GTimeTracker Documentation - chapter 2
The Main Window

The main window consists of four areas. There is a menu bar (see The Menu Bar, section 2.1), a toolbar (see The Toolbar, section 2.2), a status bar at the bottom of the window (see The Status Bar, section 2.4), and a scrollable area where all your projects will be displayed (see The Project List, section 2.3). When you start GTimeTracker for the first time, this area will show just one project, which is titled "empty".

Note that you can customize the look of the main window in the preferences dialog (see The Preferences Dialog, section 3.1), so not all these areas might show up after you have played around with GTimeTracker a bit. You can allways enable missing areas in the preferences dialog.


2.1 The Menu Bar

The menu bar is located at the top of the window by default. If you are using a GNOME version of GTimeTracker, you can change the location of the menu bar in numerouse ways. This customization of the menu bar is subject of the GNOME global documentation and not covered here.

Nearly all menu items in GTimeTracker have a shortcut (or accelerator key). Those key sequences are shown behind the name of the function. If for example you want to activate the function New Project... from the File menu, you can just hold down the Control key and press the N key. In the menu this is shown as Ctl+N.

The menu bar consists of four menus: File, Edit, Timer and Help. I will describe these menus in the following sections.


2.1.1 The File Menu

In the File menu you will find the functions dealing with the configuration file -- $HOME/.gtimetrackerrc. In addition there is a function to quit GTimeTracker. I have also put the New Project... funtion there. This is mainly because nearly all software has a new function in the File menu and that's the place I would search for it.

2.1.1.1 New Project...

This function shows the New Project Dialog. Have a look at The New Project Dialog, section 3.3 for more info.

2.1.1.2 Reload and Save Configuration File

Okay, let's have a look at the functions dealing with the configuration file. The configuration file holds infos about your preferences (see The Preferences Dialog, section 3.1) and about your list of projects (see The Project List, section 2.3). The functions are Reload Configuration File and Save Configuration File.

The configuration file will be saved every time, GTimeTracker exits. I have made some effort, to verify that this file will be updated even in case of program aborts. So there should be no need to save the configuration file for safety purpose. But you might want to rearrange your projects a bit. You may want to save the current state of the projects just to make sure you cannot delete a project by accident.

In case you made some mistakes you can then use the Reload Configuration File function. You will be asked, if you really want to discard your current set of projects. Just press OK, if you really ment to reload the old configuration file. If you activated this function by accident, you can press Cancel.


2.1.1.3 Quit

This function just quits GTimeTracker. The configuration file with your current list of projects will automatically be saved.

2.1.2 The Edit Menu

The Edit menu holds all the functions to edit the project list. In addition there is a menu item to activate the preferences dialog.

2.1.2.1 Cut, Copy and Paste

These functions are usefull to rearrange your project list. You can use Cut to remove projects from the list. But these cutted projects aren't discarted right away. You can use Paste to insert a cutted or copied project either before the current selected project, or, if no project is selected, at the bottom of your project list. The Copy function does the same as the Cut function, but will not remove the project from the list.

Note that there is only room for one project to be cutted or copied. If you cut or copy another project, before pasting the previous one, that project will be lost forever.

On the other hand it is possible to paste a cutted or copied project multiple times.


2.1.2.2 Properties...

This function shows the properties dialog, or, if it is allready shown, updates its contents. See The Properties Dialog, section 3.2 for more details.

2.1.2.3 Preferences...

This function shows the preferences dialog. See The Preferences Dialog, section 3.1 for more details.

2.1.3 The Timer Menu

The Timer menu lets you start and stop the internal timer (see The Internal Timer, section 4.1 and The State of a Project, subsection 2.3.2).

You can start the timer by activating Start. Stop will stop the timer. And you can toggle the state of the timer with Timer running.


2.1.4 The Help Menu

The only menu item in the Help menu is About.... This function will popup the about dialog. Just press Close to get rid of it...

2.2 The Toolbar

Each item in the toolbar activates a menu item. So besides the menu itself and the shotcut (or accelerator key), I described above, you can use the toolbar items as a third way of executing a given function.

The initial state of the toolbar shows icons for the following functions from left to right:


2.3 The Project List


2.3.1 What is a Project

A project consists of the following:

2.3.2 The State of a Project

Basically a project has just two states. Selected or unselected. You can only select one project at a time. An unselected project is just that - unselected. But there are other values that affect the handling of a selected project.

E.g. there is the timer (see The Internal Timer, section 4.1). The time of a selected project will only be counted, when the timer is running. This gives us a third state of a project. Here is a list of states and what happens to a project in each state:

The project is not selected
There is no time measuring or other effect.

The project is selected and the timer is running.
In that state, the time is measured for the given project. In addition there will be a log file entry for that project (if log files are enabled - see Logfile, subsection 3.1.3), and the shell command is executed (see Shell Commands, subsection 3.1.2).

The project is selected but the timer is stopped.
The time will not be measured, and there is no entry in the log file. But the shell command has been run and is not beeing canceled.

This might be confusing the first time, but you can benefit from this. E.g. I use the shell command (see Shell Commands, subsection 3.1.2) to update my .project file. When I'm not really working on a project (e.g. because I'm just away to get me a new coffee or something), I can leave the .project file alone, but don't have to count the time.


2.3.3 Working with the Project List

The project list is displayed in the main area of the main window. It shows what projects are in the list, and which project currently is selected. One line reflects one project. The daily time and the title of the project are displayed.

You can select a project by clicking on it with the left mouse button. Pressing the left mouse button again on a selected project deselects it. This is the way to mark all projects as unselected.

To get a popup menu for a project, you have to press and hold the right mouse button on it. If the project wasn't selected, it will now receive the selection, and the popup menu will be displayed. The popup menu consists of the menu items of the Edit menu, which deal with projects. Thus it is just a replacement for selecting a project and then using the Edit menu.


2.4 The Status Bar

The status bar displays the currently selected project. It will display more info in the future, but that's not implemented in the current version of GTimeTracker.

The status bar helps to have a better info about the state of a project I was blabbering about in The State of a Project, subsection 2.3.2. You know exactly if there is currently no selected project, even if the internal timer is running (which is reflected by the icon in the Start/Stop Timer toolbar item).


GTimeTracker Documentation - Copyright © 1997,98 Eckehard Berns
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last modified: 14 January 1998
Eckehard Berns eb@berns.prima.de