
Timer-Tab - vinchuco
http://www.timer-tab.com/
======
koolba
In a pre-app 2007 world, this would have been a killer web app for the v1
iPhone.

~~~
vog
Not sure why this was downvoted. This is an interesting and perfectly valid
observation.

I would go even further:

A surprisingly high number of "apps" could be replaced with web apps, where
"installation" of the app means the JS/HTML is cached in the browser, and
"upgrade" means a new version is downloaded by the browser (e.g. due to
changed ETag identifier, or whatever).

Moreover, these "apps" would have almost no access to personal user data,
which may be bad for business, but is more often that not a win from the
privacy and customer protection perspective.

~~~
desireco42
Upvote for webapps, the sooner we come back to the web, the better we will be.

~~~
notheguyouthink
Strange, i'm trying to get further from the web.

As it stands, everything i do is web related in one way or another. From
storage to home assistants to note taking and blah blah blah, they're all on
the web hosted by someone else.

I know there are a few alternatives, but none of it really makes me happy.
Currently, i'm trying to make my own home cloud, with a focus on simplicity..
but i doubt i'll succeed. I just know that nothing seems simple. I'm talking
like, single binary "can't fuck it up" simple. Because it has to be stupidly
easy to be used by my grandma, even if that means less features.

~~~
MichaelBurge
JS/HTML can be run on your own machine without needing any cloud or other
external service. You could distribute the application as a single .zip file
or something, like binary executables often are. I've seen people sell games
this way.

~~~
dingdingdang
Yep, this is not a bad idea but unfortunately browsers do not allow you access
to local storage since they do not treat the local filesystem as designated
domain paths.. which is completely super annoying & makes offline webapps a
very temporal thing since they NEED a domain name cached before you can use
them.

Note: based on my experience when hacking around with local app 2 years ago on
Chrome and FF so things may have changed?

~~~
weaksauce
You can use node if you want those kinds of permissions. Or any other general
purpose language with runtime.

~~~
Godel_unicode
Node is not exactly "can't fuck it up" simple.

------
resfirestar
If you set a timer for 5 minutes and close the tab for 30 seconds, it
continues with 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Very cool. The one thing I don't like
is using youtube embeds for the audio notification. It uses more browser
resources and data than seems necessary, and adds the minor inconvenience of
unblocking the scripts.

------
eminarslan
If you look closely you can see the magic. [http://giphy.com/gifs/timer-timer-
tab-eeJNaxWXZGMO4](http://giphy.com/gifs/timer-timer-tab-eeJNaxWXZGMO4)

~~~
Kiro
What do you mean?

~~~
airesQ
The favicon gets updated.

~~~
Kiro
I thought that was the whole point.

------
chukye
503 - Over Quota for me :(

------
mrtksn
It's very interesting in Safari on macOS when you switch to another tab. (I
guess) You can see how Safari's power saving kicks in as the counter stops
refreshing the tab title instantly after the 10th second and the next refresh
is after 10 more seconds and the intervals of refresh increase as time passes.

~~~
agumonkey
That sort of things was the reason Android was bad at Audio I believe. "logic"
first design backfired for time consistent needs. Also HTML5 music toys/apps
had a hard time (sic) working when not in focus. It either slows down, has
random tempo or just stops altogether.

------
r1ch
It saddens me that we're living in an age where a static HTML / JS website
ends up hosted on Google App Engine and can go "over quota".

------
Achshar
It's a fancy looking timer/stopwatch? Am I missing something?

~~~
jajern
I think the updating of the page title in the browser tab is the main feature.
Also, the favicon updates. So you can be doing something in another tab and
see the timer in the timer tab.

~~~
Achshar
Is it terribly difficult to update the page title if the tab is not in focus?
I guess browser pauses js interaction with DOM if the tab is out of focus.

~~~
robbrown451
I use this to deal with setTimeout() slowing down in unfocused tabs:
[https://github.com/turuslan/HackTimer](https://github.com/turuslan/HackTimer)

------
holmb
This is quite nice to throw on a screen in the NOC/SOC. However I would have
liked if it was possible to set the alarm clock via the URL.

~~~
strick
I don’t do alarms, just timers, but my site does it like this:
[http://5.minutestocountdown.com/](http://5.minutestocountdown.com/)

One nice benefit of doing the number first in the url is that the second time
you set a timer you can just type a single number and url autocomplete will
fill in the rest for you.

~~~
misterman101
Thanks for this simple tool, I'll definitely use it next time.

I broke it by putting in a non-integer number of minutes. Is this even
fixable?

------
kozhevnikov
You can also google a timer or stopwatch, but it wouldn't have any favicon
notifications.

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=5s+timer](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=5s+timer)

~~~
xnzakg
I like how you linked to a "5s" timer, but the timer is actually 5 minutes.

~~~
SparkyMcUnicorn
It looks like a bug! even changing 5s to "5 seconds" doesn't fix it

.com doesn't have this issue

[https://www.google.com/search?q=5s+timer](https://www.google.com/search?q=5s+timer)

------
zaggynl
Neat, there's also: [http://e.ggtimer.com/10](http://e.ggtimer.com/10) minutes

~~~
marvy
try again: your link goes to 10 seconds. (Might be an issue with HN link
detection algo.)

~~~
nacs
[http://e.ggtimer.com/10%20minutes](http://e.ggtimer.com/10%20minutes)

Seems they don't support underscores as a separator so you get that ugly `%20`
URL encoding of the `space` character in the URL making it look like "20
minutes" (or "10 modulo 20 minutes")..

~~~
michaelhoffman
[http://e.ggtimer.com/10min](http://e.ggtimer.com/10min) works fine too.

------
SlySherZ
For everyone getting 503 Over Quota error, check WaybackMachine:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20161209044611/http://www.timer-...](https://web.archive.org/web/20161209044611/http://www.timer-
tab.com/)

------
JorgeGT
In Chrome the Youtube video that is used as alarm sound won't play until the
tab is active, so if you are not looking at the browser and catch the tab
flashing red, you won't notice.

------
rocheio
Very cool! I made a similar tool last year that I use for Pomodoro. The
favicon tomato changes from red to green when time is up, and it only updates
the title time once a minute, but I find that to be less distracting while I'm
working.

[https://roche.io/pomodoro/](https://roche.io/pomodoro/)

------
Fluid_Mechanics
I've been using this in conjunction with Alinof Timer from the Mac App Store
for shorter deadlines (translucent overlay timer).

Pretty effective at keeping me focused when I'm exhausted/groggy.

------
wdfx
I can't get the timer to function on chrome on android. The focus jumps around
and the start button doesn't seem to work

------
desireco42
If you could do (and you can), do several timers at the same time, some people
actually need those things. Just an idea.

------
huhtenberg
Perhaps add an option of using static favicon? Favicon flickers noticeably in
Firefox when updated.

------
aq3cn
Does anyone has recommendation for terminal friendly version of timer app?

------
Numberwang
I like it!

------
Dowwie
The moment this page opened, this song played in my mind:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-
NcRmVcw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw)

