StopTime 2.0
1-Dec-2001
Introduction
StopTime is a program for the Pocket PC which combines the functions of a stopwatch with a lap timer, a set of 4 programmable timers, a clock with calendar display and up to 8 alarms, a convenient memo/voice reminder, and a flashlight.
Installation note:
It is not strictly necessary but highly recommended that you install StopTime in main memory and not on a storage card. You may encounter problems if an alarm goes off while your Pocket PC is powered off and the storage card is not present or does not come online instantly.
The first time you run StopTime, it will perform a one-time 60-second timer calibration. This process is necessary to get the stopwatch and timers to display accurate results as they are typically off by about 1% otherwise. Once the calibration has been completed, the times should be much more accurate. If you are getting inaccurate timer results, you can recalibrate the timer at any time using the File/Calibrate Timer command (see below for more information).
A collection of sound files optimized for use as StopTime timer or alarm signals is available separately from (http://www.dl-c.com/ppc.html). To install sound files, please follow the instructions contained in the Readme.txt file included in the zip file.
Action and Hardware Buttons:
The Pocket PC specification leaves certain details up to the manufacturers -- one of these details is the physical placement and operation of the Action and Hardware buttons.
On HP and Casio models, the Action Button is located on the left side of the unit. On Compaq models, the Action Button is the large, centered below the screen. All models support pressing the Action button straight down; different models also support various other ways of using the Action Button such as rotating it up or down (Jornada) or pressing the left, right, top or bottom edge of the button (IPAQ).
Pocket PCs can have up to five Hardware Buttons; four of these buttons are usually located on the face of the unit (button 1 is normally the leftmost and button 4 the rightmost), below the screen and are normally used to launch specific applications such as Calendar, Tasks or Contacts; the fifth button, also known as the Voice Recorder Button , is normally found on the upper left side of the unit. Optionally, you can tell StopTime to take over all of the hardware buttons or just the Voice Recorder button while it is running so you can use them as handy shortcuts for selected functions such as starting and stopping the stopwatch or toggling between the clock and the flashlight. The normal meanings for the hardware buttons are automatically restored when you exit StopTime or switch to another application. If you are having trouble using the hardware buttons on an HP Jornada, check to make sure you have not assigned them for use as game buttons.
Mode Selection
StopTime has five modes; you select the mode via the command bar at the bottom of the screen as follows:
Tap the stopwatch icon to select Stopwatch mode; in
this mode, StopTime works like a stopwatch that can record a virtually
unlimited number of individual and cumulative lap times. You can also
use the lap timer to compute lap speeds based on a specified lap distance.
Tap the hourglass icon to select Timer mode; this mode supports four
timers you can set to count up or down to a specified time. Timers may also be
linked to perform complex timing sequences such as repeating cycles, a chess
clock, or starting or stopping multiple timers simultaneously. Timers may
also be configured as cycle counters, and one or more of them may be hidden.
Tap the clock icon to select Clock mode; this lets
you use StopTime as a desk clock with calendar display and alarm clock with up
to 8 independent alarms. Alarms may be programmed to go off on different
days and the alarm sounds, volume and snooze times are also configurable.
Tap the memo icon to select Reminder mode; this lets
you use StopTime as a quick reminder. Reminders are hand-written notes with an
optional voice recording and an associated deadline. When the deadline is
reached, an alarm goes off and the memo is displayed. At this point you can
play the voice memo (if any), reschedule the reminder, or just delete it.
Tap the flashlight icon to select Flashlight mode; this lets you use StopTime as a flashlight by painting the screen white and letting you adjust the backlight level.
The detailed operation of the program in each mode is described in the following sections.
Stopwatch Mode
To start the stopwatch, tap the time display. Tap the time display a second time to stop the stopwatch.
Tap the Reset button (two arrows in a circle) just to the right of the time readout to reset the time to zero and clear any recorded lap times.
Lap times are displayed in the scrolling edit control just below the stopwatch readout. To record a lap time while the stopwatch is running, tap the Lap (L) button. The first lap time is recorded as a single time interval; subsequent lap times are displayed as two numbers -- the individual lap time followed by the cumulative lap time. The individual lap time is the elapsed time since the end of the previous lap; the cumulative lap time is a copy of the stopwatch readout at the time the lap button was tapped. Due to rounding, the sum of the lap times may differ slightly from the cumulative lap time. Optionally, StopTime can display, in addition to lap times, individual and average speeds based on a specified lap distance. For more information, see File/Preferences/Stopwatch below.
To transfer recorded lap times to the clipboard, highlight the text you want to copy and select the Edit/Copy or Edit/Cut command from the main menu.
Using the Action Button and Hardware Buttons in Stopwatch Mode
The Action button can be used to start, stop, reset or record lap times for the stopwatch.
To start/stop the stopwatch, depress the Action Button.
To reset the current timer, move the Action Button up.
To set the properties for the current timer, move the Action Button down.
If the use of hardware buttons is enabled (see File/Preferences/General below), you can use the buttons on the face and side of your Pocket PC to control the current timer as follows:
Voice Recorder Button: Start/Stop the stopwatch
Button 1: Reset stopwatch
Button 2: Record lap time
Button 3: Record lap time
Button 4: Reset stopwatch
Timer Mode
There are four timers each with its own time readout. At the left of each timer is a narrow vertical bar which is white if the timer is currently selected and black otherwise. The current timer is the one the action or hardware buttons will operate. The central area for the timer display is taken up by its time readout which is either in hours, minutes and seconds for timers or a 4-digit number for counters. To the right of the time readout are two buttons -- one to reset the timer and one to set its properties. At the far right is another narrow vertical bar which provides a graphical display of the timer's progress. This bar changes color from green to yellow to red as the time runs out and a small black marker moves down from the top of the bar to the bottom to indicate the timer's progress.
Each timer can be configured as an up timer, down timer, up counter, or down counter. An up timer starts at 00:00:00 and counts up to a preset limit; a down timer starts at the preset limit and counts down to 00:00:00. A counter displays a 4-digit count instead of a time; counters are useful for manually counting events or, in conjunction with linked timers (see below), for keeping track of repeating timer cycles.
To set the properties for a timer, tap the small Set (...) button to the right of the timer readout -- this pops up a dialog box you can use to edit the timer properties:
The time interval in hours, minutes and seconds. Use the Clear
button to reset the interval to 00:00:00. Use the *2 and the /2
buttons to double or halve the current timer interval.
Whether the timer counts up from zero (Up Timer) to the preset time or
counts down from the preset time to zero (Down Timer).
You can also configure a timer to work as a counter that counts up (Up
Counter) or down (Down Counter). The counter value
increments (or decrements) by 1 each time you tap on it; when it counts down
to zero or up to the preset cycle count, the alarm is triggered. If you
select one of the counter modes, the time interval setting is replaced by a
cycle count which can be any number from 0000 to 9999. Counters are particularly useful when you have one or more timers configured
to recycle (see timer linkage below) and you want to keep track of how many
times the cycle has repeated.
Whether to make no sound when the timer reaches its preset
interval, or to make a
single sound ,or a continuous sound. If you select continuous sound, StopTime
will display the timer message and play the selected sound file until you tap the Off button. If you don't
turn the alarm off within the Ring time (see File/Preferences/General below),
it will shut off automatically.
What message to display when the timer alarm goes off.
Messages are only displayed if continuous sound is selected -- to display a
message with no sound, simply set the volume to zero.
What sound file to play. You can select any WAV file located
in your \Windows folder. A companion set of sound files optimized
for use with StopTime is available separately from our web site (http://www.dl-c.com/ppc.html).
Of
course you can also use the standard WAV files such as alarm1.wav, alarm2.wav,
and so on as well as WAV files from other sources.
To confirm that the timer alarm will sound properly and that its sound and
volume are appropriate, tap the Test button. This will issue a warning if
your Pocket PC's sound is muted or disabled, Sound is set to None,
Volume is set to 0, or the specified WAV file is missing.
How many timers to display -- this setting is a number between 1 and 4 which can suppress the display of the last one, two or three timer readouts. Even if they are hidden, the underlying timers still operate and may be used as part of a linkage scheme to control one or more of the visible timers.
When a timer reaches its preset interval, depending on its properties, no sound will be played, the selected sound file will be played once, or the timer message will be displayed and the selected sound file will be played continuously until you tap the Off button. In any case, the timer continues to run until you stop or reset it (see below), but its readout changes color to indicate it has run over. If you want a timer to stop counting when it reaches its limit, you can create a link between its timeout event and its stop action (see Timer Linkage below for details).
To reset the time for a timer to its last preset value, tap the small Reset (two arrows in a circle) button just to the right of its time readout.
Starting and stopping the current timer is the similar to operating the stopwatch ; just tap the timer readout. Multiple timers can be running simultaneously.
To reset all four timers at once, tap the Reset All button.
Using the Action Button and Hardware Buttons in Timer Mode
The Action button can be used to start, stop, reset or set properties for the current timer. The current timer is indicated by a highlighted vertical bar just to the left of its time readout. Tapping on a timer readout selects the corresponding timer (i.e. makes it the current timer), but it also starts or stops the timer. To select a timer without starting or stopping it, tap either the vertical selection bar or the progress indicator instead of the readout.
To start/stop the current timer, depress the Action Button. To reset the current timer, move the Action Button up; to set the properties for the current timer, move the Action Button down.
If the use of hardware buttons is enabled (see File/Preferences/General below), you can use the buttons on the face and side of your Pocket PC to control the current timer as follows:
Voice Recorder Button: Start/Stop the current timer
Button 1: Start/Stop timer 1
Button 2: Start/Stop timer 2
Button 3: Start/Stop timer 3
Button 4: Start/Stop timer 4
Timer Linkage
By default, the four timers operate independently, but you can configure them to be linked together in many different ways. Here are a few examples of what you can accomplish by linking timers:
You can cause stopping one timer to start the next one. This
lets you time a sequence of events, optionally sounding different signals when each
timer runs out.
You can make starting one timer start all the others.
With the timers configured in count-up mode, this lets you time several
runners in a race at the same time by starting all the timers at once. Each
timer can then the stopped separately when the runners cross the finish
line.
You can configure two timers to work in tandem like a chess
clock (starting one timer stops the other and vice versa).
You can make one timer or a series of timers to recycle until you stop them manually. Another timer can be configured as a counter to keep track of how many cycles have occurred. You can cause the timers to stop when a preset number of cycles has been reached.
The events you can configure for each timer to trigger an action are: start, stop, reset and timeout -- start is triggered when the timer starts running; stop is triggered when the timer stops running; reset is triggered when you tap the timer's reset button; timeout is triggered when the timer reaches its preset time limit.
The timer actions you can trigger are: start, stop, reset and restart -- start, stop and reset are self-explanatory; restart is equivalent to reset followed by start. Starting a counter increments it; stopping a counter has no effect.
To add or remove timer links, tap the Configure... button to bring up the Timer Links dialog box. This dialog box provides a visual display of all current links. The left column lists all possible timer events that can trigger an action; the right column lists all possible actions that can be triggered when an event occurs. To link an event to an action, first tap on the event -- at this point, actions that cannot be legally triggered by this event are grayed out. Next, tap on the action you want the event to trigger; when a link is created, a line is displayed connecting the event to the corresponding action. To remove a link, simply tap the event and then the action a second time. A single event can be configured to trigger multiple actions and an action may be triggered by multiple events. Actions are only taken one level. For example, if starting timer 1 is linked to starting timer 2 and starting timer 2 is linked to starting timer 3, the starting timer 1 will only start timer 2, not timer 3. This avoids any potential infinite loops where events recycle indefinitely.
To clear all timer links, tap the Remove All button.
To save the current timer configuration (all timer settings, including times, sounds, linkages, etc.), tap the Save As... button and select a filename and folder -- to restore a set of previously saved settings, tap the Load... button and select the name of the saved settings file you want to restore.
Clock Mode
In clock mode, the current time and date and a calendar for the current month (with today's date highlighted) are displayed.
You can also set up to eight independent alarms; the number of alarms is selected from File/Preferences/Clock. Alarm times are displayed at the bottom of the screen, color coded as follows:
The actual colors used depend on the color scheme -- for example, for black text on a white background, the highlight color is red and the normal color is black. This important visual cue lets you know which alarms are active and when they will sound. In the usual case of setting or checking the alarm clock in the evening to make sure it will wake you up the following morning, active alarms are displayed in the normal color. Highlighted alarms will go off before midnight and wake you up in the middle of the night; grayed out alarms will not sound and you will oversleep.
To double check that an alarm will go off and be audible, use the Test command or Test button (see below). In addition to letting you know what the alarm will sound like, this checks for any number of conditions that can interfere with an alarm sounding and issues warnings that tell you what settings you need to change. StopTime also issues warnings if the alarm is turned off, if the same day of the week is checked off in more than one alarm, if the alarm is set to go off later today, or if the alarm is not set to go off tomorrow.
To change the alarm time or any of the other alarm settings, tap once on the alarm time for the alarm you want to change. This displays a popup menu from which you can select one of the commands: Set, On, Off, Test, 15 min later and 15 min earlier.
If you select Set, a dialog box appears that you can use to set the following alarm properties:
Selecting Test is the same as tapping the Test button above.
Either On or Off will have a check mark next to it depending on whether the alarm is currently on or off. Selecting On enables the alarm using the current settings and Off turns it off. If the alarm is off, the alarm time is grayed out.
Selecting 15 min later or 15 min earlier sets the alarm time15 minutes later or earlier than its current setting.
Tapping on the calendar display launches the Pocket Outlook calendar application. If you have Pocket Informant 2.x installed on your Pocket PC, its Agenda page is launched instead of Pocket Outlook. If you have Pocket Informant 2.5 or later, the day corresponding to the number you tapped in StopTime's calendar display will become the current day in the Agenda view. If you are unfamiliar with it, Pocket Informant from WebIS is an excellent Pocket Outlook replacement. Information on Pocket Informant is available at: http://www.pocketinformant.com.
When the current time matches one of the alarm times and the alarm is enabled the alarm sounds and the LED blinks (if you have enabled this in the File/ Preferences/General dialog box). A dialog box is then displayed with two large buttons: Off and Snooze. Tapping either the Off or the Snooze button turns the sound off; tapping Snooze will sound the alarm again after the preset snooze delay (see above). After sounding, the alarm remains enabled and will continue to go off on succeeding days (assuming those days are checked off) until you disable it. If you don't shut the sound off manually, it automatically shuts off after the Ring time (see File/ Preferences/General below).
Using the Action Button and Hardware Buttons in Clock Mode
When an alarm goes off, pressing the Action Button is equivalent to tapping the Off button. If you turn the alarm off with the Action Button, be careful press it straight down or else this can tab over to the Snooze button and you may accidentally select Snooze instead of Off.
If the use of hardware buttons is enabled (see File/ Preferences/General below), you can use them to control the alarm clock as follows:
Button 1: Set Alarm 1
Button 2: Set Alarm 2
Button 3: Set Alarm 3
Button 4: Set Alarm 4Voice Recorder: toggles between clock and flashlight modes
Reminder Mode
A reminder is simply a memo in the form of a handwritten note with an optional voice recording and an associated deadline. When the deadline is reached, an alarm sounds and the memo is displayed on the screen. At this point you can play the voice memo, reschedule the reminder or delete the reminder. This is a very quick and convenient way to remind yourself to do a task at some later time, such as taking medication, putting money in a parking meter, making a phone call, or picking someone up. Reminders can be single events or they can set to recur at regular intervals, on specific days of the week or on specific days of the month.
Creating a reminder
To create a new reminder, first make sure the reminder name (at the top of the screen) is set to "New Reminder".
Creating a handwritten reminder
To create a handwritten reminder, just start writing with the stylus in the main paper pad area in the center of the screen. You can select from a variety of paper pads (lined pad, plain yellow or white paper, or graph paper) and select a pen color and width by tapping on the Pen icon in the Reminder tool bar at the top of the screen. This pops up a menu with the current options checked off; to change an option, just select the corresponding menu item. You can change pen color or width in the middle of entering a reminder -- changing the paper color changes the background for the entire memo..
Handwritten memos may be up to 50 pages long; the page number is displayed in the upper right corner of the memo area. Tap just to the left of the page number to go to the previous page; tap just to the right of the page number to go to the next page.
To erase the last stroke you made on the current page, tap the Erase Stroke icon (a left arrow) in the Reminder tool bar at the top of the screen. You can use this to erase all the way back to blank paper, one stroke at a time. To erase the entire memo (and clear any voice recording) tap the trash can icon.
Creating a voice reminder
To create a voice reminder, tap the Record icon (a red disk) and start speaking into the microphone. When you are done, tap the Stop icon (a black square). To play back the recorded message, tap the Play icon (a black triangle). If you tap record a second time, it will record over the previous voice memo. To erase a voice memo (and clear any handwritten memo) tap the trash can icon.
Editing a reminder
To edit an existing reminder, first select its name from the drop down list at the top of the screen. At this point you can erase some or all of the handwritten text, add new text or record a new message over the old one.
Deleting a reminder
To edit an existing reminder, first select its name from the drop down list at the top of the screen and then tap the Trash Can icon. This erases any handwritten and voice recording and deletes the reminder.
Setting a reminder's deadline and other properties
To set a reminder's properties, tap the Bell icon. This pops up a dialog box you can use to set the following reminder properties:
Deadline
The is the time and date when the reminder will sound its alarm (if any) and display its memo. You can set the time and date specifically or use the various buttons to advance the deadline in steps of 1, 5, or 15 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month.
If you do not wish to associate a deadline with a reminder, check the No Deadline box. This grays out the deadline controls and let you create a simple memo with an alarm.
Description
If you enter a reminder description, this is what will be displayed in the dropdown reminder list at the top to the reminder mode screen. To include the reminder time in the description, enter %t; to include the reminder date in the description, enter %d. The default description for new reminders is %t %d which displays the reminder time and date.
Alarm Sound
You can set the sound file, volume and whether to play no sound, play the sound once, or play the sound continuously until you stop it or the Ring time runs out (see File/Preferences/General). These settings are similar to those used for the clock and timers.
Reminder Alarms
As soon as the deadline for any of the reminders has passed a reminder alarm dialog box is displayed and the alarm sound for the reminder (if any) is played. The dialog box displays the handwritten memo and has a button to play the voice recording (if any). Your three choices at this point are:
This removes the deadline from the reminder but does not delete it so it will remain in the reminder list but will not signal an alarm again unless to set a new deadline.
This brings up the Set Reminder dialog box so you can modify the deadline and other settings.
This simply deletes the reminder (after requesting confirmation).
This initiates playback of the voice recording associated with the reminder. It will stop automatically at the end of the recording or you can terminate playback manually by tapping the Stop icon. You can adjust the playback volume by tapping the Speaker icon and selecting a volume setting from the popup menu. When you are done listening to the recording, you must select one of the previous options to dismiss the Reminder Alarm dialog box and continue using StopTime.
If you need to edit the reminder, first tap the Check Mark or Bell icon to remove or reschedule the deadline and then go to the main reminder mode screen and select the reminder you want to edit. At this point you will be able to add or remove handwriting or record a new voice memo.
Using the Hardware Buttons in Reminder Mode
If the use of hardware buttons is enabled (see File/ Preferences/General below), you can use the buttons on the face and side of your Pocket PC to control the current timer as follows:
Voice Recorder Button: press once to start the voice recorder; press again to stop the voice recorder.
Button 1: play recording
Flashlight Mode
In flashlight mode, StopTime simply makes the screen white so you can use your Pocket PC as a flashlight. The light is bright enough to get around the house at night if you keep it by your bedside.
To increase the flashlight brightness, tap the large "+" button (if any); to decrease the brightness, tap the large "-" button (if any). Depending on the Flashlight Preferences setting, the brightness of the flashlight is adjusted either by filling the screen with different gray levels or by changing the backlight brightness. The latter method works better but is not available on the Jornada which has only one backlight brightness setting. When you exit StopTime or switch to another mode, the original backlight brightness is automatically restored.
Using the Hardware Buttons in Flashlight Mode
If the use of hardware buttons is enabled (see File/ Preferences/General below), you can use the buttons on the face and side of your Pocket PC to control the current timer as follows:
Voice Recorder: toggles between flashlight and clock modes
Menu
The StopTime menu has only two items, namely File and Edit.
The File menu that contains the following items:
Calibrate Timer
This command performs a 60 second timer calibration that compares the high resolution system timer against the real time clock that keeps track of the time and date. The real time clock only has a resolution of 1 second, so the system timer must be used for the stopwatch and timers, but the system timer runs at a frequency a little different from its nominal rate. To correct for this difference, a calibration is performed that checks the system timer against the real time clock and computes the actual timer frequency. This measured frequency is subsequently used to compute stopwatch and timer readouts. The Calibrate Timer dialog box automatically closes in 60 seconds when the calibration has been completed.
Preferences/General
This command brings up the General Preferences dialog box which lets you configure the following settings:
Date
This lets you control the way the date is formatted for display at the top of the screen. If you leave the setting blank, the system default date format is used as defined in the Regional Settings control panel. If you specify a format string, this overrides the default format and lets you customize the way dates are displayed. Several common date formats are included for convenience in the drop down list. The rules for the format string are identical to those used in the Regional Settings. The relevant abbreviations are summarized below:
d day of the month with no leading zero
dd day of the month with leading zero
ddd day of the week as a 3-letter abbreviation
dddd day of the week spelled out
M month number with no leading zero
MM month number with leading zero
MMM month name as a 3-letter abbreviation
MMMM month name spelled out
yy 2-digit year number
yyyy 4-digit year number
Time
This setting lets you control the way the time is formatted for display in alarm clock mode. If you leave the setting blank, the system default time format is used as defined in the Regional Settings control panel. If you specify a format string, this overrides the default format and lets you customize the way times are displayed. Several common date formats are included for convenience in the drop down list. The rules for the format string are identical to those used in the Regional Settings. The relevant abbreviations are summarized below:
h hour with no leading zero (12 hour clock)
hh hour with leading zero (12 hour clock)
H hour with no leading zero (24 hour clock)
HH hour with leading zero (24 hour clock)
m minutes with no leading zero
mm minutes with leading zero
s seconds with no leading zero
ss seconds with leading zero
t 1-character time marker (e.g. A or P)
tt 2-character time marker (e.g. AM or PM)
An additional time setting lets you choose to display the time either with or without seconds. If you omit seconds, the time display is centered in the screen above the calendar. Do not include seconds in the time string since the time as displayed in clock mode may not fit in the available space.
Finally, you can select whether or not to show tenths of seconds in the stopwatch and timer modes. Suppressing tenths of seconds makes the display less jumpy -- the stopwatch and timers should remain accurate to roughly a tenth of a second regardless of this setting.
Blink
This setting lets you specify if and for how long the LED on your Pocket PC will blink each time an alarm or time signal sounds.
Ring
This setting lets you specify how long the alarms will sound when you set them to ring continuously. At the end of the specified time, the alarm will turn off automatically as though it was turned off manually.
Buttons
This setting lets you specify whether or not StopTime will take over control of the five hardware buttons on your Pocket PC -- the voice recorder button and the four other buttons normally located on the face of the unit (not including the action button). Normally these buttons are assigned the function of launching specific programs and they are not available for any other purpose.
If you select Use all hardware buttons, StopTime will override the default meanings of all five hardware buttons while the program is running -- the original functions assigned to the hardware buttons are restored when you close StopTime. The hardware buttons can be used in stopwatch and timer mode to start, stop and reset the timers (see above for details).
If you select Use only voice recorder button, StopTime will take over just the voice recorder button on the side of the Pocket PC.
If you select Don't use hardware buttons, the five buttons retain their meaning while StopTime is running -- this lets you use the hardware buttons to launch their associated programs while StopTime is running.
Preferences/Stopwatch
This command brings up the Stopwatch Preferences dialog box which lets you configure the following settings:
Font
This lets you change the font (and font style) StopTime will use to display the stopwatch readouts. Regardless of the font you select, button captions and small text are always displayed using the default Tahoma font.
To copy TrueType fonts from your desktop computer to your Pocket PC, simply drag the corresponding font file (TrueType font files have the extension ".ttf") from the Windows\Fonts or other folder on your Windows computer to the \Windows\Fonts folder on your Pocket PC. Depending on the font, there may be up to four related files per type face -- one each for normal, bold, italic, and/or bold italic. When you are done installing fonts, do a soft reset to let the Pocket PC recognize the new fonts.
Colors
This lets you change the color scheme to one of the following: Black on White, White on Black, White on Blue, Green on Black, and Red on Black. The Red on Black color scheme is useful at night when you want to check the clock or timers without affecting your night vision. Green on Black or White on Black are useful if you keep your Pocket PC on your nightstand and don't want the display to be too bright.
Show Tenths of Seconds
This lets you choose whether to display times in whole seconds or in tenths of seconds. The display is jumpier in tenths of seconds but the times are more accurate.
Lap
This lets you choose whether to you want StopTime to display just individual and cumulative lap times (in hh:mm:ss) or you prefer StopTime to include individual and average speeds as well (on a second line). Speeds are computed based on the known length of a lap (see below) and may be displayed in miles/hour, feet per second, kilometers/hour or meters/second.
Distance
This setting lets you specify the length of a lap and the lap distance units (miles, yards, feet, kilometers or meters). The lap distance is used when computing lap speeds (see above).
Preferences/Timer
This command brings up the Timer Preferences dialog box which lets you configure the following settings:
Font
This lets you change the font (and font style) StopTime will use to display the timer readouts. Regardless of the font you select, button captions and small text are always displayed using the default Tahoma font.
To copy TrueType fonts from your desktop computer to your Pocket PC, simply drag the corresponding font file (TrueType font files have the extension ".ttf") from the Windows\Fonts or other folder on your Windows computer to the \Windows\Fonts folder on your Pocket PC. Depending on the font, there may be up to four related files per type face -- one each for normal, bold, italic, and/or bold italic. When you are done installing fonts, do a soft reset to let the Pocket PC recognize the new fonts.
Colors
This lets you change the color scheme to one of the following: Black on White, White on Black, White on Blue, Green on Black, and Red on Black. The Red on Black color scheme is useful at night when you want to check the clock or timers without affecting your night vision. Green on Black or White on Black are useful if you keep your Pocket PC on your nightstand and don't want the display to be too bright.
Show Tenths of Seconds
This lets you choose whether to display times in whole seconds or in tenths of seconds. The display is jumpier in tenths of seconds but the times are more accurate.
Preferences/Clock
This command brings up the Clock Preferences dialog box which lets you configure the following settings:
Font
This lets you change the font (and font style) StopTime will use to display the time, date and calendar readouts. Regardless of the font you select, button captions and small text are always displayed using the default font, namely Tahoma.
To copy TrueType fonts from your desktop computer to your Pocket PC, simply drag the corresponding font file (TrueType font files have the extension ".ttf") from the Windows\Fonts or other folder on your Windows computer to the \Windows\Fonts folder on your Pocket PC. Depending on the font, there may be up to four related files per type face -- one each for normal, bold, italic, and/or bold italic. When you are done installing fonts, do a soft reset to let the Pocket PC recognize the new fonts.
Colors
This lets you change the clock color scheme by independently setting the colors for text (clock, alarm times), calendar text (calendar), highlight text (the current day in the calendar and the times of alarms due to go off on the current day), background (color behind the text and image, if any), and grayed text (disabled alarms). This is especially useful if you select a background image (see below) as it lets you choose contrasting colors for the text.
First use the drop down menu to select which element you want to set the color for and then tap the small color square just to its right. This pops up a color menu with the hue, saturation and brightness values of the current color checked. Next, specify changes to the hue, saturation and brightness of the color for the selected clock element by selecting items from the popup menu. To change more than one of these attributes, you must tap the color square more than once since you can only change one at a time. An updated sample of the selected color is displayed in the color square after you make your menu selection. Hue and brightness are pretty much self-explanatory. More saturated colors are more intense; less saturated colors are more pastel; if the saturation is zero, the available colors are all shades of gray regardless of the hue selection.
Image
This lets you display a background image or your choice behind the alarm clock/calendar display. You can enter the pathname of a BMP file. To fill the available space completely, make the image 240 pixels wide and 268 pixels high. If the image is larger than this it will be truncated; if it is smaller it will be centered in the available space. For convenience you can click the ... button and select the BMP file by pointing to the name in a folder. To remove the image and restore a solid background color, simply clear the pathname entry.
An additional image setting lets you choose between Centered and Tiled. If you select Centered, the image is displayed centered in the display area; if you select Tiled, the image is repeated as necessary starting in the upper left corner until the entire background is filled.
Show Seconds
An additional time setting lets you choose to display the time either with or without seconds. If you omit seconds, the time display is centered in the screen above the calendar. Do not include seconds in the time string since the time as displayed in clock mode may not fit in the available space.
Week
This setting lets you configure the calendar in clock mode to start with either Sunday or Monday as the first day of the week.
Alarms
This setting lets you specify how many alarms you want, from None up to a maximum of 8. The alarm times are displayed just below the calendar.
Preferences/Reminder
This command brings up the Reminder Preferences dialog box which lets you configure the following settings:
Record
This lets you change the quality setting for voice recordings -- higher sampling frequencies yield better quality but the voice files take up more memory.
Preferences/Flashlight
This command brings up the Flashlight Preferences dialog box which lets you configure the following settings:
Adjust
This lets you specify how the flashlight brightness is adjusted. If you have an IPAQ, the recommended setting is by changing backlight; otherwise you must use by changing gray level.
About StopTime
This displays the StopTime About box.
Exit
This terminates StopTime.
The Edit menu that contains the following items:
Cut
Copy
Paste
UndoThese standard commands are used in conjunction with edit controls such as the lap times display in Stopwatch mode to copy or move text between the edit control and the clipboard.
Common Problems
If possible, install StopTime in main memory and not on a storage card. While it will work from a storage card, you can run into problems if you remove the storage card while alarms are pending or if the storage card does not come online instantly when the Pocket PC is powered on.
There are a number of reasons StopTime's alarms may not sound. The Test button or command for timers and alarms will check for all of the following conditions and report a warning if one or more of them are detected:
You may have muted your Pocket PC's speaker. Your Pocket PC
is muted if the small speaker icon in the lower right corner of
the Today screen is grayed out; tapping the speaker icon un-mutes the speaker.
Sounds may not be enabled for programs. To enable sound for
StopTime and other programs, go to the Settings/Sounds &
Reminders control panel and make sure the volume is not set to zero and there is a check mark next to Programs.
You may have set the volume for the alarm to zero.
The sound file you have specified may not exist.
You may have set Sound to None (timer alarms
only).
You may bit have checked of the day of the week in question (alarm clock alarms only).
Running StopTime with your Pocket PC turned off
When using the alarm clock or reminders, you can exit StopTime, run it in the background, and/or turn of your Pocket PC with pending alarms and everything will work OK. Five seconds before the alarm clock signal or any of the timer signals is about to sound, your Pocket PC should automatically turn itself on and run StopTime just in time for it to make its audible signal.
Both the stopwatch and the timers stop running when you exit StopTime, although they keep running when you run StopTime in the background or the Pocket PC is turned off manually or suspends itself automatically. In the case of timer alarms while the Pocket PC is turned off, the Pocket PC should automatically power up 5 seconds before the alarm is scheduled to go off (see issues below for caveats).
There are a few issues you need to be aware of when you turn off your Pocket PC while the timer, alarm clock, or reminder alarms are pending.
Copyright Ó
2000-2001, Jonathan Sachs
All Rights Reserved
This program may be redistributed free of charge as long as the entire
program and its accompanying help file are copied intact, including this notice.
Jonathan Sachs
12 Ash Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
jsachs@dl-c.com
http://www.dl-c.com