---

Version History — Version 3.1

---

Back to the Main UTC Global Clock Page — History Main Page

We also have an illustrated page with the Highlights of Version 3.1.

Version 3.1 — 19 December 2008:

Highlights

• Chime and AppleScript Scheduling
• Show/Hide Windows menu
• Calendar Options window
• Mute Chimes for specified duration
• Define unlimited hourly chimes
• Saved Timers and Stopwatches
• Chime Sets that may be loaded and saved
• Stack screen corner displays horizontally and vertically

Contents

• General Improvements
• Calendars
• Hourly Chimes
• Preferences Window
  • General
  • Application Preferences Tab
  • Time Displays Tab
  • Dock Preferences
• Stopwatches
• Time Displays
• Timers
• Installer and Internet Update
• Bug Fixes

General Improvements

• New feature: Chime and AppleScript Scheduling.
  • Access the Scheduling window by selecting Chime and AppleScript Scheduling... from any time display menu or from UTC Global Clock’s Edit menu. An unlimited number of events may be defined, and event options include:
    
    • Run AppleScript at the Specified Time
      Place any AppleScripts you wish to schedule into a folder named "AppleScripts" (without the quotation marks). The AppleScripts folder must be in the same folder as UTC Global Clock.
      
    • Change to a specific Chime Set
      
    • Change to the next Chime Set alphabetically
      Change to a random Chime Set that is not the current one
      
    • Turn Chimes on
      
    • Turn Chimes off
  • Scheduling is suspended when the Edit Hourly Chimes window or the Scheduling window is open. If the machine is sleeping or off (or UTC Global Clock is not running) at a scheduled event’s time, the most recent unimplemented event executes when UTC Global Clock or your system resumes. The only exception to this is a Run AppleScript event with the option Run this AppleScript only at the specified minute enabled, in which case the missed event does not execute if the system resumes after the scheduled minute.
  • UTC Global Clock looks for AppleScripts in /Library/Scripts/UTC Global Clock Scripts/ folder in addition to the AppleScripts folder alongside UTC Global Clock.
• New Feature: Show/Hide Windows menu, with submenu, in all time display menus. This menu lets you control the visibility of the following window types: Screen Corner Time Displays, the Multiple Timer Window, Independent Stopwatch Windows, the Multiple Stopwatch Window, and Quick Calendar Windows.
• Updated help tags throughout application.
• Non-administrative users may now change Dock icon visibility and write to the Shared Preferences File. Changing the Dock icon visibility features an automatic quit and re-launch to finish the operation if desired. An administrator's password is required only if running from a non-administrative account.
• Changed Purchase... menu entries to Purchase UTC Global Clock or Enter Registration Code...

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Calendars

• New Feature: Calendar Options accessed through the Preferences window's Application Preferences tab: Calendar Options... button. Changing calendar options immediately displays the results in all menus, Quick Calendar Windows, and sample calendar displays.
  • The Calendar Options window contains three tabs: Time Display Menus, Quick Calendar Windows, and Colors, which are described below:
    • Time Display Menus Tab: This controls how calendars appear in all Time Display menus. Select no calendar menu, the current month's calendar, or a "continuous” (multiple-month) calendar. Show a variety of calendar styles in the calendar submenu. View your changes in real time.
    • Quick Calendar Windows Tab: This controls how calendars appear by default in all Quick Calendar windows.
    • Colors Tab: This area lets you specify the colors that UTC Global Clock uses in drawing Single-Month and Continuous calendars.
• Quick Calendar Windows:
  • The Quick Calendar windows may now be resized. Window updates in live resize fashion. The last resized or moved Quick Calendar window is used as the basis for the next such window you open, so that new Quick Calendar windows open at the desired size and location on screen.
  • Quick Calendar Windows now contain a Continuous checkbox, which may be used to toggle between single-month view and continuous calendar view, regardless of the default setting specified in the Calendar Options window.
  • Quick Calendar Windows now contain a Week of Year checkbox, which may be used to toggle the display of weeks of the year along the right side of the calendar, regardless of the default setting specified in the Calendar Options window.
  • Quick Calendar Windows now display the selected day of the year in the lower-right corner of the window.
  • Single month calendars and smaller continuous calendars will scale to fit the Quick Calendar display area. Continuous calendars that are too tall to fit the display area will appear truncated in the vertical dimension, and you may use the sample display's scroll bar or your mouse's scroll wheel to view different parts of the calendar.
  • You may now change the displayed date as follows using keyboard equivalents.
  • You may now also select the New Quick Calendar... menu item from UTC Global Clock's File menu.
  • Quick Calendar Windows summoned from UTC Global Clock's File menu include a button captioned Today, which returns the calendar to the current local computer date. Quick Calendar windows summoned from a Time Display menu include a Time Display Date button, which returns the calendar to the current date of the Time Display from which the window was summoned (this is its "parent Time Display").
  • When a Quick Calendar window matches the date of its parent Time Display, the window title changes to "Date for Time Display (x)," where (x) is the name of the parent Time Display (you can change Time Display names in the Preferences window). If there is no parent Time Display, and the Quick Calendar date matches the current date, the window title reads "Quick Calendar for Today." In any other situation, the window title reads "Quick Calendar for (date)," where (date) is the current short date format you have defined in System Preferences.
  • Quick Calendar date highlights now match your system's highlight color.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Hourly Chimes

• An unlimited number of hourly chimes may now be defined.
• New Feature: Mute chimes for a specified duration
  • When chimes are enabled, the menu command Suspend Chimes... becomes available in the Chimes submenu of any time display, as well as the Chimes submenu of UTC Global Clock’s Edit menu.
  • Chimes may be suspended for any duration between 30 seconds and 7 days.
  • When chimes are suspended, the time remaining appears in the Chimes submenu.
  • Chimes may be resumed by selecting Resume Chimes from any Chimes submenu.
  • Once Chimes have been suspended, UTC Global Clock adds another menu item to allow quickly suspending chimes again for the same duration.
• New Feature: Chime Sets
  • Chime Sets are simply collections of chimes that let you switch between different sound “themes.”
  • Three Chime Sets are included with UTC Global Clock: Alerts, Cuckoo Clock, and Little Ben.
  • Activate a Chime Set from the Edit Hourly Chimes window’s "Chime Sets..." pop-up menu.
  • The menu also lets you create new Chime Sets, replace existing Chime Sets, edit Chime Sets, and return to the default Chime Sets.
• New Feature: Chime Sets Disk Files.
  • Chime Sets may now be saved to disk or loaded from a disk file via the Edit Chime Sets window.
  • Double-clicking a Chime Sets file in the Finder is another way to load the Chime Set(s) contained in the file.
  • Chime Sets files contain all sound data for the enclosed Chime Sets, so that you don't have to include the sound files when sharing Chime Sets files.
  • When loading a Chime Sets file, any included sound files are placed in your Custom Sounds folder, if it exists and is writable. Otherwise, you are given the choice of placing the sound file(s) in your User’s Sounds folder, or placing the files in a new Custom Sounds folder.
• Edit Hourly Chimes window:
  • Multiple chimes for any minute value may be defined. Drag chimes in the listing to change their playing order.
  • Added Actions... pop-up menu with the following options: Add New Chime, Load Default Chimes, Delete Selected Chime, and Delete All Chimes.
  • Added built-in sounds Cuckoo, Little Ben Hour Chime, and Little Ben Top to support the default Chime Sets
  • Added Play next sound... control which allows a new sound to start playing before the current sound has finished playing.
  • Chime(s) for a given minute value may now be previewed.
  • Added Load Default Chimes... button, which plays the system alert at :00, :15, :30, and :45
  • The Volume slider may be set between “silent” (no chimes play) and “loudest” (system volume level) in 255 steps.
  • Selecting a new sound (or closing the window) stops the currently playing sound, if necessary.
  • Adding a new chime now populates the chime's sound name with that of the selected chime, if any, as well as its minutes value.
  • Added Edit > to Chimes list box, to graphically indicate that selecting a chime allows one to edit its values to the right of the Chimes listing.
  • If existing chimes are loaded that refer to sound files that are not installed, a warning now appears when the window opens. The warning lists the missing sound file(s).
  • Preview Selection button plays only the selected chime, even if other chimes play at the selected minute. The Preview Chimes... button still previews all chimes for the selected minute.
  • Added Stop Playing button, which becomes available when a chime is playing. Clicking this button immediately stops a playing chime, unless a system alert is playing, in which case the sounds stop after the system alert stops playing.
• Edit Chime Sets window:
  • Contains Actions... menu, with options to delete all or selected Chime Sets, export all or selected Chime Sets, return to default Chime Sets, and import Chime Sets from a disk file.
  • Contains informational notice concerning the selected Chime Set, which appears at the bottom of the window. You may add such a notice to your own Chime Sets by clicking in the informational notice display area. Note: Once you enter text in this fashion, it will not be editable, in order to avoid accidental changing of third-party informational notices. To change your own informational notice, activate the Chime Set in the Edit Hourly Chimes Window and save the current Chimes into the desired Chime Set. This will clear the notice, and you may then enter new text in the Edit Chime Sets window.
• Chime sound files may now be in any format that QuickTime™ can read, including midi files and movies. In addition to installed system and home directory sounds, you may specify that UTC Global Clock use sounds from any folder on your hard disk. Define the folder by opening the Edit Hourly Chimes window, then click the More Sounds... button to summon the Specify User Sounds Location window.
• Chimes may now be edited outside of the Preferences window, by selecting Edit Chimes... from UTC Global Clock’s Edit menu or from any time display’s contextual menu.
• You may now control the loudness of hourly chimes.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Preferences Window: General

• Added Application Preference Warn About Running Timers and Stopwatches at Quit. When selected (the default), UTC Global Clock presents an alert when there are running or alerting Timers — or running, paused, or alerting Stopwatches. The dialog allows you to save the Timers/Stopwatches, discard them, or cancel quitting. When this preference is not selected, Timers and Stopwatches are automatically saved for restoration at next launch.
• Preferences handling changed: The state of Share Preferences Among All Users is now stored in the user's local preferences file, so that some users may use the shared preferences file, while other users employ separate local preferences files.
• Redesigned color selector squares in Preferences window.
• Added new tab: Timers and Stopwatches, which contains preferences to create new timers and/or stopwatches in separate windows, specify the screen corner for timers, disable timer and/or stopwatch animation, edit saved timers and stopwatches, and to change the timer snooze duration.
• Dialogs opened from the main Preferences window now allow permanent saving or canceling for the changes you make in the dialogs. Clicking Cancel in the Preferences window will no longer revert the changes made in these dialogs. Windows that save their own data in this manner include: Calendar Options, Edit Hourly Chimes, Custom Sounds Folder Selection, Add New Chime Set, Edit Chime Sets, Edit DST Rules, Edit Time Formats, New Time Format, and Edit Custom Time Formats windows.
  • Note that two dialogs make changes to time displays: The Set Time Zone and Time Format dialogs. Since canceling the Preferences window discards changes to time displays (including changes to zone and time format), a cancel action in the Preferences window also cancels changes made to time displays via the Set Time Zone and Time Format dialogs.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Preferences Window: Application Preferences Tab

• Added First Weekday control to specify which day starts the week in all calendars.
• Calendar Options have been moved to their own grouping, and added the option First Week of Year is First Full Week, which lets you specify that the first week of the year is the first week that has all seven days in the new year. When deselected, the first week of the year is the week that contains January 1st.
• Added Calendar Options... button, which summons the Calendar Options window.
• Added control labeled Screen Corner Displays Have Consistent Widths, which -— when selected — ensures that all screen corner displays, in all screen corners, remain the same width. The global width of screen corner time displays is then the width of the widest text in any screen corner time display.
• Internet Update Check Frequency: Changed Never to Check Manually.
• Internet Update Checking: Added Check for Updates Now... button.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Preferences Window: Time Displays Tab

• Time displays may now be saved to disk files. Save time displays by opening the Preferences window, click the Time Displays tab, then select Export All Time Displays from the Actions… pop-up menu. A single Time Display may also be saved.
• Time displays may now be loaded from disk files. Load a file of time displays by double-clicking its icon, or via the Actions… pop-up menu in the Time Displays tab of the Preferences window. The Actions… menu allows you to replace your existing time displays, or append the file's displays to your existing time displays; double-clicking a file currently appends the displays after a confirmation dialog.
• Added Row from Screen Bottom control that allows screen corner time displays to be stacked atop one another.
• Selecting a display is now much more responsive.
• Added Edit > to Time Displays list box, to graphically indicate that selecting a chime allows one to edit its values to the right of the Chimes listing.
• Added zebra striping to list entries.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Preferences Window: Dock Preferences

• Non-administrative users may now change Dock icon visibility.
• Changing the Dock icon visibility features an automatic quit and re-launch to finish the operation if desired. An administrator's password is required only if running from a non-administrative account.
• Default Dock icon time display color has been changed to yellow, and again appears in new installations.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Stopwatches

• New Feature: Saved Stopwatches
  • You may define an unlimited number of saved stopwatches.
    
  • You may add new stopwatches based on saved stopwatches, which are available in all stopwatch windows, as well as in all time display menus.
    
  • Existing stopwatches may also be replaced by saved stopwatches.
    
  • View and edit saved timers and stopwatches in the Preferences window's Timers and Stopwatches tab.
• Independent floating Stopwatch windows may now be made extremely tiny by clicking in the disclosure triangle to the left of the stopwatch’s time display.
• Stopwatches are now saved when UTC Global Clock re-opens, even after a power failure or system restart. Paused, alerting, and running Stopwatches are saved and restored; Stopwatches that have never started or have been reset to zero are not saved.
• Paused Stopwatches now flash the time display in green text.
• Alerting Stopwatches now flash the time display in red text. An alerting Stopwatch is one that has reached its count-down or count-up target time.
• Stopwatches may now be renamed; the name appears in the window's title bar.
• New Feature: Multiple Stopwatch window
  • The Multiple Stopwatch.
    
  • Stopwatches may be modified via the Multiple Stopwatch window's Actions... menu, contextual menu, Restart button, Edit button, and Pause/Resume button. Commands include:
    • Add New Stopwatch...
      
    • Duplicate Selected Stopwatch
      
    • New Stopwatch from Saved Stopwatches (Saved Stopwatches appear in submenu)
      
    • Replace Selected Stopwatch with Saved Stopwatch (Saved Stopwatches appear in submenu)
      
    • Create Saved Stopwatch from Selection...
      
    • Edit Selected Stopwatch...
      
    • Pause Stopwatch (when running)
      
    • Resume Stopwatch (when paused)
      
    • Reset Stopwatch
      
    • Count Down from Current Time Period (00:00:00)
      
    • Count Up to Current Time Period (00:00:00)
      
    • Don't Use Time Period (Standard Stopwatch)
      
    • Delete Selected Stopwatch...
      
    • Delete All Stopwatches from Listing...
      
    • Move Selected Stopwatch to Separate Window
      
    • Move All Stopwatches to Separate Windows
    • Rename Stopwatch
    • Move This Stopwatch to Multiple Stopwatch Window
    • Move All Stopwatches to Multiple Stopwatch Window

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Time Displays

• Added Edit This Time Display… command to time display contextual menus. Selecting this menu item opens the Preferences window with the appropriate Time Display selected for editing.
• Screen corner and menu bar time display menus now follow a more consistent menu command order.
• Added About UTC Global Clock... to the Special submenu of all time display contextual menus.
• Time Format Window:
  • Added new object: Day of Year with Leading Zeros displays the day of the year with three digits.
  • Added the ability to create and re-apply Custom Time Formats.
• Reorganized time display menus.
• Menu bar time displays now have their contextual menus re-attached to the displays 20 seconds after UTC Global Clock detects that it has completed launching, in case a slow launch causes them not to have attached the first time.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Timers

• New Feature: Saved Timers
  • You may define an unlimited number of saved timers.
    
  • You may add new timers based on saved timers, which are available in all timer windows, as well as in all time display menus.
    
  • Existing timers may also be replaced by saved timers.
    
  • View and edit saved timers and stopwatches in the Preferences window's Timers and Stopwatches tab.
• Clicking a timer's close box now also includes the option to hide the timer, in addition to closing it or canceling the action.
• Timer alert dialogs now resize to fit the text.
• New Feature: Multiple Timer window
  • The Multiple Timer window may hold an unlimited number of timers. Timers are arranged in a list format.
    
  • Timers may be modified via the Multiple Timer window's Actions... menu, contextual menu, Restart button, Edit button, and Pause/Resume button. Commands include:
    • Add New Timer...
      
    • Duplicate Selected Timer
      
    • New Timer from Saved Timers (Saved Timers appear in submenu)
      
    • Replace Selected Timer with Saved Timer (Saved Timers appear in submenu)
      
    • Create Saved Timer from Selection...
      
    • Edit Selected Timer...
      
    • Pause Selected Timer (when running)
      
    • Resume Selected Timer (when paused)
      
    • Delete Selected Timer...
      
    • Delete All Timers from Listing...
      
    • Move Selected Timer to Separate Window
      
    • Move All Timers to Separate Windows
    • Move This Timer to Multiple Timer Window
      
    • Move All Timers to Multiple Timer Window
  • Drag independent timers into the Multiple Timer window, and drag timers out of the Multiple Timer window to place them in independent Timer windows.
    

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Installer and Internet Update

• Instead of creating a new UTC Global Clock Folder and renaming the old folder, the installer now leaves the UTC Global Clock folder in place.
• Only new or changed files are copied, and existing duplicate files are placed in a "Moved by Installer" folder inside the UTC Global Clock Folder.
• If an existing UTC Global Clock application is found, it is placed in a compressed (.zip) archive in the "Moved by Installer" folder, so that the correct copy of UTC Global Clock always opens.
• Installer now works in non-administrator accounts.
• Installer now performs its last action ("Finishing Installation...") much more rapidly.
• Installer now can install to a non-default location, and will upgrade from within the application to the same non-default location. Note that the in-application updating will work when updating Build 214 or later; for earlier versions, a dialog will appear asking you to specify the install location.
• Installer performs additional error checking and retries failed operations before reporting an error.
• Improvements made to performance and reliability of Internet Update Checks.
• Internet Update now yields time back to time display updates (and the rest of UTC Global Clock) as it checks for updates.
• Internet Update now downloads updates to the user's Downloads folder, unless that folder cannot be found, in which case it reverts to downloading to the desktop.
• Internet Update automatically renames duplicate disk image files, instead of presenting a Save As dialog.
• Internet Update may now be forced to check in asynchronous mode by holding down the [control] and [shift] keys when beginning an update check.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

Bug Fixes

• Multiple chimes no longer play when a machine wakes from sleep.
• System-wide menu commands that bring UTC Global Clock to the front now do so with a delay of 0.25 seconds, to work around window layering issues.
• Fixed issue where UTC Global Clock could unexpectedly quit when system exits sleep mode, if a menu bar time display was updating when the computer entered sleep mode.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

New Keyboard Shortcuts

Note: Only new keyboard shortcuts are shown in these tables.

When UTC Global Clock is in front
Command	Shortcut
D	Suspend chimes again for last specified duration
D	(when chimes are suspended) Resume chimes
D	Suspend chimes...
E	Edit chimes
G	Open Chime and AppleScript Scheduling window...
O	Open time display file...

Multiple Stopwatch Window
Command	Shortcut
C	Create new stopwatch
D	Duplicate selected stopwatch
R	Start or reset stopwatch
S	Create saved stopwatch
W	Move stopwatch to new window
SPACEBAR	Pause or resume stopwatch
BACKSPACE / DELETE	Delete selected stopwatches
RETURN or ENTER	Edit selected stopwatch

Multiple Timer Window
Command	Shortcut
C	Create new timer
D	Duplicate selected timer
R	Start or reset timer
S	Create saved timer
W	Move timer to new window
SPACEBAR	Pause or resume timer
BACKSPACE / DELETE	Delete selected timers
RETURN or ENTER	Edit selected timer

Independent Timer Window
Command	Shortcut
C	Create new timer
D	Duplicate timer
R	Start or reset timer
S	Create saved timer
W	Move timer to Multiple Timer window
SPACEBAR	Pause or resume timer
RETURN or ENTER	Edit timer

Preferences Window Application Preferences tab
Command	Shortcut
C	Show Calendar Options window

Edit Hourly Chimes Window
Command	Shortcut
SPACEBAR	Play/stop playing chimes for selected minute
BACKSPACE / DELETE	Delete selected chime
E	Open Edit Chime Sets window
P	Preview all chimes for selected minute
P	Preview only the selected chime
R	Click the More Sounds... button
S	Save current chimes as chime set
LEFT ARROW	Reduce volume by 1 (hold keys down to repeatedly reduce volume by 10)
RIGHT ARROW	Increase volume by 1 (hold keys down to repeatedly increase volume by 10)

Edit Chime Sets Window
Command	Shortcut
L or O	load chime sets from disk file
S	Save selected chime set(s) to file
S	Save all chime sets to file
BACKSPACE / DELETE	Delete selected chime set(s)

Quick Calendar Window
Command	Shortcut
TAB or UP ARROW	Move calendar forward by one month
TAB or DOWN ARROW	Move calendar backward by one month
RIGHT ARROW	Move calendar forward by one year
LEFT ARROW	Move calendar backward by one year
C	Toggle continuous
T	Set to today or time display date
W	Toggle week of year

Add a New Stopwatch Window / Edit Stopwatch Window
Command	Shortcut
S	Start/save and create saved stopwatch...

Create a Timer Window / Edit Timer Window
Command	Shortcut
S	Start/save and create saved timer...

Highlights Page

We also have an illustrated page with the Highlights of Version 3.1.

Top of Page — History — UTC Global Clock

---