Time Out

Want to know what has changed since a previous version? This page lists those changes. You can alter the range of release notes to display if you wish.

The latest release of Time Out is version 3.1.

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New option to end a break when done

• Added a Show button to end break when done checkbox to the Break Appearance page.
• If enabled, when the break reaches its scheduled duration, it remains displayed instead of fading out automatically.
• The control panel shows an End Break button; click it when you are ready to finish the break.
• The left-hand time label continues to show the scheduled duration, while the right-hand label counts upward, e.g. +35 seconds, so you can see how long the break has continued beyond its schedule.
• Clicking End Break fades out the break as usual.
• This option is available as a new reward for recent Time Out supporters.

New icons for the menu bar status item

• Added several new icons for the menu bar status item, as fun indicators of Time Out breaks.
• Symbols include a palm tree, umbrella, leaf, cup, pause, and more.
• Activity shapes include walking, cardio, strength training, flexibility, etc.
• Unlike the app icon and break label icons, these will adapt to the current menu bar appearance.

Alternative status item menu

• Hold the Option key when clicking the menu bar status item to show a menu of useful commands for the next due break, while a regular click continues to show the window.
• This menu includes an item to show the Time Out window, several commands to start, postpone, skip, etc the next due break, and useful commands that apply to all breaks.

Quickly change when a break is due

• Added a Make Due In submenu to change a break to be due in 30 seconds, 1 to 10 minutes, 15, 20, 30, or 45 minutes, or 1 hour.
• This is equivalent to editing the due date in the Break Schedule page, so doesn't count as postponing or skipping.
• It is also useful for testing Break Actions, to make them due soon.
• This submenu appears in the new alternative status item menu, and in each break's Options menu in the sidebar.

Optionally hide commands that could bypass a break

• Added Advanced options to separately hide or disable the Make Due In, Reset, Disable, Delete, and/or Quit commands.
• These join the existing option to hide the Pause commands.
• These options make it harder to bypass breaks, for people who want a little extra help.
• These new options are available as a new reward for recent Time Out supporters.

Introducing Messages from Dejal

• Added a new Messages page in the settings window for occasional tips, helpful feature explanations, announcements, and invitations from Dejal.
• A brief message may sometimes appear as part of the control panel during a break; it won't pause, extend, postpone, or otherwise change the break, and the complete message remains available in Settings.
• Click the message during a break to show the full message after the break ends.
• Or click the X next to the message (that appears when pointing at it) to dismiss the message.
• Unread messages are marked, and messages can be searched or marked as read.
• Messages can include a Show Me button, that takes you to the relevant settings page and highlights the control being discussed.
• As a new reward for recent Time Out supporters, options are available to disable messages, hide them during breaks, or exclude promotional messages.
• Time Out does not show third-party advertising; promotional messages are just very rare mentions of other Dejal apps that you might find useful.

Introducing an optional Premium subscription and Lifetime purchase

• Added an automatically recurring subscription option, as an alternative to the Supporter options.
• It works like a normal subscription, unlocking all premium features while subscribed.
• Note that the subscription option is only available in the Mac App Store edition.
• The existing non-recurring Supporter options are still available in both the direct and App Store editions.
• You may not be offered one or the other, depending on your current supporter status.
• Also added a Lifetime purchase option, which keeps all current and future premium features available forever.
• The existing trial mechanism is unchanged; a trial will automatically start when any supporter/premium feature is used.
• Trials now more clearly highlight the options being tried with a red highlight.
• And of course the basic features of the app can still be used completely free.

Modernized the break display

• Rewrote the break display using SwiftUI, while retaining compatibility with all existing themes.
• The available control buttons are now always centered when some buttons are hidden.
• This modernization was the groundwork for the Messages and End Break enhancements.

Added anonymous analytics to help improve the app

• Added a checkbox to the Advanced page to control sending anonymous analytics to Dejal.
• This does not include any personally identifiable information, and doesn't include any third-party trackers.
• It was written by Dejal to provide basic aggregated information like the major OS version and similar values, to help guide future improvements of the app.

But wait, there's more!

• If the mouse/trackpad button is down when a break is due, it now waits until the button is released, to avoid interrupting a drag operation.
• Added support for URLs like timeout://break/micro/postpone/2m and timeout://postpone/2m, i.e. postponing a specific break or all breaks by a custom time interval.
• Added support for a timeout://scheduler/logging/on URL to turn on break scheduler diagnostic logging, and timeout://scheduler/logging/off to turn it off again. Leave off unless instructed by Dejal.
• Several other minor improvements.

• Fixed the time of the first break of the day when using the From Fixed Time scheduling option.
• Fixed an issue where the Break for time could be longer than the Every interval, which doesn't make sense.
• Fixed a calendar-based break having a duration of zero instead of the duration of the calendar event.
• Fixed the Teams Meeting rule script, which stopped working due to Microsoft renaming the background process that handles an active meeting.
• Fixed a crash when changing the Label for a break to a grayscale color.
• When an app is in full-screen, clicking the Time Out status item will now show Time Out's window on top of the full-screen window.

• Fixed the Full Countdown to Next Break status option not showing seconds when less than an hour.
• Fixed a possible crash when showing the Last Done Break Label in the status item.

• Fixed unintentionally removing custom scripts from the scripts folder while introducing Rules scripts.

• Fixed a crash when upgrading the data from version 2 if the Statistics page was set to show certain values.

macOS Tahoe support

• Time Out now requires a minimum of macOS Tahoe (26.0).
• The buttons at the top of the window now use the modern Liquid Glass style.
• Replaced the sidebar and Action icons with modern SF Symbols.
• Added icons to menus for macOS 26.
• But also respects the defaults write -g NSMenuEnableActionImages -bool NO global setting; if used, icons are hidden from Time Out menus.
• Modernized the color pickers.
• Updated Break Actions like notifications and the speech synthesizer to the latest technology.

Added a theme editor

• Added an Options menu button before Preview on the Break Appearance page.
• This menu includes commands to add a new theme, duplicate the selected theme, edit it, reveal it in the Finder, or delete it.
• Built-in themes can't be edited or deleted; duplicate them first to make changes.
• The theme editor sheet includes fields for the theme name and comments, author information, credits information, and a pop-up menu to choose the type of theme (see below).
• At the bottom is some info text, and buttons to Contribute, Preview, Cancel, or Save the theme.
• The Contribute button will attach the theme to an email; you can review the email before sending it to Dejal for consideration to bundle with a future version of the app, and/or list on the Time Out Extras page.
• The editor sheet can be resized if desired.

Edit local themes

• In the new Theme Editor, choose Local HTML to add or edit a theme that uses HTML within the theme folder. This kind of theme works offline.
• It includes a field for the root document name (the main HTML file to display).
• It also includes buttons to open the HTML file in an editor of your choosing (which is remembered), or reveal it in the Finder.

Edit website themes

• In the new editor, choose Website to add or edit remote themes, that simply show a web page.
• It includes a field for the website URL.

Edit YouTube themes

• Themes that play YouTube videos can be added or edited via the YouTube Video option in the editor.
• It includes fields for the video ID and playlist ID.
• To add a YouTube video, simply copy the URL from your browser and paste it into the URL field, and it'll extract the video ID and playlist ID (if any).
• It also includes a field for the video title.
• A slider controls the playback volume; drag to zero to mute.
• A checkbox lets you start at a random point in the video or a random video in the playlist; if unchecked, there's a field for the start offset.

Edit image themes

• A new kind of theme is Images; you can add any number of images or photos to show during a break.
• You can choose to show the images in sequential order or randomly.
• Also choose the transition between images.
• Specify how many seconds to show each image; set to zero to have only one image per break.
• Scale options include Fit to display each full image, with space on sides as necessary, Fill to fill the screen, cutting off edges as needed, or Percent to use a specified percentage of the screen.
• Buttons enable adding images from files, or from your photo library (note that the photo library picker may take a long time to load if you have a lot of photos).
• The app won't see any photos other than the ones you choose to add.
• Thumbnails of the chosen images are listed; drag to change the order if showing sequentially.
• Trash buttons next to each image will remove them from the collection.

Edit text themes

• Another new kind of theme is Text; you can add any number of text items to show during a break.
• Like for Images, you can choose sequential or random order, and how many seconds to show each one (or enter zero to show one per break).
• Choose the text font and color.
• Scale the text to use a percentage of the screen (the text will resize to fit).
• A vertical offset slider lets you position the text to avoid the control panel.
• A button enables adding text.
• Enter the text to display; drag the rows to change the order, or remove via the trash button.

New and updated themes

• The Sinclair Trails, Dejus Chickens, Dejus Ducks & Fish, and Tropical Rain themes now use the new YouTube theme type.
• Added new Coral World and Fireplace YouTube themes.
• Added a new Checklist theme, that enables you to add things to remember and check them off.
• Added a new Desk Exercises theme, that uses the new Text theme kind, with some simple exercises that you can do while sitting or standing near your desk.

Exclusions are now Rules, and more powerful

• The Exclusions page has been renamed Rules, since they are now much more flexible.
• The Add (+) button is now in the top-right corner, and shows a menu of the different kinds of rules that can be added.
• The Add menu also includes script management items like More…, Reveal Scripts, and Get More, similar to Break Actions.
• Each rule now includes a checkbox to enable or disable it, so you can turn one off without removing it.
• Application rules now show the path under the app name; if it isn’t all visible, hover over the path to reveal the full location (or make the window wider).
• App rules also now support "is" / "isn’t", to reverse the "open" / "frontmost" option, e.g. to skip a break if some app isn’t being used.
• Calendar Events rules now group your calendars by account, if you have multiple accounts. And yes, you can now have more than one calendar rule.
• A new built-in rule is Fullscreen Active, to detect when the frontmost app is fullscreen. Useful when watching videos.
• Script-based rules are now supported too. Time Out can look in the Rules folder inside its Application Scripts folder, and any scripts there can be added as rules.
• Four script-based rules are included initially: FaceTime Meeting, Teams Meeting, and Zoom Meeting to detect when actively in a meeting via FaceTime, Teams, or Zoom, and Valve Game to detect when using a Valve / Steam game, since they don't always appear as normal apps. More scripts will be added over time, and you are welcome to add and/or contribute your own.
• Script rules support "is true" / "is false", so the script result can be used normally or reversed.
• All rules include a menu for what to do when the rule matches, including "automatically skip", "postpone" by several amounts, and two new actions as follows.
• A new action is "ignore natural break". If selected, when a natural break is detected (the Mac is idle), and this rule matches, the natural break will not be taken. Useful when you’re passively watching a video, to make sure you still get breaks.
• Another new action is "treat as natural break". If selected, when this rule matches, the app will act as though it is idle, even if you’re actively using it. Useful when you’re doing something that is equivalent to a break, like playing a relaxing game instead of working.
• The new Fullscreen Active and script-based rules, conditions, and natural break actions are all available as new rewards for recent supporters.
• The status messages in the sidebar are now clearer, e.g. showing reasons like "skipped due to Teams Meeting" or "skipped due to fullscreen rule".

Added a Duplicate Break command

• The File menu now includes a Duplicate Break command, along with the existing New Break command.
• The Duplicate Break command is only available if a break is selected, and if adding breaks is allowed.
• The + button in the window will now duplicate a selected break, or add a new one if none selected.

Enhanced the postpone/skip control limits option to per break, hour, or day

• Added pop-up menus after the existing options to limit postponing or skipping a break (on the Break Appearance page).
• Options now include per break and per hour, in addition to the existing per day.
• So for example you can choose to limit yourself to postponing a break only twice before having to take it, to encourage yourself to have more breaks.
• Perhaps one of the most popular requests!

Adjusted Reset behavior when From Last Done

• The original description for the From: Last Done scheduler option was "Last Done will reset the break after it is completed, so the next break will occur the frequency interval after that. For example, a 10 minute break every 30 minutes will next occur 30 minutes after the break finishes, instead of 30 minutes after it starts (as with the Last Due option)."
• But a reset has always set the due date to the break frequency minus the break duration, which didn't match that description.
• So now when From is Last Done, reset will only use the break frequency.
• The "work for" label will also be hidden when From is Last Done, since the work interval will match the frequency.

Clarified the supporter trial to reduce confusion

• When showing any settings page with supporter rewards being trialed, the info will automatically appear as a reminder.
• During a supporter trial, the Support Time Out page has a message clarifying the trial, and lists the supporter rewards being tried.
• You might (randomly) be offered a longer supporter trial period and/or a different number of trials, as an experiment.
• After the trial ends, the Support Time Out page lists all of the supporter rewards that have been tried.
• Now only automatically shows the Support Time Out page once after a trial.
• Modernized the in-app purchase view in the direct edition.

But wait, there's more!

• The app data has been modernized in preparation for syncing, coming in a future update.
• Fixed a shortcut becoming unavailable when deleting a break that used it.
• If the Event Monitor idle detector is not available, now automatically falls back to Event Source.
• Improved the reliability of resetting breaks when waking from sleep.
• Fixed some issues with the Updates page.
• Now shows a red badge next to the Updates item in the sidebar after the app has been updated.
• Fixed a rare crasher with the Statistics page.
• Numerous other minor improvements.

• Fixed another crash on pre-Sonoma macOS versions. Sorry about that!

• Fixed a crash on pre-Sonoma macOS versions. Sorry about that!

• Fixed the settings window unexpectedly appearing after restarting the Mac, when the Dock icon is hidden.
• Fixed the app launch helper unexpectedly opening Terminal on older macOS versions.

• Fixed the settings window unexpectedly appearing after restarting the Mac, when the Dock icon is hidden.
• Fixed misnaming the app in the sidebar when using a When Open app exclusion.
• Fixed the Also skip breaks during focus exclusion option.
• Fixed a break with a large negative duration when scheduling from the calendar with no more events.
• Fixed the tooltip for the Ask When to Start scheduling option.
• When there are multiple displays available, now uses the names of the displays in the menu.
• Fixed the With Inactive Menubar option for multiple displays.
• The other displays now fade out and back in correctly.
• Fixed requesting full calendar access when using the calendar exclusion option (need full access to look for matching events).
• Fixed the Skip button appearing when previewing a break if the end early option is enabled.
• Fixed the option to alert of another copy of the app.
• Added support for break-specific pause via a URL like timeout://break/micro/pause/30m, where micro is the break name, and 30m means pause for 30 minutes.
• Also break-specific resume via a URL like timeout://break/micro/resume.
• Fixed using a timeout://pause URL without an amount (to pause all breaks indefinitely) possibly crashing.
• Fixed the settings window unexpectedly appearing when using a timeout:// URL.
• Bonus: added the Sinclair Trails 2023 theme, with random timelapse clips of driving around the US.

• Fixed breaks not starting in the Setapp edition. The direct and App Store editions where not affected.

• Now uses more modern ways to start the break helper, the automatically start on login option, and access the System Settings.
• Fixed app icons not appearing in the Activity log for apps with display names that don't match their filename.
• Fixed a break sometimes stopping too early when using the Ask When to Start option.
• Fixed a break not being rescheduled past midnight when a natural break occurs.
• Added themes for the Sinclair Trails blog and YouTube channel, and updated the Tropical Rain theme.
• Fixed the Speak Time break action script.
• Can now use a URL of timeout://settings to open the Time Out settings window, in addition to the existing timeout://preferences (useful for scripting and shortcuts).

• Fixed an issue where the Icon theme could be damaged.
• Fixed a crash when choosing the new Calendar scheduling option.

Added a status message to the breaks in the sidebar

• The break items in the sidebar now display a status message, e.g. to indicate that the break has been postponed or skipped.
• When a break is skipped or postponed due to an app exclusion, the app name is included.
• So if you ever wonder why a break didn't occur as expected, look at this status message.

Added the ability to schedule breaks using calendar events

• A new Calendar option is now available in the From pop-up menu on the Break Schedule page.
• If chosen, a pop-up menu of your calendars, and a field to filter on event text is displayed.
• The first time this is chosen, the app will prompt for permission to access your calendars.
• When using this option, Time Out will look at the specified calendar for events containing the specified text, and start a break at the start of the event, and finish at the end.
• If the event text filter field is left blank, all events will be used; specify something else to use the same calendar for multiple breaks.
• Multiple values can be entered in the filter field, separated by commas, e.g. "break, lunch, snack".
• A reload button is available to reset the due date, if you edit the events.
• Since the calendar controls the duration, frequency, and availability of the break, those controls are disabled.
• This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

Added an Exclusions option to skip breaks when busy on the calendar

• A new Also skip breaks during calendar events option is now available on the Exclusions page.
• If chosen, a pop-up menu of your calendars, and a field to filter on event text is displayed.
• The first time this is chosen, the app will prompt for permission to access your calendars.
• When using this option, Time Out will look at the specified calendar for events containing the specified text, and skip a due break if it would fall within an event.
• As with calendar scheduling, if the event text filter field is left blank, all events on that calendar will be used; specify something else to only skip some of the events.
• Multiple values can be entered in the filter field, separated by commas, e.g. "meeting, 1-on-1, planning".
• This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

Support for Monterey focus

• Renamed the Exclusions option to skip breaks during Do Not Disturb to focus, Apple's new name for it in Monterey.
• The first time this option is enabled, the app will prompt to get permission to look at the focus state.
• If declined, you can enable it via System Preferences ▸ Security & Privacy ▸ User Availability.
• This feature will still work with the old Do Not Disturb state from previous macOS versions.

Added an Advanced option to hide the Pause function

• Sometimes it can be very difficult to resist the temptation to pause Time Out to avoid breaks, even though you know you shouldn't.
• So for people who don't want the Pause function, there is now an option on the Advanced page to hide it.
• This feature is available as a reward for current supporters; others can try it for an hour at a time.

New break options to pause or reset an individual break

• Added a Pause Break or Resume Break command to the break options menus. So a break can be paused independent of other breaks.
• The Pause Break menu item can be chosen to pause indefinitely, or choose a shorter time from the submenu.
• This is of course not included if the new Advanced option to hide pause is active.
• Also added a Reset Break command to these menus. This will start the work period again from now, just for this break.

But wait, there's more!

• Fixed the Flash Screen break action on Apple silicon Macs. It now uses the built-in screen flash, so doesn't have color or duration options.
• Fixed the Fadeout Sound break action not showing the fade out time interval field.
• Updated the Stop Screensaver break action script.
• Breaks due on future days are no longer adjusted when having a natural break (idle).
• When resetting a From: Fixed Time break, the next due time now respects the fixed time.
• Break names are now cleaned up to avoid invalid characters that can cause saving the break to fail.
• Updated the Exclusions to remove DVD Player, and change FaceTime, Photo Booth, and QuickTime Player to include "System" in their paths.
• For new folks, the exclusions for Zoom are now When Frontmost, to avoid a common support query. Existing data is not changed, in case you like them When Open.
• The Pause All Breaks menu item can now be chosen to pause indefinitely, instead of needing to choose that from the submenu.
• When paused indefinitely, the status item text now shows "--".
• Improved the highlighting of the status item rows.
• Hidden a couple of rarely-used diagnostic logging options.
• Fixed a performance issue where the app could use more CPU than it should in some unusual circumstances.
• Time Out now requires a minimum of macOS Catalina (10.15).

• A quick fix to have the Do Not Disturb break exclusion option off by default, as apparently a lot of people leave DND on all the time, resulting in unintentionally missing breaks. Sorry about that!

New option to end a break early

• Added a checkbox and interval picker to the Break Appearance page, to show a button to end the break early.
• If checked, at the specified interval after a break starts, a End Break Early button will appear in the control panel, enabling stopping the break.
• This is different than the Skip Break button, as it counts the break as done successfully; a distinction that matters if you care about the break statistics.
• The interval defaults to halfway through the break duration, but the amount and units can be changed as desired.
• When the End Break Early button appears, the Postpone and/or Skip buttons are hidden.
• Another use case is to set a long break duration, e.g. half an hour, but allow ending the break after a few minutes, to have variable-length breaks.

New option to postpone breaks for app exclusions

• Added a pop-up menu at the top of the Exclusions page to choose to postpone due breaks if an app exclusion applies when due, instead of skipping it.
• If one of the postpone intervals is chosen, when a break is due to start, and one of the specified apps is open or frontmost, the break will be rescheduled by the specified number of minutes.
• This was a popular request for people on Zoom meetings, to ensure they get their break soon after the meeting is over.
• The breaks will continue to be postponed until the exclusion no longer applies.
• Also renamed the When Open and When Frontmost options to be more compact, both to show more of the app paths, and because Skip When Open doesn't make sense with a postpone option.

Added an option to skip breaks when Do Not Disturb is on

• A new checkbox was added to the Exclusions page to also skip breaks when the macOS Do Not Disturb feature is on.
• Useful for important meetings when you don't want any interruptions, including breaks. If you always leave it on, you might want to disable this option.

Can now show the time since the last break in the status item

• Added options to the General preference for the status item, to show the time since the most recently completed break, instead of a countdown to the next one.
• Useful if you want to see at a glance how long you've been working.
• The icon can also show the label color of the last break that was done, instead of the next one due.
• The tooltip for the status item now also includes the time since each break was done.

Control Time Out via URL schemes

• A popular request: some functions of Time Out can now be controlled via URL schemes.
• timeout://break/micro/start will start the Micro break.
• timeout://break/micro/postpone1 to postpone the Micro break by the first postpone amount.
• timeout://break/normal/postpone2 to postpone the Normal break by the second postpone amount.
• timeout://break/mybreak/skip to skip "My Break"; use lowercase and omit spaces and punctuation for the break name in the URL.
• timeout://break/micro/reset to reset the Micro break.
• timeout://pause will pause breaks indefinitely.
• timeout://pause/10m will pause breaks for 10 minutes (use "s", "m", "h", or "d" units, or no suffix for minutes).
• timeout://resume to resume after a pause.
• timeout://preferences to show the Preferences window.
• Let me know if you want any other functions to be available via URL.

Other changes

• Added a LCD Digital Clock theme, that shows a nice old-school LCD-like digital clock.
• Updated the Pexels Nature theme.
• Added the option to not register a purchase in the Mac App Store edition, or defer registering. Registering the purchase with Dejal enables restoring it on any of your Macs; if you don't register, you'll have to purchase again if you install on another Mac, or wipe your current Mac.
• Entering your name is now optional when registering in the Mac App Store edition, or restoring a purchase in the direct or Mac App Store editions.
• Now prevents app expose during a break.
• If the Advanced option to disable switching breaks etc is enabled, continuing typing is now also prevented during breaks. (Let me know if you'd prefer this were a separate option.)
• When changing a break to start from fixed time on the Break Schedule page, the natural break option is changed to Continue Countdown, to avoid it drifting (you can change it back if you don't mind that, but it's a common support question).
• Fixed the screen fading when using the Ask When to Start schedule option with the None theme.
• Also fixed handling of Break Actions when Ask When to Start is used.
• Improved the layout of the Break Actions to avoid occasional drawing anomalies.
• The status window can now be displayed in all macOS Spaces, and the preferences window will move to the active Space when displayed.
• Added a check that the timers are still working, to diagnose an issue that one person reported.
• Fixed the Spotlight keywords of the app to use an array instead of a comma-separated string.

• Fixed a couple of crashes affecting a few people using the Mac App Store edition.
• The direct and Setapp editions were not affected, so are not updated.

• Fixed an issue that caused text for the Text theme to be forgotten.
• Fixed the Break Preview prematurely stopping.
• Tweaked the new Ask to Start feature to immediately ask when due, instead of waiting for a natural break.
• Tweaked the appearance of the status menu.
• Worked around an issue with displaying a time like 23 hours 45 minutes as "0 seconds".

Big Sur

• Time Out is now a universal app for Apple M1 silicon and Intel on Big Sur; it also supports back to Yosemite (10.10).
• Controls use the Dejal green accent color on Big Sur if the accent color in General System Preferences is set to "multicolor".
• Improved the row heights in the sidebar on Big Sur.
• Fixed the break control panel moving downwards on Big Sur.
• Fixed the appearance of the Activity headers on Big Sur.
• Improved the layout of some other controls.
• Updated the app icon for the Big Sur squircle style.

New option to ask to start a break

• Added a new option in the "when this break is due" pop-up menu: Ask When to Start.
• If chosen, a time interval control appears to specify a limit, after which it should start anyway. This defaults to 5 minutes (also supports units of seconds and hours).
• When a break is due with this option, the control panel will appear, with a button to manually start the break when you're ready, and the screen won't dim.
• When you click the Start Break button, the screen dims and the break continues as normal.
• If you don't click within the time limit, the break starts anyway; this is needed to avoid accidentally blocking subsequent breaks.
• A countdown to auto-starting appears once halfway through the time limit.

Improved break preview

• When clicking the Preview button on the Break Appearance page, the break now appears with a Stop Preview button to dismiss it.
• The preview has no time limit; it'll remain until dismissed.
• Dismissing the preview doesn't count as skipping it, so doesn't affect your statistics or daily limits.
• If you want to try the full break experience, click the Start button in the sidebar instead.

Added several new break themes

• Updated the default Icon theme to use the new app icon.
• Added a Round Icon theme that includes the old icon, if you miss that.
• Added a "Dejal Blog" break theme, that shows the Dejal blog for news from Dejal.
• Also added "Dejus Blog", that shows the author's personal blog, with daily interesting photos.
• And to complete the set, "Yellow Cottage Blog", that shows the author's homestead blog, with pictures of feral cats, ducks, chickens, and more.
• As an example of a static remote picture, added a "Ducks & Fish" theme, that shows that. You can edit the theme to show a picture of your choosing.
• Added an "Inspirational Quotes" theme, that shows a quote for each break.
• Added a "Pexels Nature" theme, that shows a random nature picture.
• Added "Photo Slideshow", that can be edited to show 10 local images of your choosing.

Other changes

• Added the time range to the tooltips for breaks and apps on the Activity page, for a more precise indication of when each occurred.
• Changed the Advanced option to reset the position of the full window after displaying the status menu from a button to a checkbox, to keep that behavior, instead of a one-time reset.
• Improved the size and alignment of the status item when only an icon or only the countdown is displayed.
• Fixed break rows not highlighting properly in the status item menu.
• Some people missed the red heart icons indicating supporter rewards, so now the info popover for a reward trial automatically appears each time a page is displayed during the hour trial.
• When manually starting a break while Time Out is paused, actions are now performed as expected, instead of performing them after resuming.
• Now skips breaks during a screen recording by default for new users. Existing users can see this blog post to add this exclusion.
• Also now skips when using Zoom too; see this blog post.
• Worked around Apple bug with displaying a time like 59 minutes 30 seconds as "0d".
• The scripts for Break Actions are now listed in alphabetical order.
• Fixed the Sound Action Repeat checkbox color in dark mode.
• Updated the Help menu to include the Dejal Reddit and other tweaks.

• Fixed an issue that prevented in-app purchases for some people.
• This release only applies to the Mac App Store edition.

• Added support for Setapp. Your Setapp subscription includes all supporter rewards.
• Fixed some situations where the new Fixed Time option didn't calculate the best time.
• When the Break Appearance page was selected then you choose a break with a duration of zero, the Actions page is now selected instead.
• Now automatically shows the Learn More information when first displaying the Support Time Out page, to help answer common questions.
• Improved the auto-start option to avoid showing the Preferences window when starting up the Mac.

Fixed-time breaks

• Added a From pop-up menu to the Break Schedule page. It includes options for Last Due, Last Done, and Fixed Time.
• Last Due is what previously happened, and the default.
• Last Done will reset the break after it is completed, so the next break will occur the frequency interval after that. For example, a 10 minute break every 30 minutes will next occur 30 minutes after the break finishes, instead of 30 minutes after it starts (as with the Last Due option).
• Fixed Time will display a field to enter the number of minutes past the hour (0 — 59), and will start the break at that time, or some multiple if the frequency is less than an hour. For example, setting it to 50 for an hourly break will start the break at 09:50, 10:50, 11:50, etc. Or setting it to 15 for a break every 30 minutes will start it at 09:15, 09:45, 10:15, 10:45, etc (you may need to also use the Available option to set a start time in this situation).
• The latter two are new rewards for current or future supporters; others can try them for an hour at a time.

Break Schedule now supports smaller duration and frequency

• Can now configure a break to last zero seconds, to avoid showing the control panel at all.
• When the duration is zero, the Appearance page is disabled, since it doesn't apply. Use Actions like Flash Screen or Display Notification instead.
• Can also now use seconds as a frequency unit, i.e. have the break occur as often as once per second, if desired (though not recommended!).
• Both options can be useful for a 10 second blink reminder that just flashes the screen.

Other changes

• Added the Random Word theme, contributed by Michelle Lim.
• The Activity dates are now in the correct order, instead of sometimes jumbled up.
• Fixed row heights sometimes being wrong in the status popover.
• Postponing and skipping a break via the Options pop-up menu are now counted with the postpone/skip/done counts.
• Opening Time Out will now always show the Preferences window, unless it's within five minutes of restarting (to avoid showing it when automatically launched on startup).
• Improved handling of in-app purchases that require approval.
• Improved handling of restoring purchases for names with Cyrillic characters.
• Improved the error message when purchasing is unavailable.
• Updated the help.

Catalina

• The direct edition now uses the hardened runtime and is notarized by Apple, as required for Catalina.
• Compatible with Catalina (macOS 10.15).

Mojave dark mode and compatibility

• All of the app content has been updated to support dark mode on macOS 10.14.
• Built for Mojave (macOS 10.14), but still compatible back to Yosemite (10.10).

New option to choose which days of the week a break is available

• Renamed the Break Schedule Available options to "Every Day" and "Between", and added a new "All Day" option.
• The latter two now include buttons for the days of the week, enabling days to be toggled off or on, to indicate on which days to use the break.
• The difference between them is that "All Day" doesn't have the time fields, and "Between" does.
• This new feature could be useful to have breaks that are only used on weekends, or working days, or Wednesdays and Fridays, or any other combination.
• This new option is available as a reward for current supporters. If you were a supporter in the past, but it has expired, you can extend your supporter status to use this feature, or try for an hour at a time.

New option to disable the app switcher, force quit, and shut down panels during a break

• Added a checkbox on the Advanced page to disable the panels that appear when switching apps via ⌘Tab, force quit via ⌘⌥Escape, and sleep, restart, or shut down via Ctrl-Eject (or Ctrl-Power). Defaults off.
• This new option is also available as a reward for current supporters.

Other changes

• Can now manually postpone a break for longer than the frequency interval.
• Fixed playing a sound for the Display Notification break action.
• Fixed a scheduler issue where a lower priority break may be skipped if a higher priority break has never been done.
• Removed the Fabric crash reporter, to avoid sending unnecessary data to a third party.

Added a Statistics page under Activity

• Added page buttons to the Activity page of the preferences, with Activity and Statistics pages.
• The Activity page is the same as before.
• The new Statistics page includes a summary of breaks, pop-up menus to choose the kind of counter and break(s) to display, and a line chart of count values.
• The count options include the number of times a break was postponed, skipped, or done in a day, or the total duration of that break.
• The menus also enable displaying those counts for all breaks, or just a specific one.
• When showing All Breaks, the values for each break are stacked.
• The chart will not be shown initially; come back after a couple of days to see it, once some history has been gathered.
• Also includes a Share button to the right of the page buttons, to make it easy to tweet etc the stats.

Option to disable buttons for a few seconds

• Added an option to the Break Appearance page to disable the Postpone and Skip buttons for a few seconds.
• The number of seconds can be changed; it includes the fade-in time.
• This feature helps break a habitual clicking of the buttons; to encourage you to consider if you really need to skip a break.
• This is available as a reward for current supporters. If you were a supporter in the past, but it has expired, you can extend your supporter status to use this feature, or try for an hour at a time.

Advanced option to change the idle detection threshold

• Added an option to the Advanced preferences to change the amount of time the computer isn't being used to count as a natural break.
• By default, it counts a natural break after 1 minute, pausing the countdown for the Pause Countdown and Count Backwards scheduler options, then if still idle after twice as long, it starts giving you credit for the time if Count Backwards is chosen (which is the default).
• This is a change from before; it used to default to 30 seconds, but 1 minute seems better.
• If this isn't long enough (e.g. you spend a lot of time reading rather than actively using your Mac), you can increase the threshold.

Refined the break scheduler

• The break frequency now can't be less than the duration; it doesn't make sense to work for negative time.
• The break should no longer be due further away than the frequency, unless you manually skip it multiple times.
• If a break would be due in the past after rescheduling it, it is now reset. This should fix the issue where a break could sometimes start soon after waking from sleep.
• Fixed an issue where manually starting a break soon after another one could leave the actions in an unexpected state.

Enhanced postpone and skip limits

• When a postpone/skip limit is set and has been reached, postponing or skipping via the File menu, action menu, or global keyboard shortcut is now disabled, so the limit can't be bypassed.
• Fixed the postpone/skip left display when a limit is turned on when already postponed/skipped more than that today.

Preferences window tweaks

• The Time Out item is now always in the Window menu, to make it easier to re-display the preferences window if closed.
• When the Dock icon is hidden, and the status item is shown, the status popover will now appear on clicking the mouse, instead of releasing it; a subtle improvement.
• Can now use the up and down arrow keys and type selection to navigate in the sidebar, e.g. show the preferences window or status popover and press "G" to go to the General options.

Other changes

• Updated the Start Screensaver and Stop Screensaver script actions, to work more reliably on recent macOS versions. Thanks to Johan Kaving.
• Removed the help book, since it didn't work properly in recent OS versions. The help is still available on the web, and has been updated for version 2.4.
• Some tweaks to the supporter stuff, to fix an issue with previous supporter features incorrectly showing as unavailable.
• Fixed typos in some Break Appearance tooltips.

Optional postpone and skip display and limits

• Added an option to the Break Appearance preferences page to enable displaying the number of times a break has been postponed, skipped, and/or done each day, so you know how "good" you're being today.
• Also added options to enable limiting the number of times it can be postponed and/or skipped each day. Useful if you find those buttons too hard to resist, but still want them there sometimes.
• These features are available as rewards for current supporters. If you were a supporter in the past, but it has expired, you can extend your supporter status to use these features, or try for an hour at a time.
• If both Postpone buttons and the Skip button are hidden, the control panel is now smaller.

Option to show break labels as mini pie chart

• Added an option to the Break Name preferences page to show the break label as a miniature pie chart of today's postponed/skipped/done counts.
• The pie has an outline of the label color, with the postpones wedge as a lighter label color, skips as gray, and the wedge for done is shown as the label color.
• Added a tooltip on the label icon that displays the same text as above.
• This feature is also available as a reward for current supporters.

Theme changes

• Added a new Tropical Rain break theme, kindly contributed by Nick Kaijaks.
• Added a Cosmic Symbolism theme, as a bookmark to the Cosmic Symbolism website, similar to the other zooming ones. Kindly contributed by Justin Hall.
• Added an Away From Desk theme, that simply displays a message about being away from the desk for a RSI break. Kindly contributed by John Braine.
• Updated the Muscles theme.
• Removed the Emoji Zone theme, as the website that hosted it is no longer available.

Other improvements

• Improved the accessibility prompt when starting the app for the first time, to not show the permissions alert until after the Setup Assistant has been closed, and only if the the suggestion of authorizing it wasn't done.
• Removed the Post Tweet break action, as High Sierra unfortunately no longer includes built-in support for posting to Twitter.
• Fixed the View menu items becoming disabled when the sidebar isn't active.
• If a laptop lid is closed during a break, then re-opened before the break would have been finished, the break will now continue.
• Restoring a purchase now re-displays the message of thanks in the sidebar; you can dismiss it via the (X) button next to the message if desired.
• Fixed an issue with High Sierra, where the label and theme background colors could be unexpectedly changed to white. If affected, the colors will be reverted back to the defaults.
• Fixed some display issues with the the Break Actions page on High Sierra.

• Fixed schedule adjustments after waking from sleep (it was incorrectly adding the sleep duration to the due time).
• Fixed handling of an Available range when the frequency is daily or longer (e.g. for a daily lunchtime break).

Optionally track breaks and/or app usage via a new Activity feature

• Added an "Activity" item in the sidebar, that optionally shows a chart of activity, including breaks you've taken, apps you've used, and time away from the Mac.
• Activity tracking is off by default, for privacy reasons. You can enable it via a button at the top of the Activity page, which displays a menu with options to Track Breaks, Track Apps, and clear the recorded activity.
• On the right-hand side of the Activity page is a slider to zoom the scale; you can also pinch to zoom on a trackpad. The scale goes from 1 day to 1 minute, or even to individual activity items.
• Each line of the activity chart shows the activity grouped together for the scale time period, arranged with breaks before apps, and the longest first. For example, if at a 15 minute scale, it might show 5 minutes of a break, 5 minutes of Safari usage, 3 minutes of Mail, 2 minutes of natural breaks (idle).
• Hover over an activity in the chart to see a tooltip with the break or app name, how many times it occurred in this time period, and how long for.
• Recorded activity lives on your Mac, and isn't shared with anyone else.
• This feature is available as a reward for current supporters. If you were a supporter in the past, but it has expired, you can extend your supporter status to use this feature.

More themes

• Added a "Muscles" theme, contributed by "saltymouse", to show a random exercise (from a customizable list) with reps to do during breaks.
• Added a "GiphyStretch" theme, contributed by Sean Carey of Giphy, to show a series of stretching GIFs.
• Added a "GiphyPuppies" theme, also contributed by Sean Carey, to show a series of puppy GIFs.

Break theme improvements

• Extended the break theme JavaScript to support a window.webkit.messageHandlers.getTimeOutConfig.postMessage('') message to get a JSON of the break configuration. It will call back to a timeOutConfig(json) function, passing the JSON. Properties include format (the JSON format, initially 1), identifier (the break's unique identifier), name (the break's name), durationSeconds (the break duration expressed in seconds), durationString (e.g. "10 minutes"), frequencySeconds (the frequency in seconds), frequencyString (e.g. "1 hour"), beginningSeconds (the fade-in time), endingSeconds (the fade-out time).
• Also extended the JavaScript to support a window.webkit.messageHandlers.getTimeOutState.postMessage('') message, to get a JSON of the break state information. It will call back to a timeOutState(json) function, passing the JSON. Properties include format (e.g. 1), nextDue (e.g. an ISO date like "2016-09-29T23:27:51Z"), lastStarted, lastDone, lastDeferred (also dates), lastPhase (e.g. done, skipped, or postponed), and currentPhase (e.g. pending, starting, started, or finishing).
• Let me know if you'd like any other properties for these to help drive your custom themes.
• Fixed an issue where choosing None for the break theme would revert back to the default Icon theme, even for supporters (this is expected for non-supporters).

Break action improvements

• On the Actions page, renamed After Finish to After Done, to be consistent with other uses ("finish" is when the break is expected to end, "done" is after it has actually successfully completed, as opposed to other ends of the break like "skip" or "postpone").

Added a View menu

• Added a View menu to the menu bar, to enable easier navigation of the preference pages (the keyboard shortcuts can still be used when the menu bar is hidden).

Other improvements

• Added an alert when turning on the option to automatically start Time Out, if the app isn't in the Applications folder.
• When using a MacBook Pro with integrated and discrete GPUs, now attempts to remain using the integrated GPU, to save battery.
• Now remembers the visibility state of the Preferences window. If you close it, it will remain closed when you next start the app, or if you leave it open, it will re-open. The window will always display when later switching to the app, when the Dock icon is shown.
• Improved the scheduler's idle handling to cope with macOS calling the timer less frequently than requested (as a power-saving measure).
• Added a separate Exclusions preference to skip breaks when the Mac display is asleep (in addition to the preference to skip during the screensaver).
• Moved the Learn More button on the Support Time Out page, to make it more discoverable.

Better Schedule options

• Changed the way the scheduler handles the first break of the day, so the work time is now equal between each break. For example, a 10 minute break every hour will now start the break after 50 minutes of work time, and so on throughout the day.
• Now displays the work time next to the frequency control.
• Replaced the Reset After Duration natural break option with a checkbox to reset after a specified interval of idle, screensaver or sleep time, where you can choose the threshold interval. Off by default, and is a supporter reward, like the old option.
• Added an option to reset the break after finishing a higher priority break. This is useful to keep lower priority breaks (e.g. Micro) aligned with higher priority ones (e.g. Normal). Off by default, and is also a supporter reward.

The Status item can now omit Micro breaks

• Added an option on the General preferences page to only include long breaks in the status menu bar item. Off by default, so all breaks are included, but if you only want a countdown to the next lengthy break (of a minute or more), you can turn this on.

New menu commands to improve discoverability

• Added an Edit Break command in the break Options menu, to make editing breaks more intuitive. This is equivalent to simply selecting the break in the sidebar, and will show an alert mentioning this.
• Added a Start Next Break command in the File and action (cog) menus to manually begin the break that is next due. Especially useful as it can have a global keyboard shortcut assigned to it via the Shortcuts preferences.
• Added a Reveal Data Folder command in those menus, to quickly and easily show the Time Out data folder in the Finder, as an easier way to add or edit sounds and themes, or send the data to Dejal for diagnostics.

Improved Play Sound action

• Added a Reveal Sounds command to the sound pop-up menu in the Play Sound action, to show the Sounds folder in the Finder.
• Added headings in the Play Sound menu, to indicate where each of the groups of sounds are located on disk.
• Added some new built-in sounds: two different bells and a ticking clock. If you find any short public domain sound that others might like, let us know!

Added a Post Tweet action

• Added a new Post Tweet action to post an update to Twitter. It is only available from macOS Sierra (10.12), due to a bug in previous OS versions that prevents authorizing accounts.
• It includes an account popup to choose from which account to post. This could be fun for social peer pressure — tweet when completing a break.

More actions

• Added the Sleep Mac action (available via the Time Out Extras page) to the default set. This AppleScript simply puts the Mac to sleep. Useful if you want it to be asleep during a break or at the end of day.
• Added the Start Screensaver action (also available there) to the default set. This AppleScript simply activates the screensaver. Useful if you want the screensaver on during a break.
• Also added a new Stop Screensaver action. This AppleScript deactivates the screensaver if it's active. Useful as an action at the end of a break.

Setup Assistant assistance

• Added a comment on the first page of the Setup Assistant to explain how to change the duration and frequency controls: "tab/arrow between components; arrow up/down or type to change values; click or spacebar to show a menu of options."
• Updated the tooltips of those controls to give the same tips.
• When returning to the Setup Assistant later in the app session, it now opens to the first page again, instead of whichever one was displayed when last closed.

Supporter improvements

• After trying supporter rewards, the Support Time Out page is selected, to hopefully help clarify that the features reverting is not a bug.
• For the Mac App Store edition, if a purchase hasn't been registered with the Dejal server, it will now ask you to do so when you next show the Support Time Out page, to avoid an issue that affects some people.

Other improvements

• When launching the direct edition for the first time, if the Mac App Store edition has previously been used, the direct edtion will use the same data, to make migration easier.
• Global shortcuts are now correctly removed after trying supporter rewards.
• If not using the Event Monitor idle detector (as set on the Advanced preferences), no longer unnecessarily sets up the event monitors on launch.
• Possible workaround for an Apple bug that causes the clipboard to stop working.
• Fixed a crasher on macOS Sierra (10.12) when displaying the support info popovers.
• Fixed a crasher when changing preference pages.
• Updated the help book.

Scheduler improvements

• By popular request, increased the number of digits for the Break for duration and Every frequency on the Break Schedule page from 2 to 3, so you can enter 150 minutes to have a break every 2.5 hours, for example.
• Also added an option on the Exclusions page to automatically skip breaks that fall due while the screensaver is active, the display is asleep, another user is active, or the Mac is asleep. This defaults to on.
• Tweaked the scheduler to avoid App Nap interfering with idle detection and starting breaks when the window is closed and no status item is shown.
• Scheduler logging (in Advanced preferences) is now off by default for new users.

Mac App Store fixes

• Fixed another issue that prevented purchases from working for some people with the Mac App Store edition.

Added Dejus YouTube themes

• Added a couple of themes that play videos from the author's Dejus YouTube channel: Dejus Chickens (videos of David's chickens) and Dejus Water Features (David's ponds and fish).
• If you enjoy the videos, check out the channel for others, and like the videos and subscribe to the channel!
• The theme HTML isn't the best; if anyone can improve the video player to play the playlist in random order (while retaining looping when all videos played), and/or adapt the video size to the screen, please get in touch.
• These aren't included in the Mac App Store edition, but can be downloaded from the Time Out Extras page.

Made some things more intuitive

• On first launch, now selects the Break Schedule page by default, instead of General, to make it more obvious that the break items can be selected to edit the breaks.
• When trying a supporter reward, the ❤ icon button next to the control now remains visible and red, to indicate that it is being tried.
• Also, when first trying a supporter reward, the information popover now automatically appears, since some people didn't discover this.

Mac App Store fixes

• Fixed an issue that prevented purchases from working for some people with the Mac App Store edition.
• After successful purchase, now asks you to create or update your supporter account, so your supporter status can be restored.
• Changed the Restore Previous Purchases feature to use the supporter account, since the StoreKit restoration approach isn't available for non-renewing subscriptions.

Redesigned app icon

• Time Out 2 has a new app icon, designed by Aaron Mahnke of Wet Frog Studios.

Get started quickly with the Setup Assistant

• Added a new Setup Assistant window, which appears the first time you open Time Out. You can also display it anytime via the Time Out or action (cog) menus.
• The first page enables adding the usual breaks: Normal and Micro, like in version 1. Change them as desired, or uncheck them if you'd rather start from scratch.
• The second page includes a button to open the Privacy System Preferences, so the keyboard activity can be monitored for idle detection.

Redesigned Preferences window

• The Preferences window has a fresh modern appearance, with quick-access buttons at the top, a sidebar listing the breaks, and other options.
• The breaks display a color label, when they are next due, and when they were last done.
• The due/done times can be displayed as absolute dates (a date and time) or relative times (how long until or since it).
• When hovering over break items, a couple of buttons appear, to manually start a break or perform other options, like postponing, skipping, disabling and deleting the break.

No longer needs to be in the Dock

• Added the ability in the General Options to show or hide the Dock icon.
• When Time Out is in the Dock, it'll also appear in the ⌘Tab app switcher, and have menus. The Preferences window is automatically shown when the app is brought to the front.
• When it is not in the Dock, it also won't appear in the ⌘Tab switcher, and won't have menus — but all features can be accessed from the Preferences window.

New menubar status item

• Added an optional status item in the right of the menubar.
• Shows an icon and countdown to the next break.
• The style of icon can be chosen (including an icon representing the next due break), or no icon used.
• It can show a brief or longer countdown, or the start or finish time, or duration of the next break.
• Supports light and dark menubars.
• When the Dock icon is shown, clicking the status item in the menubar shows or hides the Preferences window.
• When the Dock icon isn't shown, clicking the status item shows a popover that looks and works just like the sidebar in the Preferences window, but clicking an item will show the corresponding page in the Preferences window.
• The tooltip for the status item lists all of the breaks and when they're due, with the next due at the top, so you can quickly see when each break will next occur without having to click the status item.
• If you turn off both the Dock icon and status item, a warning message explains how to get back to the Preferences. This is permitted for people who want to make it harder to change the preferences for self-control reasons.

Assign global keyboard shortcuts to start, defer, pause, etc

• Added a Shortcuts Options page, which lists all of the global keyboard shortcuts, so they can be set in one place.
• Shortcuts can be assigned to manually start breaks, postpone or skip the next or current break, pause, resume, or reset all of the breaks, and/or stop any playing sound.
• The postpone and skip shortcuts will apply to the next due break, or if a break is currently starting or underway, to that break. So you can avoid a break with a quick keypress if needed.
• These shortcuts work from any app.

Add any number of breaks

• Renamed the Breaks menu as File, and moved it to the usual place.
• Added a New Break (⌘N) command in the File menu, to add additional breaks.
• Added support for deleting breaks via the Delete key or menu item.
• Added Undo support for some operations (notably adding and deleting breaks).
• Added the ability to drag the breaks to reorder them, which sets their priority, so lower breaks are skipped in favor of higher breaks.

Rename, label and comment on breaks

• Added a Break Name page to enable editing the break name, choosing a color label for the break, and adding some comments.
• The label is shown in the sidebar, and can be displayed in the status item to quickly see which break is coming up next.
• Also included is a customizable keyboard shortcut control. If set, the shortcut is shown in the sidebar and status popover, and can be used from any app to manually start the break.

Scheduling improvements

• Changed the way the breaks are scheduled, to use a single timer with due dates instead of multiple timers, enabling more flexibility.
• The Schedule times now use a more compact interval picker that supports pop-up menus for values, arrow keys to change values, etc.
• The due dates are now restored when the app is relaunched (e.g. after a system restart), so they continue as if Time Out weren't interrupted. (If a break would have been due already, its due date is reset to the full work duration.)
• Added a new idle detector, which should be more reliable than the old one. The new one is enabled by default, but you can switch to the old one or disable it in the Advanced preferences.

Limit breaks to a time range

• Added an Available pop-up menu on the Break Schedule page, with "Any Time" and "Only Between" items. If "Any Time" is selected, the break can occur at any time of the day; if "Only Between" is selected, From and To time controls appear to set the available time range.
• If an "Only Between" time range is set, the next due time will be the From time plus the frequency (the "Every" field).
• The From time is especially useful for daily breaks, e.g. for a "Lunchtime" break set to every 1 day, you could set the From time to 12:00:00 (noon) and the the To time to 13:00:00 (1 PM), to ensure the break starts at noon, but no later than an hour after that if postponed (e.g. via a natural break).

Support for natural breaks

• Changed the scheduler to be smarter: after 30 seconds of idle, the countdown stops (if using the natural break preferences), and after 1 minute of idle, it starts counting upwards (if that preference is set), until the break frequency time is reached.
• Choose how to handle a natural break. Continue Countdown to ignore idle. Pause Countdown to stop the timer while idle. Count Backwards to pause briefly then count upwards until the duration is reached. Reset After Duration to reset the break due date after the break duration of idle time. For example, with the latter if you have a 10 minute break every hour, and you have a natural break for 10 minutes, leaving the computer idle for 10 minutes will skip to the next hour.
• Added a pop-up menu to choose whether to wait for a natural break (idle) or start immediately when a break is due.
• With the latter, when a break is due, it will wait for a natural break of at least 15 seconds, to avoid interrupting you when you're busy. If you keep working for a minute, it starts the break anyway.

Better appearance

• The Break Appearance options now uses a new color well that includes a palette of colors in addition to the color picker, and changed the transparency slider to an opacity slider & field.
• When there are multiple screens available, the Break Appearance preferences has extra options, to specify whether to use the screen with the active menubar, or the screen with the inactive menubar, or a specific screen.
• Connecting or disconnecting a display will now update the Appearance page, showing or hiding the screens pop-up as needed.

Customizable HTML-based break themes

• Time Out now supports multiple customizable break themes!
• The Theme pop-up menu includes a None item to not fade the screen(s) during the break (just showing the control panel); Blank to fade without showing any content, and a list of available themes.
• Some default themes are included. You can also customize them or add your own. Choose the Reveal Themes item in the menu to show the Themes folder in the Finder, or Get More to display the Time Out Extras page in your browser.
• Themes use HTML, so can display local content (potentially including JavaScript-driven apps), or web pages.
• Themes can communicate with Time Out via some special callbacks. See the source of the Text theme for an example, where it makes the text specific to each break. More information is included in the source comments.
• Fading in to the break, and out back to work, is now much more efficient, and uses a geometric animation curve to make it more natural.
• Added an Info button next to the Theme pop-up menu. Click it to show a popover with information about the selected theme, including clickable links to author and original websites, where available.
• Also a Preview button to try the theme; equivalent to manually starting the break.

Redesigned & movable control panel during breaks

• The progress bar and postpone/skip buttons now appear in a redesigned control panel that can be moved around the screen.
• The control panel now fades in at the same time as the break, so the postpone/skip buttons can be used while the break is starting.
• The break theme and control panel only appear on one screen, if your Mac has multiple screens; the other screen(s) just fade to a blank color (which can be different than the theme screen).

Add actions to notify of due, starting or finishing breaks

• Merged the Sounds and Scripts pages into an Actions page, which now supports any number of actions, and more versatile scheduling of them, including before the break is due.
• You can now play a sound or some other action some period of time before due, after the start of the break, after fading in, before fading out, before finishing, after finishing, or after postponing or skipping. Lots of flexible options!
• Integrated the scripts into the Add Action (+) button menu, so any scripts you add are treated like full actions.
• The script actions include an Open button to enable quickly editing scripts, e.g. "Open with Automator".
• When the Add Action button menu is first shown, or if the scripts folder is empty, it includes a "More..." item at the end. Choosing that will display an Open sheet, asking for permission to copy the default scripts into the folder. After that, it re-shows the Add Action menu with the scripts listed.
• Included Reveal Scripts and Get More functions in the Add Action button menu. They aren't shown until the default scripts have been installed. They respectively reveal the scripts folder in the Finder and display the Time Out Extras website.
• Included a Preview button (with an eye icon) to try the associated action.
• Added a new Display Notification action, that shows a Notification Center panel, with custom title and message text, and optionally a sound.
• Added a new Fadeout Sound action, that fades out any playing sound over a specified number of seconds. Useful for long sounds (e.g. music), or in combination with the Repeat option in the Play Sound action, to gently stop them after a suitable interval, e.g. at the end of the break. Like the other actions, specify when to start fading out via the action offset & stage controls in the action header.
• Added a new Flash Screen action, which includes options to set the flash color and speed.
• Added a new Speak Text action to use speech synthesis. It includes a voice pop-up menu which can display just your preferred voices (set in System Preferences ▸ Dictation & Speech ▸ Text to Speech ▸ System Voice ▸ Customize), or all available voices, grouped by region and gender like in System Preferences. It also has an Attributes popover that enables fine-tuning the voice rate, pitch, inflection and volume.

Enhanced app exclusions

• Changed the Exclusion options to show the full path, and added the ability to skip breaks when an app is open but not frontmost.
• Also added MPlayerX, QuickTime Player and VLC to the default Exclusions, and removed Podcast Capture (since it isn't included in Yosemite).

Faster app updates

• Time Out now uses the popular Sparkle framework for app updates, so it can finally download and install updates itself.
• Changed the Updates options for the Sparkle framework, and to display the release notes right there, since there's space.
• Added a Via SSL option to the Updates preferences, to use a secure connection to check for and download app updates. This is on by default, but can be turned off if it doesn't work for some reason.

Several advanced options

• Added an Advanced preferences page, with a number of options that most people won't need.
• Includes an option for the idle detector: None to not detect idle, the Event Source like in version 1, and the new Event Monitor that is more reliable.
• Includes a checkbox to alert of another copy of Time Out, which can interfere with starting breaks.
• Includes a checkbox to control whether or not clicking an item in the status popover should animate to the full window size.
• Also includes a button to reset the position of the Preferences window when using the status popover, so they line up nicely. When you turn off the Dock icon, it is automatically lined up. The window can still be freely moved, but it looks nice having them aligned.
• Includes a number of options to output diagnostic information to the Console log.
• Includes a handy button to show the Console log, i.e. launch the Console app.

New supporter options

• Time Out can be used for as long as you like for free, but the more advanced features are only available to try for an hour at a time, as many times as you like.
• These features are highlighted throughout the app by a heart icon that appears next to the control. Clicking it displays a popover to explain the limit.
• The Support Time Out page includes buttons to purchase three supporter durations (3-, 6- and 12-months). Becoming a supporter helps to fund continued development. These are one-time payments, not a subscription, though you can extend your support later if you wish.
• All the features will remain available even after the supporter period, though some future enhancements may only be available to current supporters.
• Click the Learn More button for more information.
• This page also includes buttons to restore any previous purchases, and redeem a coupon code.

Help improvements

• Added an About Time Out item to the top of the Help (?) pop-up menu, that displays the standard About window with the version number etc, for those without the Dock (and thus menus) shown.
• Added a help book, available via the Help (?) menu and online.

Optimized for Yosemite and El Capitan

• Time Out now requires a minimum of OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), and supports 10.11 (El Capitan).
• Now uses the latest technologies.
• Now uses the third-party Fabric Crashlytics framework to automatically capture crash reports. Automatically aggregating crash reports will enable faster fixing any that occur.
• If a crash occurs, Time Out will now display a window on next launch to ask for information about the crash, which may help trace the cause. There are also optional fields for your name and email address, in case there are any questions.

• Fixed issue that prevented the timers from starting when auto-launched until Time Out is brought to the front the first time.
• Now sets the state of the auto-launch preference checkbox from whether or not it'll actually be launched, rather than just what was previously chosen (a subtle difference).
• Fixed the minimum OS requirement, so trying to launch it on an OS version before 10.7 will give an alert instead of unexpected behavior.

• Added a Volume slider to the Sound break preferences, enabling sounds to be played quieter if desired.
• Added a checkbox to enable repeating the start sound until the end of the break; useful to loop short sounds as an audio cue of the break.
• Reimplemented the auto-launch preference to work with Mountain Lion and sandboxing.
• Removed the quit confirmation preference.
• Removed the in-app purchase options, since not compatible with 64-bit, and rarely used. (Standard edition only)
• Fixed display of license entry date in the Licenses editor. (Standard edition only)
• Fixed drafting an email if a license couldn't be found. (Standard edition only)
• The standard edition of the app is now signed with a Developer ID to support Gatekeeper on Mountain Lion. (Standard edition only)
• Time Out now requires a 64-bit Mac and a minimum of OS X 10.7 (Lion).
• Many other behind-the-scenes improvements made possible by dropping older OS versions, PowerPC and 32-bit support.

• Fixed incorrect display of when the next normal break is due.

• Improved compatibility with Mac OS X 10.7.3.
• The donation button in the Preferences window now shows the Licenses window instead of going to the Dejal Store web page. (Standard edition only)

• Idle detection didn't work for a few people, so now tries a different approach if the idle interval appears invalid (let us know if it doesn't work for you!).

• The break timers are now reset when idle for the specified interval, even while still idle (it used to only reset when no longer idle).
• Breaks can now occur when idle, to avoid missing breaks when the computer is left alone for a few minutes, but less than the reset interval.
• Updated the Start Speech Automator workflow, and added a Speak Time script that does just that.

• Fixed a bug that could prevent the breaks and/or menu items from working properly for some people.

• Added a new Exclusions preference page, which is only available on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). It enables you to automatically skip breaks if specified applications are frontmost, e.g. DVD Player, FaceTime, or similar.
• Added a sub-menu on the Pause Breaks command in the Break menu, to enable pausing for a specified interval. When that interval has elapsed, breaks will automatically resume. Useful when you don't want to be interrupted for a while.
• On first launch (or first in a while), Time Out now displays the Preferences window, to make it more obvious how to configure the breaks.
• Added a Licenses window in the standard edition, so people who have donated for version 2 can enter their license now. Time Out 1 remains freeware; you're welcome to continue using it forever at no cost.
• Moved the break display into a helper agent, so it works for Lion's full-screen apps.
• Plus other fixes for Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) compatibility.
• The standard edition of Time Out now requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
• Many other behind-the-scenes improvements made possible by dropping Tiger support.
• Note: this version (and any 1.6.x bug fix releases) will be the last to support PowerPC (PPC) and Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 (Leopard and Snow Leopard). Version 2.0 will require a 64-bit Intel-based Mac and Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or later.

• Changes to be compatible with the Mac App Store.
• Time Out Free for the App Store requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later, and omits the built-in update mechanism, since updates are done via the App Store.

• The break screen now isn't hidden if the Time Out application is hidden.

• Enhanced Snow Leopard compatibility.

• Replaced the use of an undocumented routine to check the idle time with an approved one, to fix compatibility with Snow Leopard.
• Updated the bundled Adium scripts to support the current versions of the Adium instant messaging client, thanks to Nic Munroe. Note: if you used a previous version of Time Out, the scripts won't be replaced, in case you've customized them. You can download the updated scripts from the Time Out Extras site.
• Fixed an issue with the Preferences window, where edits might not be saved when quitting with the window still open (specifically when an edit is still active).
• Removed the old crash reporter, since it doesn't support Leopard crash logs.
• Now requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

• Improved the idle detection when the computer was sleeping.
• Added a hidden preference to output debug information about scheduling and idle detection to the Console log. It can be activated by entering "defaults write com.dejal.timeout DebugScheduler YES" in Terminal. You shouldn't turn this on unless you think Time Out isn't working properly, as it outputs quite a lot of information.
• Fixed a cosmetic bug with the Check for Updates feature when using a general release and wanting only general releases, and a beta release is available.

• Added support for Spaces in Leopard; the break now appears on all Spaces, even if you switch Spaces mid-break.
• Enhanced the URLs for the Help menu to better support localization.
• Switched the distribution method to ZIP archives instead of disk images, as it's simpler for everyone. Feedback welcome!

• Fixed a bug that caused the Pause Breaks and Reset Breaks commands to remain disabled.
• Changed the Begin Micro Break command to work if you postponed a Normal break and the Normal break is due very soon; the overlap avoidance feature is inappropriate for manually started breaks.

• Introduced a much nicer application icon, professionally designed by Emily Pfeifer.
• Rearranged the break contents: the progress bar and buttons are now in a box, and the icon is bigger... and prettier. :)
• Added options to the Appearance page to individually show or hide the Postpone and Skip buttons, and to change the number of minutes for the two Postpone ones.
• Added direct support for running Python scripts.
• Fixed some issues with scheduling breaks after postponing.
• The Dejal logo was also redesigned by Emily Pfeifer, so all places it occurred have been updated.
• Renamed the application to remove the exclamation point.
• Added improved exception logging, to help with diagnosing any future issues.
• Added the Dejal Blog and Forums to Help menu.
• Fixed an error that a few people experienced when checking for updates.
• Minor tweaks for Leopard (10.5) compatibility.

• Fixed an issue where sounds occasionally caused crashes for some users. If you experienced these crashes, please let me know whether or not this fix works for you.

• Added new Scripts preferences that allows using Automator workflows, AppleScripts, or applications at the start and end of breaks.
• Added the ability to specify a sound or music file to play at the start of a break. It is stopped at the end of the break if it is still playing. This allows it to be silenced if you skip the break, plus you could play a long MP3 music file during the break, and it'll be stopped when the break is over.
• Added a menu command to manually reset the break timers.
• Added a menu command to pause and resume breaks; the timers continue, but the breaks are automatically skipped until resumed.
• Reorganized the Preferences window. The timer, appearance, sound and script options are now all within tabs on the Normal and Micro preference pages.
• Each kind of break can now have their own idle reset interval, appearance (color and transparency), start and end sounds, and start and end scripts.
• Removed the menu items for postponing and skipping breaks, since they didn't work anyway.
• Renamed the File menu as Break, and moved to after Edit, since it really has nothing to do with files.
• Fixed a minor issue where the position and current page of the Preferences window might not be remembered if quitting with that window open.
• Made the break pages of the Preferences window resizable, in case a long sound or script path is used.
• Added a confirmation sheet for the Restore Defaults function in the Preferences window. The confirmation can be disabled or enabled via the General page.
• Enhanced the preference to automatically start the app on login to remove any other copies of the app, in case you set it when the app was in a different location.
• Enhanced the Check for Updates feature to include the release notes of new versions, among other improvements.
• Tidied the About window.
• Made the break fading in and out more smooth.

• Fixed a bug that sneaked into the previous release, where it could crash in some situations after the license agreement window is displayed (i.e. only occurred after the initial update).

• Improved idle handling to detect sleep. Now sleeping your computer will be treated the same as leaving it idle: after the interval you specify in the General preferences, the Normal and Micro breaks will be reset.
• Fixed a bug where Time Out! would switch you back to the application you were using at the start of the break, even if you changed to another app during the break or while fading out.
• Fixed a cosmetic issue where the fields in the Normal preferences weren't disabled when the "Use Normal Time Outs" checkbox is unchecked.
• Improved the coloring of the application icon, thanks to user Sergey Eremin.

• If you click a break button (or elsewhere during a break), making Time Out! the active application, the previous application will now be restored after the break.
• Reimplemented the Preferences window to simplify it. Removed the "Show All", "Prev" and "Next" buttons, plus the "Show All" page. Also rearranged the page layout to move the Help button to the right, to conform with Apple's conventions. Plus many behind-the-scenes improvements.
• Added Notify preferences, allowing playing a sound or music at the end of the breaks. This is useful to allow you to close your eyes or move away from the computer during the break. Several sounds are provided built-in, plus the system sounds are available, and you can choose any other sound or music file.
• Merged the Special preference page into the General one.
• Added a field to the General preferences next to the idle slider, to allow entering a precise number of minutes instead of using the slider (or view the number when dragging).
• Enhanced the Updates feature to tell you about a beta release if you check for updates manually when you prefer general releases and there isn't a new one, but there is a beta available.
• Fixed a bug with the Updates feature where it might not handle general candidate releases correctly.
• Renamed the "Restore Factory Settings" buttons on the Preferences pages to simply "Restore Defaults".
• Fixed the help button URLs for the Normal, Micro, and Notify preference pages.
• Fixed a memory leak.
• Updated the crash reporter framework to the latest version. It now includes fields to allow providing your name and email address.
• Updated the online User Guide.
• Built as a Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel architectures.

• Added a frequently-requested feature: fields in the Micro and Normal preferences to allow viewing and adjusting the break intervals more accurately. You can drag the sliders and see the exact times, or enter the times in the fields and see them in the sliders.
• Added support for a crash reporter, so in the hopefully unlikely event that the app crashes, you can provide information that may be very helpful in tracing the cause. The information is sent anonymously, and only if you choose to send it.
• Tweaked the URL for the Time Out! Feedback item in the Help menu.
• Several other minor performance improvements.

• Much-requested feature: added preferences to allow disabling Normal and/or Micro breaks, for those who only want one kind.
• Another popular request: Time Out! now checks if the computer has been idle, and avoids starting a break if you're away from the computer (so you don't come back to find it in a break).
• Also added a preference to the General pane, allowing resetting the break schedule if idle for more than a specified period of minutes. So, for example, if idle over lunchtime, when you come back the Normal and Micro breaks will start again from then.
• If both kinds of break are active, Time Out! will now avoid starting a break if one recently occurred. "Recently" is within half the work time for Micro breaks.
• Added support for highlighting the selected preference pane icon in the Preferences toolbar.
• Moved the start on login and quit confirmation preferences onto a new Special preference pane.
• Fixed a bug where Micro break timers sometimes weren't being reset properly after a Normal break.
• Fixed a cosmetic bug where the next Normal break due time display during Normal breaks didn't include the time of the current break.
• Plus many behind-the-scenes improvements.

• Enhanced to support multiple screens. Each screen fades and displays the Time Out progress and buttons.
• Added a display of the time till the next normal Time Out during a Time Out break.
• Now resets the micro break timer when a normal break finishes, so the first micro break after a normal break is always a uniform amount of time after the normal break.
• Fixed a bug where the "Time Out for" slider was not reset by the Restore Factory Settings button in the Normal and Micro preference panes.