Widget: Note2Watch

Hi all,

I wanted to announce my new widget Note2Watch, available here https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/af66ba54-9f6e-441b-91ab-e842a56ce9c4

It let's you sync notes that you create on your phone, computer, or via email onto your watch where they'll remain available even when your phone isn't nearby.

I started the project because I wanted a simple Grocery list app, but as I've developed it, it's grown some more powerful features (like IFTTT support via email), so it now does a lot more than I first imagined.

It's available in two flavors, a FREE version which is still very useful, and a PRO version ($4.99/year) with all of the bells-and-whistles. I'm hoping to add even more down the road!

I consider still very much in beta, though I've been happily using for over a month now.

I look forward to your feedback, which you can leave here, or if you choose, drop an email to [email][email protected][/email].

Thanks!

rconradharris over 10 years ago

DEARNERH,

That's good to know, always nice to have more data points here.

Former Member over 10 years ago

I've been using the widget on my vivoactive for a couple of days now and its proving quite handy.

is it possible to set the widget up to stay open longer? I've been using it to store recipes for Laboratory saline solutions I regularly make at work. Unfortunately, when making them I keep having to reopen the widget as the VA goes back to the watch face after a short period of inactivity.

kuki_2000 over 10 years ago

Hi,

i like this widget, and got the pro-account. :)

Is is possible to build in in the webinterfcae the opportunity not only to delete or create a note, but also an edit option? As example: I have a note with important Phonenumbers. When i want to edit a number or to ad an new, i must copy the text of the note, delete it, create a new note, paste the old text, and than i can edit it.

Kind regards, Kuki

rconradharris over 10 years ago

I've been using the widget on my vivoactive for a couple of days now and its proving quite handy.

is it possible to set the widget up to stay open longer? I've been using it to store recipes for Laboratory saline solutions I regularly make at work. Unfortunately, when making them I keep having to reopen the widget as the VA goes back to the watch face after a short period of inactivity.

Unfortunately the widget timeout is enforced by the watch and not something the app itself can tweak. Garmin's position is that widgets are for 'glanceable' information, and so shouldn't need more than 45 secs or so. My hope is that as more powerful and interesting widgets come out, they provide a way of extending this on a a per-app basis. I'd love to be able to detect if it's a long note and request an extra 10 or 15 secs of timeout.

In the meantime, there is a bit of a work-around, one that I use fairly frequently. What you do is, when you think that the widget is going to time out, say after 30 seconds, tap the screen, and it should reset the widget's timeout counter, giving you another 45 seconds. AFAIK, you can do this as many times as you want.

You'll want to do this tapping on the list-view for short notes, or the detail-view for long notes so that way the tap doesn't have an effect other than just prolonging the timeout.

Not ideal, but it works. Hope that helps!

rconradharris over 10 years ago

Hi,

i like this widget, and got the pro-account. :)

Is is possible to build in in the webinterfcae the opportunity not only to delete or create a note, but also an edit option? As example: I have a note with important Phonenumbers. When i want to edit a number or to ad an new, i must copy the text of the note, delete it, create a new note, paste the old text, and than i can edit it.

Kind regards, Kuki

Hi Kuki,

Yep editing is high on the TODO list for new features. It's most likely going to take some small changes to the watch-side and server-side to support that, so it's a bit more complicated than one would expect. But, will hopefully be able to roll that feature out soon.

And thanks for the support here!

jim_m_58 over 10 years ago

Garmin's position is that widgets are for 'glanceable' information, and so shouldn't need more than 45 secs or so. My hope is that as more powerful and interesting widgets come out, they provide a way of extending this on a a per-app basis.

Actually, the 45 sec IS an extension to the revert time, and is only for widgets that require "Comm" permissions on the va. For non-comm widgets on the va, it's only 10 seconds.

Prior to fw 2.80 (it may have been 2.70), ALL widgets on the va had an auto revert of 10 seconds, which made it very hard to do comm and display anything.

Your best approach would probably be an app along with the widget, so the app will stay open as long as needed. Today, there is no way to share an object store between the two, so if someone wants both, each would have to be configured on it's own. The app would also be helpful if someone is running on the "10 sec for everything" versions of the FW.

Former Member over 10 years ago

Extra controls for the timeout on widgets is not something I expect the products to add in. Things that need to stay open should be implemented as a app, which will stay open indefinitely.

rconradharris over 10 years ago

Actually, the 45 sec IS an extension to the revert time, and is only for widgets that require "Comm" permissions on the va. For non-comm widgets on the va, it's only 10 seconds.

Prior to fw 2.80 (it may have been 2.70), ALL widgets on the va had an auto revert of 10 seconds, which made it very hard to do comm and display anything.

Your best approach would probably be an app along with the widget, so the app will stay open as long as needed. Today, there is no way to share an object store between the two, so if someone wants both, each would have to be configured on it's own. The app would also be helpful if someone is running on the "10 sec for everything" versions of the FW.

Yeah that's an interesting point. Not being able to share the same store is a bit of a bummer because it means from a servers point of view, I will be serving more than one watch (one 'watch' for the widget, and another 'watch' for the app). I'd like to keep a one-to-one mapping here if at all possible because that keeps the server-UI simple. Hmm, will need to think about this some more....

rconradharris over 10 years ago

Extra controls for the timeout on widgets is not something I expect the products to add in. Things that need to stay open should be implemented as a app, which will stay open indefinitely.

Fair enough.

jim_m_58 over 10 years ago

Yeah that's an interesting point. Not being able to share the same store is a bit of a bummer because it means from a servers point of view, I will be serving more than one watch (one 'watch' for the widget, and another 'watch' for the app). I'd like to keep a one-to-one mapping here if at all possible because that keeps the server-UI simple. Hmm, will need to think about this some more....

Even for devices other than the va, I believe that they have a 60 second revert timeout, and if you are in a store and following a "shopping list" for example, you'd want it to stay open for a longer time. It could be people will move to the app instead of using the widget.

Having the server work with multiple "watches" (be they logical or physical), might be a nice feature, if for example, a couple both have watches and want to share the same notes.