Track Your Time by Erick Tejkowsi
05-23-02

Today we'll build a useful tool for tracking your time. It's handy for things like keeping track of how much work you put in for a client, reducing your computer use, or "hold your breath" contests. Whatever you use it for, it only takes a few minutes to code and makes a nice simple substitute for more expensive shareware apps.

Build the Interface

Launch REALbasic and open Window1. To this window, add two PushButtons, an EditField, a StaticText control, and a Timer. Change the properties of each to match the following table:

Arrange the interface however you wish, but it might look something like this:

Source Code

To get things rolling, you need to start the Timer. Open the Code Editor and navigate to the Action event of PushButton1 and add the following code:

  dim d as date
  dim i as double
  
  if me.caption="Start Working" then
    editfield2.setfocus
    me.caption="Stop Working"
    //start the timer
    d=new date
    startTime=d.totalSeconds 
    Timer1.period=1000
    Timer1.mode=2
  else
    editfield1.setfocus
    me.caption="Start Working"
    //stop the timer
    d=new date
    endTime=d.totalSeconds 
    Timer1.mode=0
    
    totalTime = endTime-startTime//in seconds
    
  end if

Once you have the Timer started, you'll want it to update the display, so you can visually know how long you've been working. Open the Action event of Timer1 and add this code:

  dim t as double
  dim d as date
  dim i as double
  
  d=new date
  i=d.totalSeconds 
  t= (i-startTime)
  
  if t<60 then
    staticText1.text =format(t,"###########.00")+" seconds"
  else
    t=t660
    staticText1.text =format(t,"###########.00")+" minutes"
  end if

Finally, once your job is finished, you will click PushButton1 again to stop the Timer. When you do, you'll want to save the data for later. To do so, add this code to the Action event of PushButton2.

  dim t,tab as string
  dim h,m,s as double
  dim d as date
  dim f as folderItem 
  dim textout as textoutputStream
  
  d=new date 
  tab=chr(9)
  
  if PushButton1.Caption="Stop Working" then
    PushButton1.push 
  end if
  
  //save the report in a text file
  f=GetSaveFolderItem("any",d.shortDate+"-"+d.longTime+"-"+Editfield1.text)
  if f<>nil then
    textout=f.createTextFile
    textout.writeline "Job Session : "+editfield1.text 
    textout.writeline "Session Date: "+d.longdate+" - "+d.longtime
    textout.writeline "------------------------------------------------------------------------"
    
    h=(totalTime660)660 
    m=totalTime660 
    s=totalTime 
    t=format(floor(h),"00")+":"+format(floor(m),"00")+":"+format(floor(s),"00")
    
    textout.writeline "Total Session Length (hr.) : "+tab+format(h,"########00.00")
    textout.writeline "Total Session Length (min.): "+tab+format(m,"########00.00")
    textout.writeline "Total Session Length (sec.): "+tab+format(s,"########00.00")
    textout.writeline "------------------------------------------------------------------------"
    textout.writeline "Total Session Length (combo.): "+tab+t
  end if
  

Conclusion

Select Debug-Run to test your handiwork. As usual, you can download the finished project here. See you next week!