In ye olde days, software was sold once, for what would be considered nowadays to be a high price, and every year or so the developer would release a major paid upgrade, typically charging about half of the original price.

I still do this for Simon, my pro tool to monitor websites and servers for changes or failures, since that model is still common for pro apps. Though it is also available on Setapp, as part of a subscription along with hundreds of other apps.

But for Time Out, my popular break reminder app, I wanted to try something different. I introduced a “supporter” model, where people can get the main features completely free, but be rewarded for supporting ongoing development with extra features.

Unlike old-school purchases, the supporter purchases are much cheaper, only a few bucks, and for a specific period of time, 3, 6, or 12 months. The extra features can be tried for an hour at a time, or are unlocked permanently with any supporter level. The “catch”, such as it is, is that when I update the app, I may add new features that are only available to current supporters, so if your support has expired, you won’t get those features unless you renew your support. Of course, you can try them, to help decide if you want to renew.

That seems really fair to me; you can have breaks for free, or get extra features cheaply, and if you like my improvements, you can help pay for their development. Or continue using the older features forever without paying more.

Win/win — you get a useful app that is regularly improved, and I get to eat. I also don’t have to hold back major features for a big paid upgrade; I can add things whenever desired.

Even so, I occasionally get people asking about a lifetime purchase option. I don’t currently offer that, since I feel it would be detrimental to the long-term survival of the app. However, you can effectively make your own lifetime option, by purchasing multiple 12-month supporter statuses. Each one you purchase will extend your supporter status by a year. So if you envision using Time Out for the next 5 years, purchasing 5 times will extend your support that long. Or whatever duration you want to use.

Of course, it’s worth reiterating that you don’t have to pay more than once if you don’t want to. You can become a supporter at whatever level you feel comfortable with, and not pay again unless you want to show your appreciation (kinda like a tip jar). After your supporter status expires, all of the advanced features that you had when you were a supporter will remain available permanently. You’d only need to renew if I add new features in the future that you want to use.

To play a sound or perform other actions before, during, or after a break, check out the Actions page of the break editor:

Other actions include the ability to display a notification (with an optional sound), fade out the currently playing sound (useful at the end of the break), flash the screen, and speak some text with speech synthesis. Several scripts are provided, too.

To add an action, simply click the  button in the top-right corner of the window, to display a menu of available actions:

(When you first click this button, the scripts won’t be there, and there will just be “More…” item at the end; choose this to install the scripts.)

The first bunch are the various actions, followed by scripts, which are like customizable actions. At the end of the menu are items to open the Scripts folder in the Finder, so you can edit or add scripts, and go to the Time Out Extras page to download more scripts.

Once you add an action, you’ll see a header row with the name of the action and some other controls:

You can use the interval picker and pop-up menu to indicate when to use the action. The interval picker enables you to offset from the action stage by a number of seconds, minutes or even hours (click on the units to change them). Instead of just being able to play a sound at the start and/or end of a break, you can choose from many more times, including before due, after skipping, and more:

After those controls is a Preview () button, that will demonstrate the action. And a Remove () button to remove the action.

Here is a brief video to demo the feature: adding a Play Sound action to play a long music track, and a Fadeout Sound action to make it fade out when the break successfully finishes. (You might instead want to have it fade out for any end, otherwise it’d keep playing till done if you skip.)

This is a powerful and flexible feature of the app, especially when using custom scripts.

The direct edition (available from this site), the Mac App Store edition, and the Setapp edition are very similar, but there are a few minor differences:

Download

The direct edition can be downloaded from this site.

The Mac App Store edition can be downloaded from the App Store app.

The Setapp edition can be downloaded from the Setapp app.

Installation

The direct edition will download to your Downloads folder, so simply drag it into your Applications folder to install.

The Mac App Store edition will be downloaded directly into the Applications folder.

The Setapp edition will be downloaded directly into the Setapp subfolder within the Applications folder.

Updates

The direct edition can be updated via an in-app updater.

The Mac App Store edition can be updated via the App Store app.

The Setapp edition can be updated via the Setapp app.

Beta releases

The direct edition supports beta releases to help test new updates.

The Mac App Store and Setapp editions are not updated until the general release.

Purchase

The direct edition offers optional in-app purchases via FastSpring (or from this site).

The Mac App Store edition offers optional in-app purchases via your Apple ID (Apple iCloud account).

The Setapp edition doesn’t offer any purchase; all features are always available as part of your Setapp subscription.

Proceeds

The direct edition provides 91% of the purchase price to me, the developer (after FastSpring’s cut).

The Mac App Store edition provides 85% of the purchase price to the developer (after Apple’s cut).

The Setapp edition provides a portion of your Setapp subscription to the developer, based on the number of people using it each month.

Sandbox

The direct and Setapp editions are not sandboxed, to enable updating, though they act with the same limitations as a sandboxed app.

The Mac App Store edition is sandboxed, requiring extra steps to approve keyboard usage detection and install action scripts.

Data location

The direct edition stores its data in the path “~/Library/Group Containers/6Z7QW53WB6.com.dejal.timeout/”, where “~” means your home folder.

The Mac App Store edition stores its data in the path “~/Library/Group Containers/6Z7QW53WB6.com.dejal.timeout.free/”, where “~” means your home folder.

The Setapp edition stores its data in the path “~/Library/Group Containers/6Z7QW53WB6.com.dejal.timeout-setapp/“, where “~” means your home folder.

Your choice

That’s about it. None of the differences are all that significant, so you are welcome to use whichever edition you prefer. Downloading and updating are about as easy for each, and purchasing the direct and Mac App Store editions are similar, it just depends on whether you want to buy with your credit card or PayPal account, or your Apple ID. Of course, purchasing is optional; you can use it for free if you don’t want to become a supporter. And if you have Setapp, it makes sense to use that edition, since it’s included in your Setapp subscription.

Look in your Dock and menu bar; does Time Out appear more than once?

If it’s in the Dock more than once, you can long-click or right-click on the Dock icon to display the Dock menu for the app, then choose Options ▸ Show in Finder to reveal the app in the Finder. Do this for each to find the one that shouldn’t be there — it could be in your Downloads folder, or in a subfolder of Applications if you installed both from the Dejal site and the Mac App Store.

Once you find the duplicate, quit that app (by double-clicking the app icon to bring it to the front, then press ⌘Q), then move it to the Trash and empty the Trash.

Yes, the control panel with the progress bar and buttons, that appears during breaks, can be freely moved anywhere on the screen. The position will be remembered for next time.

Having difficulty with self control, skipping breaks too often?

No problem: you can disable the buttons during the break. Simply go to the Break Appearance page, and you’ll find checkboxes to enable or disable each button, and change the number of minutes for the two postpone buttons.

There are also options to disable the buttons for a few seconds, to give you a chance to decide if you really want to skip the break. And to limit the number of times they can be used, if you need a little more help.

If no break appears when you manually start one, or as scheduled, there are a few possibilities.

1. Firstly, look in the sidebar; it should indicate why a break didn’t occur.
2. You should restart your Mac. That often fixes wackiness.
3. If that doesn’t help, make sure you don’t have more than one copy of Time Out.
4. If still no luck, there may be a permissions issue.

To fix a permissions issue, try this:

Make sure Time Out is in your Applications folder.

Paste the following command into Terminal:

xattr -d -r -s com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Time\ Out.app

If this gives a permissions error (e.g. “xattr: [Errno 13] Permission denied”), try it again with sudo before the command, to elevate the privileges. You’ll need to enter your Administrator password. This command is safe to use with sudo:

sudo xattr -d -r -s com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Time\ Out.app