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aardappel / procrastitracker

a Windows time tracking application
http://strlen.com/procrastitracker/
510 stars 54 forks source link

Feature Request: Show idle time in the UI #58

Closed danijeldomazetprivate closed 5 years ago

danijeldomazetprivate commented 5 years ago

Would it be possible to show idle time in the UI?

aardappel commented 5 years ago

The problem with idle time is that by default it is 24h - active time, i.e. unless it tries to find a segment of time in which all your active time lies, and only count the time in between, it doesn't know what is idle, and what time you were actually away or asleep. People have different schedules, so you have to account for active periods straddling days etc (currently all timing is on a local 24 hr clock, so even if your work time goes to 1am, it counts 1hr as part of the next day).

danijeldomazetprivate commented 5 years ago

I agree it is hard and complicated. However, and I am saying this from a user perspective, I would expect the tool to somehow be able to catch the time that I turned the computer on, to track my activity, and to be able to tell me that I've been totaly idle for nearly 2 hours today (because I went out to meet customer). This seems like a normal feature for such a tool. It is confusing to see that today my computer was turned on 8 hours ago, but when I check the time in procrastitracker I see only 6:15 tracked. It would be great to see that 1:45 tracked somewhere. The fact that procrastitracker must know this time in some way already because i started tracking 8 hours ago, and it shows 6:15 - so where did the time go?? I supposed it was tracked somehow, but it's not in the UI.

I like the idea to try to find a segment of time in which all my active time lies, and only count the time in between. That seems to be exactly what I am looking for? How would this be implemented? There should maybe be a parameter in minutes, and if idle period would be within this time (say, lower than 120 minutes), than it would be counted as "customer" time or "dentist" time, or whatever, and at the end of the day I would be able to see that I totaly worked 8 hours, not 6:16.

Sorry about confusing comment. Trying to find a way.

aardappel commented 5 years ago

I guess if you turn your computer on and off for a workday, then idle time is more meaningful. Most people don't though.. my computer is always on, and goes to sleep as needed.

Yes, lower than N minutes could be counted as "workday idle time" or whatever. N could default to 0 in the settings to preserve current behavior. Wondering what a good name for this category is, since "customer time" for example is clearly too specific, not everyone has customers :)

Did you try Advanced Settings -> Show Away Dialog When Away For Less Than ? This is that feature, except it is not automatic, you have to indicate what you were doing. I suppose I could add an automatic category as well that doesn't pop up a dialog?

aardappel commented 5 years ago

Ok, just added an Advanced Setting that allows you to set a max minutes below which an away period automatically registered as "Away : Other". The away dialog also still works, which then uses "Away : " + name of selected task. You can even use both, if for example you set the auto away to 15 and dialog away to 60, you'll get "Other" for all small breaks, and the bigger ones you get a dialog.

https://github.com/aardappel/procrastitracker/commit/bf6e809fe7d59d8bfb11bc41dcb7f6c2228886ee

danijeldomazetprivate commented 5 years ago

OK, that's great. I started using the "Show Away Dialog When Away For Less" and it seems to be OK.

How do I test the new version, where do I download?

aardappel commented 5 years ago

Just download as usual, I updated the installer yesterday shortly after my previous post.

danijeldomazetprivate commented 5 years ago

I installed it, but I don't see anything new in Advanced Settings. Is all OK with installer? It would be great to add version or date to installer filename.

aardappel commented 5 years ago

The About window shows July 9 for me.

Advanced settings should have Count "Away : Other" when away less than (Minutes).

danijeldomazetprivate commented 5 years ago

Please check if this is it: http://strlen.com/procrastitracker/ProcrastiTracker_Setup.exe

aardappel commented 5 years ago

Yes, that is it.

danijeldomazetprivate commented 5 years ago

It seems like you didn't update it. I just did uninstall, and then download and install. Still old version: Mar 15 2019.

aardappel commented 5 years ago

Apologies, just updated again, and the size was indeed different. Must have missed something last time.

danijeldomazetprivate commented 5 years ago

OK, installed it, thanks. Let me test it for a few days.

danijeldomazetprivate commented 5 years ago

Works nicely. Does exactly what I needed. It is now easy to track idle time too. Even though this could be done with pop-up (before this fix), it is now much more confortable without pop-up.

Thanks!

aardappel commented 5 years ago

That's great to hear :)

danijeldomazetprivate commented 4 years ago

Please add the description for this option to the table under http://strlen.com/procrastitracker/#usage. I was using Mac OSX for some time so could not use this tool. Now I am back on Windows and want to use it again, but first had to go through this thread to remind myself what the option was about. :-)

aardappel commented 4 years ago

will do