FR: UX Enhancement for reminding/alleviating forgetting about Paused Timers

[garrett-is-a-swann]

Description

I'll occasionally pause a timer if I realize I need a little bit more time within the application than I've allowed myself with the timer I've selected. I'll sometimes then get carried away/distracted and then leave the timer paused/forget to unpause it, thus defeating the purpose of the timer...

Possible Solutions:

System Notification for paused timer with configurable interval/toggle

If the timer was able to be configured to ping the user ever 3-5 minutes, then it'd be a constant reminder to unpause. Potentially, clicking the system notification itself could be an unpause action itself. This likely should be opt-in only.

Add more time button

Currently we can turn off/on the timer to "reset" the timer. For small timers though, this doesn't really add that much time, especially if you're doing it at the halfway point... ex: 3m timer, resetting it at 1.5m doesn't net you very much additional time/takes a decent amount of your focus...

Maybe there could be a +x button that adds the amount of time on the timer (3m timer => +3m), or maybe there could be configuration to set the amount of time the +x should add.

Per-application atomic timers

If TTK utilized the group-by application to only allow you to enable one timer of each category, then you could have multiple timers of the same type for different durations. If you decided you needed more (/longer amount of) time, then you could simply enable a different timer, which would also disable the current timer automatically. Of course, you can do this now manually, but it requires 3 clicks which is enough of a barrier to entry that I wouldn't bother 😛

Note/Concern: Per-application atomic timers might conflict with a future feature to have different onTimerEnd actions... Maybe, were this implemented, instead of "per-application", it could be simpler to define the atomicity via a user-supplied string -- ex: "discord-kill-after-timer".

[kjerk]

@claude can you take a look at implementing this one with a best guess for how it should function, simply documenting your rationale and creating an implementation and pushing a branch. create a pull request and reference this issue. work on a branch named for the issue if you can, like issue-7-feat-timers-enhancement (or you pick a better name)

[claude]

Claude finished @kjerk's task in 2m 42s —— View job • claude/issue-7-20260209-2107 • Create PR ➔

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Task Complete ✓

Task List

• Read repository setup instructions (CLAUDE.md)
• Explore codebase to understand timer implementation
• Decide which solution(s) to implement
• Implement chosen solution(s)
• Commit and push changes
• Provide PR creation link

Implementation Decision

After reviewing the codebase, I've decided to implement Option 2: Add More Time Button as the primary feature. Here's my rationale:

Why "Add More Time" is the best first choice:

• Lowest friction: Directly addresses the core problem of needing more time without requiring system notifications or complex UI changes
• Simple UX: A single button click to extend the timer is intuitive and doesn't require configuration
• Platform-agnostic: Works on all platforms without needing OS-specific notification APIs
• Non-intrusive: Doesn't require opt-in/opt-out settings or periodic interruptions

Implementation approach:

• Add an "Add Time" button (+) next to the pause/resume controls
• When clicked, it adds the original timer duration to the remaining time (e.g., 3m timer → adds 3 more minutes)
• The button will be visible when the timer is running or paused
• It will maintain the timer's current state (running stays running, paused stays paused)

Why not the other options (for now):

• System notifications: Requires platform-specific code (Windows notifications vs Linux/macOS), adds complexity, and could be seen as annoying
• Per-application atomic timers: Would require significant architectural changes and the benefit is unclear given the existing behavior

This approach provides immediate value with minimal complexity and can be extended later with configuration options (like customizing the amount of time to add) if needed.

Implementation Summary

I've implemented the "Add More Time" feature with the following changes:

Files Modified:

1. src/TimeToKill.App/Services/TimerManager.cs: Added AddTime(Guid presetId, TimeSpan additionalTime) method to handle adding time to active timers
2. src/TimeToKill.App/ViewModels/TimerPresetViewModel.cs: Added AddTimeCommand that calls the TimerManager's AddTime method with the timer's original duration
3. src/TimeToKill.App/Views/MainWindow.axaml: Added the "+" button to both the main timer list and grouped timer sections, positioned between Resume and Stop buttons

How it works:

• The "+" button appears when a timer is running or paused
• Clicking it adds the original duration to the remaining time
• Example: 3-minute timer with 1 minute remaining → adds 3 minutes for a total of 4 minutes remaining
• The timer maintains its current state (running stays running, paused stays paused)

Future enhancements that could be added later:

• Configuration option to customize how much time to add
• System notification reminders for paused timers (opt-in)
• Per-application atomic timers

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Branch: claude/issue-7-20260209-2107 |