KAlarm Bugs

Known bugs.

Quit: unwanted confirmation prompts

A previous "don't prompt again" option selection is often forgotten for the Quit command.

Working time only alarms: time shown in alarm list

To evaluate the next time a working-time-only alarm will actually trigger, the local time zone is used instead of KAlarm's preferred time zone to interpret working hours. This fault only affects the display of alarm times - the alarm will trigger at the correct time.

Bugs caused by external software or packages

Bugs which appear to be KAlarm bugs but which are actually due to other software.

System tray icon has an opaque background (KDE bug 122988)

In the system tray, the KAlarm icon sometimes does not have a transparent background, but instead displays inside an opaque square set to the KDE window background colour. This is due to a bug in the QtCurve style, and can be fixed by choosing a different style.

Crash when -e or -E options are specified on command line

On KDE 3.5.8 or earlier, if either of the command line options -e or -E are used, KAlarm crashes with a console message like this:
kcmdlineargs.cpp:405: int findOption(const KCmdLineOptions*, QCString&, const char*&, const char*&, bool&): Assertion `result' failed.
This is due to a bug in the KDE libraries which was fixed (by SVN commit 728712 on 24 Oct 2007) just after KDE 3.5.8 was issued.

KAlarm for KDE 4.0, SUSE 11.0

SUSE packages for KDE 4.0 are based on unofficial and not fully working versions of KAlarm and other KDEPIM software. Daylight savings time changes are not handled correctly. Calendar files can become read-only due to a backward change in the KAlarm version number during development (a change which was never expected to be packaged).

To enable the alarm calendar to be written to, edit the file ~/.kde4/share/apps/kalarm/calendar.ics and change the 4th line to contain the version number 1.9.10

MP3 files not playing

This may be due to some aRts plugin packages not being installed. On Debian or Ubuntu, try installing libarts1-mpeglib, libarts1-xine, libarts1-audiofile, liballegro4.2-plugin-arts, vlc-plugin-arts. Other distributions may use different package names.

KAlarm failing to start at login on non-KDE desktops

The command which must be used to auto-start KAlarm at login is: or If session restoration is used, the command kalarm for auto-start will often fail to activate KAlarm successfully. This is due a conflict between session restoration and auto-start which is not handled properly by KDE applications.

Wishlist

New features which may or may not eventually be implemented.

Alert user to the fact that exceptions and reminders don't apply to sub-repetitions (KDE bug 148251)

If the user selects the reminder option or specifies an exception, and a sub-repetition is configured, display a warning message. Exceptions suppress the EVENT if it occurs on the exception date/time, not the ALARM if the alarm is offset from the event. Suppression of sub-repetitions is according to the recurrence date, not the sub-repetition date.

Add option for last working day of month, etc. to day-of-month options

Add button or default to defer alarms by, e.g., 5 minutes (Likeback x 2)

Either there should be a button to defer alarms by 5 minutes, or the default deferral time should be set at 5 minutes (or something better than 1 minute), or provide Preference setting for default deferral time.

Add option to send emails via smtp

Provide an option to send emails via a public SMTP as an alternative to sendmail or kmail.

Provide instant messaging (kopete) action (KDE bug 123736)

Options for reporting command alarm execution failure (KDE bug 139743)

Export facility to new calendar (Email)

Provide a facility to export alarms to a new calendar, to enable calendars to be duplicated for distribution to different systems.

Export/import facility for individual alarms to Google Calendar

Allow seconds to be specified in alarm times (KDE bug 119968)

Start recurrence/sub-repetition only after alarm is acknowledged (KDE bug 145890)

Import todos from KOrganizer

Facility to create a new alarm by dragging a todo from KOrganizer which opens the alarm edit dialogue with the todo data preset.

Add all/selected alarms as a new calendar into KOrganizer (KDE bug 156817)

Add option to allow alarms to be added to KOrganizer as a new calendar, prompting for a calendar name.

Allow event end time to be specified (KDE bug 156814)

Allow an end time to be specified for alarms, to enable the alarms to be exported to KOrganizer without having to set up an end time there.

Visual

Show the next occurrence time for recurring alarms in alarm edit dialogue

Wake up monitor when alarm displays (Email)

Offer option to wake up the monitor when an alarm triggers, if the monitor has switched off due to power control policy (e.g. on laptop).

Provide global shortcut to spread alarm windows over the screen (Likeback)

When there are several alarm message windows, provide a hotkey to spread them over the screen so that they are all visible.

Show systray indication that there are disabled alarms (KDE bug 155788)

Provide a calendar view (KDE bug 138962)

Provide a calendar view as an alternative to the current alarm list view. Show days with alarms in bold, provide context menu actions on clicking on a day.

Display the list of alarms for tomorrow (Email)

Allow the next day's alarms to be displayed in a list. Provide option to display the list as an alarm.

Allow alarm messages to blink

Sound

Add option to play a sound without displaying message

Add option to unmute sound system

Add an option to unmute the sound system (master/PCM channel?) before playing a sound file.

Provide amarok sound option (KDE bug 128345)

Also allow amarok play options to be specified.

Option to specify playlist

Allow playing of a complete playlist.

Option to play random sound file from playlist (KDE bug 92045)

Allow playing of random sound file from a playlist, or from amarok playlist, ...

Provide alarm sounds with KAlarm (Likeback)

Provide a collection of alarm sounds.