Concepts
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Advanced Tea Timing denotes the concept of exactly
specifying the time it should take before tea leaves are
separated from the surrounding hot water, by playing an
acoustic alarm when said time has passed.
In expert circles this is sometimes referred to as
the scientific art of Precision Tea Making.
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The obviously most advanced piece of software in this field
is the market-leading application TTimer,
which defines the de-facto industry standard for
precise and usable tea timing tools. Read on to learn
more about it.
Launching the Application
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Browse to the location
where TTimer is installed
and
double-click on TTimer.app to launch it.
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Note: For future convenience and easy operation
you can also drag TTimer.app to
your Dock and launch it from there.
If this is the first time you start TTimer,
you will see the Main Application Window, which is called
TTimer Control Center. As you will notice, there is
already one running TTimer, called "Darjeeling".
This is an automatic
Timer, which you can change or remove in the
Preferences Dialog.
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The TTimer Control Center is the main application window
and consists of the following parts:
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Click on the button labeled "New" in the Toolbar
or press cmd-N on your keyboard.
This will bring up the Details Drawer
in which you can edit the name and duration of your new timer.
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To remove a Timer, select it in the
Running Timers List
and click on 'Remove' in the
Preferences Toolbar.
Depending on what you configured in the
Preferences
you will or will not be asked for confirmation.
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Select a Timer in the
Running Timers List
and click on 'Pause' in the
Preferences Toolbar
or press cmp-P on your keyboard.
This will pause or resume the selected Timer.
If the Details Drawer is open,
you can additionally see and toggle the state of the Timer indicated
by the checkbox 'Paused' at the bottom of the drawer.
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Click on the Preset Timers List to view a choice of possible Timers.
Then click on one of them to start it. You can learn more about
creating your own Preset Timers in the
section about
TTimer Preferences.
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The Running Timers List
shows you all currently active timers with their remaining times.
NOTE:
You can double-click on every entry in the list to
show the corresponding Details Drawer!
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The Details Drawer lets you edit the name and duration
of the selected Timer.
To edit the name of a Timer, just click into the name and start editing.
To increase a digit, click on the '+' Buttons above it.
To decrease a digit, click on the '-' Buttons below it.
NOTE:
You can also click on the digits!
( Upper Half = Increase, Lower Half = Decrease )
The checkbox below indicates if the selected Timer
is currently running or paused and
can be checked to pause a Timer or unchecked to resume.
See Pausing and Resuming a Timer for
additional details.
Open the Preferences Dialog
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Select 'Preferences...' from the TTimer Pull-Down Menu
or press cmd-; on your keyboard. This will open the
TTimer Preferences Dialog Box which lets you
modify,
create and
remove Preset Timers.
NOTE:
Your settings are saved automatically.
No need to press a 'save' button!
The checkbox at the bottom indicates if TTimer should ask
for confirmation when removing a currently running Timer.
See Removing TTimers for
further discussion on this topic.
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Select an Item from the
Preset Timers List
and click on the Name or Start Time to edit it directly.
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The Preferences Details Drawer lets you edit the
name and duration of the selected Preset Timer.
To edit the name of a Preset Timer, just click into the
name field and start editing.
To increase a digit, click on the '+' Buttons above it.
To decrease a digit, click on the '-' Buttons below it.
NOTE:
You can also click on the digits!
( Upper Half = Increase, Lower Half = Decrease )
The checkbox below indicates if the selected Preset Timer
will be started automatically when the
TTimer Application is launched.
See Automatic TTimers for
additional details.
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Click on the button labeled "New" in the Preferences Toolbar.
This will show you the
Preferences Details Drawer
in which you can edit the name and duration of your new timer.
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To permanently remove a Timer, select it in the
Preset Timers List
and click on 'Remove' in the
Preferences Toolbar.
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Automatic TTimers are those that are started
automatically every time the TTimer Application
is launched.
Use the checkbox in the 'Auto' column of the
Preset Timers List
or the 'Autostart' checkbox in the
Preferences Details Drawer
to change this setting for your selected Preset Timer.
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When a running TTimer counts down to zero, an
audible alarm will be played in a loop
and an alert will show you the name of the
(now finished) Timer.
Click on the button labeled "Finish" or press 'Escape'
on your keyboard to stop the running alarm sound and
to close the alert box.