Interface and usability in Ubuntu
Simple and useful time tracker
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#58 Interface and usability in Ubuntu
The icon is too big for the average task bar in Ubuntu and it does not have a transparent background.
It is too easy to exit the application. Instead of exiting, the application should be minimized to the task bar, as is customary for many other applications in the task bar, since time tracking is usually something people use most of the time. Only Reports|Quit and task-bar-icon-right-click|Exit should close the application and even then is a slot is active or paused, closing should be confirmed.
In Configuration, Monitoring, there seems to be an option to pop up the current activity dialog every N minutes. I have it set to 15 and the Enabled check box above is set, but nothing happens every 15 minutes. Also, when this feature becomes available, it would be nice if the popup appeared every N minutes counting from whole hours, not necessarily from the time the activity was started. This could be an additional option for those who slice their time to say 20 minute intervals starting at 8:00 (then 8:20, 8:40, etc). I understand that this is less logical if the interval cannot be divided into 60.
In Configuration, System tray, the minimize to tray option does not work or at least not the way I expect it to work. I assume that if the main window is minimized it should retire to the tray (the same way as it does now when I Ctrl+Click the tray icon), but in reality it simply minimizes to a button in the bottom panel (in un-customized Ubuntu). Also, the caption on this button is "Java".
The caption of the main window is empty.
The hint when I move the mouse over the task bar icon, is blank (possibly a space).
Right-click on the icon in the task bar brings up a pop-up menu, which is OK, but there are very few options here and the shortcuts are incorrect. The first item is Change active task (? Click) - where there is an unprintable character in the brackets where I inserted ?; this is the option that is activated when I simply click the icon - so I assume it should say (Click) without the unprintable character.
When I click the icon and a slot is active, I get a warning window (Another time slot active). The question is "Do you want to stop this time slot and begin a new one?" - It would be much nicer if the question was simply whether I want to stop the current slot and if I say Yes, it would then be stopped and then followed by another question whether I want to start another slot. As it stands, I cannot stop and not start something else this way, although it would be nice.
The 3rd option in the pop-up menu is hide/show application window (Click). The shortcut is really Ctrl+Click and not Click.
In the icon-right-click popup menu, it would be nice to have some other options when a slot is active - such as pause for a break.
The task bar icon should be more informative: when a slot is active and when a slot is paused are two important states which should be obvious at a glance. I think that inactive, active and paused should be the three distinct states.
Hi, Thomas. Thanks for good bug report. It will make TST better.
>The 3rd option in the pop-up menu is hide/show application window (Click). The shortcut is really Ctrl+Click and not Click.
fixed
>In Configuration, System tray, the minimize to tray option does not work or at least not the way I expect it to work. I assume that if the main window is minimized it should retire to the tray (the same way as it does now when I Ctrl+Click the tray icon), but in reality it simply minimizes to a button in the bottom panel (in un-customized Ubuntu).
fixed
>It is too easy to exit the application. Instead of exiting, the application should be minimized to the task bar, as is customary for many other applications in the task bar, since time tracking is usually something people use most of the time. Only Reports|Quit and task-bar-icon-right-click|Exit should close the application
fixed in trunk, will be in next release
>The task bar icon should be more informative: when a slot is active and when a slot is paused are two important states which should be obvious at a glance. I think that inactive, active and paused should be the three distinct states.
fixed in trunk, will be in next release
>The icon is too big for the average task bar in Ubuntu and it does not have a transparent background.
Icon has transparent back. But tray icon api (in jre 6) adds grey background.
What about size, I've tried some sizes, nothing the best, and i've decided to leave the current size for win/lin/deb/ubuntu.
>The caption of the main window is empty. The hint when I move the mouse over the task bar icon, is blank (possibly a space).
Release 1.2.4 will contain more restricted checking logic for empty title strings.