WorkCoach - v0.8.0 - January 24, 2007

[Arjen]

What is WorkCoach?

WorkCoach is a program that helps you keep track of how you spend your time on the pc, and coaches you in doing what you plan to do.

The program keeps track of the application you are using, and of the text in the window title of that application (the text displayed in the title bar). You can define projects and tie those to certain programs and window titles. For example, you can define a project "Work on my report" and tell WorkCoach you are working on that project if the application is "winword" (Microsoft Word) and the title bar contains "My report.doc". The program will display the time spent on each project in its status window.

What's new in this version?

WorkCoach - v0.8.0 - January 24, 2007

• Fixed: If the window title is not set for a rule, that rule does NOT match everything for the given application, but everything that is not defined elsewhere.
• You can now set a daily time budget for each project. If a time budget is set, the time left is shown in the status window. Projects that have a time budget set are shown in bold.
• Added option "count idle time towards project". If this option is set for a project and the user becomes idle while the project is active, time will be counted towards that project instead of towards the "Idle" project. This is useful when for example watching a movie on the computer. (Suggested by Seriema.)
• You can now define the time at which WorkCoach rolls over to the next day. For example, if this time is set to 3:00 (a.m.), everything you do between 0:00 and 2:59 is counted towards the previous day. Rolling over to the next day didn't work at all in the previous version; it should now. :-)
• The time in seconds after which idle time is counted can now be configured by the user.
• The hotkey that shows/hides the WorkCoach window can now be configured by the user.
• There is now an option in the program to make WorkCoach start on Windows startup or not.
• The project log is now saved to a file (projectlog-YYYYMMDD.xml, where YYYYMMDD is the date) so it can be used for reports.
• If you click on the tray icon, the window is shown/hidden.
• Total time spent and percentage of time spent on planned projects is now shown in the status bar.
• You can now properly edit projects notes from the status window by selecting a project. If the status window does not have focus, the notes for the active project are shown.
• The tray icon tooltip now shows the active project, time spent and the name of the active application. The latter is useful if you want to define a rule but don't know the name of the application.

Note: Also see this message for an overview of the new features!

For a complete change log, see the end of this message.

Installing the program

If you had already installed a previous version of WorkCoach, you do not have to uninstall it first.

If you were using version 0.7.5 or earlier and want to keep using your data, you have to copy it to <user>\Application Data\WorkCoach. See the instructions presented after installation for more information.

Simply run the installer (workcoach-x.x.x-install.exe) to install the program. The program requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 to run. If it's not installed, the installer will tell you and ask you if you want to be directed to the download page.

Using the program

After you've started the program, the status window will be displayed. In this window you can see how much time you've spent on each project on that day. There are two "special projects": the projects "Unknown" and "Idle".
If an application and/or window title is active that hasn't been assigned to a project, WorkCoach will count the time towards the "Unknown" project. If you haven't been active (used the keyboard or mouse) for 1 minute, time will be added to the "Idle" project.



Defining projects and rules

The program comes with a few sample projects and rules to get you started. You can adjust them or delete them to your own wishes. Look at the rules of the sample projects and read their notes to see how the rules work. The sample project file can also be found in the WorkCoach installation folder, so it can always be restored later.

You can edit projects and rules as well as program options by right clicking on the WorkCoach icon in the Window tray and choosing "Settings". There are three tabs:



In the tab "Projects" you can define your projects and edit notes for each project.



In the tab "Rules" you can define the rules that define which applications and window titles belong to which project. Every rule can contain one ore more application names (without extension) and one or more terms that the window title should contain.

Example: the rule in the screenshot above means: I'm working on the project "Surfing donationcoder.com" if the application name is "firefox" or "iexplore" and the title of the window contains "Donationcoder" or "Recent topics".

Note that the application names have to be exact matches, and that the window title are partial matches, i.e. the program checks if any of the terms are contained in the window title. If no window title matches are defined, the project is active anytime the given application(s) is/are active.

All matches are case insensitive.

If there are more rules for a projects, time is counted towards the project if ANY of the rules are met.

Note that the application name defined in the rules is the name of the executable of the program without the extension. If you don't know the executable name for a program, start it up and make sure it is active (i.e. has focus). Now, move the mouse over the WorkCoach icon in the Windows tray. A tooltip is shown which tells the application name between parentheses:



The last tab is the Options tab:



Here you can set various options for the program.

Current limitations / known bugs

• If an application is not displayed in the task bar (like Find and Run Robot, for example), the application name is not detected properly.
• Doesn't work on Windows Vista due to security issues.
• Some users have reported that WorkCoach uses a lot of CPU; see posts below.
• You can't plan idle time.

To be implemented

• Display "coaching messages".
• Nicer icon(s).
• Add keyboard shortcuts and proper tab order in settings window.

Changelog

WorkCoach - v0.7.7 - December 30, 2006

• Solved bug where WorkCoach wouldn't exit on Windows shutdown.
• Solved this bug that caused NullReference exception on startup.

WorkCoach - v0.7.6 - December 24, 2006

• Fixed this bug.
• Added the option to the installer to let WorkCoach start automatically with Windows.

WorkCoach - v0.7.5 - December 24, 2006

• Only a single instance of the application is allowed to run.
• The hotkey Win + W shows/hides the status window.
• The position and size of the status window, and visibility of details panel are saved across sessions.
• Idle time is saved across sessions.

WorkCoach - v0.7.0 - December 23, 2006

• First public release

Download

[mouser]

Wonderful 

[Arjen]

There is a bug in version 0.7.5 that causes projects and rules not to be saved properly across sessions.

You can fix this manually by copying projects.xml from My Documents\WorkCoach to \Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\WorkCoach each time after you've exited WorkCoach. (Only necessary if you've actually changed projects or rules.)

Update: FIXED - see above.

[Arjen]

Unfortunately, version 0.7.6 had a bug that caused the following error on startup:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

It has been fixed now in version 0.7.7; see above.

Doublebogey, thanks for reporting!

[gottadoit]

It would be interesting to be able to easily use this across multiple machines

In my case my primary use would be to record what is done on my primary PC and have secondary recorders collecting information on machines that I use via VPN with either RDP or a Citrix client. In this case the "primary" PC would be recording events against mstsc.exe or wfcica32.exe and I would want to "expand" on those using information captured at the remote machine

If I could easily export information from the remote machine to a file and to the clipboard then with some enhancements/processing it should hopefully be possible to create a detailed report with the combined data. If the data is going to the clipboard in the remote session then there is a fair chance that it will be transferred to the local session (at which point it would be easy to "import" from clipboard)

The only catch I can see is that all the PC clocks need to be sync'ed using NTP in order for the merge to happen without ambiguity but that is not very much to ask these days. Of course the "idle" time on the remote machines has less meaning in this scenario but the idle time on the local machine essentially overrides it.

An alternate scenario would be 2 computers and the person simply switches between them using different physical keyboards and mice (or a switch box). In this case the "primary" machine would be idle but the "remote/other" pc would not so it is a relatively easy case to identify

This would be very interesting to see how well it would work, I generally use 2 different sessions into work and my desktop as well (currently on 2 screens) so doing time collation would be useful but still a little bit of a challenge

[Seriema]

This is awesome!

I've been thinking about making an app like this for some time now. Just yesterday I was thinking, "why haven't someone already done this?" and SMACK! Here it is!

I've been using it throughout the day now. I'm on vacation so I'm a bit lazier than usual... That means, I've spent a lot of time watching movies. So I made a project "Movies" and put WorkCoach to check "vlc" (vlc.exe), but when I watch movies I'm not active. So after a few minutes it'll start counting the time as Idle. It would be great if projects could have an option to count idle time as project time. Like the Movies project could have a checkbox that I click, and as long as VLC is the active window it'll count the time towards that - wether not I'm active or idle.

The Projects tab seems a little unnecessary, it could be merged with Rules. Because now I have to create a project in Projects, then go to Rules, select that project (because it's not default selected depending on what's selected in Projects) and set everything from there. I'd rather just have the add/modify/remove buttons right under the Projects list in the Rules tab. Or the Modify button in Projects could bring up a Rules window for that specific project so the Rules tab can be removed.

It would be nice to be able to reset the timer. So I know how I spend my time each day. And being able to export that data somehow, or view graphs of it.

Keep up the good work!

[Seriema]

I just noticed WorkCoach prioritizes projects without a window title rule over projects with one. Example, I had 2 projects:
Working in Visual Studio (a default rule)
My specific Visual Studio project (a rule for "devenv" with my title)

While working on my project, it counts towards the "Working in Visual Studio" project instead of my specific one. If I remove "Working in Visual Studio" then the time goes correctly to "My specific Visual Studio project". It should be the other way around..?

[Arjen]

Hi gottadoit,

The window log information is stored in XML files, so with a custom XSLT file it would be possible to merge two of those into one. Right now only the window log information is saved to file (i.e. how much time is spent in each application / window title). The project log (i.e. how much time is spent on each project) is calculated from the window log file and the projects and rules defined by the user. I will soon make sure the project log is also saved, so it can be used for making reports like you mention.

The XML files WorkCoach creates are saved in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\WorkCoach

With regard to time syncing: right now the program only records how long you've been doing something, not the exact times, so this is not an issue.

I hope this helps - if you have any further questions or comments I'll be happy to hear them!

Arjen.

[Arjen]

Hi Seriema,

Glad to hear you like it!

Your suggestion of adding the option "count idle time as project time" to projects sounds very usefull, so I I'll add it. That would mean if a project that has this option checked is active, and the user becomes idle, the program will keep counting time towards that project instead of starting to count idle time. Do we agree? :-)

Right now WorkCoach starts counting idle time after one minute of user inactivity. I plan to make this time user configurable, so that might also help a little bit towards your problem.

I agree that it's inconvenient that you have to switch between the Project and Rules tabs, and that these two had better be combined or integrated somehow. I did it this way because I was afraid to make the GUI too complicated. You're suggestion to put the Add/Modify/Remove buttons under the Projects list in the Rules tab sounds like the best option right now. If you have any other ideas on this, let me know.

With regard to resetting the timer: the timer is now reset every day. The idea is that the program records the time spent on each project per day. I plan to save the project log to XML files (see my previous post) so you will have an XML file for each day containing time spent per project. Since they are XML files you can make HTML or even PDF reports (or other formats) from them with XSLT or XSL-FO. I might add a report function to the program later that can call these transformations.

I just noticed WorkCoach prioritizes projects without a window title rule over projects with one. Example, I had 2 projects:
Working in Visual Studio (a default rule)
My specific Visual Studio project (a rule for "devenv" with my title)

While working on my project, it counts towards the "Working in Visual Studio" project instead of my specific one. If I remove "Working in Visual Studio" then the time goes correctly to "My specific Visual Studio project". It should be the other way around..?

-Seriema (January 02, 2007, 06:18 PM)

If you have a project containing a "wildcard rule", i.e. the window title rule is empty, that project overrules another project containing a rule for the same application, but only if that other project is lower in the list than the project with the wildcard rule. (In other words: WorkCoach cycles through the projects and rules, starting at the top, and just takes the first one that matches.)

This is a known issue and described in the first post of this thread. I will definitely fix this since this is not desirable behaviour.

A workaround now is to make sure that the project with the wildcard rule is lower in the list than the project with the specific rule. Since you can't move projects up and down in the list, you'll have to do this by deleting and adding the project. We apologize for the inconvenience. :-)

Thanks for your feedback, and I'd be happy to hear about your further experiences.

Arjen.

[Seriema]

Your suggestion of adding the option "count idle time as project time" to projects sounds very usefull, so I I'll add it. That would mean if a project that has this option checked is active, and the user becomes idle, the program will keep counting time towards that project instead of starting to count idle time. Do we agree? :-)

-Arjen (January 03, 2007, 08:29 AM)

Yepp!
I'll keep a lookout on this post. Good luck now!

[gottadoit]

Hi gottadoit,

The window log information is stored in XML files, so with a custom XSLT file it would be possible to merge two of those into one. Right now only the window log information is saved to file (i.e. how much time is spent in each application / window title). The project log (i.e. how much time is spent on each project) is calculated from the window log file and the projects and rules defined by the user. I will soon make sure the project log is also saved, so it can be used for making reports like you mention.

The XML files WorkCoach creates are saved in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\WorkCoach

With regard to time syncing: right now the program only records how long you've been doing something, not the exact times, so this is not an issue.

I hope this helps - if you have any further questions or comments I'll be happy to hear them!

Arjen.

-Arjen (January 03, 2007, 08:05 AM)

Arjen,
  Thanks for the reply this is an interesting project for sure

  In regards to time keeping it would actually be useful to have the actual times stored as well (with the local timezone) then it could be used to reverse engineer a timesheet or just to see when things were done. It would also make it easier to merge the multi-machine files so that you are not accounting for more than 100% of the time spent at the computer. In my case my sessions span time zones so it would be useful if you decide to record the time if you also keep the local timezone with it

 If I understood you correctly the program currently keeps a much simpler counter of time used per window and simply increments this and saves it in a file. Adding timestamped events if this is the case is probably too much to ask because it is a departure from your current lean and simple approach, what do you think ?

 I use workpace (as a rest break prompter) and that also keeps application use statistics, the only problem with it is that it is useless for custom reporting because it saves the information in a binary file and aggregates it daily. There are other similar opensource/freeware tools, like http://www.workrave.org/features/ and that might also keep statistics (I haven't tried it) and could be a source of ideas for you...

Seeing as you are resetting the timer each "day" it would be useful if a "day" could be defined, in some cases it might be useful to run the day so that it finishes after midnight. For example you could start the new day at 6am so that any overnight activities would be considered as part of yesterday, and as long as you have timestamps with the activities the data could still be loaded into a database (or processed in perl or even java) and then sliced and diced multiple ways if required. If you include the rollover time in the daily filename and a start/stop time inside the file then you pretty much have all the information anyone could ever want to process it

[tomos]

If I understood you correctly the program currently keeps a much simpler counter of time used per window and simply increments this and saves it in a file. Adding timestamped events if this is the case is probably too much to ask because it is a departure from your current lean and simple approach, what do you think ?

have you looked at TitleLog
https://www.donation...45.msg33062#msg33062
It keeps track of all windows used - to the minute - which is great as a record of what you doing but not so good for keeping track of how long youve spent on something throughout the day.

Anyone else having problems with WorkCoach using a lot of CPU ?

[Arjen]

If I understood you correctly the program currently keeps a much simpler counter of time used per window and simply increments this and saves it in a file.

-gottadoit (January 04, 2007, 09:28 PM)

Yes, that is correct. Recording exact times instead of time spent would indeed require a different approach of the program. I will definitely keep it in mind, but I'd want to think of a good way to do it, and would like to implement some other features first. Also, it would be a departure from the philosophy I had in mind with this application: keep track of what you've done, and help you do what you want to do - but not by imposing when you do it, just by coaching you into spending the time you had planned to spend on your projects. (The time budgets is something that still has to be implemented.)

Can you think of a way I could adjust the program so it'll be useful for you, but without logging exact times? Do you really need exact times for your timesheet? I can imagine merging the XML files is possible without creating overlap if you keep in mind that when you are working on a remote computer, your RDP client is logged on the local machine. If you're working on the local machine, idle time is logged on the remote machine.

I've also used WorkPace and I agree it's a shame you can't make your own reports. I have tried WorkRave once but can't remember it had any (decent) reporting or statistics, but that might have changed since I've used it...

Seeing as you are resetting the timer each "day" it would be useful if a "day" could be defined, in some cases it might be useful to run the day so that it finishes after midnight.

In principle, the day is simply defined as the (local) date on the machine WorkCoach is running on, so midnight local time is the "roll over time". However, the program determines the date on startup and keeps using that date until shutdown, so in practice we have a "dynamic roll over time" that works fine for those overnight activities, as long as you don't restart WorkCoach. :-} So you'll probably agree with me that something better might be needed here... Your suggestion of a user definable rollover time sounds like a good idea.

Thanks again for your comments!

[Arjen]

Anyone else having problems with WorkCoach using a lot of CPU ?

-tomos (January 05, 2007, 01:57 AM)

Yes. 

It's using around 5% CPU constantly on my machine. I don't really consider it a large problem right now, since I don't really notice it, but it does have my attention. Currently, WorkCoach checks the active window every second, so I might decrease that time, or make it user configurable. And I'll try to optimize the code that is running every second.

[stevenhealey]

The ability to reset the project times at any time of the day would make the program more flexible ,
morning sessions , afternoon session and evening session would then be possible.

I am finding it very useful .. I did not realise how much I surfed while waiting for code to compile :-)

Steven

PS I am in the UK , and its 0:24 and the times have not reset from yesterday ??

[Seriema]

I usually work nights so having another way to "go to the next day" would be usefull. Logicly speaking, for my case, a new day starts when I wake up. Meaning I've been asleep for at least 6 hours and WorkCoach has at least 6h of idle time, and then become active again - that would be when I want WorkCoach to start counting "a new day" for me without me having to do anything. I hardly ever reboot and always have the computer on at night.

[Arjen]

I will think of a simple yet flexible way to rollover to the next day; that function is quite poor right now and apparently it's something people would like to see improved.

PS I am in the UK , and its 0:24 and the times have not reset from yesterday ??

-stevenhealey (January 05, 2007, 06:25 PM)

That's correct, right now the application just logs for the date that was detected at startup. So in this case you would have to restart WorkCoach to roll over to the next day. Also see what I wrote in an earlier post:

In principle, the day is simply defined as the (local) date on the machine WorkCoach is running on, so midnight local time is the "roll over time". However, the program determines the date on startup and keeps using that date until shutdown, so in practice we have a "dynamic roll over time" that works fine for those overnight activities, as long as you don't restart WorkCoach. :-}

-Arjen

The ability to reset the project times at any time of the day would make the program more flexible ,
morning sessions , afternoon session and evening session would then be possible.

-stevenhealey

I am considering implementing logging exact times in a future version, as opposed to just logging the time spent as it is now. So then this problem would also be solved...

[mojomuse]

just wanted to add what a great idea/app this is ..! 

on quick initial test run, the following ideas spring to mind for me:

- would be handy to be able to simply start/stop/pause the counter (rather than having the only other current option of closing it down completely).  this might also help those people looking to have more control over day-borders etc
- am also finding it uses a lot of CPU, but by this i mean, after initial loading CPU of @ 1%, it seems to then settle in @ 35-60% ..!?    incidentally, seems to bizarrely drop down when i'm surfing ..?!
- agree would be great to have a simple overview of time spent/day for each task.  to this end, you might want to look at how a different app approached the same logging/reporting issue here http://codebox.no-ip...roller?page=bitmeter
- reckon might also be handy if you could somehow set up "parent" and "child" tasks, where (for instance) i could have major categories/tasks for personal/work and break down subtasks within these ..?  again, a great app that approaches the to-do list in this way, so you can see a little more what i mean, can be found here http://www.abstracts...m/tdl_resources.html.  in your case, both the main parent task would count as long as any subtasks were active/counting.
- would be handy to have at least a manual "check for updates" option from the sys tray icon (especially at such an early stage of development)

otherwise, the various ideas already mentioned sound great

from my point of view, however, the most critical is to sort out the CPU issue, since at present i don't think it's viable for me to run @ such a high level ..

end of the day, its greatest use to me is to be able to look back each day/over a week and see where most of my time "disappears" (!!!) so i can start to make more use of what little i have available to me - and your coaching tips would then be great here.  in this respect, i guess you could set each task to warn you if it's "share" across a day was falling below a certain target .. is this the plan?

either way, look forward to all/any updates ..!

cheers ..

[Arjen]

Hi mojomuse,

Thanks for your comments! I will add reporting functions after I've done the basic functionality I have in mind. A "pause" function might be a nice idea - thanks for the suggestion.

I'm a bit worried by the CPU issues. WorkCoach uses a few percent of CPU on my machine, and I "only" have an AMD Athlon XP 2800 CPU. I've never seen it use as much CPU as you mention. I'd like to get some more information on the issues you're having: what kind of computer are you using? Fairly recent computer? Windows XP or other Windows version? How do you measure the CPU load? Are you doing anything special when the CPU load is so high? Any idea why it's dropping when you are surfing, as you mentioned?

Are other people having these issues? Tomos, you reported high CPU load earlier, is this similar to what you are experiencing?

I'm still thinking about the messages I'd like to implement so I'm not sure how exactly they will look. In the next version, you will be able to set daily budgets for projects. The messages should for example warn you if you have exceeded the budget, or if you are spending a lot of time on projects you hadn't planned (hadn't set a budget for on that day). Any suggestions are welcome.

[tomos]

Hi Arjen

went for it (workcoach) again this morning.
Was having some system problems (genaral high CPU usage) but seems fairly okay now (dunno, I rebooted ... )
Listed as AMD AthalonXP 1666MHz 2000+
Win XP uptodate

Using Process Explorer:
CPU rates vary between 15 & 30%
still seems very high - it seems to fluctuate a lot as i work even though I havent changed window/programme. (CPU changes every second or so but then I notice they all do that in ProcessExp.!!)
Also seems so far not to vary that much between different programmes (including surfing)

hope that helps ??!!

tom

[mojomuse]

hi arjen,

my system here is approx as follows:

- EVO N800v laptop
- win XP Pro SP2
- 1.6 mHZ processor
- 512MB RAM
- Maxthon browser (IE6 backend)
- using process explorer to check CPU etc.

not sure if you need any other info to work it out ..?

cheers ..

[Arjen]

Mojomuse, tomos,

Thanks for the info. So far, I don't know what can cause the CPU load of WorkCoach to be so high. If anyone has the same problems and/or has an idea what the cause might be, please let me know.

[mojomuse]

hi, just a quick update on the CPU issue from my end:

- rebooted and initially all looked good
- suddenly noticed CPU maxed out ..
- few checks suggest following ..

- 10-15% when surfing (maxthon)
- 3-6% when process explorer window active
- 1% when idle
- 30-50% when in outlook (any folder, i.e. setup for workcoach project or "unknown")

not sure if that helps, but the above (for now) certainly seems pretty consistent - and very odd ..?! x)

cheers ..

[Arjen]

I've uploaded a new version of WorkCoach (version 0.8.0); see above.

Here are some highlights of the new things I've added:

There are two extra options you can set for each project:



Daily time budgets

You can set a daily time budget for each project. If a time budget is set, the time left is shown in the status window. Projects that have a time budget set are shown in bold.

"Count idle time as project time"

If you check the option "Count idle time as project time" for a project and the user becomes idle while the project is active, time will be counted towards that project instead of towards the "Idle" project. This is useful when for example watching a movie on the computer - you aren't active on the computer, but you would probably want the time spent to be counted towards the project "Watch movies" instead of towards "Idle".

There is now a new tab "Options" in the Settings window:



New options

You can set the following options:

• You can define after how much time the program starts counting idle time. E.g., if this value is 60 seconds (the default value), time will be counted as "Idle" after you haven't touched the keyboard or mouse for one minute.
• You can define the hotkey that shows and hides the WorkCoach status window. By default is Win+W.
• You can have WorkCoach startup automatically with Windows, or not. You could define this already when installing the program, but you couldn't change it afterwards. Now you can!
• You can set the time at which WorkCoach rolls over to the next day. For example, if this time is set to 3:00 (a.m.), everything you do between 0:00 and 2:59 is counted towards the previous day. The default value is 0:00 (midnight).

There are also some changes in the main (status) window:



Edit projects notes from the status window

You can now properly edit projects notes from the status window. If the status window does not have focus, the notes for the active project are shown. If it does have focus, the notes of the project you select with the mouse are shown! See the screenshot above for an example.

Total work time

Total work time is shown in the status window. This is the total time that WorkCoach has been active, including idle time, i.e. the sum of all the items in the status window.

Score to tell you how you're doing

If you have a daily budget set for one or more projects, a nifty score/percentage is shown as well. This score is an indication of how well you're doing and has a value between 0% and 100%. It is the product of efficiency and effectiveness, i.e. efficiency * effectiveness, where efficiency = (time spent on planned projects) / (total time spent) and effectiveness = (time spent on planned projects) / (total time budget set). I think an example to explain this is in place: :-)

Say you have set a budget of one hour for one project and that you have worked for fifty minutes of which thirty minutes on the planned project. Then your efficiency is 30 / 50 = 0.6, and your effectiveness is 30 / 60 = 0.5. This means the score that is displayed is efficiency * effectiveness = 0.6 * 0.5 = 0.3 = 30%. I hope this all makes sense - any comments are welcome.

For all the changes, see the change log in the first message in this topic.

Thanks to everyone who has made suggestions and provided other feedback!

[mouser]

Scores! YES!!! Wonderful wonderfull wonderfull 

When is this program going to get it's own web page?