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timer-applet: a countdown timer applet for the GNOME panel

November 7th, 2007 edited by Alexey Beshenov

Article submitted by Vasiliy Faronov. We are running out of articles! Please help DPOTD and submit good articles about software you like!

When working at my PC, I often forget that I need to do something, say, in ten minutes. Therefore, I need an easy way to set up a reminder and be prodded when the time elapses. timer-applet is a small applet for the GNOME panel that does this.

The applet takes the form of a small button sitting on the panel. When you click it, the timer setup dialog box appears.

The timer setup dialog box

You may just enter the time after which you want to be reminded and click “Start Timer”. You can also set a name for the timer; it will be shown to you when the timer finishes, so you don’t have to painfully recall what you are to do. If your needs are more complex, you can set up multiple timer presets.

After you click “Start Timer”, the countdown begins. The panel button shows the time remaining. Clicking the button will pause the timer; clicking it again will allow you to continue the countdown or start it over.

The timer button displaying the remaining time

Once the chosen time period elapses, the applet notifies you with a bubble, and the button begins to flash.

The timer has finished

timer-applet is actively maintained and has a web site. It has been available in Debian since etch and in Ubuntu since dapper. Ubuntu gutsy features the 2.0 version of timer-applet which has a slightly better user interface.

The obvious downside of timer-applet is that it is only useful in GNOME environments. KDE users might want to check out the package kalarm (from KDE’s PIM suite). Also, the packages teatime and kteatime may be useful if you specifically need a tea timer.

Posted in Debian, Ubuntu |

10 Responses

  1. Loffe Says:

    Nice timer. Now I won’t miss the bus again :D

  2. ravsh Says:

    I like it! Very usefull applet. Thanks

  3. Cougar Says:

    Nice app. I was so much looking for something like that for my cooking time.

  4. Johan Says:

    Is there an alarm applet, where you can set an alarm for a specific time instead of a countdown?

  5. xoiii Says:

    What Gnome theme on screenshots?

  6. Vasiliy Faronov Says:

    xoiii: this is Candido-Graphite.

  7. ozarkBison Says:

    kalarm works in gnome also. you can set the preferences for it to start up automatically upon login (so it’s always running like timer applet). i use it a lot in addition to the timer applet.

  8. tabgilbert Says:

    Thanks. Just what I was looking for.

  9. GM Says:

    This is just what I was looking for. I need to set a timer so my kids can take turns playing a computer game. Hope it makes it into the next Ubuntu release.

  10. Ken Says:

    Thanks! After installation, I couldn’t figure out how to start it. When you wrote, “The applet takes the form of a small button sitting on the panel”, that provided the clue needed to add the button to the panel.

    Now, if the stopwatch (timer-applet) only had an audible alarm that could be configured to keep ringing, or to stop after a preset amount of time, or even some kind of speech synthesis such as “your bread is baked” it would be nearly perfect.