SC_Timer is a kind of count-down timer which is especially convenient for session chairs in conferences who need to manage their speakers. It offers a big white count-down display that you can make as big as your screen, for the speaker to see. It will turn yellow -say- ten minutes before time is over, then turn red five minutes before the end. When the presentation time is over, it will display a big red flashing "Off". Alternatively, the timer can be set to count up (from 0 to programmed time) instead of down.
There is also a regular clock in the upper right corner that tells you the current time.
Of course, the program is really a general count-down timer, and you can use it for all your count-down needs!
| Distribution | Source | Windows executable |
Linux executable |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sc_timer.htm | This file | X | X | X |
| *.ad[sb] | The program files.. | X | ||
| sc_timer.glade | A Glade project file used to design the GUI. | X | ||
| sc_timer | Linux executable | X | ||
| sc_timer.exe | Windows executable | X | ||
| *.dll | Gtk Dll's | X |
SC_Timer is © Adalog, 2004. SC_Timer is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This unit is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License distributed with this program; see file COPYING. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
As a special exception, if other files instantiate generics from the units of this program, or if you link units provided with this program with other files to produce an executable, these units do not by themselves cause the resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by the GNU Public License.
This program is offered with this very liberal license as a demonstration of Adalog's know-how; please do not remove the reference to Adalog in the header comment of each unit.
Please send remarks, good ideas, suggestions for improvement, etc. to rosen@adalog.fr
Compiled Windows distribution: Put sc_timer.exe and the various dll files where you please, but keep the dll's in the same directory as the executable. These dll's are for Gtk, the graphical environment used by sc_timer. If you have Gtk already installed, you may delete these files. There is no installation, and sc_timer does not use the Registry. You can uninstall the program simply by deleting all files.
Compiled Linux distribution: just put the executable where you please. Make sure Gtk-2 is installed on you system. There is no installation, no parameters, and no environment variables to set. You can uninstall the program simply by deleting the executable file.
Source distribution: you'll need an Ada compiler, withGtk and the GtkAda (at least version 2.2.0) binding to build sc_timer.Your gcc version may or may not be configured to compile Ada. If not, you can get an Ada aware gcc (called Gnat). That's the one we used to make the compiled versions. Gnat can be downloaded from many places, including SourceForge. For more information on how to get Gnat, please visit http://www.adalog.fr/freeada2.htm. Gtkada is available from http://libre.act-europe.fr.
Once you've installed Gnat and GtkAda, all you have to do is:
gnatmake sc_timer `gtkada-config`
On Windows systems, you cannot use the automatic gtkada-config utility; you'll need to replace it with the appropriate -I option. See the GtkAda user's manual for details.
If you want to change the user interface, you can use Glade, the Gtk UI builder. The file sc_timer.glade is the Glade project file that was used to generate the current user interface.
sc_timer [<total_time> [ [<notice_time>] <warning_time> ]]
The three parameters are times, specified as [MM][:SS] (i.e., 25:30 for 25 minutes and 30 seconds, or 10 for 10 minutes, or :10 for 10 seconds). The first parameter is the total time of the session (full time). If you give two parameters, the second one is the time before the end where the counter turns red (warning time). If you give three parameters, the second one is the time before the end where the counter turns yellow (notice time), and the third one is the warning time as before. Typically, if you allocate 25 minutes to your speaker, and you want the counter yellow 10 minutes before the end, and red 5 minutes before the end, you would start the program with the following line:
sc_timer 25 10 5
If you start SC_Timer without parameters, a window will pop-up to allow you to set the various times.
Several commands are available either through menus or keyboards commands (letters can be upper or lower case):
| Menu | Keyboard | Action |
|---|---|---|
| File | Quit | Q | Leave the program |
| File | Preferences | Opens a window allowing to set or change the various durations (full time, notice time and warning time). | |
| Timer | Start/Stop | S | Start the timer. If the timer is running, stops it (remaining time is not changed) |
| Timer | Reset | R | Stops the timer, and resets it to the full session time. |
| Timer | Off | O | Immediately displays the "Off" sign. |
| Timer | Add minute | 1 to 9 | From menu: add one minute to remaining time. From keyboard: add given number of minutes to remaining time. If the timer is Off, restart it with the corresponding amount of time. |
| Timer | Remove minute | -1 to -9 | From menu: remove one minute from remaining time. From keyboard: remove given number of minutes from remaining time. If more time is removed than remains, timer goes to Off state. |
| Timer | Count up | U | Count up |
| Timer | Count down | D | Count down |
| Help | Shortcuts | Shows a window telling the keyboard shortcuts | |
| Help | About | Shows a window with version number, copyright notice etc. |
If you just want an idea of how it works, we recommend that you start the program as:
sc_timer :15 :10 :5
i.e. full time = 15s., notice time = 10s., warning time = 5s. This way, you won't have to wait 25 minutes to see the effect!
Start the program with the chosen times. Normally, you would want to make the window full screen. Turn the screen to the speaker, and explain how it works. When your speaker starts to talk, press "S". When the timer goes yellow or red, you may try to attract the attention of the speaker to the screen. When it goes to Off, make big waves. If you have some time left for questions, press the key corresponding to the number of minutes (typically 5; if you need more than 9 minutes, you can press the key several times). The timer will restart, and go to Off again when the time for questions is over.
Press "R" to reset the timer for the next speaker.
If your speaker is interrupted during the talk, and you don't want to count the interruption into his time, you can press the "S" key at any time. This will suspend the count-down. Pressing "S" again will restart it.
If you have several speakers with different presentation times, you can select "File | Preferences". This will open a window that allows you to change all three times. Normally, you would use this between speakers, i.e. when the counter is not running. If you change the times while the counter is running, please note that the new notice time and warning time will take effect immediately, but the full time will take effect only after the next reset.
Note that by default, the timer counts down, showing the remaining time. You can press "U" (or select "Timer | Count up") to make it count up, showing the elapsed time. Pressing "D" (or selecting "Timer | Count dow") returns it to count-down mode. You can change mode at any time (even when the timer is running), but we do not recommend you do that when chairing a session, because your speaker would get seriously confused! On the other hand, if you use the timer for other timing needs, it may be useful to toggle between remaining and elapsed times.
Since you are the chair, it is your responsibility to be flexible with the talks. At any time, you can increase the remaining time by 1 to 9 minutes, by pressing the corresponding numeric key (or use "Timer | Add minute" from the menu). If the talk is really boring, you can also remove some of the remaining time by preceding the key with a minus (or use "Timer | Remove minute" from the menu)...
Note that keyboard shortcuts are convenient for this; you may not want the speaker to see what you are doing.
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