Time left in the title

May 31, 2007 12:55 PM

Programmable timer in browser title?

Know where there's a programmable timer that shows the results in the title of the browser?

I'd like to put an hour on a timer, be able to have a bunch of windows open, put that one in the back of them all and be able to gaze up at the top of my screen to see the countdown of how much time is left.

Or, a firefox extension that somehow did it would work too, though there doesn't seem to be a decent looking one that puts it in the title.

I don't want to have to download anything.

posted by cashman to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Here's something really simple I threw together with Javascript: feel free to lift and modify it to your heart's content. I'll probably tweak with it later to make it more customizable:

sixty minutes, go!

Hey, this is pretty cool, actually. Good idea.
posted by myrrh at 2:16 PM on May 31, 2007 [4 favorites]

Neato! Bookmarked. Thanks for tweaking! I appreciate it, especially if it ends up being programmable. Awesome. Frankincense aint got nothin on you.
posted by cashman at 2:28 PM on May 31, 2007

something I didn't even know I needed.... thanks.
posted by Jahaza at 6:24 AM on June 1, 2007

I have been using this all day. If anyone knows how to make it programmable.... It's already helping me with productivity but I'd love to be able to set it to a specific time.
posted by cashman at 7:56 AM on June 1, 2007

I'm flattered - glad it's useful!

I made a couple little changes: cleaned up the display, you can now specify how many minutes to count down, and the page sets a session (non-persistent) cookie to remember how many minutes you last used.

Any other features you had in mind? I'll add a check box to turn off/on the alert box when the time runs out.
posted by myrrh at 4:10 PM on June 1, 2007

Thank you! This is perfect. For background, sometimes I procrastinate if there isn't a deadline over my head.

I typically turn out good work, but it comes at the last minute when I know doing anything else is not an option. So I figured for me, when I am working and I can have that timer in the background, showing me how much time I have allotted myself to complete a task, it will improve my productivity. I set my timer and I'm under deadline to churn out some work. No downloading required.

Thanks again, myrrh.
posted by cashman at 6:51 AM on June 2, 2007

Just heard about this via the podcast. Really nice, myrrh. You should try to get this posted to Lifehacker or similar.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:05 PM on June 15, 2007

This is why the Internets is my mostest favourite place in town.
posted by qwip at 5:09 AM on June 20, 2007

This is a great little piece of code. Thanks, cashman, for thinking of it, and thanks myyrh for writing it!
posted by potch at 11:04 AM on June 20, 2007

btw: i've been lifehackered.

also, i added query string parsing, per request of a lifehacker commenter, so you can now go to timer.html?minutes=15, for example, or put whatever number you'd like in there to create a customized bookmarklet.
posted by myrrh at 12:32 PM on October 1, 2007

Ahh, Mister Larsen, you and your webserver have a nasty habit of surviving.

But seriously. Nifty little script you have there, M.
posted by lx at 2:21 PM on October 1, 2007

myrrh, you've got a nasty case of the Awesome.
posted by cashman at 4:08 PM on October 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

And on it spreads. Book of Joe picked it up.
posted by cashman at 2:35 PM on October 11, 2007