Gestimer – For little reminders during the day | Hacker News Reader

Gestimer – For little reminders during the day

maddin.io

47 pointsdaralthus34 comments

I use OSX every day, but I immediately thought that this was a Ubuntu app because of the wallpaper colours and dark mode used in the screenshots and demo.

Although the gesture to set the time is super cool, how practical is it?

Your question just inspired me to find out something new: the menubar volume control works (just about) the same way, which is actually really convenient.

Can you clarify what you mean? On OS X, the menubar volume control doesn't seem to have a similar interaction model. I.e., I can't click/drag to change the volume. I have to click, then click on the little control to move the slider. Is this not what you meant?

Click on the volume bar, then, without releasing the mouse move your mouse up and down, either within or next to the volume scrubber. It'll change the volume.

unable to reproduce on 10.10.3.

HOLY SHIT. You changed my life.

Note: you must drag straight down, if you veer left or right it wont work.

If this synced with the system reminders I'd be sold.

You are not the first person to ask for this so I'm definitely considering it. It's a 1.0 release after all so if you have suggestions then please let me know :)

I like the UI concept, quite cool. I've been a user for reminders since for…ever and in my experience I rarely need relative time (something in 30 min.) vs. absolute time (remind me 5 minutes before 10 O'Clock), and of course Calendar apps do that, but it's not as easy to set up.

ah sill me, I now noticed you do include absolute time in the UI, I missed it on first look, so I would prefer it being the more prominent one. Perhaps a setting?

Let me know if you still think so once you've tried out Gestimer. Someone's gotta use Apple's fancy vibrant API right? :P

Damn; was in the process of purchasing, then I realised it requires 10.10. If/when I upgrade, I'll probably buy - looks really nice and effective, and genuinely fills a need (can't quite believe this isn't built into the OS, tbh).

Sorry that it requires OS X 10.10. I do know that many people haven't upgraded for various reasons. The thing is I wrote the app with Swift and I won't be able to support Mavericks until I can submit the app with Swift 2.0 which lets me target a different OS version. If you want then you can subscribe at the bottom of the page and I'll remind you about Gestimer once OS X 10.11 is out.

Would you mind sharing any of your experience building it with Swift?

It's just been really fun. I don't mind ObjC but Swift feels so modern and nicer to type. One problem might be that Swift is constantly changing and that means you need to update your code base whenever you want to use the latest Xcode. I don't mind though because that's also a great way to learn about the changes. Ask away if you have any specific questions.

In an office setting, this is definitely more convenient than "Siri, remind me in 1 hour to grab some coffee" :)

or "Siri, remind me to pretend to work when my manager walks by" :P

For a moment there I thought it was Ubuntu

Sorry about that. Do I need to make a command line version now :P?

Nice. I've always wanted to implement something similar to that gesture for timebased selections.

So it is like a simple kitchen timer but with a linear rather than a circular interface.

Beautiful. I would download if it was for Ubuntu, which I thought it was.

Sorry about that. Maybe once Apple open-sources Swift :)? I might be able to do something then.

I think the gesture to set time is not very practical. Can we use the keyboard instead ? I'd love to press a key shortcut to create a reminder, and just with a few keystrokes to also set the time.

No, you cannot use the keyboard. I made it like this because in my opinion it just feels a lot nicer to just drag & drop then be done with it.

I am sure there are a lot of other apps that will do what you need. For example Fantastical (http://flexibits.com/fantastical) or even apps like Alfred (http://www.alfredapp.com).

Is there an option to set the time with a keyboard?

No, sorry. See this answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9744176

I'm not crazy about autoplaying video.

The alternative was to use a gif which would have looked awful in comparison. The video is really small (1.6MB).

Or let the user click the play button instead of autoplaying?

A gif would autoplay as well though. That's the whole point. People can immediately see what happens. Less manual work for visitors.

Very clever UI, very clever indeed. You get my money.

Please don't make the time keyboard-settable. ;)

I really appreciate apps that get out of my way and what you made is just that. That's why I use macs. Thanks for being one of those developers.

Thank you very much for the nice compliment :)

Simplicity! I love it.

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