Pocket Log: simple time tracking for Freelancers

Pocket Log is a pretty simple Android app that allows time tracking for a number of projects with constraints, like hour limits, due dates and such. The app is free and open source, for screenshots have a look at the Playstore Entry.

Initial setup

Like most Android projects these days Pocket Log uses gradle. In app/build.gradle you find a section handling the signing process for release versions:

release {
    storeFile file("../timetracker.keystore")
    storePassword TIMETRACKER_RELEASE_STORE_PASSWORD // ~/.gradle/gradle.properties
    keyAlias "timetracker"
    keyPassword TIMETRACKER_RELEASE_KEY_PASSWORD // ~/.gradle/gradle.properties
}

timetracker.keystore contains the signing key which you will have to replace with your own key Once that is done, create a file at ~/.gradle/gradle.properties in which you can store the passwords for your key and keystore like this:

TIMETRACKER_RELEASE_STORE_PASSWORD: aPasswordHere
TIMETRACKER_RELEASE_KEY_PASSWORD: anotherPasswordHere

Using this approach you can have your key in the open without exposing the passwords.

Building

Pocket Log is build using gradle. The usual tasks are available, like:

• ./gradlew assembleDebug produces an APK file that you can manually install using ADB
• ./gradlew test runs the contained unit tests

Releasing

Before running your first release, you'll have to replace the release signing key, which is located in /timetracker.keystore. After that, the following steps will have to be repeated for each release:

1) Ensure new version and version code is set in app/build.gradle 1) run ./gradlew clean assembleRelease 1) Upload the artifact app/build/outputs/apk/app-release.apk using the Store Webclient 1) Once the release is done, update versionCode and versionString in app/build.gradle and commit the changes