Friday, March 24, 2006
Seeking beta testers
I'm looking for people willing to help me beta test the alarm clock. Especially intel mac owners. Several days prior to each release, I send out a beta version to all testers. I'm currently seeding a pre-release version of 2.2.3. There have been many improvements to this version, as well as a cool new feature! Want to know what it is? Send me an email and I'll send you the latest pre-release.
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2 comments:
I don't have my iTunes library stored locally on my PB. How about having system alert sounds as an option?
I was actually considering bundling the sample alarms within the appliction. This would be a similar setup to what you see when you choose a song to play during a slideshow in iPhoto. So you'd have "Sample Alarms" at the top, and then your iTunes library along with all your playlists right underneath it in the popup box.
Ironically, this was the original prototype. But then I switched to simply adding the sample alarms to iTunes as it made the code amazingly simpler. There are many people out there who complain about adding the sample alarms to the iTunes library. I never saw this as a big deal, but apparently many people hate adding non-music to their library. Generally my response is that the sample alarms are optional, and they don't have to use them...so if it bothers them that much, just don't use them. However, since so many people have taken the time to voice this complaint, I've been considering the solution above for quite some time.
As far as implementing the solution... it's on my TODO list, but I'll admit that it has rather low priority. Given the nature of the application, bugs are always given highest priority. I take stability very seriously. In fact, to date (after 2.2.3 is released) there are only 2 known bugs. (Digital output volume control doesn't work properly, and times don't automatically adapt when users change their time zone) I'm already working on fixes for these, and plan to have them worked out by 2.2.4.
As far as a solution for you today, I have an idea for you. There are several programs out there that allow you to switch between multiple iTunes libraries. With the click of a button, you could easily switch between a new library containing songs on your computer, and your original library with songs on your external drive (or wherever it may be located). The applications take care of all the background work (which could easily be done by hand, but why bother when such applications exist.) I can see such an application being useful to you in general, given your setup. It also creates separate "iTunes Music Library.xml" files, where your new one would reference only the music on your computer, which you could then specify to the alarm clock application to use. (For instructions on how to do this, see my FAQ on my website)
So I've written a little more here then I intended too, but this question hit upon questions that others have had, so I thought I'd try to elaborate on some of the issues. Hope I've answered your questions, and found a suitable solution for the time being. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to post them, or email me.
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