Trackingtime applet6/5/2023 ![]() ![]() While in month mode they will move to the next or previous month respectively, and they continue to do the right thing in week and day modes as well. The next and previous arrows are smartly implemented. Tasks can be added, removed, and edited by selecting them and clicking the appropriate button. The interface for the overview window is admirably simple. The visual breakdown of time worked per day is useful, but having easily understood visualizations for total amount of time spent on a category and activity basis really helps to intuitively understand where the user’s time is spent. The real power of Hamster comes into play with its aggregate display of tracked activities. Lastly, the global hotkey preference controls which key combination the user can use to activate the Hamster application without using the mouse. Also, the slider controls how often Hamster will display its unobtrusive notification, which serves as a visual way of informing the user they are still working on a particular task. A possible use-case for not enabling this feature would be if the user routinely includes tasks that take the user away from the computer, and the user would like the tracking to continue while away. You can control when Hamster should automatically stop tracking time. ![]() There are only a few additional preferences for Hamster. This likely isn’t an issue for categories since their creation will occur less frequently, but it would be nice if there was an easy way to assign categories to activities from elsewhere. I also could not find a way to create a category, or to assign activities to a category outside this window. It isn’t immediately clear how to remove an activity or category after it is created, but after some exploration, I determined that a simple press of the Delete key will do the trick. Activities can be moved to different categories with a drag-and-drop action. In this version, there is no way in the user interface to disable this behavior. An idiosyncratic quirk of naming is that the text is automatically modified so that only the first letter is capitalized. Renaming an entry involves clicking on it, and the text becomes editable-which is an enjoyable little touch. Creating a category or activity will make a new item in the list appear which automatically prompts for the name. The first batch of preferences involves creating categories and defining activities within those categories. However, its discoverability is low, as there is no other way to access it. If users are familiar with searching for additional program options in such menus, then they will eventually find it. Hamster tucks away its minimal preferences in a contextual menu from its panel button. Rounding out the main user interface are two buttons: the first lets one add an activity for any arbitrary date and time, and the second brings up the activity overview window, which is discussed later. Under the overview list is a breakdown of the time spent on each category of tasks for that day, which could be a useful feature. It’s possible to edit the start and end times for each activity in this list using a small edit icon that appears in each row. This allows the user to see what they have been doing at a glance. Hamster provides an overview of all the activities tracked for the current day. If the user wants to start an activity that isn’t already defined, he simply enters a name for the new activity in this area. The entry includes a drop-down list of all defined activities along with their categories. The current activity can be selected in the text entry at the top. The displayed information acts as a button when clicked it stays depressed and Hamster’s user interface pops up. In the panel, it displays both the current activity that is being tracked, as well as the amount of time spent on the activity. Hamster is a panel applet, so it must be added to a panel in order to use it. This review will be covering hamster-applet 2.26.0. Now that GNOME 2.26 is upon us, it is an ideal time to take a closer look at this interesting project. Project Hamster is a relatively new module for GNOME, having been brought into GNOME officially for the 2.24 release. Time Tracking with Project HamsterĪccording to their entry on GNOME Live, Project Hamster is “time tracking for masses.” It aims to be a tool which enables users to quickly and accurately keep track of the amount of time they spend on their activities over time. In this article, Les Harris takes a look at Project Hamster, a recent addition to the GNOME Desktop that helps you track your activities over time. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |