Welcome to the home of Volkers TimeCards for the Newton® !

Diese Seite in Deutsch please enable pictures

On this page you can downloadVolkers TimeCards 1.1, my little application for the Apple Newton® PDA. 


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Contents:

Introduction
Entry View
Group View
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:

Uses for TC:
As a computer consultant, often involved with several projects simultaneously, having to track my time on an hourly basis, and also being a Newton freak, I found the need for such an application as TimeCards an absolute essential and a great project for my Newton. However, TC can probably be used in other situations that are demanding a time log.

Limitations in TC:

Stability:
TC has been tested on both the MP100 and MP130 models. I have also received reports from users stating that TC runs on the MP2000 as well.

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.
The price for TC is DM 10 or $5.
 


Entry View:

Since version 1.1d it is possible to rename the 'Project' and 'Comments' headings.
Double tap on those fields.

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  1. Drag the edges to resize the application.
  2. Advance the current day one day backwards or one day in forward.
  3. Select the day to edit.
  4. Delete the current record.
  5. Starting time for the current activity. Tap to select new time and date.
  6. Minus picker. Subtract time from the duration.
  7. Times shown can be rounded by the following amounts:
  8. Horizontal scrolling.
  9. Help
  10. Static date that can be used as a reminder the last time TC was synchronized with another application.

  11. (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).
  12. If you resize the application, this is for maximizing it again.
  13. Scroll records up.
  14. Scroll records down.
  15. Add a new record.
  16. Export all data beginning with the current processing day in tab delimited format (set the connection on your computer to 9600, N, 1 ).
  17. Toggle between Entry View und Group View.
  18. Thumbnail.
  19. Delete all entries before the current processing day.
  20. All choices you created for this picker.
  21. Delete a choice for this picker.
  22. Create a new choice for this picker.
  23. Erase the current entry of this picker.
  24. Edit the current entry of this picker without adding or modifying it in the list of choices.
  25. Column for optional comments.
  26. Column for project names.
  27. 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. )
  28. Resize the columns by dragging the thick lines at the right border of each column.

Group View:

Since version 1.1d it is possible to rename the 'Project' and 'Comments' headings.
Double tap on those fields.

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  1. Total time.

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

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

Thumbnail:please enable pictures

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 1.1d
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 1.1d (March 20, 1998):



Project history:

TC 1.1c
I have encountered a bug in the group view. When grouping the month december, the enties of the following january where considered in that group as well. This is solved with 1.1c.

Version 1.1c (February 2nd, 1998):

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.



Future plans:

I may include some of your enhancement requests. If you have suggestions, please contact me.



Known bugs and problems:

FAQs:

Enhancement suggestions from users:

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


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 10 or $5.

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.
 



Disclaimer:

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. It's 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, March 1998


Look at the TC homepage for current versions.
Volker Deffner - vdeffner@t-online.de