Q: What is Google Wave?
A:
This video should be able to answer your questions on Google Wave.
Q: What is Deadline Gadget?
A:
Deadline Gadget is a Google Wave extension I wrote. Its primary objective is simple -- calculate the amount of time until a certain set date. The calculated time will then be counted down (or up if the deadline is over) and will be automatically refreshed. You can add multiple Deadline Gadgets to construct schedules in a single wave!
Q: Any live samples of it I can check out?
A:
You can take a look at this website http://deadlinegadget.appspot.com/, it contains an embedded wave with the gadget in action!
Q: Who are you, and why are you doing this?
A:
I'm a 20-year-old engineering student with a slight (slight, yeah right) obsession in programming. My aim for writing this gadget is simple -- I do some programming as my hobby. When you like doing something, you don't really need a reason for it, right?
This gadget is written by me and me alone. However I must use this opportunity to credit several parties, including the Google Wave team for coming up with such a great product, Clarence for the Wave invite, and my friend Azzizat for the inspiration. Oh and you, if you're using it =D.
Q: Great! How do I install the Deadline Gadget?
A:
If you have Google Wave, visit this wave. If you don't, try to get one.
Q: How do I use it?
A:
Once you've installed it, a new icon should appear on your Google Wave toolbar in edit mode. Hit on it to add a Deadline Gadget. When the gadget is first added to a wave, you will be presented with a calendar and several text fields. You'll realise that it has been filled in with the gadget load time. Click on the calendar to choose the date, and use the text fields to set the deadline description and time. Note that time has a format of HHmm (military time). When you're done, hit the "Done" button at the top right corner, or click on the "Deadline Gadget" icon and text on the top left. The gadget shrinks to a small strip -- neat!
Q: My gadget is outputting lots of "NaN" gibberish!
The NaN nonsense (NaNsense?!) is caused by invalid input. Check your deadline input (especially the date) and try again. A fix for this "bug", although possible, will probably not be implemented, as it will only increase the file size of the gadget and benefit few people.
Edit: due to newer algorithms incorporated in V4 of this gadget, NaN errors should not occur too often. Please let me know if it happens, along with instructions on how to reproduce it.
Q: I've mistakenly set the deadline/description. Can I change it without having to remove and reinsert the gadget?
A:
Oh yes! Click on the your deadline (it turns blue and your cursor changes if you pause your mouse on it) and you'll be presented with the page that allows you to set the deadline -- you can then make changes to the description/deadline there. Click on the "Done" button or the Deadline Gadget text or icon to shrink the gadget.
Q: Does the gadget consume much processing power?
A:
This gadget's processor usage is rather negligible, especially if the gadget is not displaying countdown time in seconds. Your computer should be able to handle a number of Deadline Gadgets without slowing down. I've taken great care to keep processor usage to a minimum (as Google Wave itself is already very processor hungry) and future releases may see further performance tweaks.
Q: Why is the gadget so small?
A:
The gadget is designed to be as small and unobtrusive as possible. Hell, how much space should a date occupy?
Q: What browsers do you test the gadget on?
A:
For the sake of the question, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. The gadget should run fine on all major browsers, however.
Q: Will you release newer (and better) versions? How do I update my Deadline Gadgets?
A:
Oh yes. There are lots to be done, bugs to be smoothed out, exciting new features to introduce, edges to polish. Good news is: you don't have to update your gadgets! Gadgets used in waves will automatically get minor updates (thank you Google Wave!). Major updates will not be incorporated to existing gadgets, but such new versions will be used when you add the gadget via the icon.
Q: How do I uninstall it?
A:
However much I hope you don't, you can visit this wave and click on the "Uninstall" button to uninstall Deadline Gadget. Take note that this removes the Deadline Gadget icon from your Wave toolbar -- all of your waves with the Deadline Gadget will be unchanged. If you mean to delete the Deadline Gadget from your waves instead, just mouse-over the Gadget in edit mode, and a little arrow should appear. Click on it and you'll see a "Delete" option. The final step really couldn't be any more obvious.
Q: I have more questions!
A:
Just post a comment at the bottom of this blog post and keep checking back for reply! Alternatively, visit this page to post a feedback.
thanks for the credit? hahah .. and oh, nice stuff :D
ReplyDeletethanks heh. this is what i've been doing as my hobby for the past month or two.
ReplyDeleteNice gadget, have you considered adding a check box to the left of the line to signify that a task has been completed?
ReplyDeleteJumpMast3r:
ReplyDeleteFirstly let me thank you for using this gadget. Knowing that the gadget is being utilised by someone other than me gives me more motivation (and responsibility) to maintain it.
And secondly, thanks again for the simple but great idea! No, I haven't really thought of that. I'll implement it as soon as I get my exams done with, that's just a little over two weeks away ;-)
There is potential here...
ReplyDeleteI'd like to use the timer to time online meetings! or how long task take! I think I can set the time to the expected finish time of a meeting. but for tracking how long a task takes, I'd like some sore of stop and start feature with auto notation!
Bonnie:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback! I've actually thought of adding duration to the gadget, good to know someone's asking for a feature like this. For timer, however, I don't think it's suitable for the gadget. I think there are already timers available for Google Wave. Or maybe I'll write a timer as well. I'll see what I can do, =)
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ReplyDeleteThis could come to use some day.
ReplyDeleteI would really appreciate it if you could also make it posible to select a start date, because not all deadlines start today.
I hope you can give it a try!
Peet:
ReplyDeleteDeadline start date? What do you mean? Can you perhaps give me an example?
Nice that you are still online.
ReplyDeleteWell let's say I have a project i'm working on.
Today it's 2 June.
The development starts 17 June.
The deadline for the development is 28 June.
As you can see it gives you a clear view of your planning and upcomming deadlines.
Will this example give you a better understanding?
Peet:
ReplyDeleteSo you're saying you don't want the gadget to start counting down until 17th June, and on 17th June, it counts down until 28th June, and counts up after that?
Almost correct.
ReplyDeleteCounting up would be unclear.
Continuing on previous example:
The development starts 17 June.
The deadline for the development is 28 June.
Let's say for instance we are now living on 20 June. then 8 days remain till the deadline.
Now we jump further into the future and it's 29 June. oops we didn't finish on time. it should show -1 days (cause it's over due).
On 30 June it would be -2 days, and so on.
Peet:
ReplyDeleteIn this case, if it's 29th June, the gadget should say something like "1day ago", with the 'ago' coloured in red, so I'm guessing that isn't a problem. The "1day ago" message is not intended to signify that the task was completed yesterday (that's what the checkbox is for), but that the deadline was yesterday.
Thanks for your feedback, I think I get your request by now. I'll give it a thought and put it to the features wishlist. We'll see if I can come up with an option to implement the feature in an efficient way.
Okay, thank you for your time.
ReplyDeletePeet:
ReplyDeleteAnd you for your support. =)
Perhaps this is a problem with Wave itself and not with your gadget, but I've tried uninstalling it several times, and it's still in my toolbar. Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteJosh:
ReplyDeleteTry going to Settings (under Navigation) and click on the "Extension Settings" wave and uninstall it from there. Hope it helps ;-)
Nice unobtrusive gadget, but I have a slight problem. When I play back the wave, each little button click or letter typing occupies one frame of the playback, while with normal outside text you get the whole edit in one frame.
ReplyDeleteThis basically makes wave playback useless when you add a couple of deadlines, as the majority of frames does not give any useful diff.
Is that something you could do something about? Other than that, I'm happy with the look and feature-set.
vlarsen:
ReplyDeletethere's a way i can fix that, i can imagine that being very annoying for people who use the playback feature a lot. unfortunately, i'm very busy right now and may not be able to implement any new feature any time soon. thanks for your feedback, though, i'll add it to the features wishlist!