Re-Start an (existing) Timer?

[nelsonic]

As a user should I be able to continue a timer I have stopped/paused?
Or should the act of starting always create a new timer?

p.s: I don't know if this is MVP or Post MVP... #help ...
@iteles @NataliaLKB @FilWisher do the "other options" allow you to continue a timer you have stopped?

[NataliaLKB]

T does not allow you to continue a timer you have stopped. For me, I would definitely like this to be a feature.

[nelsonic]

I like the idea of being able to re-start a timer. @iteles were you able to discover if "existing" timing apps have this feature (and a simple UI for it)?

The simplest possible timer record would contain:

{
  "person":"string",
  "desc":"string",
  "st":"timestamp",
  "et": "timestamp"
}

This is simple both for our team building the initial UI and for other developers using the API.
if we want to be able to _re-start_ (using the same record) we would need to either:

a) store the elapsed time and increment it (in which case we would update the et (end time) when ever the person taps stop. (which means we lose the data for the previous et)

{
  "person":"string",
  "desc":"string",
  "st":"timestamp",
  "et": "timestamp",
  "total":"integer"      // running total of seconds spent on this timer/task/activity
}

_OR_
b) If the timer has multiple starts and ends we could store them in a series (array)

{
  "person":"string",
  "desc":"string",
  "st": [ "timestamp1", "timestamp2", "timestamp3" ],
  "et": [ "timestamp1", "timestamp2", "timestamp3" ],
  "total":"integer"      // running total of seconds spent on this timer/task/activity
}

But this requires our UI people to write _logic-in-the-views_ e.g: check if st is an "array"

if(record.st instanceof Array) {
  // show the timer as a series of starts and stops
} else {
  // display a "simple" timer
}

_OR_
(And I don't like this, but I'm just illustrating how it can get complex/ugly fast...!)
c) store a series of rst (restart time) and pt (pause time) entries in the original record...
this could be done numerically (e.g: rst1 and pt1)
e.g:

{
  "person":"string",
  "desc":"string",
  "st":"timestamp",
  "rst1":"timestamp", // re-started time
  "pt1":"timestamp",  // paused time
  "et": "timestamp",
}

I don't find any of these to be an elegant solution... anyone else got ideas?

[iteles]

From a UI perspective, I would suggest this should be as simple as allowing people to press 'play' on an existing timer from wherever you are in the app (as long as you're looking at a timer record, you can decide to pick up that activity again and restart the timer).

The simplest "options" (the only ones worth considering) allow for a 'restarting' of timers from the homepage - the today view - and deal with this in one of two ways:

• (T) Hitting restart copies your timer information and starts a new timer with all the same details but new timestamps (and creates a new log in your today view)
• (H) Hitting restart keeps the existing timer going and discards start and end time information

What we have to determine is how important is it to our people to record the timestamp of every entry vs just the total amount of time allocated to an activity (irrespective of when it was started and stopped).
I have some thoughts on this but would love to hear some other opinions first ;) @NataliaLKB @FilWisher @nelsonic

[nelsonic]

We will not be allowing people to "re-start" a timer.
But given that we can link as many timers to a given item,
the person can easily accumulate multiple work sessions against the same item
and the UI will display the cumulative time.
See: #265