posttrack

PostTrack

Posttrack is a tiny application helping you to account working time to activities. It is written in Java and is available as bundle for Windows and MacOSX. PostTrack should run on other operating systems, as well.

In contrary to other time trackers accounting time to an activity is done after you have done some work on an activity. You decide how to distribute the accounted time to the activities retroactively. Posttrack tries to account the time your computer was up and running so you can distribute that time. If you hibernate your machine at the end of the workday and continue the next day, PostTrack will show un-accounted values for you to distribute.

To get an overview over your bookings, create a week or month report (of the selected date). The report will be created in .xls format and will sum up totals for a project/day/reporting-timespan.

PostTrack supports german and english language set.

Using PostTrack

For MacOSX users: PostTrack does not show a Dock icon. So if you select a menu item, Posttrack might open a window in the background. Use Expose to access that window.

Access PostTrack
(Right)click on the tray/menu-bar icon to get the Tracker-Menu

Tracker Menu

Today
Shows unaccounted time of Today. Click to set focused-date to today.

Leftover section
Shows unaccounted time of past days. Click to set focused-date accordingly. Also shows focused-date if not Today.

Projects and Activities
List of Projects and Activities. Activity menus allow accouting of time values for the focused date.

Pause
Pause time accounting for the current day.

Reduce Time
Reduce or clear the unaccounted time of the focused-date. Can be use to subtract work breaks.

Select Date
Opens a Date Selection dialog to change the focused-date.

Maintain projects
Opens a Maintenance dialog to add/remove projects and their activities. Also projects and activities can be renamed and hidden from the popup menu. If a project or activity is deleted, all its accounted time bookings are deleted as well. You can also alter (add/remove) the presets for the accounted times within the popup menu and change the threshold to ignore 'leftover' minutes from previous day. The dialog also allows to clear the database from outdated booking values. Finally you can enable posttrack to recognize an abandoned workplace and set itself to auto-pause until the user returns on the next day based on mouse movements.

Reports
Create a week or month report (based on the focused-date). After specifying a storage location, a .xls report is created.

Exit
Quits the application

System Requirements

General

• PostTrack is a pure Java application. It requires Java 1.6 at least.
• PostTrack creates datafiles in the users home directory within the .posttrack folder. That location must be accessible for writing.
• Reports generated are .xls format. Use MS Excel or OpenOffice to open the reports.

Windows

• Windows XP (at least)

MacOSX

• development and test was done with MacOSX 10.5.6 (Leopard)

Download/Install

Binary

Windows

posttrack.zip

MacOSX

PT.dmg.zip

Other OS

posttrack.zip

SourceCode

svn repository

Uninstall

MacOSX

• Exit Posttrack application
• trash Posttrack.app file
• remove .posttrack folder located within user directory (/Users/yourUserName/.posttrack). Use Finder Shift-command-G to go to that folder.

Windows

• Exit Posttrack application
• remove files and folder created while extracting .zip file
• remove .posttrack folder located within user directory (e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\user\.posttrack)

Changelog

• added auto-pause (inactivity recognition by wachting mouse cursor position (Suggested by Torsten)). Can be enabled in 'Maintain Projects' dialog.

• added changeable threshold value to ignore 'leftover' minutes from previous day (Suggested by Jochen)
• added Pause function to suspend time accounting of current day (useful if you never switch of your machine during night)
• bugfix removed sorting in Project maintenance tables

• windows tray icon fix (size)

• replace "clear time" menu with "reduce time" to allow reducing unaccounted time (e.g for breaks or other interrupts)
• add tray icon tooltip in windows
• excel reports value cells' background color is set to light yellow for weekend days
• on recognizing day change, update db script file (checkpoint) to clear db-logfile.
• set freeze pane in Excel report
• Windows version ships with .exe with and without splash-screen
• bugfixes

Licenses and Disclaimer

• Use PostTrack at your own risk.
• Candy Clock Icon (used on this Website and as Application Icon) by =cemagraphics under creative commons 3.0
• Source and Binaries of PostTrack are licensed under GPL3.0. See LICENSE.txt and license folder within distributions for details.

Property File

# Posttrack property file.
# Timespan in Milliseconds. Posttrack stores elapsed time to database
# every x milliseconds. Higher values will reduce disk activity.
# but will also raise timespan 'forgot' after hibernate.
WATCHDOGTIME=120000
# Dateformat used in Tracker Menu. Uses java Formatter rules
DATEFORMAT=%1$ta, %1$td.%1$tm.%1$tY
# default folder location for reports
REPORT_DIRECTORY=/Users/marcus/Desktop/
# version number (info only)
VERSION=1.3.0
# preset values for accounting times. Use Project Maintenance to change.
PRESETS=120,90,60,30,15,-30
# Minutes threshold disregarded if leftover from previous day
LEFTOVER_THRESHOLD_MINUTES=6
# check every WATCHDOGTIME if mouse was moved
# If mouse was not moved overnight assume pause
WATCHMOUSEMOVE=FALSE