This is a hotfix release of SmallTime 1.8.5. The revision 1 fixes a critical bug when deleting tasks. I have taken steps to prevent this issue from happening in the future. I am again sorry for the inconvenience.
There was a breaking bug found in Smalltime 1.8.5. This version is now withdrawn and a new, properly working version will be released as soon as possible. I am sorry for the inconvenience.
the bug was identified and proper measures will be taken prevent this incident in the future
As promised earlier, SmallTime 1.8.5 brings the promised quality of life improvements. Making existing features stable and comfortable to use is my main priority before adding new features. This release was a bit delayed because of the unexpected bug which was causing the app to crash after changing DPI scaling. This was due to major backend design flow and it took some time to resolve properly. Now you will get proper user experience even on dislays which make using DPI scaling necessary.
New features and improvements
Bugfixes
With all the basic features in place for some time, there was enough room to continue polishing the existing features and keep the main focus on improving stability as much as possible.
The most noticable improvements for the upcoming SmallTime 1.8.5 are graphical task separators to keep the list of tasks more readable. AThe most noticeable improvements for the upcoming SmallTime 1.8.5 are graphical task separators to keep the list of tasks more readable. Another quality-of-life improvement is the ability to resize the app window in both docked and classical mode. The window size will persist even if you turn the app off and on again.
TThe changes deeper under the hood include more optimisation for Smalltime file handling and error messages for very obscure multithreading issues, which would probably mean that you wouldn’t even get to starting SmallTime before encountering this error everywhere else in your operating system.
While stabilizing areas where potential undefined behavior could occur, a bug causing the application to crash when DPI scaling is turned on in your system was found. This issue will be documented very soon with a workaround to prevent it. This issue will be fixed in SmallTime 1.8.5. I was planning to release the next update at the end of August as the last update for the 1.8 series, but I will publish this update as soon as possible and finish the rest of the optimizations in the 1.8.6 release.
The sThe second bug is missing support for 32K (and highier??) screen resolutions. This is due to how app width is stored, and undesired behavior may occur when resizing the window above 16K screen size. I will be investigating the latest technologies currently available on the market to see how far I should go to take care of this issue once and for a very, very long time.
SmallSkill Studio release schedule is officialy back on track and that means a new release for you!
When doing final test runs of SmallTime 1.8.4 before release, I noticed that the window had a different width when I started SmallTime with no data file. I have a plan to have SmallTime remember your last window width and always start with the window size set by you. However, there is no user interface to do so in docked window mode, and the size of the window is not yet saved when you change it in classic window mode. You can directly edit the width of the SmallTime window in the data.stf file, but I strongly advise against doing so. Unless you make a backup of your data. If you send your file to me, I will be able to fix it, depending on the amount of damage you have done, but first ask yourself if you really want some random dude on the internet to view your private personal data 🙂
Both hardware and software are not perfect, and there are nasty failures happening from time to time. I do everything to make SmallTime as easy to use as possible, and I focus on preventing the application from crashing in situations where the user does something that is not standard. However, some failures are not preventable, and the most I can do is guide anyone unfortunate enough to encounter an unrecoverable error to possible solutions that may make SmallTime operational on their machine.
This is now a work in progress and after covering the most frequent causes of non-preventable application crashes, I will focus on problems that may not appear so often. I may not be able to get a 100% error coverage, but I thing I can cover things that are most urgent before I start the next stage of customisation features.
SmallTime 1.8.3 brings small optimisations, tweaks and an important bugfix for people who travel around the world and need/want SmallTime on their laptop.
Floating window
SmallTime will be slowly turning away from the docked window as a default state next year. This is mainly because new users may not feel comfortable with docked window and may feel that something is not right. However, you will still have an option to dock SmallTime to the side of your screen. And I must say that it is the way I use SmallTime every day.
Next release of SmallTime is being delayed because the version compatibility system is still not finished. This happened due to an illnes, which prevented me from working during holidays.
Since there were some big changes, there was no compatibilty system between SmallTime 1.0 and 1.8. series. However, the upcoming compatibility system will be more robust and I can guarantee that all SmallTime releases from(and including) 1.8.2 will always have backward compatibility with future releases.
There may be some limitations to this to stop SmallTime from bloating too much, but there will always be a way to update SmallTime to the latest version without losing your data. I am not sure, what kind of limitations will I impose but it will probably be some time constraint, or range of versions. I am looking for at least the last 5 file modifications. And honestly I don’t think more file format revisions will be needed until SmallTime will be feature-complete.
Hopefully everything will be ready by the end of this month.
It looks like this:
A floating main window was a feature planned for SmallTime 1.8.2, but it was not pushed(rushed) into the release since both the UI and the application backend had some missing prerequisities to implement this. This will however change in the upcoming SmallTime 1.8.3. Since this release, SmallTime 2 (currently at version 1.8.3 in development) will be more feature-rich than the original release of SmallTime.
There is still much polishing to be done on this feature, and it may still have some rough edges at release, but it is very important for users who either don’t want the classic window snapped to the edge of their screen or have some other app snapped to the edge. For example, I have SmallTime snapped to the left edge of the screen and a music player snapped to the right side.
A next blog post will arrive shortly, explaining other improvements in SmallTime and why they are important for future releases. A release date will also be announced.
SmallTime 1.8.2 has just been released! Main focus for this version was to fix most of the bugs present in previous beta versions and fix all of the remaining performance issues. After this release a new phase of adding customisation options will begin. I hope that this release will be worth downloading for you and remember, if you find and bugs, please contact me at lubosmudrak93@gmail.com
You can download SmallTime 1.8.2 below:
Smalltime is a simple task tracker that lets you have a constant look-out for all the important tasks ahead of you. Create a task, set up a reminder and don’t worry about missing it!
Version 1.8.2 features many bugfixes and a more comfortable user experience!
New app icon:
Confirmation dialogue when deleting a task:
Dynamic size of task description field:
