Asking for testers for a timer application!

Hello all! I've been finishing up a very simple timer type application that I've been making with eVB. Before I publish it, I was looking to ask for a bit of feedback. Would anyone like to try out the application?
One thing that's still missing is an "about" screen with credits, I want to add special thanks to this forum, and WinCEDev in particular since I used their form extensions module
Does anyone know how I could add a "?" help-type button to the top right of my window? I want the user to be able to click that question mark button and then present them with a simple message box with the credit section.

Let me know if you're interested and I could send you the application!






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CeTimerScreenshot.png (4KB - 0 downloads)

I would love to give it a try! I may not be able to until next week though, hopefully that's not a problem.



Unfortunately that's not natively supported, the "What's this?" help button does not exist in Windows CE.
I think the most straightforward way would be to add a small Command button on top of the TabStrip control.

Edited by WinCEDev 2024-03-27 9:46 PM

I can test on my Sigmarion 1 & Sigmarion 3.

Oh sorry, I just meant the regular little "?" button that appears alongside OK and X in many CE applications! Nothing facy
Do you know how to handle that using eVB?

Please do! I have attached it to this message. Let me know if anything is confusing, doesn't work, or could otherwise be improved!
I will mainly be using this to help time my work sessions. The way that pomodoro timers are supposed to be used is alternating 25-minute work sessions with breaks (either 5 or 10 minutes), and then continuing that cycle.
Thank you!



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ProductivityTimer-not-final.vb (26KB - 4 downloads)

That is a cool prgram. Why not change the title in the blue bar to Pomodoro Timer?

Also, consider adding a few more buttons for different study times / rest times. Some people can blast through 60 minutes but I don't know many that can do more.

"Pomodoro Timer" might be a bit confusing since there's so many different pieces of software with the same name, plus there's other timer tools in the program - I think I'll probably come up with a better name later anyway
I could add different times, but the technique works with 25 minute blocks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique). If you want to set custom times, you could just use the countdown timer on tab 2:





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countdowntimerscreenshot.png (3KB - 0 downloads)

Roger!

Will let you know the test results soon!

Anyone know how I can get a help button inbetween the minimize button and the X? Seems like I can only do that via a command bar, but I have no idea how I would add the ? button to the blue window frame along the other two





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what.png (1KB - 0 downloads)

I think that's exclusive to the CommandBar control. With desktop Windows, you can add a help button with the WS_EX_CONTEXTHELP extended style, but it is missing from CE's page on CreateWindowEx which lists the other extended window styles, so I'm not sure if it is implemented.

To be honest, I haven't actually tried to apply that style to a CE window to see if it would work, but even if it did you would need a way to handle the WM_HELP message that is sent when the user clicks the help button, and that can't be done without a third-party subclassing component because eVB lacks the AddressOf operator.

That's a little annoying, but thank you for explaining it!

Edited by I dunk for bananas 2024-03-29 9:00 PM

After torch explained to me to use the VB CE 2.0 runtime here: (ARM thumb ver)
https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=21337

I was able to run the .vb timer you made successfully on my Sigmarion 3.
I will try it on my Sigmarion 1 and report the results later on.

-stingraze

Edited by stingraze 2024-03-31 6:35 AM






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sigmarion3-timer.jpg (96KB - 0 downloads)

Tested/Working Correctly On:
MIPS - Windows CE 3.0 on NEC MobilePro 790
ARM - Windows CE 4.1 on NTT Do Co Mo Sigmarion III
ARM - Windows CE 4.2 on NEC MobilePro 900
X86 - Windows CE 6.0 on Hewlett Packard t5540









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SigmarionIII.jpg (95KB - 0 downloads)
MobilePro900.jpg (43KB - 0 downloads)
MobilePro790.jpg (57KB - 0 downloads)

Thank you very much everyone! It's great to see that it works well.
Do you find any of the design confusing or unusable? Did you encounter any bugs?

Sorry for being late to the party.
Tested it out on my Jornada 680 and it works great, lovely little program!

I have read about the Pomodoro method before and have been meaning to try it out.
It sounds like it would work for me, I'll definitely give it a go using your program.

I didn't run into any real issues while testing, so I only have a few minor suggestions:

• The tab order of controls doesn't always seem to be correct, they can be changed with the TabOrder property on each control.


• For the countdown timer, it would be neat to be able to change the minutes and seconds using the up/down arrow keys on the keyboard when the focus is on the appropriate TextBox. If you decide to implement this then I would recommend to set TabStop on the buttons to False so you can tab right into the desired TextBox and set it to the value you need.


• Maybe you could add a settings tab for things such as which notification sound to play and how many times it should do so (and perhaps this tab could do double duty as an "about" page).


• For accessibility you might also want to consider adding an option to flash the notification LED instead, or do both a sound and LED flash. I wrote a module to do that which I used in CaptVB. If you are interested I can point you towards the code you need and write you a small example.