Thanks for the suggestion TomBTG, but that was already done.
There exists in fact an excellent gadget that does the required alarm functions, but the developers have not updated it for at least five years, the site seems dead and it will stop running when Apple abandons 32bit.
Since we're on ergonomics, there are a few other considerations:
- spaces: I did find a way for it to be present on all spaces, as that is a per-app OS preference, but it was not obvious in the beginning,
- sound: one issue is that the app must use its own sound volume setting when sounding an alarm, then go back to the previous one. That's easy too, so no worries.
- But: Apple no longer make screens, and a nice new screen we recently bought, a Samsung extra-wide and curved (SAMSUNG LC34J791WTUXEN), could not be controlled from the computer. Which is a laptop that lives behind the screen with the lid closed, and only has USB-C sockets. It's hell if you can't control the brightness and the volume from the keyboard…
The Samsung had USB-C input, but nothing worked. Then after some search we found there is DDC/CI, a sort of control standard. Screens must have some electronics built-in and some control connection such as HDMI, DisplayPort, USB or USB-C that can carry the control signals. The Samsung did not have the electronics. We then found a Philips, (PHILIPS 349X7FJEW/00) exactly the same extra-wide, curved screen (somewhere I read the LCD slab itself is actually made by Samsung) which does have the DDC/CI electronics. It sort of works, but it came with drivers only for Windows. Yet another freeware gadget to be installed for the brightness control. But he sound still does not go through the display cable, it has to come out of the 3.5mm audio jack of the computer (fortunately Apple has not yet removed that one) and then go into the 3.5mm audio input jack which the screen fortunately has. And that sound level can be controlled from the keyboard.
But what a mess.
And finally, if you have not stopped reading by now, another disaster of a different nature is about to happen: when 32bit is no longer supported by macOS, I will lose Numbers'09. The newer version (2013) had a number of functions removed and also adapted to the iPad touch interface, making everything BIG and no longer having floating inspectors. It's ergonomic hell. I'm laying a road to a LiveCode spreadsheet, but that is not obvious at all. Going back to Excel is not an option once you're used to multiple independent, sorting-proof tables with header and footer rows.
The Old Rant Robert.