iTaf - 2.0

Okey, my first reaction when I found this update was "YES, IT'S BACK". For a very long time iTaf used to be my preferred alarm clock on my 10.3 system. But after a few OS updates it started to show some worrying failures, stoppin to work at all once I moved to 10.4 . After many unanswered emails I gave up on this little wonder, turning to competitors.
And now it's back with a vengeance ? Not quite yet !
Here's a few of my thoughts:

1. The preferences: The first tab where you choose what has to be done with iTunes after the alarm stops seems a bit unnecessary. This could easaly be integrated in the place where you actually set the alarm, as there are other options there, e.g. turn off the computer etc.

2. Same thing goes for the maximum system volume setting. This should also be found within the options when setting an alarm, not in the the preferences, as I would like to be able to set it differantly for each alarm.

3. I'de rather see something in the preferences like a series of default settings, who are set whenever I make a new alarm, e.g. default playlist, default maximum volume, etc.

4. Main window GUI: I'm not sure about the buttons on the right side. They look sort of sloppy. I'de rather see some slick aqua buttons on top or at the bottom, like the ones you see in e.g. Mail.app .
I do not see at all the use of setting transparency of the main window as we are generally in bed when iTaf is launched.

5. Setting the alarm: the first time i set the days to wake me i actually skipped the days I wanted and set the alarm on the days I want to sleep out. So there is some room for improvement. Personally I'm all for normal check boxes.

6. Stop alarm after: okey this is definately a good thing. It can stop the alarm whenever I'm accidently not at home so it won't drive the neighbours nuts. But I think it should be optional as I may want to wake up to work at home and leave the music playing.

7. Playlist: there seems to be a bug here. Whenever I have saved an alarm, quit iTaf, relaunch it and open my alarm settings, iTaf refreshes the playslist and is set on "Library". In other words, if I change somthing in my settings and do not choose again my playlist, it will play from my complete library, where hard techno is actually the majority. My neighbours will definately prefer this over my calm soothing classicalk music...

8. Volume: didn't I set this in the preferences already ? Well, I presume this setting is for the iTnues volume, contrary to the one in the preferences wich is for the system volume. As said before, these should be put together.

9. Repeat, Visuals, Shuffle, Fade In: Again, I would prefer simple check boxes. On top of that, in the previous version of iTaf, I remember I was able to set the start volume and the length of time over wich the fading in should be accomplished. These options are gone, I believe, for the sake user friendlyness. However I would love to see to options back in. The best would be if we could choose between the default settings, as they appear now, and the fully customisable ones.

10. Stop options: again, the settings I found in the preferences should come here !

11. Some things I would like to see in future releases:

- a menu item: as I have been using Alarm Clock for quite some time before this iTaf update came out, I became quite accustomed to having a small logo in the menu bar wich showed if there was an alarm coming up for the newt day. It give me as a user the relaxed feeling that I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning when I should. More than that, it could give easy acces to the iTaf application, and a shortcut to setting a new alarm, through a dropdown menu.

- in the alarm settings, I would like to have a calendar option where i can select the days where iTaf should NOT wake me up. We all have national bank holidays and it's a horror to wake up at 6:30 becuz you forgot to turn iTaf off. And even if one doesn't forget to turn his alarm off, there is the ever impending risk of forgetting to turn it back on. I believe this option would make iTaf very unique.

- In the same concept, I would like to have a "skipp the next alarm" in my menu item (mentioned higher above). That way, if I decided to take a day off tomorrow, a simple click on it will cancel my wake up call for the next day, but will wake me up again the day after.

Okey, that's all for now. I will mail these comments to the developper himself and hope he will do something with it !

Cheers,

Björn