Reached from: Main Menu -> Select Dances ->Timer Button
DanceMaster includes a pop-up timer that you can use for timing breaks and/or to help keep the dance moving along. Or anything else that you need a timer with one-second resolution for. It has two modes – automatic and manual.
If automatic mode is enabled, it will pop up one minute after the end of a dance (if another dance hasn’t started playing by then) and it will tell you how long the dancers have been standing around. After the “alarm time” (default = 15 minutes) has expired, the timer will play a sound to call the dancers (and you) back from the refreshment table. It will play a (different) reminder sound every (default = 5) minutes after that.
IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP: You probably don’t want to use automatic mode at a square dance. Otherwise the caller is likely to get annoyed about those alarm sounds that keep playing in the middle of his tips.
If you click the “Start” button, the timer will start operating right away (manual mode) without waiting for a song to end. This will override automatic operation.
Close stops the timer, resets the alarm, and makes the timer window go away.
The timer form has two sizes: compact - for normal operation, and full - for changing the alarm settings. In compact mode, only the time display and the “Close”, Start, “Help” and “Show Details” buttons are shown. Clicking “Show Details” will open the form to reveal the other controls.
Automatic mode: Enable / Disable: As you might expect, this enables or disables automatic operation. If disabled, the timer will not pop up after a dance. It will still work in manual mode, however.
Alarm: The text box sets the time period, the “Play sound” checkbox determines whether DanceMaster will play a sound when the alarm time is up. The filename below the “Play Sound” checkbox is the name of the sound file that will be played. If you want to change the sound, click the “Select Sound” button to choose another. You can test the new sound with the “Play Sound” button.
Reminder: As with the alarm, the text box sets the time period. However, the reminder is different in that it will fire over and over, every X minutes, once the alarm has triggered. In other words, if the alarm is set for 10 minutes and the reminder for 2 minutes, the alarm sound will play 10 minutes after the end of the last dance, then the reminder sound will play every two minutes after that. The “Play sound” checkbox determines whether DanceMaster will play a sound when the reminder time is up, but the reminder probably isn’t very useful without it. The filename below the “Play Sound” checkbox is the name of the sound file that will be played. If you want to change the sound, click the “Select Sound” button to choose another. A bunch of alarm sounds are located in the "Alarm Sounds" folder (clever, eh?) under your DanceMaster folder. Or you can substitute any WAV or MP3 file you choose. You can test the new sound with the “Play Sound” button.
If your WAV sound doesn't play but an MP3 sound does, your Winamp is probably not configured to play WAV files. You may need to download and install Winamp "Full" (not the $20 PRO version). You can get the PRO version if you choose, but it isn't necessary.