【實用工具app】Debatekeeper – debate timer|最夯免費app-綠色工廠好玩App

Never miss a bell again! Debatekeeper is a timer for debates with automatic bells. It can sound a bell, vibrate and/or flash your screen to remind you to clap (for e.g. big rooms where a phone's not loud enough). Focus on the debate; let your phone do the timekeeping for you!

Debatekeeper automatically switches to the appropriate speech time, displaying the current speech name (e.g. "Prime Minister") on the screen. It supports most parliamentary styles of debating, including British Parliamentary (Worlds), Australs, World Schools, American Parliamentary, Canadian Parliamentary, Asian Parliamentary, Australian and New Zealand's Easters and Joynt Scroll styles.

You can also write your own debate format (style) in XML for the app to use—see the app website at http://tryingtoreason.wordpress.com/debatekeeper/ for details. Get in touch with me if there's one you'd like added to the official release.

Features:

• Rings bells automatically at the correct times

• Can vibrate and/or flash the screen at bell times

• Configurable preparation timer

• Configurable overtime bells

• Points of information timer (15 seconds)

• Supports most parliamentary styles

• Supports user-defined debate styles

• Browse through summaries of available styles

• Includes two “test formats” with 15-20 second “speeches” for you to try it out

• Counts up or down according to user preference

• Screen stays on and dimmed while timer running (you can turn this off though)

Advice for adjudicators: It can pay to make sure your debaters (a) know what the bell sounds like, so they don't think you just got a text message and (b) can hear the bell. I find it's loud enough in classroom-sized rooms, but not bigger rooms (say, lecture theatres); in those rooms you can use this app to remind you to clap.

Please send me feedback/bug reports! I get a few friends to test updates before releases, but it's nowhere near as thorough as "proper" software testing. Use the "e-mail developer" link below or find me on Twitter (@czlee11). I'd be really keen to hear suggestions for features as well!

For those who are wondering if an iOS version exists, the answer is not currently, but it's on my to-do list and I'm hoping to get it soon. Earlier anticipations of a release early 2013 were over-optimistic.

This app and most source code (http://github.com/czlee/debatekeeper) are licensed under the GNU General Public Licence version 3 (exceptions noted on GitHub). I owe thanks to Phillip Cao, who started the project while I had other things on my plate; Jed Bian, who put up with my bouncing ideas off him for weeks; Timothy Conder, who helped with testing user-defined formats, as well as countless others who helped test the app both in and out of debates.