Alarm Popup window

[Philip Meyer]

I tried the latest state of implementation of the Radio alarm functionality.

Observations:

1. When alarm fires and window pops up, there is no indication that the *only* way to continue playing music without the alarm is to press "<-" back button. I can see why there have been numerous posts asking how to get out of the dialog (to see Now Playing screen, Clock Display, etc) without stopping the music.

2. The dialog has two options - Snooze and Stop Alarm. However, you can rotate knob to move selection above Snooze option. It's like there's a hidden option (does nothing).

3. Doesn't need Stop Alarm option, as just about anything else does a stop alarm. Having the option there means it could be pressed accidentally instead of snooze.

4. Configured alarm for 9:17, but when it fired on Radio, clock says 9:16.

[squishy]

I tried the latest state of implementation of the Radio alarm functionality.

Are we talking about the latest 7.4.2 ? or 7.5 ? I've yet to upgrade from 7.4.1 so I'm interested in whether the numerous threads on alarm issues are getting any attention.

1. When alarm fires and window pops up, there is no indication that the *only* way to continue playing music without the alarm is to press "<-" back button. I can see why there have been numerous posts asking how to get out of the dialog (to see Now Playing screen, Clock Display, etc) without stopping the music.

I've said before that I feel the menu is more pain than gain, but if it must exist, I see no reason why your preference (to keep playing) couldn't be a third option in the menu. Also seems like the intent is to allow developers to override the alarm menu via apps - so maybe you'll have to hope that this gives you the functionality you want. But for me, the radio should get the basics right, out of the box - and for me its not yet doing that.

3. Doesn't need Stop Alarm option, as just about anything else does a stop alarm. Having the option there means it could be pressed accidentally instead of snooze.

Totally agree - but seems that we're outnumbered.
Personally prefer to hit the power button to stop the alarm - although in my build (7.4.1) when you next power-on (could be days later), the alarm menu is still there. IMO this is a bug. Powering off the radio should cancel "alarm mode". Is this still the same in your build ?

4. Configured alarm for 9:17, but when it fired on Radio, clock says 9:16.

As I understand it, the server fires the alarm at the appropriate time. There are various posts about the radio clock drifting from the server time. One option might be for the alarm to act as a time-sync event. In other words, the radio would update its local clock at the moment the alarm fires, because the alarm is effectively a broadcast time.

[Philip Meyer]

I'm glad to see that Alarm Timeout=0 didn't show the alarm popup dialog and just starts music.

However, it's a bit messed up. When I tried to stop music playback, eg. press power button, it then fired the backup alarm, which cleared the current playlist.

I then also got the Radio stuck on an empty current playlist when I tried to stop the backup alarm. i.e. no navigation buttons worked at all, not even power button, so I had to turn it off at the wall socket. Turning it back on then started the backup alarm again :-(

Subsequently, when I changed the alarm start time to retest, I did get the alarm popup, even though alarm timeout is still 0 :-(


Another observation:

1. When I snooze an alarm, it stops music playback, but when I Stop Alarm, it pauses music playback! Shouldn't it be the other way round, or both options do the same (both options pause, or both options stop).

[Philip Meyer]

>> I tried the latest state of implementation of the Radio alarm
>> functionality.
>Are we talking about the latest 7.4.2 ? or 7.5 ? I've yet to upgrade
>from 7.4.1 so I'm interested in whether the numerous threads on alarm
>issues are getting any attention.
>
I am testing with 7.5/trunk.

>I've said before that I feel the menu is more pain than gain, but if it
>must exist, I see no reason why your preference (to keep playing)
>couldn't be a third option in the menu.
>
More options = less space for the time display, and harder to choose a menu action. Which is why I find it strange that the stop alarm option is there, as really the only needed action is Snooze.

>Also seems like the intent is to
>allow developers to override the alarm menu via apps - so maybe you'll
>have to hope that this gives you the functionality you want. But for me,
>the radio should get the basics right, out of the box - and for me its
>not yet doing that.
>
Yes, the functionality shouldn't be shunted out to third-party development, or at least provide better support. Having an alarm screensaver mode would be great to allow third-party extensibility, but that's not there. If there were a screensaver for alarm mode, then no third-party development would be needed for any of the various ideas/reqests that I have seen. i.e. could select alarm dialog, clock, now playing, weather report or even a blank screen.

>Personally prefer to hit the power button to stop the alarm - although
>in my build (7.4.1) when you next power-on (could be days later), the
>alarm menu is still there. IMO this is a bug. Powering off the radio
>should cancel "alarm mode". Is this still the same in your build ?
>
Yes, totally bizzare unexpected behaviour - I consider that a bug too.

[Philip Meyer]

>1. When I snooze an alarm, it stops music playback, but when I Stop Alarm, it pauses music playback! Shouldn't it be the other way round, or both options do the same (both options pause, or both options stop).

Also, if an auto alarm timeout occurs, music is paused (equivalent to Stop Alarm action), and the idle mode screensaver (clock) is displayed. If I press soft power off, and power back on, I see the current status icon initially comes up as Stopped, but immediately changes to Paused.

[simsboard]

hi!
I'm following this alarm-popup discussion also a little bit and I am quite happy that I'm not alone who thinks that this alarm-popup is not really useful

as already stated from lots other users: I would prefer to see the clock on a whole screen => thats the only thing which interests me when I have to get up in the morning :-)


but before I upgrade to a beta-version I would like to know if it is necessary to configure anything on the radio to get to the option "alarm-timeout=0"

thanks for any help!
simsboard

[Philip Meyer]

>but before I upgrade to a beta-version I would like to know if it is
>necessary to configure anything on the radio to get to the option
>"alarm-timeout=0"

The option is only available in the WebUI settings, and unfortunately is a property that applies to all alarms on the player, rather than per-alarm :-(