Keeping Time User Guide

R12 Update 1 (25.02.2024)

- Tweak: Time fields will handle clicking them much better now. Clicking with no mouse movement will select everything, clicking with mouse movement will select the chosen text.

- Fix: Fixed several issues in the Quickstart tutorials.

- Fix: Right-clicking in an empty list will no longer lead to a crash.

- Fix: The CSV Settings dialog will no longer complain about missing tooltips.

- Fix: If the WorkVault has no entries, the Add Entry button will no longer be active.

R12 (10.12.2023)

- Feature: The Print feature will turn the current list into a printable document. This is useful for example for printing a list of entries for a client, or for printing a list of entries for a specific project.

 - The print will follow your column order and visibility as set in the list.

- Feature: The Interval Timer now has the ability to save and load presets. Presets can be exported and imported, as well.

- Feature: The Add Time/Entry dialogs now have buttons to add the current time to the From/To fields (Timelists) or the Summary/Details fields (Unitlists).

- Feature: Anywhere you can open a timer (Record time, Quick Timer, record to Work Vault...), Shift-Clicking the button to open it will automatically start it with the current time as start time.

- Feature: Pausing work is now fully supported in the timer. A running timer can be stopped at any time and resumed later, continuing the current work time.

 - When resuming the timer, the pause time will be remembered and later subtracted as an offset from the total time.

 - If multiple work sections have been recorded (= the timer has resumed at least once), the sections will be listed in the details field of the resulting entry.

 - This feature is supported in all timer modes (Adding to List, Quick Timer, AutoAdd, Work Vault).

 - The Work Vault now supports offsets, too.

- Feature: Unitlists now have the option of recording a timed entry, as well. This is useful for example if you want to record a unit of work, but also want to record the time it took to do that work.

 - The time is recorded in the same way as in a Timelist, and is added to the Details field of the entry. Work sections are fully supported, too.

- Feature: The Timer dialog will now show the current time and project/list name in the title bar and the tray icon.

 - If a project has no name, the Timer will show the file name instead.

- Tweak: The Timer will use the default Summary and Details if set in the list properties.

- Tweak: All colour selectors now sort the colours by hue, saturation, and brightness, instead of alphabetically. This makes it easier to find a colour that is close to another one.

- Tweak: A new hidden setting Welcome:HideAfterOpeningProject (see Hidden Settings Readme) allows to hide the Welcome Center after opening a project.

- UI: The +/- offset toggles in the AddTime dialog and list properties now have a tooltip to explain what they do.

- UI: When loading a project in the Welcome Center, a loading indicator will be shown.

- UI: All tables everywhere will now colour negative values in red (Lists, templates, CSV import, Statistics etc...).

- UI: Entry Templates will now show their Details string as a tooltip when hovering over them.

- UI: All tooltips in tables will now use the same tooltip styling as the rest of the UI (which means they are much easier to read).

- Fix: Changing the Summary/Details for AutoAdd will correctly apply the changes to the project.

- Fix: When changing the column visbility or order, the first list entry will be selected again.

- Fix: It was erroneously possible to manually edit the Total column in Unitlists.

- Fix: The Date value in lists was able to be set to nothing, which would lead to an error when viewing statistics.

- Fix: The hidden setting HideAfterCreatingNewProject closed the application when active and invoked. This has been fixed.

R11 Update 2 (14.07.2023)

- Tweak: Holding Shift while clicking the Manage button in the List Window will open the Manage Project dialog instead of the Manage Lists dialog.

- Fix: Autocomplete properties are correctly saved to the project again.

- Fix: The AddTime dialog had a superfluous space at the start of the summary and details fields.

R11 Update 1 (23.06.2023)

- Feature: The CSV Importer now supports the added Offset and Total columns.

 - The separator has been changed to ";" for better support of some locales.

- Tweak: The Entry Details dialog will now show the offset and total values.

- Tweak: The Project Details in the Welcome Center will only show properties that are actually set (for example no Username if none is set).

- Tweak: When adding a new entry, the From/Value fields will be focused automatically. Note that you can tab between fields, as well, and use Shift+Tab to go backwards.

- Tweak: If the AddTime/Entry dialog is pre-populated (for example with defaults, or the WorkVault), text fields will select their content when getting focus so you can easily change it without having to select the content yourself.

R11 (21.05.2023)

- Feature: Lists have been extended with a new "Offset" column. This allows you to offset the time or unit value of an entry by a fixed amount. This is useful for subtracting regular breaks from the time worked, for example, or for regular work time.

 - This is available for both Time- (as hh:mm) and Unitlists (as X.XXX). Values can be positive or negative. The offset is applied to the value when calculating the total.

- Feature: Project templates are used to create a new project based on an existing project. There are multiple default templates, and you can create your own from within any project.

- Feature: The project window position and list window size and position can now be saved inside the project and will be recalled on a per-project basis.

 - Holding Shift while loading a project will load the global values (same behaviour if you disable the feature in the project settings).

- Feature: Opening a project can now require a password. This is merely intended as a precaution for snoopy would-be users, projects are not and will never be encrypted!

- Feature: Similarly, projects and be set to read-only mode when opening, requiring a password to unlock editing. Again, this is not intended as a big security feature, it is mainly for preventing accidental changes.

- Feature: The new "Columns" section in the list properties allows you to set the order and visibility of columns for any list individually. This is useful for example if you do not need a particular column in one list.

- Feature: Copy to Clipboard is now customizable in the Clipboard Settings. You can set a custom export pattern per list, or use a default pattern for all lists, including new ones.

- Tweak: Updated English UI texts to be more consistent in wording.

- Tweak: Double-clicking a row header in the WorkVault will now add the entry to the AddTime dialog if one is open.

- Tweak: When hovering over a "Show" button in the details column, a tooltip will now show the full text.

- Fix: Welcome Center Open/New from template buttons were not disabled when nothing in the Listbox was selected anymore.

- Fix: Recent files were overwritten when opening a project from the commandline, or autoload.

- Fix: When showing the Details in entry templates while adding a new entry, the text box shown had no caption.

- Fix: Changing any option in Manage Project will correctly trigger a "changes made" status.

- Fix: Entering a time from the WorkVault will now correctly enter the times in the AddTime dialog.

- Fix: Saving a newly created project will not duplicate some project properties anymore. Existing projects will not be changed, but the duplicate properties are harmless.

R10 Update 3 (03.12.2022)

- Tweak: It is now possible to directly toggle the TimeOff/Subtract column in any list; doing so and clicking anywhere will re-calculate the respective entry.

- UI: Negative values in any list will now be highlighted in red.

- UI: In the Timer and CSV Import windows, the project name will correctly stay centered now.

- UI: All windows now have a minimum size where it makes sense, so you can't reduce the window size to zero by accident.

- UI: When opening Manage Time-/Unitlists, the dialog appears on the window it is called from instead of the project controller.

- UI: The IntervalTimer now has keyboard shortcuts and an improved tab order.

- UI: The shortcuts overlay would flicker on a wrong spot of the screen when opening sometimes. This should be very much improved.

- Performance: A lot of internal calculations have been sped up; you should notice this when opening large projects in particular.

R10 Update 2 (13.11.2022)

- Fix: When list offsets were negative, the offset and target calculation could return wrong values in some cases. This has been fixed.

- Fix: When selecting a recent project with an old file format, the Welcome Center will now show a message to that effect in the properties tab.

- Fix: Editing existing list entries will once again work (again).

R10 Update 1 (16.10.2022)

- Tweak: If the list window is made very small, the list properties will be scrollable now with the mouse wheel.

- Tweak: The Help Viewer will show a loading indicator while no page is loaded.

- Fix: The Work Vault can no longer be resized to zero.

- Fix: Manage Project will now correctly resize when viewing the templates.

- UI: A lot of small UI changes to make KT more consistent. One pixel here, another pixel there...

R10 (18.09.2022)

- UI: The list properties section has been separated into multiple drop-down panels to make this less cluttered.

- Feature: The new List Statistics window shows the data from any list grouped by day, week, month, or year in an easy to read bar chart.

- Feature: The new AutoAdd function in the project lets you enter a time or unit into a list in the project when opening it, perfect for keeping attendance. The entry is then entered with one click in the timer.

- Feature: Default values can now be set for every Time- and Unitlist. These will be suggested as the default values when making a new entry into a list.

- UI: All menu items will now show styled tooltips; previously they were using the default system appearance.

- Fix: Autocomplete Details are added correctly to the project now.

- Fix: The Details field from the Timer is now used correctly when entering a time.

- Fix: When deleting an entry from a list, the "No entries" label will no longer be shown briefly.

- Fix: When having multiple projects and lists open, editing/removing list entries will no longer affect the wrong list in rare cases.

- Deprecated: The old tracker dialog has been removed and is now fully replaced by the Timer with extended functionality.

R9 Update 4 (10.07.2022)

- Fix: The CSV Import window is now available from the project window, as well.

- Fix: The autoload was not added to recent files; if it was loaded manually, loading if from recent files could open it twice. Both have been corrected.

- Fix: The project loading logic is now a bit smarter about first checking for project validity, and only then making changes to recent files, open projects, etc.

- Fix: The tab order in the project window now actually makes sense, likewise the Work Vault and Welcome Center have a revised tab order.

- Fix: The Lock button in the List Window did not work; also if the controller was previously hidden, it would not hide when locked.

- Fix: The Add More checkbox in the Add Time/Entry dialog is now (again) working again.

R9 Update 3 (26.06.2022)

- Feature: A new CSV Import window allows you to import CSV files or enter CSV data manually into the Work Vault, or any Timelist or Unitlist within a project.

- Feature: All operations where files are saved or loaded will now remember the last save part of that item (project, list, templates file, CSV files, ...) and suggest the same path next time. Optionally, the project location can always be used as default.

- UI: The Keeping Time icon now has a solid background to make it easier to see on different Windows colour schemes.

- UI: Keeping Time will now show a notification after successfully exporting CSV files, snippets files or lists. These export will also have default filename suggestions based on what is exported.

- Fix: In timelists, list offset negate would read the list target negate status instead.

- Fix: If multiple projects were open including the Autoload project, closing any project would make KT believe the Autoload was closed (so users could open it again).

- Fix: Exporting individual list as ktlist files would fail on newer projects.

R9 Update 2 (19.04.2022)

- Fix: When the Interval Timer was opened on its own, a crash could occur.

- Fix: Editing times or units will correctly be reflected in the lists again.

- Tweak: When the Welcome Center is closed, the Interval Timer can now remain open.

R9 Update 1 (10.04.2022)

- Feature: Keeping Time now also has a "local" version which has a proper installer and saves its preferences in the user's AppData folder. This is a 2nd, standalone version and co-exists with the portable version. This will not change and the portable version is and remains completely equal.

- Fix: Files opened via drag and drop, commandline or from File Explorer are now added to the Recent Files, too.

- Fix: Searching for recent files will now search any part of the project name, not just the beginning.

- Fix: New projects had the offset and target as hh:mm instead of hhh:mm.

- Fix: When adding a new list, the Attachments information was not correctly created.

- Fix: When deleting a list, the attachments information was not deleted from the project.

- Fix: When deleting a list, if the deleted list was the active list, Keeping Time would crash.

R9 (27.03.2022)

- Feature: The Work Vault is project-independent and lets you quickly record work times for future use inside any project. This is perfect for recording a day's work, then spreading it across various project files.

 - The Work Vault is available straight from the Welcome Center, as well as from any Timelist's Add Time dialog.

- Feature: The Tracker window used to record times has been replaced by a new Timer window.

 - This Window is used by Timelists (Record time), the new Work Vault, as well as the Quick Timer functionality.

 - Used as a Quick Timer, straight from the Welcome Center, it records a work unit into the application, which is pre-filled when an Add Time dialog is called up. This allows starting work quickly without having to open a project first.

- Feature: The Interval Timer works like a kitchen timer, with an adjustable work interval, an adjustable break, and a number of work intervals to go through.

 - The Interval Timer can be called up directly by starting KT with the argument "-intervaltimer"

- Feature: A new ? button (with the Quickstart button changed to a Q) in the title bar opens the new Help Viewer, showing the respective topic from KT's online help.

 - This button is only shown if the new "Enable Online Help" preference is on, as it connects to the internet.

 - Renamed the Settings:Updates tab to Online.

- Feature: Timelists now have an offset field, too, where you can add a hh:mm value that gets added to or subtracted from the list total.

- Feature: Every Project can now have a Project Target for both time- and unitlists. All total hour/units from each list within a project are added together, and then measured against the target entered in the project.

- Feature: Every List has its own target value, which is compared against the total hours/units. Contrary to offsets, these targets are not calculated into the total hours/units number, but are compared against.

- Feature: Every Project now has a new Attachments tab, where you can add a picture, which is opened in full by clicking on it, as well as an unlimited number of file/folder attachments, which are opened with the default application for that file type.

- Feature: Every List has its own new Attachments tab in the properties, where you can link an unlimited number of files and folders, unique per list.

- Feature: Added a "Copy to Clipboard" (Ctrl-C) button to copy the selected entry to the clipboard as text.

- Feature: Added a "Duplicate" button to duplicate the selected entry in both time- and unitlists.

- Feature: Right-clicking in the List will show a context menu with often-used options.

- Fix: The Add More checkbox in the AddEntry dialog now actually works. It was broken since R2 and no one ever noticed...

- Fix: The Welcome Center would not show the Autoload button if Autoload is enabled, without having to click on it.

- Fix: KT will crash no more when deleting the last entry in a list.

- Fix: Using an Autoload Project would show an error when closing that project.

- Fix: When adding a new list inside a List Window, the unsaved changes * was not showing up.

- Fix: Entering a list offset and pressing Enter would not apply it until moving away from the field.

- Fix: Toggling the Properties page in Lists would not correctly reset the "no entries" label if one was shown.

- Fix: When the Project Controller was hidden and then shown again while the Welcome Center was closed, it would not show the button to open the Welcome Center again.

- Fix: Several UI fixes in Manage Project, Settings, Welcome Center, and others.

R8 Update 5 (30.11.2021)

- Tweak: If no list name is given, the list window will show the list id in the title.

- Fix: Handling of unsaved changes is improved when toggling the Project Controller.

- Fix: The lists are now correctly re-sorted when changing dates of existing entries.

R8 Update 4 (03.11.2021)

- Feature: KT now offers to use a localized time picker for entering times, which will confirm to the user's time settings like (02:15 PM instead of 14:15). This is an optional setting and the usual auto-completing textbox is still there for fast entry.

- Tweak: Date and time formats in lists are now handled based on the user's system. If you use AM/PM with 12-hour clock, lists will reflect that, same with different date formats like MM/DD/YYYY.

- Tweak: Times will show as hours:minutes, not hours:minutes:seconds, as seconds are not used in KT anyway.

- Tweak: If the project controller is hidden, the list windows will now show a Save button.

- Tweak: If the project controller is hidden, it will no longer show up in the taskbar; same if it is docked to a list.

- Tweak: The project controller will come to front automatically with the list window when it is docked. It will not when not docked, that is on purpose (less clutter).

- Fix: The New Project window was missing its shortcuts definitions.

R8 Update 3 (23.10.2021)

- Feature: Most tasks now have keyboard shortcuts assigned to them so that you can use KT without a mouse most of the time.

- Feature: A new button in the title bar shows an Overlay with all available keyboard shortcuts.

- Feature: On first start and after changing the language, a short intro message will be shown that introduces users to KT.

- UI: When lists or templates are empty, the user now sees a nice info label, for first use experience.

- UI: Tooltips are bigger now and much easier to read.

- UI: Title bars now have a focus strip, which shows the active window (= the window that receives keyboard shortcuts).

- Fix: Changing the list colour will now reflect directly in the UI; also saving list properties is more streamlined.

- Tweak: New Project now assigns Gray as the default colour for lists to make it less jarring; also the Timelists window comes pre-checked.

R8 Update 2 (09.10.2021)

- Feature: The list colour is now visible next to the project colour in the list window when the Controller is hidden.

- Feature: New templates can now be added in Manage Project, aka: the add button is now functional.

- Fix: KT now guards better against entering wrong data (like a character as a value instead of a number).

R8 Update 1 (28.08.2021)

- Feature: Quickstart Tutorials: With the ? button to the left of every window's title bar, a short tutorial about that window is shown.

- Feature: The List window has a new Tools option to export all lists from the project into one CSV file each. The same option can be found in the project window.

- Feature: You can export any list from the Manage Lists window as a separate file, and import it into another KT project.

- Feature: It is now possible to edit saved templates in Manage Project.

- Fix: Exporting lists will work now if the user has edited times within a list before.

R8 (03.07.2021)

- Feature: Entries in lists can now be saved as templates for future use. These lists of templates can be exported and imported across projects.

- Feature: The Welcome Center will now show information about any recent project when the project is clicked, including all contained lists with their colours, names and notes.

- Feature: The Project Controller can now be hidden and called up again from any list.

- Feature: Every project can now have a Project Colour that is used throughout all lists and UIs.

- Feature: Changelog and License/Acknowledgements can now be viewed directly from the About dialog.

- Feature: When loading a file created in an earlier version, KT will now offer to make a backup of the old version before saving.

- Feature: All InputBoxes are now much nicer and more reliable.

- Feature: When trying to open a project that is already open, KT will now warn the user and not open the project again.

R7 Update 1 (01.05.2021)

- Fix: Making changes to the list properties in the Timelist or Unitlist window will now be saved when quitting that window.

- Fix: Changes to the Project name will now reflect correctly in the title bar.

- Fix: The timelist window can not be closed anymore when the tracker is open; likewise, minimizing it will not lead to a crash when quitting the tracker anymore.

R7 (25.04.2021)

- KT now supports unit-based lists. These do not calculate in hours and minutes, but in freely assignable decimal-based units. You can use that for vacation days or anything else that does not use a time format.

- a New Project window not hosts project settings and lets you call up all lists.

- all icons have been replaced by more modern icons that fit the new colour scheme.

- an assortment of bugfixes and internal reworks, actually quite a huge lot.

R6 Update 3 (12.03.2021)

- you can now autosave the project after a custom number of minutes. Autosaves will trigger backups, too, if they are enabled.

- when installing a new version of Keeping Time, now existing preferences are migrated.

- a large number of very little tweaks and optimizations.

R6 Update 2 (04.03.2021) (unreleased)

- Keeping Time has been fully re-designed and now borrows heavily from Material Design principles. There are no functional changes. This update is purely for eye candy and is an interim step towards R7.

R6 Update 1 (20.02.2021)

- the tracker window now no longer blocks access to the timelist, so you can make any changes you like while a timer is running. Only one timer can be active at a time.

- fixed an issue where KT would crash when trying to load a no longer existing recent project or a project via command line. Now an error will be shown and the project removed from Recent Files.

- when no Details Snippets are saved yet, showing the Snippets Window will not lead to a crash anymore.

- Details Snippets can now also be called up from the context menu for you mouse lovers out there.

- changing the language of KT will now apply to all open windows without requiring a restart.

- completely re-designed the way KT manages the project internally to prepare for things to come. Like heart transplant-level stuff. Hope nothing broke.

R6 (14.02.2021)

- Feature: Summaries and individual text parts from Details can now be added to an autocomplete list to be auto-suggested for future entries. These are saved per project and can be exported/imported for use in other projects.

- Feature: Backups can now be made automatically upon saving a project or closing it; either to the project location or a dedicated project folder. This can be configured in the Settings.

- Feature: Every timelist inside a project can have an associated colour, which is shown in a small bar below the timelist selector. You can use that colour to differentiate types of lists, etc. This feature will be extended in future versions.

- Feature: Keeping Time can now check for new version either manually, or whenever starting it. This is opt-in and can be configured in the Settings. Disabling "Online Features" will not trigger any checks.

- small UI update with nicer buttons everywhere.

- tab order has been improved for pretty much all areas to facilitate keyboard-only usage.

- you can now load any project by dragging it on the Keeping Time.exe; or use a commandline parameter "-f pathWithSpaces\filename.time", including the quotes.

- this version has quite a lot of under-the-hood tweaking and rewrites to make future expansions easier.

R5 Update 2 (22.01.2021)

- updated icon set; now buttons in windows have icons, too.

- exporting to CSV will fill in the project and list name as a default.

- CSV export will no longer create unnecessary hour:minute entries for dates.

- Edit and Delete buttons in a timelist will no longer be active if there is nothing to edit or delete.

R5 Update 1 (17.01.2021)

- fixed an issue where deleting the last row of a Timelist would result in an error.

- fixed an issue where clicking "Edit" or "Delete" in an empty timelist would result in an error.

- fixed an issue where the Lock button would be shown despite the Lock feature being deactivated.

R5 (12.01.2021)

- every project can now have multiple timelists; there is no limit. Lists can be added from an open timelist directly or via the Manage Timelists button.

- via Manage Timelists, the order of lists can be changed, they can be renamed or deleted.

- the name of the project and current timelist is now shown in the title bar.

- the title bar will show an "*" after the list name if there are unsaved changes.

- it is now possible to open any number of projects by dragging them into the Welcome Center.

- a host of smaller fixes and tweaks.

R4 Update 1 (02.01.2021)

- the Tracker will now correctly enter the recorded time if you stopped it before clicking Add Time and instead of asking first if you want to discard the time.

- single-digit hours and minutes recorded in the tracker (like 01:04) will now be entered correctly into the timelist.

R4 (29.12.2020)

- Keeping Time now supports full localization, with English and German included. You can translate into your own language by making a copy of the English.lng file inside the /lng folder. By all means send me your translation and I'll include it!

- while making everything localizable, a TON of tweaks and fixes have been made, with a lot of preparation for things to come!

- A brand new time tracker window lets you start a timer when you begin work and enter the recorded time into the list.

- To accomodate new features and make room for further extensions, the list UI has been revamped a bit.

- placing a companyLogo.jpg and applicationLogo.jpg in the same folder as Keeping Time.exe will show these files in the new logo areas in the Welcome Center

- the Welcome Center has a new button to reload the autoload file. The button will only be shown if Autoload is used.

- right-clicking on any item in the Recent Files list will now show a context menu with options for opening it, removing that entry, and clearing the whole list.

- all open windows can now be temporarily hidden with the Lock button, requiring a password set in the Settings to show again. This is merely for prying eyes. The projects are and will stay fully open.

- a brand-new sidebar will now show and edit project and list properties. This should make dealing with tons of projects easier and allows to enter project/list notes.

Fixes:

- fixed an issue where after adding a date that was prior to an existing date, the list would not get sorted.

- Brand-new Welcome Center that allows to open previous files, create new files, etc.. If you close it, you can re-open it anytime from any open timelist.

- KT now lets the user choose the name and location of the timelist, thus adding support for multiple files.

- New Settings dialog to set a timelist that should be loaded automatically when whether to show the Welcome Center or not. Setting an autoload and disabling the Welcome Center gives the same experience as R1.

- Exporting the timelist to CSV now lets the user specify a name and location for the saved file.

- All message dialogs have been improved and a lot of them worded more clearly.

- Many small fixes and improvements.

- initial release