On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 07:43:04AM -0700, Darren Remington was heard to remark:
> Linas,
>
> Where does the GNOME Time Tracker tool fall short for
> you? I installed Ximian's GNOME a while back and it
> came with the GNOME 1.2 installation by default. What
> would you like different in your TimeTracker?
Well, have yu tried using it?
First, foremost & most important, I'd like to be able to
anotate entries: idealy, free-form strings where I can type in
what I've been working on. But maybe this is not so important,
If I preconfigure enough entries (project x read mail,
project x talk phone, project x write code).
So maybe a better setup would be a two-level thing:
in one column, pick project x, or client z, in another column,
pick task 'readmail', task 'talkphone'. Yeah, that could work
well.
The log file: it only logs start and stop times,
and not the project that was started and stopped.
This should be a trivial fix.
The log file should write delta-time entries as well.
The log file needs to be properly escaped, so that tabs/commas
don't screw up its parsing when we import into gnucash.
again, these are trivial changes.
Finally, an edit ability. This is a bit harder ...
but if I accidentally leave the tracker running during lunch,
I can undo the entries.
I thik that's about it. That, and an importer of the gtt
log file-format into gnucash.
(ohh, ideally, gtt project entries could be picked out of the list of
clients that I store in the addressbook ... but that bonus points.)
> Time Tracking & Labor Collection is something I do
> have experience with - I worked on a tool called
> Autotime for a company called Applied Automation
> Techniques. The tool is a middleware solution between
> ERP and Accounting for big manufacturing operations
> (such as Boeing or Allison Engines.)
Excellent!
> However, having admitted to the experience, I think it
> would be more productive for me to start with the
> Addressbook component to GNUCash. I also think the
Uhh, no. I think the mods to gtt are mostly fairly
straightforward and not hard to do. It'll get you warmed up.
The addressbok work is harder, I beleive, because its
more pervasive.
> addressbook should be integrated with Open Office,
> instead of Evolution. The Open Office addressbook is
> actually an integration of the Mozilla addressbook.
I suppose that's OK. Making it pluggable, so I could someday
use the evolution addressbok would be better...
The evolution addressbook is much much slicker, nicer layout,
nicer forms. And it prints out to something beautiful.
And its got search capabilities.
> The addressbook could be incorporated into GNUCash
> without putting off the 'home user'. But the Time
> Tracker would be along the lines of small business
> interest and would fit more into a separate project
> along with the other business-oriented components.
sort-of.
I envision the time-tracker would run more or less independently,
and every now an then, one could start up gnucash, and import
time-tracker log files. (or should I say 'sync to' time tracker
logs) This would *not* interfer with anyone.
> What did you think of the name GNUBooks? I could start
> work on the Time Tracker after I get the Addressbook
> component made.
Well, there is a move afoot to modularize gnucash, to make
it more configurable into different 'products'. Its being disussed on
the mailing list.
I'm ccing the mailing list.
>
> Regards,
> Darren
>
> --- Linas Vepstas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 13, 2001 at 11:13:17AM -0700, Darren
> > Remington was heard to remark:
> > > Linas,
> > >
> > > That brings up the perfect 'itch'. When I first
> > > started contract programming, the contracting
> > > organization I worked with wanted invoices for
> > > my billed hours. I had little idea where to even
> > > start.
> > > I ended up using the Star Office spreadsheet as I
> > > cobbed an invoice off someone who sent me one that
> >
> > > they used in Excel.
> >
> > This another occasional request.
> > I hunted around for some time-trackers, but didn't
> > find any nice
> > GUI/desktop ones, although there seemed to be some
> > web-based ones.
> >
> > Someone would need to write an exporter for teh
> > web-based things, and an
> > importer for gnucash. a quickie scheme based script
> > would be ideal for
> > this: you'd learn scheme, and also see how easy it
> > is to poke data in.
> >
> > I'd prefer a gui time tracker, since the web-based
> > ones require a web
> > admin to install aache, then install and config the
> > tool. I'm
> > big on 'trivial install'.
> >
> > --linas
> >
> >
>
> > ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature
>
>
>
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--
Linas Vepstas -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.gnumatic.com/
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