Time Out 2.9.4 released

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

Version 2.9.4 includes some nice fixes and tweaks:

Fixed the settings window unexpectedly appearing after restarting the Mac, when the Dock icon is hidden.
Fixed misnaming the app in the sidebar when using a When Open app exclusion.
Fixed the Also skip breaks during focus exclusion option.
Fixed a break with a large negative duration when scheduling from the calendar with no more events.
Fixed the tooltip for the Ask When to Start scheduling option.
When there are multiple displays available, now uses the names of the displays in the menu.
Fixed the With Inactive Menubar option for multiple displays.
The other displays now fade out and back in correctly.
Fixed requesting full calendar access when using the calendar exclusion option (need full access to look for matching events).
Fixed the Skip button appearing when previewing a break if the end early option is enabled.
Fixed the option to alert of another copy of the app.
Added support for break-specific pause via a URL like timeout://break/micro/pause/30m, where micro is the break name, and 30m means pause for 30 minutes.
Also break-specific resume via a URL like timeout://break/micro/resume.
Fixed using a timeout://pause URL without an amount (to pause all breaks indefinitely) possibly crashing.
Fixed the settings window unexpectedly appearing when using a timeout:// URL.
Bonus: added the Sinclair Trails 2023 theme, with random timelapse clips of driving around the US.

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. (If it says you’re up-to-date with version 2.9.2, turn off the Via SSL checkbox; CloudFlare seems to be caching the version state.)

Otherwise, download Time Out 2.9.4 now!

DejalNews #85: Time Out and Simon in BundleHunt, Time Out is 20, Mac is 40, and Time Out tips

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Welcome

This is DejalNews, an occasional newsletter from Dejal.

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Time Out and Simon in BundleHunt

It’s been years since I participated in an app bundle, so I thought it was time. Both Time Out and Simon are included in the BundleHunt New Year Bundle, a collection of significantly discounted Mac apps, available now for a limited time:

Even if you already have Time Out and/or Simon, you can include them in the bundle to renew your support of Time Out, or upgrade to the latest version of Simon. Tell your friends!

Time Out is 20 years old

I recently marked a major milestone for Time Out, my popular break reminder tool: it turned two decades old last year.

I celebrated the occasion with a bunch of pictures of the old app icon, the old website, and app screenshots. Check out that blog post to relive or discover the ancient history of this app. It has changed quite a lot over the years, and yet the core functionality is still very recognizable.

Dejal year in review: 2023

Every year I publish a blog post reviewing the app updates over the past year, how things went, and what to look forward to in the coming year. Check out the year in review post for 2023.

I’m excited for my new app that is nearing completion. Look out for an announcement of a TestFlight soon, probably in the next newsletter — if you’re not already, subscribe to be amongst the first to try this new app! It will be available for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS.

Time Out tips

If you missed them, I published four blog posts with tips and tidbits for Time Out:

Happy 40th Anniversary, Mac!

Finally, I also published a retrospective of the first Mac I used (the original 128K Mac), the first Mac I owned (the Mac Plus), and other early Macs, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the Mac.

– David

Happy 40th Anniversary, Mac!

[This is an updated repost from the 25th and 30th anniversaries.]

It’s the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the first Macintosh.

I first used a Mac back in high school in New Zealand, where I volunteered as head student librarian. The school had mostly Apple IIe computers, but bought one of the newfangled Macintosh computers in 1984. It was an original 128K Mac, with a single internal floppy drive. Back then, the OS, an application, and data fit on a single 400K disk. We used MacWrite for letters and other documents, MacPaint for occasional graphics, and the OverVUE database for some records… though not a full book catalog.

I bought my first Mac four years later while at university, in 1988. It was a Macintosh Plus, one of the new platinum-colored models. And I even had a second 800K floppy drive:

Mac Plus

Later, I added an external hard drive (I think it was 10 MB, though I could be wrong), a modem, and a mageno-optical drive:

Mac Plus

Those were the days… working on a 9-inch 512 x 342 pixel monochrome display… which is actually not much more than the original iPhone screen resolution, to give some perspective.

Later I bought a Macintosh II, which I subsequently upgraded internally to be a Macintosh IIx. Then I used a number of other models provided by a Dejal client.

When my wife and I got married, Apple gave us a PowerBook 150 as a wedding present, since we had met while using Macs with the fledgling internet. Our wedding was covered on local TV news and newspapers. Yep, meeting over the internet was a novel concept back then:

PowerBook 150 and other Mac

Just before we moved to the US, we bought a clamshell iBook G3, then later an iMac G4:

iBook G3 and iMac G4

Over time, I had a PowerMac G5, a 17″ MacBook Pro, and a 27” iMac, and others. I’m currently using an M1 Pro-powered MacBook Pro.

All in all, it’s been a great 40 years. I’ve enjoyed using and owning the various Macs over this time, and developing software for them since 1988, and supporting myself as a Mac developer since 1991. I look forward to many more years. Happy birthday, Mac!

How can I send an email or text message when a break is due or done?

I recently had an interesting customer request. They wanted to send an email or text message when a break was due, in case they were away from their Mac.

So I added a couple of new scripts to the Time Out Extras page.

The first one is called Send Email, which as you might imagine, sends an email message. Download it here.

Here’s the script; after downloading it, you’ll need to edit it to replace the two instances of example@example.com with your email address; you can customize the subject and content of the message as desired:

tell application "Mail"
	set my_message to make new outgoing message
	set subject of my_message to "Time Out break"
	set content of my_message to "Time for a break...."
	set sender of my_message to "example@example.com"
	--
	tell my_message
		make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {name:"example@example.com"}
	end tell
	--
	send my_message
end tell

The second script is called Send Message, which you may be amazed to learn sends a text message (via iMessage, Apple’s “blue bubble” messaging protocol). Download it here.

Here’s the script; after downloading it, you’ll need to edit it to replace the example@example.com with your iCloud email address or phone number; you can customize the message as desired:

tell application "Messages"
	set targetBuddy to "example@example.com"
	set targetService to id of 1st account whose service type = iMessage
	set textMessage to "Time for a break!"
	set theBuddy to participant targetBuddy of account id targetService
	send textMessage to theBuddy
end tell

To install the scripts, open the Time Out settings window, select a break, and go to the Break Actions page, then click the + button and choose the Reveal Scripts menu command:

Break Actions menu

Then drag the script files into that revealed folder. Then they will appear in that menu so you can choose one of them.

As always, you can choose to use these scripts before the break is due, when it starts, or when it is done, amongst other options. If you have a long break that you spend away from your Mac, a message when it is done could be very useful:

Send Email after done

If you want to send a message when a break is due, note that if you’re away from your Mac, by default the breaks are skipped, so it won’t send the messages. You can avoid that by choosing to Continue Countdown on the Break Schedule page:

Contine Countdown schedule option

As previously mentioned, I plan to write an iOS edition of Time Out, probably later this year. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to get notified of breaks on your iPhone, even when away from your Mac. But these scripts may be useful in the meantime. Enjoy!

Sinclair Trails 2023 theme for Time Out

I’ve just added a new Time Out theme for your enjoyment: a fast timelapse of driving our Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome throughout 2023. This combines all of the motorhome travel timelapses for 2023 into one video, at 20x the speed of the original timelapse videos.

You can download this theme from the Time Out Extras page, and follow the instructions on that page to add it to Time Out.

As you may know, my wife and I travel the US in a 40-foot motorhome. We typically drive about two to six hours between campsites. I record each drive of the RV on a dash cam, and post a much shorter timelapse video of the journey. I’ve recently started adding a view from the truck being towed behind our coach, as a picture-in-picture, too.

This theme will start playing from a random point in the video each time it is used. A great way to have some ever-changing scenery during your breaks.

You can see the full 40-minute video on the Sinclair Trails YouTube channel — and I’d appreciate it if everyone reading this would subscribe to this channel, as it still has very few subscribers. It’s free!

Dejal year in review: 2023

As we start a new year, let’s review what happened with the Dejal apps in 2023:

Time Out

My popular break reminder tool, Time Out, only had a bug-fix update in 2023, to version 2.9.2. But a lot of thought was put into the big 3.0 update, including planning to add syncing of break settings, adding an iOS app, and offering an auto-renewing subscription option; see issue #84 the DejalNews newsletter for details. The app also hit a major milestone, turning 20 years old in 2023.

Simon

My pro app to monitor websites and servers for changes and failures, Simon, also had a bug-fix update, to version 5.1.1.

Pack

Pack, a simple iPhone app to make it easy to pack for trips, didn’t have any updates in 2023. Now that I take my home with me when I travel, I rarely need to pack suitcases anymore, so I’m unlikely to update it again. It remains a product in my lineup.

Date Stamp

Date Stamp, an iMessage app to provide customizable date stamp stickers, also didn’t have any changes. Since few people seem to use iMessage stickers anymore, I’m unlikely to update this either, but will continue to offer it for as long as it keeps working.

New Apps

I also have another couple of new apps in various stages of development. More about those below.

Consulting

Dejal also develops macOS and iOS apps for other companies, under the banner of Dejal Consulting.

SheetPlanner

SheetPlanner is a pro-level outliner, planner, todo, calendar, and more. I spent 2023 working on an iPad edition of the app, plus work on a new kanban board view in version 4.0. The Board view update was released in 2023, and the iPad app is progressing well, and should be available in early 2024.

NewsBlur

I have also continued to work on the iOS client for NewsBlur, a popular RSS reader. It recently had a big update that added a handy grid view.

I am currently fully booked up for the next several months at least, but am always interested in talking with potential new clients. If you have a macOS or iOS project you’d like help with (or a custom Simon enhancement), check out my consulting page for more information.

So how’d 2023 go?

It was a relatively quiet year for updates of Time Out and Simon, with a bunch of behind-the-scenes work, but not many releases. It feels like the majority of my time was spent on my consulting projects, but I also spent a lot of Dejal time on developing a new app.

What’s next for 2024?

What’s in store for 2024? As mentioned, I’m working on a new app; when not working on my consulting projects, I am concentrating on this new app. It is almost ready for release; I could have released it already, but decided to wait till the new year. Make sure you subscribe to the DejalNews newsletter to get notified when it is available for a TestFlight or general release.

I also will do a Time Out 2.9.3 update early in 2024, to address a few issues that have been bothering some people.

After that, I’ll get back to work on Time Out 3.0. I’m also keen work on the other new app I have in the works, but I want to get Time Out 3.0 out first.

On the personal side, my wife and I will continue to explore the country in our motorhome, and blog about it at Sinclair Trails, and post travel timelapses on the YouTube channel (please subscribe!). I hope you’ll follow along there.

Thank you

Thank you and welcome to my new customers, and many thanks to the long-term customers who are still enjoying my apps, and of course my consulting clients. I really appreciate your support.

Time Out is 20 years old

I just noticed that I missed a major milestone a few months ago: my most popular app, Time Out, a break reminder tool for macOS, turned twenty years old on July 10! Its first beta release was on July 10, 2003, with the first general release on August 18.

(If you’re curious, you can see the release notes for those initial versions, and every one since then.)

To (belatedly) mark the occasion, here are some screenshots of the initial version of the app.

Firstly, the original app icon was simply a photo of my hands forming a T shape:

Here’s a rendition of the app web page at the time; you can explore it yourself via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (though the archived copy won’t look exactly like this):

And yes, the exclamation point (!) was initially part of the app name.

When you downloaded the app, it’d appear in the Finder as a disk image; the most popular distribution method at the time:

Time Out

On installing the app, you’d see the “lickable” Aqua-style General Preferences window:

Time Out

Unlike now when you can have many breaks, there were just the two that are defaults now, the Normal and Micro breaks, each with very few options:

Time Out

When you started a break, it’d fade the screen much as now, but without customizable themes or buttons:

Time Out

These screenshots may look somewhat familiar; you can see the roots of the current app even in the first version. But the modern app has a lot more options, enabling you to customize it to suit your needs.

Happy birthday, Time Out! Going strong after 20 years — here’s to another 20!

Can I adjust the postpone times in Time Out?

Yes, you can edit the postpone duration amounts on the Break Appearance settings page, or even remove the buttons, along with lots of other options:

Break Appearance settings

How can I control Time Out from another app?

Time Out supports URL schemes to control some functions:

timeout://break/micro/start will start the Micro break.
timeout://break/micro/postpone1 to postpone the Micro break by the first postpone amount.
timeout://break/normal/postpone2 to postpone the Normal break by the second postpone amount.
timeout://break/mybreak/skip to skip “My Break”; use lowercase and omit spaces and punctuation for the break name in the URL.
timeout://break/micro/reset to reset the Micro break.
timeout://break/micro/pause/1h will pause only the Micro break for one hour.
timeout://break/micro/resume to resume only the Micro break.
timeout://pause will pause breaks indefinitely.
timeout://pause/10m will pause breaks for 10 minutes (use “s”, “m”, “h”, or “d” units, or no suffix for minutes).
timeout://resume to resume after a pause.
timeout://settings or timeout://preferences to show the Settings window.
timeout://settings/advanced/console to open the Console app.
timeout://settings/advanced/terminal to open the Terminal app.

Let me know if you want any other functions to be available via URL.

DejalNews #84: thoughts about Time Out syncing, iOS app, subscription options

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Welcome

This is DejalNews, an occasional newsletter from Dejal.

Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up on the Dejal site.

Time Out syncing

I am currently working on adding the ability to sync Time Out breaks between multiple Macs. Something many people have requested over the years.

Syncing is a little difficult, as it needs to cope with the idle states of each device — if one Mac is being used and another device is not, the idle one might be pushing the breaks back to give credit for natural breaks, but the one being used would not, so they’d drift apart. My current thought is to let them drift, but when the active one starts a break, it tells other devices and they also start the break then, re-syncing the due date for the next break.

If you use Time Out and have multiple Macs, would you like to have them sync, and do you have any ideas for how the sync should work?

I’m currently planning to support syncing between multiple machines signed into the same iCloud account; would you want to be able to sync between multiple accounts, e.g. to have the same breaks as other people at work or home? (Note though that it might be better to use fixed-time breaks in this situation.)

Please let me know your thoughts via the Contact page, or via Reddit.

Time Out for iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro

Once syncing is done, another big project is to start implementing an iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS app! Another very popular request (well, for iOS, but once Apple’s new Vision Pro is available, I expect people will want to take breaks from it too).

An iOS app is tricky, as an app wouldn’t be able to dim the screen like the Mac app can, and it probably won’t be able to detect when the device isn’t being used. My best idea currently is to display a notification when a break is due, and start it when tapped, much like the ask-to-start schedule option in the Mac app.

Are you interested in an iOS app? Do you have any other ideas on how an iOS app could work? Please tell me via the Contact page, or via Reddit.

Time Out subscription option

As you probably know, Time Out uses an innovative supporter model: you can use the basic features for free forever, but some more advanced features are only available as rewards to supporters, people who help fund ongoing development with at least one payment that unlocks all of the current features and those added in the next 3, 6, or 12 months. There’s no need to renew support after that, unless any subsequently added features are worthwhile (or you just want to continue to support the app, which is always appreciated!).

The supporter model isn’t a subscription, but it can confuse people, being a bit unusual. A lot of apps are moving to a more traditional subscription, and I know some people would prefer an automatic renewal. So I’m considering adding such an option to Time Out. Note that it would be optional; I plan to continue to offer the current supporter model, I’d just be adding a subscription model as well, for people who prefer that.

My current trial mechanism, where you can try premium features for an hour at a time, can also cause confusion. So I’m thinking I might switch that to Apple’s standard free trial mechanism, where you can try all of the features for a week (or whatever), then cancel to go back to the free features, or begin the subscription to continue using the premium ones. I’d probably only make these changes in the Mac App Store edition of the app; the direct and Setapp editions would continue as now.

What do you think? Feedback welcome via the Contact page, or via Reddit!

Dejal blog

Have you checked out the new blog for Dejal? I have recently completed updating and re-publishing the most interesting posts from the old blog, with tips for Time Out and Simon. If you use an RSS reader or Apple News, you can subscribe to the blog to never miss a post.

Sinclair Trails

I mentioned in the previous newsletter that my wife and I had sold our 5-acre homestead and most of our possessions, and bought a 40-foot luxury Tiffin motorhome, and started traveling the country full-time. We’re still doing that, currently heading east, and will end the year in Florida. If interested, you can follow our adventures on my other blog, Sinclair Trails, where I post every weekday about a related topic, including additions and modifications to our coach (every Monday), photos of our travels and timelapse videos of driving between locations on YouTube (every Tuesday), reviews of RV parks (every Wednesday), and photos of National Parks and other interesting places we visit (Thursdays and Fridays).

I won’t mention this in every newsletter, but thought I’d mention it again this time in case you missed the previous one. By the way, you can watch timelapse videos of our travels as one of the themes in Time Out, too!

– David