PROBLIP

Tiny Windows tray beeper for periodic attention, meditation, and break cues.

Quick start · Controls · Preferences · Troubleshooting

PROBLIP stays in the notification area and plays a short cue on the interval you choose: randomized range presets, a custom manual range, or an alternating pulse pattern.

Overview

• Single Problip.exe (C# / WinForms, .NET Framework), built directly with csc.exe — no SDK, no NuGet, no installer.
• Lives in the system tray. No main window until you open settings.
• Portable: everything it needs sits beside the executable.

Features

• Three interval modes:
  • Range presets — 4–7, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds (randomized across the range when it has one).
  • MANUAL — your own FROM/TO bounds, 1–3600 seconds each; the values are clamped into range and reordered (FROM ≤ TO) automatically. Equal bounds behave as a fixed interval.
  • PULSE — an alternating pattern: 5 s, then a fresh random 10–20 s, then 5 s again, and so on.
• The selected interval governs the first blip too — there is no separate fast startup blip.
• Volume slider with preview on release.
• Test blip — an immediate one-shot preview from the tray menu or the settings window; it never changes ON/OFF or the pending interval, and works while the beeper is OFF.
• ON/OFF is remembered across restarts via RunOnLaunch (default ON, so existing behavior is unchanged). A sound failure shows ERR but never rewrites your ON/OFF preference — the next explicit Start recovers.
• The tray caption always shows the real state: problip — ON, problip — OFF or problip — ERR, and it updates itself when the engine state changes.
• Optional Windows autostart — off by default, opt-in only.
• Survives a missing or corrupt blip01.wav without pretending to be running.
• 15 themes — the Wintage catalog, all free: Golden Default (the default), Dark Golden (Win95), Claude Code, Antigravity, K-Lite (MPC-HC), FreeBuff, CodeNomad, Default, Golden Vintage, Vintage Dark, Vintage Classic (the one light palette), Dark 2 (OLED), Dracula, Nord and Solarized Dark. Pick one from the tray Themes menu or the THEME line in the settings window; the switch is instant across every open window and is remembered. Golden Default keeps the historical pre-theme appearance, down to the volume-slider thumb fill.
• Help — one compact help window covering intervals, volume, running and startup, statistics, themes, Blip Glow and troubleshooting. Open it from the ? button in the settings-window title bar, the tray Help item, or by pressing F1 while the settings window is active. All three open the same window, which follows the selected theme live; opening or closing Help never touches the beeper, the schedule, the statistics or the glow.
• Blip Glow — a soft accent pulse on the main window's background on every successful scheduled blip (optional, on by default, toggle next to the THEME line). TEST/preview blips never glow; a hidden window never animates.
• Local successful-blip statistics — Today, This week, This month and Total. A compact BLIPS n total line sits in the settings window and can be hidden; a small Statistics view (tray menu or the BLIPS line) shows all four counters.

Requirements

• Windows with the .NET Framework 4.x (the build uses the in-box csc.exe resolved from %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\..., wherever Windows is installed).
• blip01.wav and problip.ico shipped beside the executable.

Quick start

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build.ps1
.\Problip.exe

First run creates problip.ini next to the executable with defaults. The tray icon always shows the real state — problip — ON, problip — OFF or problip — ERR; open settings (double-click the tray icon) to pick an interval and toggle ON/OFF.

Controls

• Open settings — double-click the tray icon, or the Open settings menu.
• Test blip — tray menu action: one immediate blip through the preview path. Safe at any time — it never flips ON/OFF, never re-arms the pending wait, and works while the beeper is OFF. A failed preview surfaces through the existing ERR state.
• Volume — drag the slider; on release the level is saved and one preview blip confirms it. Changing volume never restarts the periodic countdown — the pending wait is preserved. While dragging, nothing plays (preview on release, not per pixel).
• TEST — the settings-window preview button, same one-shot behavior.
• Interval buttons — 4-7 / 5s / 10s / 15s / 20s / 30s. The selected range governs the first blip too, and changes apply immediately even mid-wait (an interval change intentionally re-arms; a volume change does not). Clicking the already-selected interval or mode again never restarts the countdown.
• MANUAL — opens the manual-interval editor: FROM and TO in seconds (1–3600), APPLY saves the bounds and re-arms from the new range; CANCEL changes nothing. The button shows the current bounds when MANUAL is active (for example MANUAL 4-7).
• PULSE — the alternating pattern: 5 s short slot, fresh random 10–20 s long slot, forever. Switching into or out of PULSE always begins at the short slot; TEST, volume changes and statistics never touch the phase, and re-selecting an active PULSE leaves the pending wait untouched.
• [ ] autostart — registers/unregisters Problip in the Windows Run key; the write is verified against the actual stored value before the setting is persisted.
• THEME — opens the theme picker (same window as the tray Themes item). Selecting a theme applies it instantly to every open window and persists it; if the save fails, the previous theme stays active and one warning reports it. Selected buttons highlight with the theme accent when it is readable on the highlight background, and fall back to the normal text color when it is not (this is what keeps the light Vintage Classic theme's selected controls black-on-silver instead of white-on-silver).
• ? / F1 / tray Help — the Help window: a compact, read-only overview (quick start, intervals, volume, running/startup, statistics, themes, glow, troubleshooting and a short FAQ). It follows the theme live and can stay open while you use everything else.
• [X] GLOW — toggles Blip Glow. Turning it off immediately stops any running pulse and takes effect on the next scheduled blip; audio and timing are never affected.
• ON / OFF — start or stop the beeper. The choice is remembered in RunOnLaunch and survives a restart (an unwritable INI is reported; the ON/OFF still applies for the running session).
• Tray Start / Stop — the same commands; availability follows the state (ON: Start disabled; OFF/ERR: Start enabled — the recovery action).
• PREFS — the small utility row under the bottom row opens the Preferences / Control Center (the tray Preferences item opens the same window).

Preferences / Control Center

One reusable window (main PREFS row or tray Preferences) groups every behavioral switch the product has. Each control routes through one shared command seam, so the same setting changed from another surface stays in sync with no polling and no restart:

• SESSION — periodic blips ON/OFF — the shared Start/Stop command: the choice is remembered (RunOnLaunch) and mirrors the main window, the tray and the real engine state (ERR selects neither and keeps ON available as the recovery action).
• STARTUP — start with Windows — the same verified registry + INI transaction as the main window's autostart toggle. Separate from RunOnLaunch: AutoStart decides whether Windows launches PROBLIP at all, RunOnLaunch decides whether periodic blips run once it does.
• AUDIO — preview after volume change — off means a volume change still applies (and rebuilds the scaled sound) but stays silent. TEST is independent and always plays one preview; it never changes ON/OFF, the pending countdown, the PULSE phase, the statistics or the glow.
• STATISTICS — record statistics / show BLIPS counter — two independent preferences. Recording off stops future counting only: history stays, audio keeps running, Glow keeps working and a visible frozen total is marked OFF. Hiding the counter hides only the display; counting continues. VIEW opens the Statistics window; RESET ALL runs the shared atomic reset (confirmation required; cancelled or failed resets change nothing).
• APPEARANCE — blip glow / always on top / theme CHANGE — glow can be switched off at any time (an active glow stops immediately); always-on-top applies live to every PROBLIP window; CHANGE opens the same Themes window the main THEME row uses, and the current theme name updates immediately.

Portable configuration

All settings live in problip.ini beside the executable:

[problip]
Volume=0.05
MinMs=4000
MaxMs=7000
IntervalKind=range
ManualFromSec=4
ManualToSec=7
AutoStart=0
RunOnLaunch=1
ShowBlipCounter=1
StatsEnabled=1
PreviewOnVolumeChange=1
ThemeId=theme_classic
BlipGlow=1
AlwaysOnTop=1

IntervalKind selects the active mode: range uses the ordinary MinMs/MaxMs preset values, manual uses ManualFromSec/ManualToSec (seconds, clamped to 1–3600 and reordered so FROM ≤ TO), and pulse uses the built-in 5 s / random 10–20 s pattern. An old problip.ini without IntervalKind behaves exactly as before (Range).

ThemeId is the selected theme (see the list in Features). An old ini without the key, an unknown value or the removed theme_wintage_custom all resolve to theme_classic. BlipGlow is the glow preference; anything but an exact 0 means on. StatsEnabled controls whether successful scheduled blips are recorded (anything but an exact 0 means on); PreviewOnVolumeChange controls the preview after a volume change (anything but an exact 0 means on); AlwaysOnTop controls whether PROBLIP windows stay above other windows (anything but an exact 0 means on).

problip.ini is user state — it is not part of the source tree and is never packaged in a release. problip.example.ini shows the safe defaults.

Statistics

Statistics count only real scheduled blips — one audible periodic blip is one count. Preview blips are never counted: the TEST button, the tray Test blip action and the volume-change preview all play sound without changing any counter.

• Today follows the local calendar date.
• This week is the ISO week (Monday–Sunday).
• This month follows the local calendar month.
• Total never resets — except by an explicit RESET ALL.
• A new period starts at 1 on its first blip; before that, a stale period shows 0 (no midnight timer, no background work).
• Counters saturate safely and can never go negative.
• Hiding the BLIPS line only hides the display — counting continues.
• Record statistics (StatsEnabled) can be paused from the Statistics view or Preferences: pausing stops future counting, keeps all existing counters and never touches audio, the glow or the counter visibility; a visible frozen total is marked OFF. Re-enabling simply counts the next successful scheduled blip — no backfill, no estimates.
• RESET ALL (Statistics view or Preferences) zeroes all four counters in one atomic transaction after an explicit confirmation. A failed commit changes neither memory nor disk and is reported once; the schedule, audio and glow are never affected. The next successful recorded blip starts at 1.

Statistics are stored locally in problip.stats.ini beside the executable, separate from problip.ini. There is no account, no server and no telemetry; nothing leaves the machine. The file is user state, is never packaged, and can be deleted to reset the counters — close PROBLIP first: while it is running, the in-memory counters remain authoritative and the next flush recreates the file with the current counts. Snapshots are committed atomically — the whole file is replaced at once, so a crash or a failed write can never leave a half-updated mixture behind; a statistics write failure never affects playback — the counters stay correct in memory and the retry is rate-limited (at most one attempt per 10 seconds, plus a final attempt on Stop/exit).

Build

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build.ps1

This compiles Problip.cs to Problip.exe using the .NET Framework compiler resolved from %WINDIR%. It prefers Framework64, falling back to Framework.

Tests

One canonical runner exercises every regression harness:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tests\run_all.ps1

It compiles the real Problip.cs, drives BlipEngine/Settings through reflection, and exits non-zero if any harness fails. Individual harnesses (tests/test_*.ps1) can be run on their own while debugging:

• test_wav.ps1 — WAV validation (4-bit/bps=0, float, truncated chunks, PCM frame-metadata consistency, the shipped 16-bit file) and the zero-step-scale-loop guard.
• test_engine.ps1 — first-blip timing, range re-arm, idempotent cleanup, autostart defaults, preview semantics (while ON/OFF), the scheduled-play oracle (three due ticks = three real plays), and countdown preservation across a volume reload.
• test_intervals.ps1 — MANUAL sanitize/clamp/order/fixed semantics, PULSE slot alternation and phase-reset contract (Start/Stop/mode switches, and the volume/preview immunities), idempotent mode re-selection, and the bounded failed-flush retry under a 1-second MANUAL interval with an unwritable statistics target.
• test_runstate.ps1 — remembered RunOnLaunch behavior, runtime ON/OFF/ERR transitions, and exact-due countdown preservation.
• test_problip_sound.ps1 — missing/corrupt/repaired sound-asset failure state and preview truthfulness against a failing asset.
• test_problip_repaint.ps1 — GDI/font/repaint regression guard, layout of every row including the THEME/GLOW utility line and the theme picker, the manual-editor keyboard contract driven through ProcessDialogKey, the title-bar ? Help affordance geometry and the Help window layout.
• test_themes.ps1 — the 15-theme catalog (unique stable ids, complete palettes, donor-value pins, Golden Default pixel pins including the historical #453D30 volume-thumb ALT, normalization of legacy/unknown ids, light-palette readability, OLED black), the contrast-aware selected-text contract with a bounded all-themes readability audit, and theme-switch scheduling immunity.
• test_help.ps1 — the Help content contract (required Windows sections, no Android premium/store/trial content), Help's product-state immunity, the one reusable Help window behind all three entry points, theme-live Help projection and Help resource stability.
• test_ownership.ps1 — the persistence-ownership contract: a second process in the same portable directory fails closed, a different portable directory runs concurrently, and the ownership name keeps its fixed Global\Problip.Persistence.<sha256> shape without exposing the raw path.
• test_settings.ps1 — settings round-trip, invariant normalization, and persistence-failure rollback, including the preview-once volume-commit contract.
• test_stats.ps1 — pure statistics semantics (period keys, ISO week-year boundaries, lazy rollover, saturating counters), the isolated problip.stats.ini persistence contract, and the atomic snapshot commit (a failed replacement leaves the previous complete snapshot on disk; failed flushes retry on the bounded 10-second attempt window, never per blip).
• test_preferences.ps1 — the Preferences / Control Center wave: the three new settings' defaults and round-trips, statistics recording vs display independence, the atomic + failed-reset contracts, preview-on-volume behavior, always-on-top live projection, read-only preference-failure rollback, and cross-window live synchronization.
• test_package.ps1 — release ZIP content contract; packaging fails closed when a mandatory runtime asset is missing.

Packaging

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File package.ps1

Builds, then writes dist/ containing only the runtime files (Problip.exe, blip01.wav, problip.ico, README.md) and a problip-portable.zip. problip.ini and any dev/audit files are never included.

Repository layout

Problip.cs                 the entire application (single source file)
build.ps1                 direct-csc build
package.ps1               clean release ZIP
README.md
problip.example.ini       documented example configuration
assets/problip.png         README logo (derived from the real icon)
blip01.wav                beep asset, shipped beside the exe
problip.ico               tray/window icon
scripts/make_pixel_ico.py icon generator (nearest-neighbour, pixel style)
tests/                    run_all.ps1 + regression harnesses
.github/workflows/ci.yml  Windows CI (build + full test suite)

problip.ini and problip.stats.ini are runtime user state, created beside the executable when the app runs; they are never part of the repository or a release package.

Troubleshooting

• State reads ERR — blip01.wav is missing or corrupt beside the executable, or it is not 8/16/24/32-bit integer PCM. Restore the shipped blip01.wav; the next ON recovers without a restart.
• No sound — volume at 0, or the interval simply has not elapsed yet.
• Autostart did not take — the Run-key write can fail if your account lacks permission; the toggle reports the real outcome rather than hiding it.
• Window does not open — delete problip.ini (or restore problip.example.ini over it) and start PROBLIP again; a fresh default configuration is written on the next run. Your statistics in problip.stats.ini are untouched by this.

Autostart

Autostart is opt-in. A fresh install does not register itself on launch; you enable it from the settings UI, which writes the Run key to point at the current executable. An existing AutoStart=1 in problip.ini is preserved.

License

No license is specified for this project. All rights reserved by the author; the code is made publicly viewable but no rights are granted. Permission is not given to copy, modify, redistribute or create derivative works. No LICENSE file exists yet; if one is added later, it will appear in the repository root.

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Project network

This repository is connected to the broader SAIPEN / vacterro project network.

Author hub · SAIPEN HQ · SAIPEN Core · ZAICODE · FastPrompter · SAIPEN Community

For reproducible bugs and durable feature requests, use this repository's GitHub Issues. Use Discord for quick discussion, screenshots, and cross-project feedback.

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