Author Topic: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012 (Read 90,018 times)

Jibz · « **Reply #25 on:** December 04, 2012, 02:06 PM »

Quote from: mouser on December 04, 2012, 12:44 PM

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e.g. 15 wks, 5 days, 29 mins, 12 secs to go
i'll have to add some settings for that; perhaps just simply a choice of long and short text modes.

Perhaps allow the user to supply a string compatible with strftime?.

Josh · « **Reply #26 on:** December 04, 2012, 02:07 PM »

What a great idea mouser! I am especially fond of some of the screenshots and agree that the new dock could be useful with a tool like this.

These screenshots in particular, intrigue me: Source Post

tomos · « **Reply #27 on:** December 04, 2012, 02:16 PM »

Love the Cody icon!
And, wow, all those settings -
apart from the fun element, this could be a very useful app

Quote from: mouser on December 04, 2012, 01:18 PM

Early alpha for those who want to experiment:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/pbol/downloads/ProgressBarsOfLifeSetup.exe
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/pbol/downloads/ProgressBarsOfLifePortable.zip

Okay, this is on the fly - apologies if confusing at times but I think it's helpful to give first impressions:

1) Where is the bar though $:-\$
I created one but dont see it - selected not to auto-hide but still cant see it.
Ah, okay - what I thought was a dialogue is a bar. I dock it and resize it (snap to bar height when resizing would be nice).

2) Would this be possible - install with an example bar e.g. Installed since

3) I turned on the full screen width bar - turning off requires restart (no problem, just saying in case it different there).

4) When I restart it, it doesnt automatically show the saved bar.

5) Here, it doesnt really auto-hide - it fades but reserves the screenspace for itself and doesnt allow windows to maximise fully (I changed that option but maybe it requires a restart - hang on - okay, that's resolved after restart. (Can elaborate if not clear).

Win7 64bit
in action:

[attachthumb=#]

mouser · « **Reply #28 on:** December 04, 2012, 09:50 PM »

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2) Would this be possible - install with an example bar e.g. Installed since

Yes, eventually i think i will include a default bar with a variety of items.

Regarding 3,4,5, there are still some bugs regarding docking and OnTop behavior that I need to work out.

tomos · « **Reply #29 on:** December 04, 2012, 11:06 PM »

Was able to edit a progressbar title no problems
Loads of nice options there looking forward to trying it in more detail

It didnt start with windows with the option selected.

The different bars merge visually I find:

[attachthumb=#]

related settings (I think I changed them)

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barney · « **Reply #30 on:** December 05, 2012, 01:30 AM »

Error window - "'1/1/2012 5:00:00' is not a valid date and time." Tried to set starting date/time to "First day of year" in the dropdown while creating a new item. Tried saving, coming back to edit - same error However, manually setting to the same value worked just fine.

mouser · « **Reply #31 on:** December 05, 2012, 03:35 AM »

Minor update posted to fix some docking bugs.

mouser · « **Reply #32 on:** December 05, 2012, 10:58 PM »

v1.03.01 posted.

I tweaked the gauge text a bit, so now it will drop down to the finer grain as you get close. For example, if you have it set to display only 1 level of details, where before it would report "2 days remaining", now it will drop from days to hours if it's under 72 hours remaining; ditto for dropping down from weeks to days, hours to minutes.

mouser · « **Reply #33 on:** December 05, 2012, 11:10 PM »

ps I suggest if anyone has the "auto size main form" option enabled, that you turn it off. it doesnt work very well and it will cause docked bars to be undocked and redocked when options are changed.

mouser · « **Reply #34 on:** December 06, 2012, 10:31 AM »

I'm thinking of adding a bar type that will dynamically generate its value from occasionally running a specified (invisible) commandline tool. That could be used to fetch progress info from a website, or system process, etc.

Question is, would anyone actually use such a feature?

Jibz · « **Reply #35 on:** December 06, 2012, 11:53 AM »

Ok, here are some first thoughts from playing around with it:

First thing I noticed is how difficult it is to read the black text on the red bars, and to some extent the brown ones as well.

[attachimg=#]

I still think it would be a good idea to give the user the option of full controll via strftime. I can imagine there could be bars where you would prefer to always have the time left in say days instead of the smart setting. Would also make it easier to "localize" the bars for people outside US/GB.

Perhaps an option to add a little spacing between the bars?

Is there an option somewhere to have it not always on top when windowed?

Would be nice if the right-click menu of the individual bars would let you open the properties for that bar.

The textual progress appears to only work for the modern visual theme.

The smooth visual theme has the "update glow" effect on it every time the bar is updated, which is slightly annoying.

I am guessing the visual themes are a new addition, since the colors are wrong as well.

It might be an idea to truncate percentages instead of rounding to avoid having bars show at 100% before the entire time has elapsed.

Some events are "full day", I am a little confused about what I should set the time at. Like my birthday, should is tart at 00:00:00 and end at 23:59:59 the same day next year?

Maybe the option to create bars that just count an amount of time with the ability to start/stop/reset? .. I am thinking along the lines of a "Take a 5 min break" bar that you could reset and start whenever you needed a break.

It's quite fun to play around with, good idea

.

mouser · « **Reply #36 on:** December 06, 2012, 01:55 PM »

New version is up which now supports bar "theme" files; two are included that are very basic.
If you want to add more themes, make copies of the .bartheme files in the Themes directory and edit with text editor.

You can adjust lots of settings from those files, though it's decidedly manual labor. You can even make the bars larger than default.

You can configure the default bar theme to use from main options Appearance tab, and then override the theme on each bar if you want.

I'll comment on jibz suggestions next.

Please share any good theme files you come up with -- i'd love to include them in the official release!

mouser · « **Reply #37 on:** December 06, 2012, 02:00 PM »

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Some events are "full day", I am a little confused about what I should set the time at. Like my birthday, should is tart at 00:00:00 and end at 23:59:59 the same day next year?

I can understand the confusion but the START date is not the date at which the event starts.

It's the date at which TRACKING for the event starts.

So the two common choices for start date are the CURRENT date, or the first day of the year.

The END date for a bar is going to be what you set to the event.

So for your brithday, you would set the end date to the morning of your birthday, and the start date to the first of the year (or the current date).

That way the bar tells you how close you are to your birthday starting from the starting date.

mouser · « **Reply #38 on:** December 06, 2012, 02:04 PM »

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First thing I noticed is how difficult it is to read the black text on the red bars, and to some extent the brown ones as well.

choose the new Smooth theme -- without those boxes with white backgrounds it's a lot easier to read. once we decide on the best theme i'll make that one the default.

Quote

The textual progress appears to only work for the modern visual theme.
The smooth visual theme has the "update glow" effect on it every time the bar is updated, which is slightly annoying.
I am guessing the visual themes are a new addition, since the colors are wrong as well.

i've done away with all but modern type bars for now, but added theme files for them so you can customize the looks.

Quote

Maybe the option to create bars that just count an amount of time with the ability to start/stop/reset? .. I am thinking along the lines of a "Take a 5 min break" bar that you could reset and start whenever you needed a break.

good idea.. i was also thinking for manual bars a simple "right click to increment" option.

Quote

Is there an option somewhere to have it not always on top when windowed?
Would be nice if the right-click menu of the individual bars would let you open the properties for that bar.

good ideas.. the ontop behavior is slightly buggy and annoying.

Quote

I still think it would be a good idea to give the user the option of full controll via strftime. I can imagine there could be bars where you would prefer to always have the time left in say days instead of the smart setting. Would also make it easier to "localize" the bars for people outside US/GB.

i don't think it's as simple as you are suggesting -- remember this isn't a date/time that's being formatted -- it's an "elapsed time" or time "difference" .. is there a strftime like function for that?

superboyac · « **Reply #39 on:** December 06, 2012, 07:02 PM »

Thanks mousey! I've been meaning to keep better track of my schedule:

KynloStephen66515 · « **Reply #40 on:** December 06, 2012, 11:04 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on December 06, 2012, 07:02 PM

Thanks mousey! I've been meaning to keep better track of my schedule: (see attachment in previous post)

LMFAO!

superboyac · « **Reply #41 on:** December 07, 2012, 03:04 AM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwH__x6jV6A

Looks like option #3 was right all along.
(check post times)

Jibz · « **Reply #42 on:** December 08, 2012, 12:11 PM »

Quote from: mouser on December 06, 2012, 02:04 PM

Quote
I still think it would be a good idea to give the user the option of full controll via strftime. I can imagine there could be bars where you would prefer to always have the time left in say days instead of the smart setting. Would also make it easier to "localize" the bars for people outside US/GB.

i don't think it's as simple as you are suggesting -- remember this isn't a date/time that's being formatted -- it's an "elapsed time" or time "difference" .. is there a strftime like function for that?

You are right, it turns out to not be as simple as I suggested. Mainly because the naive solution does not take into accound that years and months have a varying size -- what for instance is the difference between Jan 31st and Mar 1st? sometimes 29 days, sometimes 30 days, but always a month and a day. What about Jul 2nd to Aug 1st? 30 days, but not a month

.

mouser · « **Reply #43 on:** December 13, 2012, 04:04 AM »

Any feature requests?

Anyone willing to try to create some nice looking bar themes?
I probably need to make a visual theme editor if i expect people to make custom bar themes huh?

I MIGHT make a visual theme editor/tester, so maybe don't bother working on visual theme until I decide?

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #44 on:** December 13, 2012, 05:45 AM »

Quote from: superboyac on December 06, 2012, 07:02 PM

Thanks mousey! I've been meaning to keep better track of my schedule: (see attachment in previous post)

That post is just terrifying Superboy!

mouser · « **Reply #45 on:** December 31, 2012, 03:57 PM »

v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012

Right-click option to copy summary of progress bar times to clipboard.
New layout options
[BugFix] Floating window position was not being remembers.
Better instructions on Progress Bar item tab of options; clearer list of items.
Support for progress bar theme files so users can customize the look of their bars

Jibz · « **Reply #46 on:** December 31, 2012, 04:23 PM »

Great update

.

I can't seem to get Autofit Form to Bars to do anything (running the portable version as a window) -- I expected it to scale the window so it fit the bars? Also, the default size it opens with cuts off the right side of the bars here.

mouser · « **Reply #47 on:** December 31, 2012, 04:52 PM »

Autofit does not really work (yet?) -- it only sort of works for floating window, and then only sometimes.

thomthowolf · « **Reply #48 on:** January 14, 2013, 02:05 PM »

Another great app. The one thing I wish for is the ability to pin it to my desktop. Sometimes I just want to use it for reference between items I am working on, to help me hang on to urgency.

mouser · « **Reply #49 on:** January 14, 2013, 05:36 PM »

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The one thing I wish for is the ability to pin it to my desktop.

can you explain what you mean? If you drag it to an edge it will dock there (with an additional option to auto-slide out of the way).