BellTime manual



Introduction
Installation
The concept with pages and slots
The tools
Advanced alarm tools
Detailed slot setting
Settings
5-Way navigation and keyboard

Introduction:

BellTime is a multi featured clock that will use much less memory than you would expect, while at the same time providing unique customizable capabilities. There are two versions included in the download. The first is a freeware version (Lite) that does have some limitations. The second is the Full version which will be addressed by this manual. Actually BellTime is a very user friendly and intuitive application.

Installation:

BellTime should be installed as any other downloaded application for the Palm. After unzipping using the utility of your choice (WinRar or WinZip), double click on the “prc” file and HotSync your device. Be sure it will be installed in internal RAM (Handhold), not external card.

The concept with pages and slots:

The Pages: There are three or four very customizable pages depending on your screen size. You have the choice to modify the layout and display up to 20 slots of varying information. To begin configuring a slot, click on the little square on the right side of the slot. This will bring up the “Slot Dialog”.
In the header you can select one of the 4 pages. With "Skinning" from the menu define what you like to see in the header like the time or the date. If you see a letter "S" in the header, there is a pending snooze you can cancel by tapping it.

Slot dialog: Here you can pick one of the tools. Remember, some tools need more than one slot, so you cannot asign them to some of the lower slots.
The most logical choice to begin would be your clock on page 1. Begin this by clicking on “Tool”, and choosing what type of clock you wish.

The tools:


Digital clock: Tap on the digits to zoom in or out.

Needs 2 slots.

Analog clock with Flash: Tap on one of the digits of the clock face for an alarm within the next 60 minutes. Flash alarm means “one touch” setting and starting of an alarm! Fine tunning can be done with + and - and canceling with 0 or just toggle one and the same digit serial.
Needs 4 slots.

Daily alarm: Click on the first digit and you will see the touch pad pop-up. Select the times desired and press “OK” Choose a unique text for the alarm by clicking on the “alarm” text and writing your own. To activate an alarm merely click on the open circle to the left of the screen.

Single alarm: Same as the daily alarm but without repetition.

Weekly alarm: Tap on the days. If a letter is visible, the alarm is active for that day.

Simple timer: Tap on the numbers to set a time and start by pressing the circle on the left side.

Egg timer: Like with the “flash alarm” you need only one tap on one of the digits to set your alarm.

Needs 4 slots.

Event monitor: Shows the next BellTime alarm. Tap the middle of the slot to switch between date/time format and countdown format.
If you select External events after installation, it shows the first coming event of each app. Tap the upper line to zap all apps with events and tap the lower line to suppress particular apps. If you set slot locking you can only zap apps.
With this tool you can also set the brightness of your device by tapping the left and right side of the slot. (Set the minimal brightness in Menu > General Settings)

Big buttons Timer and Stopwatch: First set one of 3 modes: CU for count up, CD for count down, SW for stopwatch.

Set time & date: Set the time and tap “now!” to change the system time. Tap the day to change the date.

Time zone: Using this tool will display the time for any city you select from the World Clock. The time displayed at the left side, is the real time including Daylight Saving Time (DST) correction if appropriate. The number under the city name shows the real time difference in hours from your home location. On the left side of the display some symbols can appear; A “sun” means the city has DST active and “TM” means tomorrow.

Time zone setting: This tool uses the built in World Clock of the Palm OS. Simply tap the box with the city name and under the city name you should see G+ or G- (the difference with Greenwich Mean Time) and a number of arrows (left, right, and down). Left (west direction) and right (east direction), when pressed, will allow you to choose another time zone. The down arrow will let you choose a different city in this same time zone. You may add a city that isn’t on the list by going to Palms’ “World Clock” and clicking on the down arrow, going to the end of the list and choosing “Edit List”. There you may rename, add or even delete a city. The added city will show up in BellTime the next time you configure the selected Time Zone slot.


Advanced alarm tools:


Bi-weekly alarm: The 2-Weekly alarm work like the normal weekly alarm but now the repeating period is 2 weeks instead of one week. It would be easier to understand if it looked like this:
- M T W T F - - M T W T F - with just one time to set. But it can more. You can set one alarm time for the first week and another time for the second week. Lets take an example: In one week you have to get up on weekdays at 7:00, the next week at 9:00 and so on. Now, it is important to know in which week we live to day. That's why there is a square box on one of the days: It's TODAY. If you want the 7:00 am alert in the current week and the today box is in the lower line you enter everything as in the screenshot. Of course you can do also simpler things like one event occurring just one time every 2 weeks.
Needs 2 slots.


Period selected alarm: Toggle between "Alert only", "Supress" and "Regular".    "Alert only from day A till day B" means, only in this period you get alerts on the days specified by S M T W T F S. Before and after the period you get no alerts at all.    "Suppress from day A till day B" means, your weekly alarms works like normal but you will not get alerts in the period from A till B. You typically use this to set out your vacation etc.     "Regular" works like a normal weekly alarm.
Needs 2 slots.


Interval timer: You have to set
1. An interval. (from one minute up)
2. The time of the day for the first alert.
3. The time the last alert may ring.
You can use this to take your meds every x hours and minutes. To make a chime use this tool together with "Action = Sound only" and pick a short Midi sound or short MP3 tune.
Needs 3 slots.


Detailed slot setting:


Back to the slot dialog:
The slot dialog is strictly hierarchical and subsequent drop downs will vary, so always start from the top of the screen and work down from there.
For any of the tools with alarm funtions you may select one of following “Actions” to do at alarm time: The “Sound” drop down leads to further choices to select how you wish your alarm sounds to be handled. Make a choice between Midi or one of the MP3 players.
Select the alarm sound you wish from the following drop down.

MIDI: The “Play” x times with a gap of x seconds allows you to make a repetition of a short midi sound. By setting Play = 4x or higher and a low starting volume and a higher ending volume you make in effect a crescendo.

MP3: If you have an MP3 player supporting volume setting on the fly, you can also make a crescendo here by setting “Swell” and “delay”. In the example the sound will reach it maximum volume in 16 seconds. If you use auto-snooze, subsequent alarms will sound constantly with the end volume.
For MP3 there is a fallback to the midi sound of the slot, in case your SD card is missing or the battery is low.

If you wish to have more slots with the same general configuration, click on “Copy” and proceed.


Settings:

The following forms are reachable from the menu.


Menu > General settings
The choices:

Menu > Alarm settings The choices:

Menu > Skinning Just tap one of the red dots to change the underlying component. Use the two dots at the top to change the total appearence of the panel.



Menu > Colors Again, this screen is very self explanatory. Just tap the colored circles. Remember that the color choices will change depending upon which page you choose. It probably is best to completely configure BellTime before changing colors. This may help avoid rechanging them. Make sure to press “OK” after changing colors on each page. If you have chosen the analog clock and do not wish to show the battery graph, make it the same color as the background.

5-Way navigation and keyboard:


Where at the panel 5-Way navigation or keyboard Operation
headerleft/right toggle pages
header or slot down walk slots
slot up jump to header
key S set up slot
alarm slot center on/off alarm
right open touch-pad ..... select days of week
left enter note
set time & day center set day
analog clock/egg timer center on/off alarm
right increment 5 minutes
left decrement 1 minute
big buttons timer stopw right enter value (if timer)
center start/stop
left reset
timezone center toggle edit mode
     in edit mode left/right select timezone
     in edit mode down select city in timezone
if touch-pad visible left cancel
right select digit
up/down set digit
center ok
keys 0 until 9 enter time (on Centro)
key A am (on Centro)
key P pm (on Centro)
The circle alert 5-Way Navigation Operation
up snooze
down clear alarm