Intervals widget workaround

Intervals is a good system with a great interface, but one of the shortcomings is that there is no desktop timer widget.

Quickbooks has a timer that is a desktop application. Their timer is technically poor, but it is a lot easier to find than searching dozens of tabs to find the Intervals page with the timer running.

Up until now, the only hope was to wait for the Intervals developers to come out with the long-promised Time Tracking Widget,
https://www.myintervals.com/forum/discussion/172/time-tracking-widget/
https://www.myintervals.com/forum/discussion/265/intervals-roadmap/

But today I realized that there is a function in Google Chrome browser that allows one to create a type of widget out of any given Web page.
Here is how to combine that with the Mobile Device view of Intervals to make an improved timer experience.

1) Start Google Chrome
Get it at www.google.com/chrome

2) Open Intervals Mobile
Example URL:
https://YOURGROUP.timetask.com/m/#time/timers

Hit the Page menu (the one with the picture of a page) and hit Create Application Shortcuts. Select the options you want (in Windows, be sure to include the Quick Launch Bar -- in Windows 7, "Pin to Task Bar"), and hit OK.

3) You should now see an Intervals icon.
Clicking it will launch the Chrome window that you've 'bookmarked'.
You can now resize the window to whatever you want, then close the window.
Clicking the shortcut will open it in the same position/size that you left it.

[Windows: If you created a Start Menu shortcut in step 2, you can right-click on it and rename it Timer.]

You will notice that the Mobile window has some differences from the docked timer approach in the "Full Site" Intervals interface. I already like working with it. If you are used to similar mobile interfaces (ie, if you have an iPhone) you will be immediately comfortable with it.

Dave Smith

Here is a shot of the widget in action:

For those who are interested in running a time tracking widget on their Macs, take a look at Eon. We wrote it up in our blog at https://www.myintervals.com/blog/2011/03/02/time-tracking-for-the-mac-with-eon/. Eon is an app you can install on your Mac to track time. The data will be synced to Intervals via our API.