notifier than any other feature. Usually, it comes down to not filling in all of the fields, or setting the wrong authentication.

So the first thing I’d recommend is checking that both the To and From address fields are filled in with valid email addresses.

If that doesn’t help, check that the Outgoing Mail Server is correct in the Email Transport Options panel — if you use iCloud, make sure you enter just “smtp.icloud.com” (without the quotes), and not the colon and username following.

If still not working, try each of the Authentication options in that panel, with the appropriate User Name and Password entered. Also try turning SSL off. It’s not always easy to tell which will work.

Are older versions of Time Out available for download?

Yes. I recommend that you always use the latest version of Time Out if you can, as it has the latest improvements and fixes. But if your Mac isn’t using a recent OS version, you’re curious what older versions were like, or you have some other reason to want an older version, they are still available. Just download the latest release that supports your OS version.

Is a Windows or Android version available?

No, I’m a solo developer, so have limited time, and choose to focus my skills on platforms I use. I believe that Apple devices are the best computing platforms, so only write software for Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

I don’t have any significant experience with other platforms, so can’t recommend alternatives for them.

How do I pronounce “Dejal”, and where did the name come from?

The name “Dejal” is pronouced “DEE-JILL”. It is not a French word, so should not be pronounced as “DAY-ZHAL” or other variations.

The name originated from the former initials of the founder of the company, David Sinclair — me. I used to be David J. Lambert, but my wife and I both changed our surnames to “Sinclair” when we got married, being people who like to make our own conventions (and we chose that name in part after my first computer, the Sinclair ZX81). Anyway, back around 1983 I needed a password, so an obvious (if simplistic) choice was something based on my initials. D.J.L. with some vowels to make it pronounceable gave “DeJaL”, and thus “Dejal” was created.

Interestingly, it turns out that “dejal” is a word in some other languages. “Dejal” is a Slovene verb, the past participle of the verb “reci”, meaning “to say, tell.” An example: “He told her that she was beautiful” = “On ji je dejal, da je lepa.” (“je dejal” = “told”). Kinda appropriate for a software publisher! It appears that “Dejal” is also a Yugoslavian or Czech name equivalent to “David”, which is also rather fitting. If you have any other examples, or corrections, please let me know.

Hello (again)

For the past decade or so, the Dejal blog has been powered by the Drupal content management system (CMS). But it recently stopped working. I’ve been meaning to replace it for a while anyway, since I use WordPress for my personal blog, Dejus, and my motorhome travel blog, Sinclair Trails.

So, I have now replaced the Dejal blog with a WordPress-based one.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s possible to recover my previous blog posts, though you can view them in the Internet Archive. Most of them were just announcing app update releases, and the release notes pages cover those to some degree (e.g. release notes for Time Out and for Simon).

I don’t have comments enabled on this blog, but feel free to post in the /r/Dejal community on Reddit, or contact me privately via email or web form if you have any questions or requests.

Time Out 2.9 released

[This post was recovered from the old blog, thanks to being cross-posted on Reddit.]

I’m pleased to announce the general release of an update of Time Out, my popular break reminder tool.

Version 2.9 includes several great enhancements, including a status message in the sidebar to indicate why a break was skipped etc, the ability to schedule and exclude breaks using calendar events, support for Monterey focus, an option to hide the Pause function, new break options to pause or reset an individual break, and much more.

Read on for details.

Added a status message to the breaks in the sidebar

  • The break items in the sidebar now display a status message, e.g. to indicate that the break has been postponed or skipped.

  • When a break is skipped or postponed due to an app exclusion, the app name is included.

  • So if you ever wonder why a break didn’t occur as expected, look at this status message.

Sidebar

Added the ability to schedule breaks using calendar events

  • A new Calendar option is now available in the From pop-up menu on the Break Schedule page.

  • If chosen, a pop-up menu of your calendars, and a field to filter on event text is displayed.

  • The first time this is chosen, the app will prompt for permission to access your calendars.

  • When using this option, Time Out will look at the specified calendar for events containing the specified text, and start a break at the start of the event, and finish at the end.

  • If the event text filter field is left blank, all events will be used; specify something else to use the same calendar for multiple breaks.

  • Multiple values can be entered in the filter field, separated by commas, e.g. “break, lunch, snack”.

  • A reload button is available to reset the due date, if you edit the events.

  • Since the calendar controls the duration, frequency, and availability of the break, those controls are disabled.

  • This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

Calendar schedule

Added an Exclusions option to skip breaks when busy on the calendar

  • A new Also skip breaks during calendar events option is now available on the Exclusionspage.

  • If chosen, a pop-up menu of your calendars, and a field to filter on event text is displayed.

  • The first time this is chosen, the app will prompt for permission to access your calendars.

  • When using this option, Time Out will look at the specified calendar for events containing the specified text, and skip a due break if it would fall within an event.

  • As with calendar scheduling, if the event text filter field is left blank, all events on that calendar will be used; specify something else to only skip some of the events.

  • Multiple values can be entered in the filter field, separated by commas, e.g. “meeting, 1-on-1, planning”.

  • This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

Calendar exclusion

Support for Monterey focus

  • Renamed the Exclusions option to skip breaks during Do Not Disturb to focus, Apple’s new name for it in Monterey.

  • The first time this option is enabled, the app will prompt to get permission to look at the focus state.

  • If declined, you can enable it via System Preferences ▸ Security & Privacy ▸ User Availability.

  • This feature will still work with the old Do Not Disturb state from previous macOS versions.

Focus exclusion

Added an Advanced option to hide the Pause function

  • Sometimes it can be very difficult to resist the temptation to pause Time Out to avoid breaks, even though you know you shouldn’t.

  • So for people who don’t want the Pause function, there is now an option on the Advanced page to hide it.

  • This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

Hide pause

New break options to pause or reset an individual break

  • Added a Pause Break or Resume Break command to the break options menus. So a break can be paused independent of other breaks.

  • The Pause Break menu item can be chosen to pause indefinitely, or choose a shorter time from the submenu.

  • This is of course not included if the new Advanced option to hide pause is active.

  • Also added a Reset Break command to these menus. This will start the work period again from now, just for this break.

Pause

But wait, there’s more!

  • Fixed the Flash Screen break action on Apple silicon Macs. It now uses the built-in screen flash, so doesn’t have color or duration options.

  • Fixed the Fadeout Sound break action not showing the fade out time interval field.

  • Updated the Stop Screensaver break action script.

  • Breaks due on future days are no longer adjusted when having a natural break (idle).

  • When resetting a From: Fixed Time break, the next due time now respects the fixed time.

  • Break names are now cleaned up to avoid invalid characters that can cause saving the break to fail.

  • Updated the Exclusions to remove DVD Player, and change FaceTime, Photo Booth, and QuickTime Player to include “System” in their paths.

  • For new folks, the exclusions for Zoom are now When Frontmost, to avoid a common support query. Existing data is not changed, in case you like them When Open.

  • The Pause All Breaks menu item can now be chosen to pause indefinitely, instead of needing to choose that from the submenu.

  • When paused indefinitely, the status item text now shows “–“.

  • Improved the highlighting of the status item rows.

  • Hidden a couple of rarely-used diagnostic logging options.

  • Fixed a performance issue where the app could use more CPU than it should in some unusual circumstances.

  • Time Out now requires a minimum of macOS Catalina (10.15).

Want to try it?

If you are using the Mac App Store edition, you can update via the App Store app.

Similarly, if you are using the Setapp edition, it will handle that update for you.

If you are using the direct edition, you can use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.

Otherwise, download Time Out 2.9 now!