Egg Timer

Simple timer for Windows©

I used to order pizza a lot when I was hot in the midst of a new program. Then I had to try to remember to keep track of the time so I could listen for the delivery man. (My place could be hard to pick out amongst all the buildings on the property.) Well, most times, I even forgot to look at the clock when I hung up the phone, so I was forever popping up, looking out the front window.

Then I got smart and started running a background job to keep track of the time, and alert me in half an hour. Problem there was that I was constantly blowing up my configuration so that the security on my X display wouldn't allow the message box to pop up, or the window manager would have the sound tied up, and it wouldn't let me play a sound. Of course, I only found this out after the pizza arrived, and I poked around to figure out why I wasn't notified.

'Til one day... I decided that I wouldn't eat lunch until after I'd written a program that would work from within X windows, and would work reliably. Since I was pretty hungry, I quickly popped this out in tcl/Tk using SpecTcl (the language and the GUI designer are both real lifesavers). It worked so well under un*x that I hacked the startup code, dropped it on FreeWrap, and voila!, new M$ Windows version, too.

The program is copyright © by me, and offered for use under the terms of this free license (Please read it). There is NO WARRANTY offered, and no promise of support, but I will answer email about the program as time permits.

Get it

tcl/Tk source code
Runs under the wish interpreter under un*x and Windows.
hmmm... guess I oughtta test it on my Mac, too...
Note:this is the .tcl file; just rename from .txt to .tcl
(The .tcl file would launch the browser plugin, if you have it.)
Windows program
Tested under Windows 2000, but should run on W95,W98,WinNT.

Installation

None. Just drop the file you get (.tcl or .exe) somewhere in your path, and either double-click on it, or type its name at a command prompt. Pretty easy, eh?

Use

Is straightforward. See the diagram below.

  1. Timing iinterval in minutes. Move the slider to select the number of minutes to count down.
  2. Check this box if you wish to have a window pop up with a message at the end of the interval. This box is checked by default.
  3. Enter the message that you wish to have displayed at the end of the timing interval.
  4. Check this box if you want to run a command at the end of the interval.
  5. Enter the program that you wish to run into this box. You may have to enter a fully-qualified path to the program, along with any arguments it may require.
  6. You may browse for the program to run using this button.
  7. Click this button to start the count down. The program will iconify while it is counting down, and pop back up for another round once the timer has expired.
  8. Click this button to end the program.

Enjoy!!

...dave