Pomodoro App 1.3

We're pleased to announce that today Pomodoro App 1.3 was accepted in the App Store and should be available soon. The update brings a number of changes:

• In previous versions of Pomodoro App, you had to add new activities always at the top of the list and editing took place within the list. We changed this design by moving the input field to a popover, which floats above the list near the upper border of the keyboard. The list itself can be used to select the insertion point of a new activity. If no activity is selected, new activities are added at the top of the list; if an activity is selected, new activities are added below this activity. You can also change the order of the activities.
  
• Tapping the number of Pomodoros (or the play icon when the timer is running) brings up a revised status popover. This popover shows the number of Pomodoros and the number of each internal and external interruptions. You can expand all three lists to see the time when a Pomodoro was executed or an interruption was added. You can swipe an entry to delete it. Interruptions also have a detail view to add a comment to the interruption and create an activity out of this comment.
  

• We completely redesigned the settings view to give you more options for customizing the app:

  • Choose between 4 different fonts: Bradley Hand ITC, Chalkboard, Helvetica and Marker Felt
  • Change the default length of Pomodoros and breaks to up to 60 minutes
  • Choose to let the ticking sound continue even if the app is in the background (iOS 4.2 only)
  • Activate auto-archiving to move activities out of Today's list when the day changed
  • Export and import your list of activities as a JSON file to Dropbox
  

  The Dropbox features is the first step to a sync solution betweens different devices. In its current state, it exports the complete database of Pomodoro App as a JSON file to the directory "Pomodoro" in your Dropbox. If the directory does not exist, it will be created. Each device writes its own file and uses the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) as the filename. The import reads all JSON files from the same directory in order of the file's modification date. It will create new activities, but not delete any activities. Duplicate activities will be overwritten with the data in the JSON file, e.g. the number of Pomodoros will be reset to the previous value. If an activity exists in more than one JSON file, the newest file wins.

  We are aware that this is not a complete solution, but we thought it is already useful enough to release it to our customers, e.g. if you want to move to a new device. We are already working on to extend this feature for real over-the-air sync.

• Last but not least, we added two options to the archive to export the complete archive and to remove already exported activities from the archive. The idea behind this is that you export your archive once a month or quarter for your records as either a formatted e-mail or a CSV file. The activities are then and only then marked as "exported", i.e. the daily reports do not count as an export. Afterwards you can delete all exported activities from the archive.

As usual, we'd love to hear from you. If you find a bug or have an idea for a feature, please leave a comment or give us feedback via our contact form or email.

Comments

[Vauha27]

Great, nicely done.

Please add MobileMe Support.

tia

[Dani]

Very nice update! Keep up the good work!

Please, add some Toodledo sync. Importing e.g. starred tasks and storing the pomodoros spent on them in the Length or Timer field would be PERFECT for my workflow -and hopefully for many others, too! ;)

Greetings,
Dani

[Mariusz]

Just purchased your app. Guys you did a fantastic job on it. Nice gestures and a very clean and intuitive user interface. I like it a lot :-)
Now, I have to do my work :-D

Cheers
Mariusz

[Jashan]

Wow - this is really an awesome app!!! I've been using it all day long and it really rocks! The only limitation I find really annoying is that there's currently no easy way to combine multiple activities that are "less than one pomodoro" into a single pomodoro ("If it lasts less than one pomodoro, add it up"). I wouldn't even mind if I could just drag one activity "over another" and then have the texts combined for a start. Best, however, would be if there was a way of baching / unbatching the activities (I think batching was mentioned in the comments of the original announcement blog posting). Reason why having a way of combining multiple entries into one "batch" but still having the separate entries would be really helpful is because I have a couple of "small tasks" that repeat daily. In other words, what I'd like to be able to do: Have a couple of separate short entries in the Activity Inventory and put them to the To Do Today list. Then, combine those into one or more "batch pomodoros". Once the pomodoro is completed, I'd like to be able to decide for each "single activity" (i.e. part of the batch) whether I want to reuse it, archive it, or delete it. I think with that, the Pomodoro App would be perfect and my new favorite iPad app!