Plugin: Time Slip (time tracker) [v1.0.2, 2024-11-12]

Eduardo · 2024-09-19T19:50:42.176Z

Hi @shikuz The plugin is awesome, extremely simple, and provides the information we need to track the time spent on tasks without using any external tools. Thank you!!!!
As a simpler user, I hope you don't mind if I suggest a few improvements that might be useful if you have the opportunity to think to implement them:

Add a menu option to hide the time tracker panel when this functionality is not in use.
To create a Markdown table format:
a. Replace commas (,) with bars (|).
b. Add bars (|) at the start and end of each row.
c. Insert an additional row of dashes between the title and the data: |-----|.
Example:

' | Project | Task | Start date | Start time | End date | End time | Duration |
|----------|-------|------------|------------|------------|----------|----------|
| Project1 | Task1 | 2024-09-19 | 15:36:11 | 2024-09-19 | 15:36:44 | 00:00:33 |'

This would help render the information as a visually appealing table.
3. Changes to a CVS format
If needed, we can use the find and replace function to change the bars (|) to commas (,) for CSV export. Eventually, adding a button to automate this change easier or switching between Markdown Table format and CSV format, and vice versa.

shikuz · 2024-09-20T01:21:42.798Z

Thanks @Eduardo ! Appreciate the feedback.

Eduardo:

hide the time tracker panel

Good idea, thanks! I'll add this command to a menu in the next release. For now, there is already a registered command called "Toggle Time Slip panel" that you can access using Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P.

EDIT: Released v0.2.1 with the command added to the View menu.

Eduardo:

create a Markdown table format... This would help render the information as a visually appealing table.

I understand the appeal of a Markdown table. I'll explain the design decision to use CSV. I'd argue that CSV to data tables is like Markdown to notes. There is no need to export a note (in the sense that it requires processing or formatting) for the information to be accessible anywhere else. At the same time, it is also human readable and editable, even though many users prefer Rich Text editing to raw Markdown editing. CSV is similar in that sense (at the very least, this is probably the most standard text-based format). Therefore, in this specific context, I see a Markdown table as an export, or rather rendering, of the CSV and not the other way around.

Given that CSV is the native format, and Markdown is the rendered output, I see two possible approaches. The first is already available in Joplin in the form of the Paste Special Plugin. Essentially you can render any CSV, including Time Slip notes, as Markdown tables automatically (see video below). The second, is to have a Markdown-it plugin that renders CSV as a table in the preview pane.

As there is already an implemented solution for this I see this as out of scope for the plugin, but I may change my mind. It's still very new.

time-slip-render

Eduardo · 2024-09-20T14:25:34.662Z

Regarding the first point, I wasn't aware of the alternative way to hide the panel. Thanks
For me, using Ctrl+Shift+P to hide the panel when it's not in use is enough.

Relate to the second point, I understand and agree with your perspective. My suggestion was that even using a markdown editor with the help of additional plugins is more readable for me to check and analyze time spent.

Screenshot from 2024-09-20 10-49-01995×198 81.8 KB

Also, thanks to another plugin that allows sorting tables in the second pane would be useful as well.
But you're right, using a plugin to copy/paste CSV into a Markdown table is enough to make the output more readable when I need to check it.
Thanks a lot for your guidance.

HiBing0 · 2024-09-20T17:18:43.323Z

Great plugin, man, thank you! There was something slightly hard to understand: it's about that all stuff located below the running tasks list - is a statistic's or summary relating stuff. At first, I tried to switch task-project-note while adding my first task, wondering why it doesn't have any effect on the task being added. It seems like here is missed "Stats by:" before the Task-Project-Note selector. Or some kind of logical delimiter.
And, please, add somewhere a short instruction: to bring the plugin to work, you should create an empty note and tag it by the "time-slip" tag.

shikuz · 2024-09-20T23:48:02.926Z

Thanks @HiBing0, it's hard to anticipate what will be missed by a new user, so thanks for the feedback. I hoped that the short screen capture tutorial will make things easier. I tried to avoid large titles or things that will take up too much space, but perhaps a dividing bar will make the separation between the two regions of the panel clearer? Or perhaps displaying completed tasks-related elements only when there are completed tasks? (They will not be shown when you start the plugin for the first time.) I was hoping that the already existing elements will help with orientation: (1) Tooltips for the date inputs and slider (see image). (2) When you open the plugin for the first time, it says "Tag a note with a time-slip tag" (see image, I'll make the sentence a little longer and explicit). (3) All elements that refer to completed tasks are grouped at the bottom. In any case, I'll add a short text that explains how to start using the plugin.

EDIT: v0.2.3 (released now) tries to address these comments.

image764×420 30.7 KB

shikuz · 2024-09-28T14:12:14.221Z

Change log for recent releases:

v0.2.4

added: open note button
improved: filter tasks by start time only
- example: if a task started on Monday and ended on Tuesday, it will be counted towards Monday's sum of hours, but not Tuesday's, to avoid the appearance of being counted twice
fixed: single message sent from panel when starting a completed task

v0.2.3

added: section divider
improved: hide aggregation slider when no tasks
improved: init note selection message

v0.2.2

fixed plugin manifest

v0.2.1

added: toggle panel command in the View menu

ncatanchin · 2024-10-01T13:52:13.632Z

Thanks for your contribution, @shikuz!

Unfortunately, I'm struggling to use the plugin - I'm always getting a red message "Please select a note first".

I have a note selected, active. It has a time-slip tag
I add a "Task name", as well as a "Project name" and click "Start"
The error message appears
The task name and project name I entered are cleared

I do have a lot of plugins installed, many are inactive - please see below for plugin list, versions - however my Joplin is generally quite stable. I'm using the Detailed note list style, I tried with Compact as well.

The screenshot below shows I have a note, with the time-slip tag.

Your help would be much appreciated. Hopefully I'm just missing something obvious, but also, I hope it's not too obvious!

image1817×852 80.3 KB

Joplin 3.1.17 (prod, linux)

Client ID: 946a3090dd6d46b9820ef8a35b248c40
Sync Version: 3
Profile Version: 47
Keychain Supported: Yes

Revision: 3ea403d

Admonition markdown extension: 1.1.0
AlertsPerfect: 1.0.1
Automatic Backlinks to note: 3.0.3
Backup: 1.4.2
CodePerfect: 1.0.2
Delete unlinked resources: 1.0.0
Emoji: 1.0.4
Extra Markdown editor settings: 1.4.1
Extra Markdown viewer settings: 0.4.0
Google Fonts Plugin: 1.0.0
Home Note: 2.0.0
Inline tags: 1.3.0
Kminder Mindmap: 0.8.6
Make All Links: 1.0.3
Note Link System: 0.8.0
Note list (Preview): 1.1.0
Note Tabs: 1.4.0
Paragraph Extractor: 1.1.5
Plugin Bundle: 0.5.5
Quick HTML tags: 0.2.0
Spoilers: 1.0.6
Templates: 2.4.0
Text Colorize: 1.2.5
Time Slip: 0.2.4
URL Meta: 1.0.7
VS-Code Style Note Search: 0.0.1
YesYouKan: 1.0.3

shikuz · 2024-10-01T14:01:12.175Z

Hi @ncatanchin, let's try the following:

Please verify that in your Time Slip settings you have Log note tag set to time-slip.
After creating the note, setting its title, and tagging it with time-slip, please switch to any other note.

If all goes well, it should appear on the Time Slip panel and selected by default. Then, you should be able to enter new tasks.

ncatanchin · 2024-10-01T14:27:20.193Z

No luck!

Nothing showing up in Time Slip panel (no change) after following your instructions.

I will be installing a clean Joplin on another machine later this evening, I'll give it a shot without other plugins that might be conflicting, otherwise, if there's anything further you think I should try, please let me know.

Thanks

shikuz · 2024-10-02T05:31:08.284Z

I'm using a number of plugins without fault, but we don't have many plugins in common, so there might be a conflict with one of them (hard to imagine one, but it's possible). could you try to enable debugging and check for any time-slip related errors?

HiBing0 · 2024-10-02T07:11:22.472Z

Hi. As more records I add I see a necessity of "order by" feature. It could be a plugin settings option or in form of clickable table columns names. It seems the records of particular date range displayed as if they were an result of SQL query without 'order by' clause - in unpredictable order. For now I have record1, record2, and so on of the same Project, were created sequentially by date, but displayed as record2, record4, record3, record1.
To be honest, I slightly corrected some records, inside the note, the ones - accidentally, and the ones - to change a bit the endtime's time. So maybe there is another invisible to me field (e.g. Modified) the records ordered by, I don't know this. At the same time, I saw that it is better not to make such changes, especially by deleting, for example, time digits, and then adding the necessary ones. In such way we can easily catch an error, cos the Duration recalculates continuously. But it is better to first select digits, and then insert the necessary ones in the same place, preserving field structure.
I've checked again: my records names and dates have the same order, record1,2,3,4 have corresponding ascending dates, but they displayed as I wrote earlier, unordered.

shikuz · 2024-10-02T12:47:34.302Z

HiBing0:

"order by" feature.

Hi @HiBing0, I completely agree. In fact it has already been implemented, including a dedicated setting (sort by duration, end time or name) and suppoorting clicks on the table header. it will be part of v0.3.0 once it's released.

HiBing0:

in unpredictable order

the current order is by the total duration of the task or project.

shikuz · 2024-10-04T11:35:53.087Z

v0.3.0

added: sort completed tasks by duration, end time or name
fixed: memory leak
improved: sorted autocomplete
improved: debounce updates on note change

ncatanchin · 2024-10-04T11:53:24.848Z

Couple of things to update you on regarding this issue:

Fresh install of Joplin v3.1.17, same OS - Ubuntu 24.10 - no plugins other than Time Slip, everything worked as expected
When the plugin is using postMessage for iframe communications, there is no note being returned, eg. for updateLogNotes:

{
    "message": {
        "name": "updateLogNotes",
        "notes": []
    }
}

ncatanchin · 2024-10-04T12:05:05.184Z

I have checked out the log in my profile directory, here are some more clues:

2024-10-02 01:04:56: joplin.plugins: [error] Uncaught exception in plugin "joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip": Error: View already added or there is already a view with this ID: plugin-view-joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip-timeSlipPanel
Error: View already added or there is already a view with this ID: plugin-view-joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip-timeSlipPanel
    at Plugin.addViewController (/tmp/.mount_JoplinZFnQha/resources/app.asar/node_modules/@joplin/lib/services/plugins/Plugin.js:138:19)
    at JoplinViewsPanels.<anonymous> (/tmp/.mount_JoplinZFnQha/resources/app.asar/node_modules/@joplin/lib/services/plugins/api/JoplinViewsPanels.js:49:25)
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at /tmp/.mount_JoplinZFnQha/resources/app.asar/node_modules/@joplin/lib/services/plugins/api/JoplinViewsPanels.js:9:71
    at new Promise (<anonymous>)
    at __awaiter (/tmp/.mount_JoplinZFnQha/resources/app.asar/node_modules/@joplin/lib/services/plugins/api/JoplinViewsPanels.js:5:12)
    at JoplinViewsPanels.create (/tmp/.mount_JoplinZFnQha/resources/app.asar/node_modules/@joplin/lib/services/plugins/api/JoplinViewsPanels.js:42:16)
    at /tmp/.mount_JoplinZFnQha/resources/app.asar/node_modules/@joplin/lib/services/plugins/utils/executeSandboxCall.js:55:19
    at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
    at /tmp/.mount_JoplinZFnQha/resources/app.asar/node_modules/@joplin/lib/services/plugins/utils/executeSandboxCall.js:8:71
2024-10-02 01:04:56: joplin.plugins: Finished running onStart handler: joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip (Took 265ms)

It seems that my plugins are being initialised more than once?

image1634×1066 271 KB

Further down the log, Time Slip has some complaints:

2024-10-02 01:04:56: PostMessageService: [warn] Cannot receive message because no viewMessageHandler was found {"pluginId":"joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip","viewId":"plugin-view-joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip-timeSlipPanel","contentScriptId":null,"from":"plugin","to":"userWebview","id":"plugin_17277950965660.1178587123889927","content":{"name":"updateRunningTasks","tasks":{}}}
2024-10-02 01:04:56: PostMessageService: [warn] Cannot receive message because no viewMessageHandler was found {"pluginId":"joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip","viewId":"plugin-view-joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip-timeSlipPanel","contentScriptId":null,"from":"plugin","to":"userWebview","id":"plugin_17277950965660.15820855999941652","content":{"name":"updateRunningTasks","tasks":{}}}
2024-10-02 01:04:56: PostMessageService: [warn] Cannot receive message because no viewMessageHandler was found {"pluginId":"joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip","viewId":"plugin-view-joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip-timeSlipPanel","contentScriptId":null,"from":"plugin","to":"userWebview","id":"plugin_17277950965660.13512576568637713","content":{"name":"updateCompletedTasks","tasks":[]}}
2024-10-02 01:04:56: PostMessageService: [warn] Cannot receive message because no viewMessageHandler was found {"pluginId":"joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip","viewId":"plugin-view-joplin.plugin.alondmnt.time-slip-timeSlipPanel","contentScriptId":null,"from":"plugin","to":"userWebview","id":"plugin_17277950965660.009873751814339915","content":{"name":"updateCompletedTasks","tasks":[]}}

Clearly there is something dodgy with my environment / set of plugins.

Thanks for your assistance with troubleshooting, I'll continue to look into this, however I'm leaning towards a new install and limiting my plugins (I have many installed and inactive, some installed that I don't really use, etc) as well as checking the logs to see where things are going wrong

shikuz · 2024-10-04T14:40:05.764Z

Thanks @ncatanchin for the additional information.

ncatanchin:

Fresh install of Joplin v3.1.17

Just making sure that I understood: Were you able to create time-slip notes and add entries to them via the panel?

ncatanchin:

When the plugin is using postMessage

Is the empty message from your main / first installation of Joplin and the plugin?

This message indeed means that Time Slip is unable to find notes tagged with time-slip. Could you check what Joplin reports as the number of notes tagged with the tag? (for example, I have 3 logs.)

ncatanchin:

It seems that my plugins are being initialised more than once?

I'm not an expert on Joplin's plugin system, but it does look strange. I don't see this in my logs. Perhaps this can explain the "View already added" error.

ncatanchin:

Further down the log, Time Slip has some complaints:

Having this PostMessageService error right after the plugin starts is normal, I believe, if the panel's JS script has yet to load while the message was sent. This happens on my device as well after Joplin starts (just once in every app session).

EDIT: Please try the latest v0.3.1. I tried to handle one edge case that could explain the behaviour you're experiencing.

ncatanchin · 2024-10-05T05:25:38.840Z

Sorry, wasn't terribly clear with my findings!

Confirming that only point 1 in my previous post is related to the fresh install, everything else relates to the original install where I'm having the issues.

time-slip tag currently showing a count of 7:

I'll try the updated version ASAP!

Cheers

HiBing0 · 2024-10-06T15:23:36.082Z

shikuz:

added: sort completed tasks by duration, end time or name

Sort by Endtime - is good. But where is the Duration field, which I wanted to see? How to obtain chronologically ordered list with tasks Durations?

shikuz · 2024-10-06T22:50:06.699Z

Due to size constraints on mobile, the task list displays 4 columns, depending on your choice, otherwise there is not enough space on screen for the entire table. I might be able to make this behavior dependent on the available space, and show all columns where possible, but no promises.

shikuz · 2024-10-07T10:46:53.268Z

v0.3.2

added: Escape keypress handling in text boxes
improved: show all 5 summary columns when panel is wide enough
improved: rewrite autocomplete lists

v0.3.1

fixed: handle multiple identical time-slip tags