Timer  -  Versatile desktop timer

by Tony Shew

Timer is a multi-tasking desktop timer, which will prove 
useful for timing the eggs, the match, or a
player's turn at Scrabble or other games.
Timer can be used to count either up or
down to a maximum time of 23
hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds.

The application is run by double-clicking on its icon in a directory viewer, or by running it from the RISC User menu system. An icon is installed on the icon bar. Click on the icon bar
icon to open the Timer window.

Clicking Menu over either the icon bar icon or the Timer window brings up a menu with four entries: Info,
Setup, Save, and Quit. The first and last of these perform their usual functions.

The Setup entry leads to a dialogue box labelled Setup. This allows you to
change the beep made by Timer's alarm. You
can change the sound channel, volume,
pitch, duration, and interval. The first four of these parameters are the same as those used for Basic's SOUND command. The interval
between beeps is measured in 1/100ths of a
second.

Clicking on Save saves the stored
time and the alarm beep parameters. This
information is then read in every time
Timer is loaded.

Using the Timer
To use as a count up timer, click on the
Start icon with the time display showing
00:00:00. This is useful for timing how
long an event has lasted or how long it takes to
complete.

To use as a count down timer, first set
the time by using the up and down arrow
icons before clicking on Start. Count down
timers can be used to time the eggs or to
limit how long players take on each
turn of a game.

To pause the timer click on the Pause
icon. This will change the Start icon to
read Continue. Click on Continue to resume
the timing.

There are three other icons: Clear,
Store, and Reset.

Clear will clear the time to 00:00:00
and cancel the timer if running.

Store will store the current timer
display. Clicking on Reset will set the
timer display to the last stored time.
This is useful for timing the turns of
games players as you don't have to keep
setting the time with the arrow icons in
between each turn. Clicking on Store will
have no effect if the timer display is on
00:00:00.

When a count down timer runs down to
00:00:00 an alarm will sound. The sound
produced and the interval between beeps
can be set up in the Setup dialogue box
from the application's menu. The easiest way to change the sound is to
open the Timer window, move it away from
the icon bar, set it to one second, and
click on Start. When the alarm starts
beeping call up the Setup dialogue box via
the icon bar menu. The parameters can now
be changed while the alarm is beeping and
you can instantly hear the result of any
changes you make. For details of using
other sound voices see below.

The alarm can be stopped by clicking
on the icon bar icon or anywhere within
the Timer window, and a click on Reset will
cancel the alarm and reset the timer to
the last stored time.

Once a timing has started the Timer
window does not need to be kept open; it
will be automatically re-opened when the
alarm goes off. A click on the icon bar
icon at any time will re-open the window or
bring it to the front if hidden.

The icon bar icon changes to show the
current state of the timer. The icon will
show a blue border with a T when not
timing, a red border with a T when timing,
a red border with a P when a timing has
been paused, and a flashing red/green
border with an A when the alarm is
sounding (useful if the computer's sound
has been switched off). The Timer window's
title bar also changes to reflect the
current state of Timer.

Timer is accurate but it is not a
stopwatch and doesn't measure the time in
hundreths of a second, only in hours,
minutes, and seconds. When timing Timer
updates its display once a second.
Although it cannot do this when the
processor is fully occupied, e.g. during
printing, as soon as the processor is free
again it will update the display to show
the correct time.

Changing/Adding Voices
If you want to use different sound
voices for Timer's alarm beep you will
need to amend the !Run file. Load
the file into Edit and the final line will
look something like this:
  Run <Timer$Dir>.!RunImage
On to the end of this line add the
names of up to 7 sound modules separated
by spaces that you wish to allocate to
sound channels 2 to 8. Channel 1 will use
the default voice which is usually
WaveSynth-Beep. So for example to add sound modules
Ding and Dong to sound channels 2 and 3
use:
  Run <Timer$Dir>.!RunImage Ding Dong
These can then be used by Timer by setting the appropriate channel number in the Setup box.

Note that the voice names are case
sensitive. If when loading Timer you get
an error message saying "Bad Sound Voice",
check the spelling and case of the name
used.

If you want to use voices other than
those built into the computer you must
first load them with lines like this in
the !Run file:
   RMload <Obey$Dir>.Ding
   RMload <Obey$Dir>.Dong
The use of Obey$Dir assumes that you have located the voice modules inside the !Timer application directory.

Many games have sound voices you may
like to use, and most will sound best when
the pitch is set to 53 in the Setup
dialogue box discussed above.

As sound channels use up some of the
computer's processing power it is
recommended that no more than one
additional voice is used.

Copyright  RISC User 1994