Interface

The left of the Fob window is where the user defines a new alarm. A clock dominates the interface. A user may define a time by dragging about the hands of this clock. Below the clock the user may manually type in the hours, minutes, and seconds, as well as a description for the alarm. The user may also customize the alert; the user may choose either the standard beep, an alert sound, or a file. If the user wishes to choose a file, she may either open using a standard open dialog, or optionally drag a file onto this view to set the file played when the alarm rings. File types supported include most audio file types which will be played, AppleScripts (.scpt files) which will be executed, and any other arbitrary file or application which will be opened. The "Repeat" checkbox allows a user to set an alarm so that it repeats indefinitely.

The right of the Fob window shows the preset alarms, and the current alarms. The presence of presets is Fob's gimmick for decreasing the effort required to start an alarm. To draw an analogy to web browsers, they are a kind of time bookmark for commonly used alarms. The current alarms, displayed on the bottom, are alarms that are currently counting down (or have finished); Fob allows an arbitrary number of alarms.

To start a preset alarm, double-click it. To pause a current active alarm, double-click it (paused alarms are displayed in a bold font, and gray colored). To unpause a paused current alarm, double-click it. Alternatively the dock menu can be used to select alarms, and selecting an alarm from the dock menu will accomplish the same functionality as double-clicking it in the window.

Clicking the zoom button will toggle between the standard window, and a smaller window with just the currently counting down alarms. Note that if Fob is set to hide itself in the background, it will hide only the larger window.

The top of the Fob window contains the toolbar. The actions the user may perform with this are covered in the Doing Stuff section.

Fob's dock icon is important. The icon will be the normal Fob icon if there is no current alarm. Otherwise, Fob will display the currently active alarm. If there are multiple current alarms, Fob will display the most recent alarm. The alarm is displayed as a countdown timer, unless the alarm is out of time, in which case the icon will flash between a bright and dull version.

Note that if Fob has been quit or is otherwise not currently active, when an alarm runs out of time it will not notify the user; the user will be notified the next time the program starts up. Thus, Fob is meant to be run in the background.