Notices

I have just finished my first application for Fremantle - Countdown Home Widget! Nokia has made many of my popular applets unnecessary in Fremantle, but I will try to come up with some other good ones too.

You can probably tell this is a desktop widget that allows users to keep track of upcoming events. It differs from the agenda widget by allowing you to easily tell at a glance how much time is left until each event.

It is easy to configure (although more options will be available in future releases) and tries to fit in with the other desktop widgets.

Version 0.5-1 is being built in extras-devel as I type, and I will push it to extras-testing when it is ready. Version 0.4-x are also in extras-devel, but don't look nearly so nice

Please let me know any improvement ideas or feedback. The glitches visible in the first screenshot are caused by running in the SDK in scratchbox.

Edit Version 0.5-2 is now in extras-devel. Changes include: Better titles for add and edit, ability to reorder events, slightly smaller text for date compared to title, emphasize button area. Screenshots have been updated.

Edit I just uploaded 0.5-3 to the autobuilder. Changes include: Add some default text when there are no events, use "SecondaryTextColor" to further distinguish date, ellipsize long labels, small fix to position changing. Screenshots updated.

Edit Versions 0.5-4 and 0.5-5 have been build. These respectively add full customization and a reorganized settings dialog. Customizations include font colour and style for the titles and value, background colour and opacity for the content area and button area, and corner radius.

Edit Version 0.5-6 is out with a couple fixes. The default background is now more opaque, which helps on light backgrounds. Also, a position selector is no longer shown if there is only one entry. Thanks to Andre for pointing out both issues.

Edit Version 0.5-7 adds quite a few things. First, better default colours based on the theme. Each event can be marked for deletion once the event has passed. At a global level, you can rename "years", 'weeks", "days", "hours", "minutes", "left", and "ago". This can be a different language, short forms, whatever you want.

Edit Version 0.5-8, hopefully on its way to extras (needs more testing karma). This version has finger-friendly color and font selectors, GUI design more fitting to Hildon HIG, sort by date, bug fixes and more. Please try it out.

Edit After a good long run in extras-testing, countdown-home has been updated to 0.5-9. This fixes an issue with editing events when sorted by date, and makes the name in the app manager prettier.

Edit Version 0.5-9 is now in extras! Thanks to everyone for testing and commenting.

Edit Version 0.7-2 is now in extras-devel. This adds the custom background settings back into the options dialog. As of version 0.7 the "system" background uses the RSS applet graphics for close system integration.

Edit Version 0.7-3 is in extras-devel. When using a custom background you can now select the widget size. Between 1 and 5 items can be displayed at a time. An excellent space saver.

Awesome!

Great idea

Looks cool. I can't quite put my finger on why, but the dialog box titles "Add Countdown" and "Edit Countdown" don't sound quite right. Maybe "Add Countdown Event" and "Edit Countdown Event" would flow better (or whatever the correct capitalisation should be).

Can the events be re-ordered in the list?

Thanks for the feedback. I will make the title change in the next version. Events cannot be re-ordered right now, but that is in my planned list of things to do. I'll try to fit it in with the minimal interface.

I've updated to 0.5-2. See first post for details

Very nice. Will be rather useful. Good work!

That's an excellent idea, thanks. It will help the eye flow better over the list of countdowns, to more easily see where one stops and the next starts, and is one of those little things that makes nice polished apps.

Will we be able to have multiple countdown applets on the desktop, each containing a different list of countdown events? I'm thinking of a situation where you might have one of the desktops dedicated to work events and one to personal, and want different things counting down on each screen.

Of course if you implemented this, the next thing I would be asking for would be to be able to merge and split the different windows, and to move events between them!

Would there be a word limit on the name of the event, or would the letters automatically flow to the next line? cool idea... one of the first of its kind!

pelago: Unfortunately, I don't think that is possible at this time. Desktop widgets can be added one time only (unless I am missing something - please let me know if I am!) There are certain restrictions to desktop widgets - at least in the beta 2 SDK.

I can see the appeal of multiple instances, especially with the panaramic desktop area making it possible to group things how the user desires. If I find out that this can currently be done, or if it becomes possible to do it in the future, you can be sure I will implement it.

crustie: Currently there is a "soft" limitation on the word length. The title can be as long as you want, but the widget will only display the first x characters (where x is the number of characters that will fit on one line).

I plan to either ellipsize text that is too long, have it scroll (not sure if this is possible yet), or have it break lines. The first two options would work better with the way desktop widgets work in fremantle, having a fixed size for each element seems to be the way to work.