Using Glimmer

For Glimmer 0.9 (beta)

• Installing
• Panels and the tray
• The home dock
• License keys
• Notifications
• Timebox
• Build status
• PR queue
• Next meeting
• Unpushed work
• Stand up
• Day's end
• Tomorrow
• Journal
• Updates
• Uninstalling
• Getting help

Installing

Windows

1. Run the Glimmer installer. It installs for your account only and needs no administrator rights.
2. While Glimmer is in beta its installer isn't code-signed yet, so Windows may say "Windows protected your PC". Choose More info, then Run anyway.
3. Glimmer starts and puts its icon in the tray. If you can't see it, open the ^ next to the clock and drag the icon onto the taskbar.

Linux

Install the .deb package, or make the .AppImage executable and run it. Your desktop needs a system tray; on GNOME, that's the AppIndicator extension.

Panels and the tray

Each widget is a small panel that floats over your other windows and sizes itself to its content. Drag a panel by its title bar to move it; it remembers where you left it.

The buttons in a panel's title bar, from the right:

• Close hides the panel. The widget keeps working; turn it back on from the tray.
• Collapse shrinks the panel to a one-line summary, such as "1 failing" or "Sitting 42 min".
• Home sends the panel to the home dock.
• Pin keeps the panel on top of other windows.
• ☰ holds the widget's own settings, its notifications, and Glimmer's settings.

Some widgets add a button to the left of these, such as Refresh.

The tray icon

One icon stands for every widget, in the colour of whatever needs you most: red for a failing build, amber for something that wants your attention soon. Hover over it for a line from each widget. Click it to show or hide your first widget's panel.

Right-click it for the tray menu:

• Widgets turns each widget on or off.
• Send widgets home lines every panel up in the home dock.
• Settings holds license keys, where the home dock is, the light or dark theme, holding notifications during focus sessions, and starting at login.
• Glimmer guide… opens this page. Each panel's ☰ menu also has How … works, which opens that widget's section.
• Quit closes Glimmer.

The home dock

The home dock is a corner of a screen where panels line up neatly. Press a panel's Home button, or Send widgets home in the tray menu. Panels fill the dock in the order you send them, and the others close the gap when one leaves.

• Drag a panel between two docked panels to put it there.
• Choose the screen and corner in the tray menu's Settings ▸ Home. If that screen isn't connected, the dock uses the same corner of your main screen.
• Collapse when sent home, in the same menu, docks panels as one-line summaries.

License keys

The timebox needs no key. Every other widget needs a Glimmer Pro key, a 14-day trial key, or a beta key.

1. Copy the key from your receipt email.
2. In the tray menu, choose Settings ▸ License keys…, paste the key and choose Add.
3. Choose Restart now. The Pro widgets turn on after the restart; switch them on or off in the tray menu's Widgets.

A Pro key works on up to three computers. To move it, remove it in License keys… on the old computer first. Glimmer re-checks the key about once a week and keeps working offline for weeks between checks. A trial key tells you three days before it ends.

Notifications

• Each widget has its own setting in ☰ ▸ Notifications: off, important only, or all.
• When a widget notifies you, its panel glimmers briefly, so you can see which one it was.
• With Hold notifications during focus sessions on (tray menu, Settings), news that can wait is held until your timebox session ends and listed in the tray menu as "While you focused". A newly failing build still gets through.
• Glimmer never repeats a notification within 30 minutes, and respects Windows Focus Assist.

Timebox Free

A focus timer that ends before your next commitment.

1. Type what you're working on, choose a length, and press Start.
2. As the end nears you get a silent nudge (stop starting new things), then a chime at shutdown (save, commit, note where you are), then a full-screen overlay when it's time to go.
3. Press Finish and write the handoff note: what's done, where you are, and the exact next action. The next time you start that project, the note is waiting.

Pause holds the session for an interruption; Cancel drops it.

Connecting your calendar

In ☰ ▸ Timebox calendar, connect Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook; access is read-only. Then choose which calendars are hard obligations, which end a session in time, and which are soft commitments, which only warn. Sample week lets you try it without connecting anything. Next meeting reads the same calendar.

Build status Pro

Your repositories' latest GitHub Actions results, worst first. Click a row to open the run on GitHub.

1. Open ☰ ▸ Account ▸ Add GitHub account….
2. Glimmer copies a code and opens github.com/login/device. Paste the code and approve the Glimmer Widgets app. Its permissions are read-only.
3. The panel fills in by itself and checks again every 60 seconds.

If you use the GitHub CLI (gh), its signed-in accounts are listed too. Sign out in the same menu forgets an account on this computer.

PR queue Pro

Pull requests that ask for your review, oldest first, and your own, each with what it needs next. It uses the same GitHub sign-in as Build status, with its own choice of account in ☰ ▸ Account. Click a pull request to open it.

Next meeting Pro

A countdown to your next meeting, with a Join button for Google Meet, Zoom, Teams and Webex links, and a reminder five minutes before. It reads the calendar you connected in the timebox, so connect one there first.

Unpushed work Pro

Repos with work that exists only on this computer: uncommitted changes, commits not pushed, branches never pushed, and stashes.

• Add the folders that hold your projects in ☰ ▸ Folders to scan ▸ Add folder…. Glimmer finds every repo inside them and rescans every five minutes.
• Right-click a repo to open its folder, or to exclude it or everything in its parent folder.
• At the timebox's shutdown phase it rescans, and comes forward if something isn't pushed.

Stand up Pro

How long you've been sitting, and a quiet reminder to stand up. Choose how often in ☰ ▸ Remind me every. It waits for a meeting to end and for a focus session's shutdown phase. Five minutes away from the keyboard counts as a break, or press I stood up.

Day's end Pro

A checklist of what's still open at the end of the day: unpushed repos, failing builds, pull requests waiting on you, today's handoff notes, and tomorrow's list.

• Set your Stop time, and how long before it to start wrapping up, in the ☰ menu.
• At wrap-up time the panel glimmers and shows what's open.
• Done for today closes the day; Reopen today brings it back.

Tomorrow Pro

At the end of the day, write the first few things to do tomorrow in Add a first step…; today's handoff next steps are offered with one click. On your next working day the panel becomes Today, first. Tick items off as you go. Anything you don't tick carries over when you plan the next day.

Journal Pro

A log of your day that writes itself: finished focus sessions, handoff notes, meetings, builds fixed, work pushed and reviews done. Edit or remove any line, add your own in Add something you did…, and keep notes for the day.

• Step through days with the arrows. Copy puts the day on the clipboard as Markdown, ready for a standup or a timesheet.
• Each day is a Markdown file, YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD.md, in Documents\Glimmer Journal. Choose another folder, such as an Obsidian vault, in ☰ ▸ Journal folder….

Updates

Glimmer checks for a new version when it starts and every six hours, and downloads it in the background. The tray menu then offers Restart to update; otherwise it installs the next time you quit. Pro includes 12 months of updates from the day you bought it. After that Glimmer keeps working on the version you have, and renewing for $10 a year brings new versions again.

Uninstalling

First remove your license key in License keys…, to free that computer's activation. Then, on Windows, open Settings ▸ Apps ▸ Installed apps, find Glimmer and choose Uninstall. Your settings stay in %APPDATA%\Glimmer in case you reinstall; delete that folder to remove them. Your journal files are yours and are never removed.

Getting help

Write to hello@glimmerwidgets.com with your Glimmer version and what you expected to happen. Glimmer Pro includes 12 months of support.