Timer reminder

[jadiazrod]

Hello Guys...
I'll go straight to the point.
The project is to have a reminder which remains hidden until the time is up... when it should become visible on the screen...
I rather try to stay away from MS apps like desktop notes & notifications since most of their apps require signing in and synch e-mails, accounts, User privileges, etc.... ( We deal with Sensitive Customer & Manufacturer Data )
I've been researching / reading lots of post about this topic... even went over the 31 pages where Yincognito, Balala, Death,Crafter and sl23 contributed back in 2021... but Lua Scripting, Time stamp formulas, Variables etc... are kind of complex... ( I think that was the reason why that mentioned post got so large )... besides, most of the timers skins stay visible on the screen and track Hours, minutes & seconds.
Here at the shop we have to keep track of customers, warranty repairs, parts ordered, approvals, rejections, pieces ready to pick up, etc...
it would be very helpful having a reminder on the screen... lets say working on a weekly or daily bases...
For instance, Ordering parts on Monday and being reminded if parts have not arrived yet a week later... ( Starting event, Timer , Ending event )
Calling customers on Tuesday to pick their stuff up and have a reminder 3 - 5 days later in case they haven't show up so they will get a call again...
I think it will require a skin for each event... and something that won't take much computing resources...
Can some one point me to the right direction... ?
Is there a Skin already made I can start experimenting with...?
Thanks in advance

[SilverAzide]

Rainmeter can do a lot of cool stuff and I'm sure skins could be created that do what you are asking. But, not to take anything away from Rainmeter, are you sure you want to run a business with what is essentially a hobby program? For example, Microsoft Outlook can do all those things, and there must be even better dedicated business software that does exactly what you want. Obviously, Rainmeter has a price advantage for being free and all (and it's a lot more fun to tinker with), but you're going to spend so much time tweaking skins or data files to track dates and times that it seems somewhat counter-productive.

[Yincognito]

Can some one point me to the right direction... ?
Is there a Skin already made I can start experimenting with...?

Like SilverAzide pointed out, this is possible in Rainmeter (a bit trickier when handling entirely dynamic data) or using Lua (and its very convenient tables). The problem here is not the possibility, but the fact that it's you who should be building this, in order to be fully aware of how things work and because you know best the details of what you need. This requires a deeper understanding of Rainmeter and / or Lua and the time you take to get to that understanding adds up and delays the moment when you can safely say that such a skin works as you want. A direction or a similar skin would help, but won't be enough, you'd still have to adapt it to suit your objective. Bottom line, it depends on your dealines (if you have them) - if they come soon, it's better to look for something already made and working out of the box for your purpose; if they are flexible, it's better, but it would still involve quite a bit of work to make it right. So ... which one is it?

[jadiazrod]

Thanks for answering guys...

I understand your concerns about the business side...
We already diched Outlook out... so many problems synching folders with the server and loosing the server credentials every time windows updates take place or when the PC reboots... ( for some reason it stores Yahoo.com as SMTP and POP for incoming and outgoing mail).... we did created new profiles over and over, even after Windows fresh installation but instead of storing Verizon.net credentials always went back to Yahhoo.com...
Stand alone Quick books is our main Customer Database so I think we got that part cover... but for reminders either Business Pro or the Enterprise Versions... again you're right... price against benefit is something to consider...
It seems everything now require a MS account or Google account to go through... from cellphones to Tablets to smart streaming boxes...
My ignorance in this field made me believe in some kind of gadget which could be part of Rainmeter... it may be possible but like you guys mentioned... very deep knowledge on the Rainmeter or Lua language is needed...
Thanks again for all your help...
have a nice weekend...

[Active Colors]

I can't name any skins or apps that exactly deal with reminders. I also have checked quite a lot of task management apps and most of them simply sucked in many ways.

The only simple Windows native apps without any internet dependency or feature overload that I know of are these:
https://cresstone.com/apps/ToDo/
https://www.horstmuc.de/wrem.htm

I know your pain about online tools as I tried them before and they were laggy and unreliable. However, I have recently found several indie apps that worked for me well:
https://lunatask.app (I use personally)
https://columns.app
https://timestripe.com

[balala]

The project is to have a reminder which remains hidden until the time is up... when it should become visible on the screen...

I recommend a skin of mine (yep, this again is a self-promotion), part of my Mirage suite (recommend the last version, 1.3). It doesn't exactly do what you want, but can be modified, just try it out first if you want. The skin is the Mirage\Timer\Timer.ini skin. It has four tabs, from which you probably should use either Timer (you can set a time, which when is reached, triggers an action) or Countdown (as the name says, you can set a period and when starting, the skin counts down until 0, in which moment it triggers the proper action).
Please if interested, try out the skin and let me know if it looks like what you need for. If it does, I'll modify to exactly match your need.

[Yincognito]

I agree on bigger companies trying to grab all sorts of things from their customers and producing partly trash that are more marketing than truly useful for various purposes, but there are still smaller and medium companies that make actual quality products. It's not that doing this in Rainmeter requires a very deep knowledge, it's the fact that it requires enough knowledge to be able to handle the result yourself.

I happen to have recently completed a Lua timer (probably somewhat similar to balala's from what I can tell), but although it's in fact based on "events" like reset, start, split, pause, alarm and "states" like busy or idle, it's obviously focused on timing on a smaller, sports-like scale, with a single (and not many dynamic) "thread" where events and states succeed and alternate one another in a single "timeline". Hiding and showing things is not difficult, and neither is the code, at least in my case (just one page Rainmeter skin and around 35 lines in Lua with just 7 of them actually doing the work with the rest simply setting "states" on mouse clicks), but it's making it handle multiple (and of an unknown number of) timelines - like what you'd have if a customer ordered stuff on Monday, other three ordered on Tuesday at different hours, another ten ordered in the rest of the week's work days and such - that creates some needed changes that I'm not sure how well they would be handled in either native Rainmeter code or Lua without making the said code too complex and easily accessible and understandable to the regular Rainmeter user.

Bottom line, the situation is roughly like wanting to ride a bicycle or drive a car in the city without previously riding or having the proper driver license - to be straightforward about it. While for artistic and even mildly technical purposes that would be fine, for business purposes where you need to be flawless for obvious economic reasons, that could become slightly problematic in certain cases...

[Active Colors]

I think this app is cool. No modern interface, native simple Windows UI, works offline, pro version is a one-time payment based:
http://www.desktop-reminder.com/

Another in the similar vein but free:
https://www.abstractspoon.com

And more:
https://www.dextronet.com/task-list-guru
https://www.dextronet.com/swift-to-do-list-software

[eclectic-tech]

After seeing your post, I thought this was an interesting idea...

Besides the suggestions above, and the fact Rainmeter is not recommended for business systems due to its intentional lack of any security, I created a Reminders skin package that will show popup messages at a defined date and time.

There are 4 separate reminder folders that can be expanded to any number of reminders by copying & pasting one of the folders and renaming it by increasing the number by 1(actually you could name it anything since all the code is in the file).

If there is no active reminder set when the skin is loaded, the skin will prompt you to input month, day, year, hour, minute, and reminder message.
Press 'Enter' after each entry.
To enter a new line in your reminder, press 'Ctrl+Enter' and continue typing; you will only see the current line, but all the typing will be inputted until you press 'Enter'.

A confirmation window will show the reminder settings; left click to set the reminder. A window will appear for 15 seconds showing the reminder settings.

If a reminder was already set on the skin and it has not yet happened, the skin will show that reminder setting for 15 seconds and offer to clear with a left click so you can enter a new reminder for that skin.

Information is not lost if the system restarts, or the skin unloaded/reloaded; the skin(s) will run in the background until the date and time are met and the reminder displayed. You can see them in the 'Active skins' list of the Manage window.

The inputting is set to 'Normal' screen positioning. The reminder message is set to be 'Topmost' so it should appear above any active windows. The message will remain until you left click the message.

Inputting a reminder

reminderinput.gif

Reminder displayed

reminderoutput.gif

Rmskin Package

Reminders_1.2022.02.20.rmskin

Edit: v1.2022.02.20 - added chime.wav on activation and modified existing reminder warning background color to 'yellow'

[Yincognito]

After seeing your post, I thought this was an interesting idea...

Nice sample!
It might just be that this area deserves some more comprehensive skins to be built. Like the OP said, most are relatively basic reminders correlated with holidays, classic timers, etc. , but less or none are focused on multiple, dynamic and concurrent reminders...