I'm looking for an alarm clock app (or combination of apps) which will be more or less guaranteed to be noticed. So far I've checked out the packages wakeup, alarm-clock, and alarm-clock-applet, and found problems with all of them.
Features I'm looking for:
- Wakes computer from sleep/hibernation/shutdown (not essential)
- Alerts visually rather than relying on audio, as
wakeupseems to — if the volume is turned down, or a set of headphones connected, audio won't work - Displays alert until the alert is dismissed
- Displays on all workspaces — otherwise an alert will be missed I'm if I'm moving between workspaces while it starts displaying
- System-modeless: prevents other actions until alert is dismissed
- Displays at the top of the z-order, even above other normally top-level apps like
guake - Can't be dismissed by accident. This tends to happen during the first couple of seconds after it's displayed, when the user clicks on where the Dismiss button has just appeared before even seeing it, or presses Enter before noticing that the dialog has popped up. Most obvious solution would be to introduce a delay of a few seconds before the window starts accepting input.
One or more of the alarm apps I checked out offers the option to run an external app or script. I remember taking this route a while ago without finding anything ideal. I think I was considering using wmctrl to set the appropriate window properties on a dialog brought up by one or other of the notification systems when it occurred to me that this is really something Ubuntu should already be doing in a reliable manner. I mean, we don't want our users to have burnt pizza.
Is there already a package, or some easily configured combination of packages, that meets my stringent criteria? If not, what does the groupmind suggest as the best route to start the creation of such a thing?
