On this page you can downloadVolkers TimeCards 1.4, my little application for the Apple Newton® PDA.

See the new features of TC 1.4. (04/05/1999)

Contents:

Introduction
Entry View
Group View
Action Button
Preferences
Thumbnail
Package
Project history
Future plans
Known bugs and problems
FAQs
Enhancement suggestions until now
Registration
Disclaimer
Acknowledgements
Links

Introduction

TimeCards (TC) is a little application specifically designed for tracking time spent working with different projects. During the development of TC rapid, efficient entry of data was the driving requirement leading to an interface that requires 1 to 4 taps on the screen to enter a Time record. When time entries are added to TC comments can be appended as well.

Application Funtionality:

• Rapid data entry through simple intuitive interface.
• Aggregated views of time entries and comments displayed by day/week/month/year/arbitrary period.
• Data export to Tab delimited format.
• TC 1.4 is still a NOS 1.x application yet functional under NOS 2.0.

Limitations in TC:

• No searching.
• Undo command is not functional.

From the Author:
As the Author and a constant user of TC I am interested in  receiving feedback  from users be it bugs or enhancement suggestions. I have released TC into the public domain as shareware and thus request a small fee be payed to me if you use TC after a trial period. Since I live in Germany I can take both Marks and Dollars.
Some registered users encouraged me to raise the price. I did now some enhancements that I personally do not need, therefore I followed their encouragment.
The price for TC is now US$10 or DM 15. See registration.
 

Entry View:
 

1. Select the current processing day to edit.
2. Navigate quickly to the Newton's system date (if not already there).
3. Drag the edges to resize the application.
4. Advance the current day one day backwards or one day in forward.
5. Starting Time for the current entry. Tap to select new time and date. The End Time, if present, will be moved to the same amount.
6. Check this boxes to select the entries that will be considered by those commands of the action button which need preselection.
7. End Time for the current entry. This is optional. If you tap on it the current time will be used as the End Time. Tap again to change or delete it if you want to. The End Time cannot be earlier than the Starting Time. If it would be, you are asked now if you want to adjust the Starting Time to the new End Time. This way the entry will be moved and will have a length of 0. That way no negative, impossible duration can be entered but you still have the flexibility to change End Times arbitrarily.
8. Minus picker. Subtract time from the duration.
9. Duration. The calculated period of time between this and the next record, optionally reduced by the time chosen in the minus picker. (Note: The last record will have '?:??' in the duration column. ).

Since Version 1.2 you can specify the duration with the End Time as well.
10. Times shown can be rounded by the following amounts:
• 'none': no rounding
• round at 5 minutes
• round at 10 minutes
• round at 15 minutes
• round at 30 minutes
• round at 1 hour
11. Info button for about, help and preferences
12. Static date that can be used as a reminder the last time TC was synchronized with another application.

(Note: This date is manually set by the user. Not automatically by TC. As an example: I use this date as a personal reminder of the last time I manually transferred TC entries to an internal project accounting system used within the company that I work for).
13. If you resize the application, this is for maximizing it again.
14. Scroll records up.
15. Scroll records down.
16. Scroll records left.
17. Scroll records right.
18. Toggle between Entry View und Group View.
19. Add a new record.
20. Thumbnail.
21. All choices you created for this picker (the picker list).
22. Delete a choice for this picker.
23. Edit  a choice for this picker. In the appearing slip you can either change the current item only or all of its usages in the existing entries.
24. Create a new choice for this picker. If the corresponding entry is not empty and that string is not currently in the picker list the entry can be copied into the picker list. Else you can create a new string.
25. Erase the current entry of this picker.
26. Edit the current entry of this picker without adding or modifying it in the list of choices. In the appearing slip you can either change the current item only or all of its usages in the existing entries.
27. Column for optional comments.
28. The header for optional comments. All column names can be edited now. Tap twice quickly on the name to rename it.
29. Resize the columns by dragging the thick lines at the right border of each column heading.
30. Column for project names.
31. Checkbox for entries. When checked (the default), this entry will be considered in the Group View. If the Export checked Project Entries only preference is activated, only the checked entries will be exported.
32. The header for project names. All column names can be edited now. Tap twice quickly on the name to rename it.
33. action button.
34. Fees column. See preferences for more details.

Group View:

1. Total time.

(Note: Entries that have unspecified time periods are shown as '+ n*???' where n represents the count of those entries.)
2. Show the period for (relative to the current processing day)
• day
• week
• month
• year
• arbitrary period
3. Defines the number of hours in one working day.

(For example: When a work day is 4 hours long then for 7 hours the displayed time would appear as '1 days, 3:00'.)
4. Group the entries by project or project and comments.
5. List of all comments for the project (only if grouped by project exclusively)
6. Names of projects.
7. Duration after subtracting the times entered through the minus picker from the total time.
8. Sum of the times in the minus picker for this project.

Action Button:

• Print Day

Due to incompatibilities between the old and new NOS, on an NOS 2.x device this choice is named ëPrint itemí.
Currently, you can print only the Entries of the current processing day.
This choice is available in the Entry View only, because printing the Group View is not supported. That way confusion can be avoided.
The layout of the printed page can be manipulated with the size of the columns in the Entry View.
• Fax Day

Due to incompatibilities between the old and new NOS, on an NOS 2.x an error -48204 occurs while faxing, though faxing still works.
All the other things said under ëPrint Dayí apply for Fax as well.
• Mail Day

Due to incompatibilities between the old and new NOS, on NOS 2.x devices mailing is not available.
On an NOS 1.x device, the mail body has the same content as said under ëPrint Dayí. This way the recepient can save the mail body to a file and print it. Some experiments with the font can be necessary because a proportional font is assumed.
• Delete Period

A dialog will be opened waiting for a period of days to be entered. The default period is the Current Processing Date only.
When ëDeleteí is pressed, all entries in the specified period will be deleted unrecoverable.
• Export Period

A dialog will be opened waiting for a period of days to be entered. The default period is the Current Processing Date only. Start a terminal emulating program on your desktop computer with a ërecord incoming data to fileí capability or something similar. Set the communication parameters of your terminal session to 9600 baud, no parity, 1 stop bit, XON/XOFF protocol. Start the ërecordingí. Now press ëExportí. When all data has been sent to the desktop, you should be able to open the recorded file with a spreadsheet or whatever you want. Data is sent in tab delimited format. That is, fields are separated by tabs and rows separated by newlines.
• Copy Selected

First select the Entries to copy  with their leftmost checkbox. Then choose Copy Selected from the action button.
A dialog will be opened waiting for a period of days to be entered. The default period is the day after the Current Processing Date.
When ëCopyí is pressed, all selected entries will be copied to each day in the the specified period, merging with the Entries possibly already there.
This choice is available in the Entry View only, because selecting entries is possible in the Entry View only. That way confusion can be avoided.
• Delete Selected

First select the Entries to delete  with their leftmost checkbox. Then choose Delete Selected from the action button to delete the selected entries. This is done without asking again. Note that undo is not available.
This choice is available in the Entry View only, because selecting entries is possible in the Entry View only. That way confusion can be avoided.

Preferences:

Section Misc:

• Align times to the right

Times can now be shown aligned to the right.
• [New] ends last Entry if day changes

Caution: New behavior in version 1.4:
If this preference is set, the following rules apply:
• If the Current Processing Date is one day prior to the System Date, and the last Entry of the Current Processing Date has no End Time, and the System Date has no Entry, and the System Time is between 0:00 and 0:01, using the New-Button will set the End Time of the last Entry of the Current Processing Date in addition to creating a new Entry at the System date.
• If the Current Processing Date equals the System Date and the last Entry of the Day before has no End Time and the System Date has no Entry and the System Date passed Midnight when TC was open (Rollover), using the New-Button will set the End Time of the last Entry of the day before the System Date and will create a new Entry at the System date.
This behavior, combined with the new date rollover feature (TC now 'follows' the System Date when midnight passes by)  is usefull when you are working across midnight.
• Previous Project as default on new Entry

Sometimes you may do different tasks (probably noted in the ëcommentsí column) for the same project one after the other for a while (say, for some days). When this preference is checked, a new Entry will be created with the same value in the ëprojectí column as its predecessor within the Current Processing Date. This saves a tap on a new Entry.
• Animate Deletions

Do the deletion animation as provided by the system. Uncheck this preference if you want to get rid of the deletion animation (at least in this application).
• Fractioned Durations

In all events of time durations within this application, replace the normal hour and minute representation with a decimal notation.
• Export checked Project Entries only

When this preference is checked, only those Entries that are checked in the ëprojectí column for being visible in the Group View are exported. This gives a way to distinguish between ëmore importantí and ëless importantí entries, whatever use that will be for you.
• Routing with regard to visibility settings

When this preference is checked, only those columns that are checked under the ëColumn Visibilityí section of the preferences will be exported, printed, faxed or mailed (on NOS 1.x devices only). Otherwise all columns will be routed regardless of the visibility settings.
• Digital Clock

On NOS 2.x devices, you can replace the analog clock and the am/pm-radiogroup with the digital clock in the dialogs for entering times.

Section Project fees:
Choose a ëProjectí with the picker. Enter a fee. This information will be used for the fee column on a fee per hour basis for the corresponding project. A very simple model is used (duration in hours) * (fees per hour). But it is nice to have an rough overview of the fees for each project. For backward compatibility issues, those fees are stored separately. This means, if you rename a project, you have to readjust itís fee. For the same reason, the application has to go through all Entries in your soup. This may take some time. But this has to be done only once after opening the preferences dialog. To efficiently manipulate fees, you can open the preferences dialog and manipulate some fees at once.
 

Thumbnail:

Opening TC takes some time since many views have to be opened. To shorten this time drastically the thumbnail view can be used instead of closing the application. When the thumbnail view is shown, TC is 'hidden' but still opened (and using memory, sorry). Tapping on the TC icon in the thumbnail view shows TC again very quickly. You can drag the thumbnail view in the empty areas to get it 'out of your way' when using other applications. Closing the thumbnail view shuts down the application completely.
 

Latest Package:

Below are links to download the releases of TC.

TC 1.4a (04/05/1999)

This version again is based on some enhancement suggestions from registered users.

Bugfixes:

• Changing months is now possible without jumping over some months. This is fixed by 'slowing down' the appropriate dialog.
• Entries starting at 0:00 were visible at the previos day. This is fixed now.

• Time Colums can be aligned to the right
• Setting the Endtime of an entry to a time prior it's Starttime is now possible - the Starttime will be adjusted to be equal to the Endtime in those cases.
• Optional use of the digital clock for setting times (on NOS 2.x devices only)
• In the Group View the time period  will be shown above the Period Picker
• If Entries are stored on external memory cards, TC should handle ejecting and inserting of those cards correctly.
• No more 'Grip of death' (hopefully!).
• New ends last entry if day changes has now improved functionality:
• If the Current Processing Date is one day prior to the System Date, and the last Entry of the Current Processing Date has no End Time, and the System Date has no Entry, and the System Time is between 0:00 and 0:01, using the New-Button will set the End Time of the last Entry of the Current Processing Date in addition to creating a new Entry at the System date.
• If the Current Processing Date equals the System Date and the last Entry of the Day before has no End Time and the System Date has no Entry and the System Date passed Midnight when TC was open (Rollover), using the New-Button will set the End Time of the last Entry of the day before the System Date and will create a new Entry at the System date.
• Rollover: TC now follows the System Time passing midnight. This is checked every minute. If the System Date changes, TC will show the Entries of the new date (with at most 1 minute delay).

• tc14apkg.hqx - File
• tc14apkg.zip - File

TC 1.3a (August 29, 1998)

This version is based on some enhancement suggestions from registered users.

The new features are:

• Print, Fax and email (NOS 1.x only) of the current processing date.
• Copy entries to other days.
• Time periods can be displayed as decimals (in hours with minutes as fractions).
• Fees.
• Delete, Export and Group view for an arbitrary period of days.
• Specify all column names yourself.
• Hide columns of your choice.
• Go directly to the Newton's system date without opening the date selection dialog.

• tc13apkg.hqx - File
• tc13apkg.zip - File

Version 1.2a (April 13, 1998):

This version is based on some enhancement suggestions from registered users.
The new features are:

• A new optional End Time of each entry. The duration of an entry is now calculated as follows:

If there is is an End Time defined for this entry, the duration of it is the span of time between its Start Time and its End Time, optionally deducted by the time chosen in the minus picker.
If there is no End Time defined for this entry and there is a follow-up entry for that day, the duration of the entry is the span of time between its Start Time and the Start Time of the next entry, optionally deducted by the time chosen in the minus picker.
If there is no End Time defined for this entry and there is no follow-up entry for that day, the duration is unknown, indicated by '?:??'.
Please note that by setting the End Time of entries you can now create concurrent entries. Since TC is NOT a project management software (and will never be), there is no way to tell TC that you have to split your work intensity on those concurrent times. I assume that the average user of TC is not Napoleon and though can not do a lot of things at the same time without loosing performance on each task ;-). So it is up to you to make shure not to add entries up to a level of concurrency that doesn't make sense.
• The picker list items can now be edited directly in the list and they can be added as a copy from an entry.
• If you are editing an entry, you can either change it in the current entry only or in all existent entries. Please note that when changing in all existent entries this operation can be time consuming and even fail if there is not enough free storage and you are changing to a longer string than the original one. This could be avoided by using a more elaborate mechanism for storing information, similar to relational databases. But it is very unlikely that I will change the internal structure in that way.
• With the checkbox besides the project name you can specify if this entry is regarded in the Group view.

Version 1.1e (March 25, 1998):
This is only a minor fix. I forgot to set up the round by picker's initial choice to reflect the last choice the user made
before closing TC. Sorry for that!
I also removed the 'round by 0:45' choice, this obviously didn't made sence ...

Version 1.1d (March 20, 1998):
Fixes a bug in the 12 hour representation of times. There had been strange behavior in times between 12 and 1
o'clock.
Now it is also possible to rename the project and comments columns.
Those names and the positions of the sizers for the columns are persistent now.
TC is compressed now. It takes less than 80K when installed on the Newton® device.

Version 1.1c (February 2nd, 1998):
I have encountered a bug in the group view. When grouping the month december, the entries of the following january where considered in that group as well. This is solved with 1.1c.

TC 1.1b ( November 9th,1997)
Solves a scrolling problem in the group view after changing the current processing day.
There is also a little functional extension (inspired by an enhancement request):
When the first character of the project name is '*' the times of this entry are disregarded in the total times of the group view. This way it is possible to record longer non productive times with '* pause', for example.
The total time reported in the group view will then include only the productive ones.

TC 1.1a (October 31, 1997):
It solves some problems with the 12 hour representation of times. It also lets you add now entries on every processing day (prior to 1.1a you only where able to add an entry at the system date and had to move it afterwards).

Version 1.1 (September 23, 1997)
Initial release with this user interface.
Exporting data introduced.

Version 1.0 (February, 1997)
Initial release.

I may include some of your enhancement requests. If you have suggestions, please contact me.
TC 1.4 is the last version for NOS 1.x.
If feedback and registrations are increasing enough, I may include NOS 2.x routing. This way email may be available to NOS 2.x users and probably there will be printing in the group view.
But this will take a while (if ever).

• It has been reported that the Newon sometimes reboots when TC is run under very low heap conditions. Normally this should never occur in the Newton Script environment. Probably that's a problem in the system software.
• It has been reported that when using TC on the international version of the MP2000 with german localisation, you are unable to change the start time of an entry.

Solution: use the MP2000 with the localisation for the US. Or try this. Or contact me so we are able to solve that problem together.

• Question: What does the 'accounted until' - picker do?

Answer: Nothing! It is simply a memory aid for forgetful people like me to note down the last day of using the information in TC for accounting with the back office.
 
• Question: How do I export data ?

Answer: All entries in the specified time period will be exported in tab delimited format. This means you have to have something like a terminal emulation program on a computer connected to a serial cable. This goes into your newton. Then, when putting the terminal emulation software in something like a 'get data from serial connection into a file' -  mode you can tap on the export - button in TC and the data goes in tab delimited format to your host computer.
I choosed this aproach to have an open connectivity. Tab delimited format can be read by virtually anything, and a terminal emulation software with 'recording to a file' - capabilties is available on all systems as far as I know.
The communication parameters are fixed to 9600 baud, no parity, one stop bit, XON/XOFF software handshake.

Following is a list of your suggestions that are left. It is ordered by priority that comes from the amount of people suggesting that particular item. I may include those suggestions in future releases.

• Printing in the group view, NOS 2.x routing

 

Registration:

TC is a hobby project for me. I find the Newton is to be a great piece of technology and really enjoy programming him in my (rare) spare time. I do plan to maintain TC on a parttime/hobby basis. However, because TC is a hobby I can't promise delivery schedules for new features. As my user base grows with more registered users my motivation tends to increase (obviously).

The price for TC is DM 15 or US$10.

The registration procedure is explained in the file 'register.txt' which comes with the latest package .
You can register Volkers Timecards via Kagi as well.
 

Use this program at your own risk!

Under no circumstances shall I be liable for the consequences of your using this software, whether your inability to use the software, your Newton, or damages you incur.
 

Acknowledgements:

This program originally had been developed with Newt. Newt is a development environment for theApple Newton® running on the Newton® from Steve Weyer.

Thanks to Allan Marcus and Hardy Macia for their great date and time prototypes.

Links:

The ULTIMATE Newton
Newt by Steve Weyer

Volker Deffner, April 1999