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Timers

Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:44 pm
by matneh
I use MyInfo for tracking the projects and tasks that I'm working on. I would love to be able to start/stop a timer when I start working on a different task and then analyze that information later on to see where I spent most of my time.

Looks like there is a Web program for this: http://www.formassembly.com/time-tracker/ but it would be much better built into MyInfo.

Thanks!
Matt

Re: Timers

Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:39 pm
by Fred
Petko: See what I mean? Professionnals charging "billing hours" to their customers, hence the need of a timing function in MI, from which different timing functions can be derived.

Of course, people can check their own time investment, without necessarily charging their customers... fact is, professional who pay big money for software do want such a timer counter for billing purposes, so if you give it to them, they will be pleased to see it there, whereas they would say, "not professional", otherwise...

In Options, UR does offer these timers:
- Search - Quicksearch - incremental search delay when typing
- Editor - auto-save changes every x minutes
- Import (More) - conncetion timeout and receive timeout
- Miscellaneous - delay before updating item access date*
- Miscellaneous - item load delay when scrolling via keyboard

* = Since I do not work with UR, I just have some looks on it, I took the * for a timer from which UR decided if an item is to be put into the "visited items list" or not; indeed, I had such a timer 12 years ago, by my own idea then, since I developed by trial and error and saw that intermediate, navigational items got into that list and cluttered it; hence my asking for such an option I thought UR had when in fact it has not... (I even had an additional command "throw this item out of the list" if I had considered it for some seconds, but had judged it not worthwile - but then, that might irritate most users to have it this elaborate...)

but then, that's no reason to not implement this option into MI:

- put every visited item into the visited items' list yes / no

Which is to say, if no, do only put it there if it had focus for more than a second or more than 2 seconds - hence the utility of leaving it to users, if possible, in the form:

"put items into the visited items' list only after focus of (enter field) milliseconds (0 for at once)" - voilĂ , it's 1 line in an options table, and would GREATLY enhance this function!

Thus, MI would have it, whereas UR wouldn't, just a little programming for a MUCH enhanced visited items list feature!

P.S. Besides, "ur" is another example of false finds in MI, search for "ur", and you'll get any word containing "ur". Just an idea without having looked into it: Perhaps English words are correctly indexed, whereas all "words" that are not "English", are treated this way...

ADD-ON:

Since people would like to bill (or just have statistical data) project-wise, yes, they would have their "cases" in different "topics", but then, they would like to have this topic's time running even when they leave that topic, in order to browse reference materials, in other topics, or let's say, not YET included into their current "project" / case.

That's why just a time counter per topic having focus would be a bad idea; a dialog window should be accessible by a (key-assignable) command, in which there would be something "start time counting for current topic" (but running from then on, be you working in other topics or even in other programs - web research!), "interrupt counter" (= let's say you take a call from another client! but then, that client's counter should be triggered! thus, several counters, with automatic stopping the other ones when triggered?! and the one having been stopped automatically resuming when the "interception" counter is stopped?!), "resume counter" - and coupled with the telephone?!

Just something of it, at least, with a colored message field assignable to any toolbar, and blinking for 2 or 3 seconds for every change - too bad if you work 3 hours for client a but then are billing client b who will not be happy about this! (and client a will not tell you...)

Re: Timers

Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2010 3:48 pm
by Daly de Gagne
Petko, I agree with the request for timers. In terms of the topic I am putting together for the client with executive function issues (referred to in another post to this forum), such a capability would indeed be relevant and helpful.

It'd also be helpful for me when I am tracking work.

Thanks for your consideration.

Daly

matneh wrote:I use MyInfo for tracking the projects and tasks that I'm working on. I would love to be able to start/stop a timer when I start working on a different task and then analyze that information later on to see where I spent most of my time.

Looks like there is a Web program for this: http://www.formassembly.com/time-tracker/ but it would be much better built into MyInfo.

Thanks!
Matt