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What one thing would you add?
What does everyone think of the launch set of features? Spot on? Or missing the mark in some way? What one thing (no cheating, just one) would you add to BubbleTimer to make it completely kick butt?
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Inappropriate?I really, really like the launch features. If I had to add one thing, however, it would be some kind of audio prompt on each 15, 30, 45, and 00 of the hour. A check box on the main time tracking page to switch it on and off throughout the day would be perfect. That would make it a lot easier to remind myself to fill in bubbles.
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Daniel,
That's a great idea. It's a feature that David Seah's flash version had too. I'll add this to the backlog to be worked on.
Thanks!
Sean -
I second the audio alert. Without that I totally forget to use it.
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I third the audio alert. In fact, what the hell. It works now. Refresh your page and make sure you are looking at today and you'll see a speaker in the top right corner near the clock. Click it to turn it on. Let me know what you think of the audio alerts!
Thanks,
Sean -
Hey, cool! That was fast. Thanks! I do like the sound you used, but it'd be a nice feature (eventually) to let the user set the sound.
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Yep. That would make it moot as to whether you like the sound I picked or not. It's a good idea. There are plenty of other higher priority things to get to though so don't expect it soon.
Thanks,
Sean -
Though I think the sound was a good feature in David Seah's online ETT, I've always had two 'complaints' about it. Firstly, chiming every 15 minutes disturbs my concentration, which is exactly what you don't want if you're using bubble timer. So it would be nice if there was an option to chime only every hour or something like that. I'm able to remember for quite a bit longer than 1 hour, so it's quite okay to only fill in the bubble timer every hour. Secondly, when you're on a computer without sounds enabled as is the case in quite a few working environments, including my own, depending on where exactly I'm working at university, a visual reminder may be helpful. For example, the messaging website meebo.com has a way of flashing the tab title when you've received a message.
Cheers, Tijl -
Flash the tab/window title. I like that! Consider it requested. As to the chime... I can see it being every 15 / 30 or 60 minutes. I'd consider that.
Thanks,
Sean -
Inappropriate?Great adaptation of David Seah's task timer!
3 wishes:
1. In export/print output functions, make hours a decimal (or at least give the user the option to pick between decimal or the current alpha-numeric format). Decimals can be totaled and are generally more spreadsheet friendly.
2. Let user either pick an activity from a drop-down list of stored or previously used activities or enter a new activity.
3. Add a field that lets user enter detailed notes or a detailed description about that day's work on that activity. Example: For the activity "Reading," on a given day the user could enter "Read newspaper; read Getting Things Done, Chapter 4; read Oct. 2008 issue of The Economist."
I’m happy
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Jack,
3 very good ideas! Thank you. They are in the hopper to be worked on.
Thanks!
Sean -
Your first wish is granted. Hours are now decimals in exported spreadsheets.
Thanks,
Sean -
Inappropriate?The one thing I would add: allow one time bubble to be filled in on multiple rows. Right now the tracking assumes you do one thing at a time. What if, for example, you want to track your commute by subway and also how much you read. Those two things can clearly be done at the same time.
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I can see this having value for some uses, but I like that I don't need to worry about inadvertently having multiple blocks filled in - when the daily total says 24hrs I know I have accounted for my full day. It would be cool if you could have different categories of activities and you could block the same time block in different categories but not for two activities in the same category.
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I think it's probably more common to just need to change what it is you are doing for that moment and it's nice that BubbleTimer let's you do that with just one click versus needing to click the new activity and unclick the old activity. I can see the corner cases where you are actually doing two things at once (as much as I think multi-tasking is a fallacy and a bad habit, your example of the subway commute is a good one) but I think it's pretty rare. In that case... what you are really doing is reading. That's probably what you should bubble.
I don't suspect I'll add this to BubbleTimer. Thanks for the comment though!
Sean -
What do you know? I came around! You can now indicate you are doing two things at once. Just press the alt key on your keyboard as you click the bubble and it allows you to bubble is more than one activity for a given time.
I was convinced of this by lots of user stories in my inbox telling me about how they exercise and read at the same time and other similar feats of productivity wizardry.
Thanks,
Sean -
Inappropriate?This is pretty full featured for an initial launch, no complaints. I am sure everyone will want more customizations to suit their circumstances better, so here is my request - allow customization of when the day starts and ends. Sometimes I go to bed at 11pm, and sometimes I go to bed at 1am, but I always get up at 7am. I would like to be able to have the time span run from 7am to 7am so it correctly accounts for my activities that carry over past midnight.
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That's a good idea. I'm ALWAYS asleep at 12AM (I get up real early) so it counts correctly for me. But I can see your point.
Thanks,
Sean -
I would like to second this. Being a student, pretty much every day of the week I go to bed at around 12.30am, 1pm or even later. In fact... since David Seah's bubble timer has been particularly popular among students, I think it's almost a given that many of those will be going to bed after midnight quite often.
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This has now gotten enough support that I've added it to the hopper to be looked at in the next big batch of features. Thanks!
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Inappropriate?This is really well done. I would like some way to categorize the tasks. For example: Business, Home, Work. Nice Job.
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How would you like to see that work... play UI designer and tell me how you'd like it to be.
Thanks,
Sean -
This would be a welcome adition. I'm envisioning a subtle color difference in the background for different categories and a separation between the categories that includes the title. Though what I did in the following image goes quite a bit further than bubble timer since it was designed not only to track time but also track tasks, you can see the way I categorized things in distractions, appointments, big tasks, other stuff, etc... http://thequicky.net/files/task_sched...
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Tijl,
I see you have 2 rows of "bubbles". What's the top, lighter gray row for?
Thanks,
Sean -
The thinner row of 'bubbles' is what I *planned* to do at certain times today. The thicker row of 'bubbles', is what I actually *did*. Ideally, they would both be the same, but unfortunately that's not always the case. So basically I was planning my day and tracking how much I stuck to the plan. I have been using a much simpler version of this a lot of times during exam times where I'd have two rows of bubbles for each day, one where I ticked of the hours I *wanted* to study, and one row where I ticked the hours that I actually *did* study.
While I find this very useful, and would welcome such a feature on Bubble Timer, your product is probably more about tracking, than about planning, right?
Regards,
Tijl -
The thinner row of 'bubbles' is what I *planned* to do at certain times today. The thicker row of 'bubbles', is what I actually *did*. Ideally, they would both be the same, but unfortunately that's not always the case. So basically I was planning my day and tracking how much I stuck to the plan. I have been using a much simpler version of this a lot of times during exam times where I'd have two rows of bubbles for each day, one where I ticked of the hours I *wanted* to study, and one row where I ticked the hours that I actually *did* study.
While I find this very useful, and would welcome such a feature on Bubble Timer, your product is probably more about tracking, than about planning, right?
Regards,
Tijl -
Tijl,
It is an interesting feature. I think it'd be useful to me too. I need to think about it some more, but I like it.
At the risk of getting way too philosophical, BubbleTimer is not about tracking or planning however. BubbleTimer is about existentialism. It's about living your life in accordance with how you say you want to live it. It's about spending time on the things that are important to you. It's about achieving your goals and not having any regrets because you realize too late your life was being stolen away bit by bit.
Thanks,
Sean -
Sounds like an interesting explanation for what Bubble Timer is about :). **thumbs up**
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Inappropriate?Very well done for an initial tool.
What ONE thing.....
I would like a daily goal total. With a long list it can be tough to see if the day's plan is complete. Totaling could get tricky with the "less than" and "greater than" options but it could total as something like:
=12 hours AND less than 3 hours AND greater than 4 hours.
(you could use the symbols for less/greater than, but here they become html..... )
Nice job.
If I could add a 2nd request - duplicate the time line at the bottom of the screen so it is visible when scrolling to the bottom :-)
I’m thankful on this Thanksgiving Eve-day
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You're the 2nd person to request a daily goal total. I've resisted this because of the very reason you say, which is the difficulty in totaling a less than and greater than. Goals are about to get more flexible with weekly goals. I want to get that in first so that I understand the full problem of providing a total in the goal column.
As to your 2nd request. That's a good one. Yours is the first request for it.
Thanks!
Sean -
Inappropriate?Great Suggestion JRinPA!
I would like to be able to see with a -quick glance- how well I'm doing percentage-wise with my daily goals. I'm thinking more of a simpler "daily goal-gauge". But rather than trying to figure out all the >< or ='s, each goal could be accounted for as a positive once it turns Green. I'm thinking something like below, where out of TEN daily activities, SEVEn made it to Green, so I'm doing aprox. 70% of what I set out to do and a gauge would display this. Not super accurate, but useful. ..
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You even moved the printer icon. You thought of everything! I like this idea... I think we'll do something like this soon. I love that you took the time to mock up a screen. Simply awesome!
Thanks,
Sean -
Inappropriate?Thought of another useful feature. I'm tracking my sleep on here, and it takes forever to individually click all the little boxes for 8 hours worth. How about a shift-click to fill in all since the last click? Click and drag would be good too but might be hard with the dragging you already have.
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Inappropriate?It's your lucky day. It already does that! Click a bubble at the start of the time. Then go to the end of the time and hold down the shift key and click the bubble and it'll bubble all the time in between. You can do this going forward or backward. Meaning you can also bubble in the end of the time period and then go back and shift click the beginning bubble.
Good for you getting 8 hours of sleep! Your doctor would be happy to hear that.
Thanks,
Sean
I’m happy
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Inappropriate?The one thing that would probably give Bubble Timer the biggest improvement in my opinion is a *visual* way to gauge how well I've been 'performing' in the last week or so.
What I want to see is how my 'time wasting' (goals with 'less than x hours') compares to my 'useful time spent' (goals with 'more than x hours') for the last couple of days. I know this is probably quite hard to do efficiently and probably impossible to do in way that is useful for *all* people, but I'm sure there are ways to get quite close.
I’m confident
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Tijl,
So... imagine we can calculate it. How would it be visual? What would it look like?
Thanks,
Sean -
Inappropriate?I'll see if I can come up with a simple mock-up tomorrow (it's midnight here now and I'm going to bed ;)).3 Comments Add a comment
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Tijl,
Only if you have a good idea for it and want to. It should become "work" for you.
Thanks,
Sean -
I didn't have much time yet to actually visualize it completely, but today I did have some pretty interesting thoughts about how to 'score' your day, and thus be able to track your performance (even bearing in mind the requested feature of +- 15 minutes goals!). I'm working it out in Excel to see if it makes sense. One thing I'm not sure on yet, is how to deal with weekly goals in this performance-by-day principle...
Here's a sneak peek on what I have so far: http://thequicky.net/bubbletimer/bubb... . I'll keep you posted.
Regards,
Tijl -
See the new topic I started with this suggestion for the current mock-up.
Regards,
Tijl -
Inappropriate?We recently started keeping logs of everything we do at the office. We used to only track billable time but now it's everything. I find it tedious (and it is) to create a new excel spreadsheet for each week, rename all the days, and fill everything out in excel as I go, however I have to use their silly format.
When I go to the print feature of bubbletimer, I can copy all the information and paste it into cells in excel. However I need to adjust everything to match the format of our logs. So I have to cut and paste tings and rename things. Not so bad one time, but annoying to do every day/week.
It would be a nice feature if the information in bubbletimer could be set to my own personal preferences as far as the printing. So when I print I would have print settings that tell bubbletimer to rename certain columns, rearrange the columns, etc etc (hell if I can make my start/stop time two seperate columns thatd be great!)
essentially this would just set up a custom template for printing to which the default information can be remapped into. so for example I might have a column A for Date, column B is start time, column C is end time, column D is time spent (renamed to normal hours). Column E is activity (renamed to Event) and then thats it. no Goals in the print out.
and if you REALLY wanna get snazzy... set up filters for times. For instance, allow me to set a filter that whenever a time occurs before 8am or after 5pm, that time will print into a column labeled Saturday Hours (our overtime rate).
so all this doesnt have to affect the main bubbletimer interface.. i actually like that. I would just like it to do some processing for printing and give me lots of options. I dont imagine the coding would be that difficult. It is mainly just rerouting information and changing variables.
I am on my trial right now and I like it a lot, but if this feature was added I would be signing up tomorrow!1 Comment Add a comment
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SomeBug - a potentially better way to do it is to write an excel spreadsheet that uses the exported data from bubbletimer (in its regular format) to populate another sheet. Then you can just copy and paste the values from that sheet (which is in the format you need) into your company-provided form. Excel is cool that way.
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Inappropriate?Thanks ivarley. I was going to suggest that myself! I had 2 ideas. Ivarleys idea of copy and paste between 1 Excel spreadsheet and another, or using a greasemonkey (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fire...) script on the print page to rename/order the columns to what you need. I think either approach (along with Excel macros if needed) should work well to make a 1 click repeatable process.
If you decide to go the Excel route, you might need the ability to export just a range. Right now when you export from BubbleTimer you always get all the time.
Somebug, let me know which route you take, or if neither of these sounds like a workable option to you.
Thanks,
Sean
I’m grateful to ivarley
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Inappropriate?Well, I understand what you guys are suggesting, however I lack the knowledge of what procedures or code to use to accomplish this.
I can link single cells in excel but im not sure to go about linking the entire column
and greasemonkey i just have no clue what code I would use.
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Inappropriate?SomeBug,
Contact me by email: http://bubbletimer.com/contact and give me the details of how you need the output to look (column names and orders and what not) and I'll provide you the greasemonkey script.
Thanks!
Sean
I’m eager to help
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Inappropriate?I would like to have native iPhone client app. With new 3.0 OS update you can easily implement 15 min chime on iPhone: just send push notification to iPhone client app and it will chime and optionally offer user to open client app and bubble the time.
George
I’m hoping this will see the light of the day
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Hmm... I've been long planning for the eventual "real" iPhone application. The most ironic part, is that I'm an iPhone developer and I wrote a book on iPhone development. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0672...
The idea of push notification for the chime... I love it! Hadn't thought of that. Maybe that's enough to push me into action on this app. You'll be the 2nd to know George if I do get started on it soon.
Thanks,
Sean -
Inappropriate?Can we please withdraw advertising of particular mobile platforms with half-screen banners from this support forum?
While being OK with the Android app suggestion I mark the post above as inappropriate for the blatant advertisement attached.
I’m stalwart
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Up until recently, the lowest priced supported version of Get Satisfaction (to remove the ads) was $99 a month. BubbleTimer does not bring in the kind of revenue (or support needs) that can justify $99/month for support forums. So we just had to live with the ads. Recently the ads have gotten more prevalent, larger, and more intrusive (inline ads). Not good. But they also now offer a more affordable $19/month community plan. That's something I could maybe justify if I was sure it would make all the ads go away. I asked if it does here: http://getsatisfaction.com/getsatisfa...
Thanks,
Sean -
Inappropriate?Hi Sean. I was actually referring to another post in this tread which contained half-screen Android logo inside. I dont see this post anymore. As to Get Satisfaction account - you decide.
I'm just worried with transferring my prize Bubbletimer account from sgeorgii(at)yandex.ru (removed) to sgeorgii(at)gmail.com (current productive account).
As to iPhone app - my biggest issue with it is not the speed or offline editing - it is lack of push reminders for chime and unavailability to buble several categories at the same screen like in desktop version. And of couse you could make quite some money selling iPhone app + it would potentially create more visibility for the project - people would browse App store and see your app with screenshot, description and anything - kind of advertizement.
George
I’m OK
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George,
I'm just waiting to get confirmation from them that at $19/mo the ads go away. I've actually longed criticized them, that their paid plans start so high, so I'd like to support their decision to move "down market" with a lower priced offering.
Your account transfer is complete.
I very much agree that an iPhone version would bring some visibility. I don't think I'd charge anything for it in the app store, but you'd have to have a paid subscription to the website to use it beyond the 14 day trial.
If only I had the time to do it right now. (Ironic, huh?)
Thanks,
Sean -
