Copyright: Copyright ® 1993 Exatech Corporation


Contents
Contents for Xtimelog Help

Introduction

     Overview

     Database

     Product Registration

Main Window Buttons, and Controls

     Comment Check Box

     Main Window List Box

     Punch In Button

     Punch Out Button

     Status Button

Pulldown Menu Items

     File Menu

     Edit Menu

     Report Menu

     Options Menu

     Help Menu

Miscellaneous

     Data Security

     Dynamic Data Exchange

     Convenience Suggestions


Overview

Exatech's Xtimelog is a windows 3.x application for personal time usage recording. It is written for the professional who turns on his or her personal computer as the first thing on reaching the office in the morning.

Xtimelog maintains a time usage Database . This database is useful in constructing monthly activity reports, filling out time cards, or simply reviewing ones own activity record.

You add projects to your Xtimelog database by using the Add Project item in the Edit pull down menu. Then you add time usage data to your projects by Punching In and Punching Out.

You use the New item in the File menu to create a new empty database. Most of the time,  you will be using the same database. Therefore Xtimelog will open the database that you used last when it starts up. It knows to do this by reading the Xtimelog.ini file that it wrote into your windows directory the last time you selected or created a database.

If Xtimelog can not find an Xtimelog.ini file, a dialog box will let you know and Xtimelog will start up without a database. You can then use either the New or Open items in the File menu to give Xtimelog a database to use.


Database

A database consists of a set of projects. Each project has a name and a set of work sessions. The List Box in the main window displays the names of the projects in the open database.

A work session has a start time and an ending time and an optional short comment identifying the activity or purpose of that work session. If the Check Box in the main window is checked, Xtimelog will ask for this comment when you  Punch In and allow you to edit it when you Punch Out.

An Xtimelog database is kept in a file with the default .tim extension. For instance, you might choose to keep a database of projects in a file named C:\xtimelog\hobbies.tim. You could also have another database of projects in c:\xtimelog\work.tim.

The name of the database file that is open is displayed in the title bar of the main window.


Check Box
Comment Check Box

Above the Punch In Button in the main window, there is a check box labeled, "Comment". If this box has an X in it, you will be prompted for a short comment that describes the purpose or description of your work session when you punch in. Subsequently, when you Punch out, you will be given the opportunity to revise the comment that you previously entered. The comment that is entered will appear in several of the reports that can be generated from the Report Menu.

If you do not want to enter this comment, click the mouse button on the X to make it go away before you punch in. Alternatively, you can press the tab key until the check box is highlighted. Then press the space bar to achieve the same result.

If the check box does not have an X and you wish to enter comments describing your work sessions, click the box with the mouse button or tab to it and press the spacebar to turn the X back on.


List Box
Main Window List Box

There is a list box in the main window that contains the names of the projects in the open database. It is to the left of the column of buttons in the main window.

One selects a project in the list box by clicking on it with the left mouse button or by tabbing to the list box and using the up and down arrow keys. Double clicking the left mouse button on a project is equivalent to selecting that project and clicking on the Punch In button. So don't double click to establish the selected project unless you also want to punch in.

One adds new projects to the Database  and therefore to the List Box by using the Add Project in the Edit menu.


Punch In Button

There is a button in the main window labeled "Punch In". Clicking the left mouse button on this button causes a new work session to be added to the selected project ( see Main Window List Box for a description of the selected project). The start or punch in time for the work session is the system time when the button is clicked.

One can also punch in by double clicking on a project in the list box., or by tabbing to the "Punch In" button and pressing the enter key.

If the Comment Check Box is  checked, you will be prompted for a short descriptive comment that applies to the work session.

When you punch in, black smoke will appear above the chimney in the icon in the upper right hand corner of the main window indicating that the database has been updated with an open session.

If you wish, you are now free to quit the program using the "Quit" button, the Exit item in the File menu or the Close item in the control menu box. It is not necessary to quit the program. But many people will want to free up the system resources used by Xtimelog for use by other programs. You could also reduce Timelog to an icon as a reminder to Punch Out when the work session is complete.

If you are "Punched In" when you exit windows and Xtimelog is active, it will remind you that you might wish to punch out. This might be a reason to keep Xtimelog active and to establish a work routine of exiting windows before you turn off the computer.


Punch Out Button

The Punch Out Button appears below the  Punch In Button in the main window.  If the open Database has an open work session, clicking the left mouse button on the Punch Out Button ends the open session. The now completed session will be written to the database  and it will contain the system time at punch out as its ending time.

Punching out will stop the black smoke coming from the chimney in the icon in the upper right hand corner of the main window.


Status Button

The Status Button appears below the  Punch Out Button in the main window.  Activating this button causes a dialog box to appear. This dialog box will show several items that include:

      The present date and time from the system clock.

      The name of the open database if any.

      The name of the open database's file.

      The name of the selected project.

       Whether there is an open work session.

None of these items can be edited from the status dialog box. They are for your information only. You should activate the "Cancel" button to dismiss this dialog.


File Menu

The File Menu is the first menu on the left hand side of the menu bar. It contains five menu items:

       New

       Open

       SaveAs

       Append

       Exit

The items in this menu can be chosen with the mouse or by pressing the Alt key followed by the "F" key followed by the underlined character in the menu item.


Edit Menu

The Edit Menu is the second menu on the left hand side of the menu bar. It contains four menu items:

       Add Project...

       Delete Selected Project...

       Edit Selected Project...

       Sort Selected Project's Sessions...

       Purge Data Earlier Than...

The items in this menu can be chosen with the mouse or by pressing the Alt key followed by the "E" key followed by the underlined character in the menu item.


Report Menu

The Report Menu is the third menu on the left hand side of the menu bar. It contains four menu items:

       Today's Activity Report...

       Daily Report...

       Aggregate Report...

       Detailed Project Report...

       Dump Entire Database...

Each  item on this menu allows you to either send a report to the printer, to a text file or directly to the screen using the clipboard viewer. In each case, the data  is similar. The text file output is convenient when you wish to save a permanent copy to import it into some other program such as a word processor or spreadsheet. There are two kinds of text formats available One is a simple tab separated format suitable for reading into a spreadsheet. The other is formatted for printing or reading into a text editor. Posting the reports to the clipboard provides a way to get the report into another program without writing a file.

When you choose an item from this menu, a dialog box will appear. You will be prompted as to whether you wish a printer output, a .txt file written or to have the report posted to the clipboard. If you choose a text file, a file selection dialog box will appear in order for you to name the text file to be written. If you have chosen the formatted test file, the windows Notepad application will be launched to display the file you have written.

If you choose the clipboard, an instance of the Windows clipboard viewer will be launched that will display the report.


Help Menu

The Help Menu is on the right hand side of the menu bar. It contains four menu items:

Index

Using Help

License Registration

About Xtimelog

The first item is used to access Xtimelog's help screens. This can be done by selecting the menu item or pressing the F1 function key.

The second item will lead you to help screens that instruct on how to use the Windows help system.

The third item provides information on how to obtain a license to use Xtimelog and the fourth item is the usual copyright banner.


Data Security

Whenever Xtimelog processes a transaction such as punching in, punching out or several others, it updates the disk resident database. Consequently, you should lose no data if your computer goes down for any reason.

If you should be so unlucky as to have lightning strike precisely at the time a transaction in being committed to disk the database could be left in an unknown state. But even in this case, all is not lost. When Xtimelog commits a transaction it first copies the database file. For instance if your database file was "projects.tim", Xtimelog first copies "projects.tim" to "projects.bak". Only then does it write out a new "projects.tim". So if lightning struck during the time Xtimelog was writing "projects.tim", you should have a valid database in "projects.bak" (except for the last transaction). If the strike took place while the copy was taking place then Timelog would never have gotten to the point of overwriting "projects.tim" and it should also be valid (except for the last transaction).


Dynamic Data Exchange

Xtimelog can be a Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) server. This means that it can provide data to other applications that are running under windows at the same time.

The client application initiates a DDE conversation. The server application responds with requested data. This is a bit of an over simplification but it is adequate for our purposes here. For example Microsoft EXCEL can be a Xtimelog client. The only data items that Xtimelog is prepared to supply as a server are the total time for each project in the open database.

For example, you can place a formula into an EXCEL cell that might look like the following:

 	=XTIMELOG|'C:\work\projects.tim'!'Final Report'

EXCEL uses the "XTIMELOG" field from the formula to identify the server to ask for the data. So one or more instances of Xtimelog will have to be running. The second field, "C:\work\projects.tim" is the "topic" on which EXCEL will request the server to open a conversation. So at least one of the running instances of Xtimelog will have to have opened a database file named C:\work\projects.tim.

Finally, the item that EXCEL is requesting is the total hours worked on the project named, "Final Report". If the Xtimelog database has this project, it will add up the times of all the work sessions in this project and supply it to EXCEL. This number should then appear in the cell on the worksheet.

If any of the things required are not true then #NA will appear in the cell.

Other client applications will use this same three level scheme of service name, topic and item to request data. Their documentation will tell you how to use these same three items in their own context to get data from Xtimelog. There are also other ways for EXCEL  macros to initiate a DDE conversation.

If you have used the Set Reporting Period... item on the Options menu to define a restricted reporting period, it is the total time logged during this restricted period that is reported to the DDE client. When you change the reporting period in Xtimelog, you will need to cause the client to update its links to get the new values to be transmitted to the client. For example with Microsoft Excel, you will need to use the "Links..." item on the "File" menu in order to do this.


Convenience
Convenience Suggestions

Whenever you start Windows, programs that are in the Startup group in the Program Manager are automatically started. If you place Xtimelog in your Startup group, it will therefore be on the screen at the beginning of work reminding you to record what you will be working on.

Another suggestion is to not let your database files get too large. On every transaction, Xtimelog writes the entire database file. If that file contains the record of five years work , transactions could become very slow. In addition, you are risking five years data on each transaction. Perhaps a good idea is to start a new database at the beginning of every month and archive away the previous month's data.

It was once suggested that Xtimelog provide a menu command for writing out a single project or group of projects to an archive database file. Xtimelog does not now have this facility. The concept for Xtimelog was to make it very simple and not to add any features to complicate it that could be achieved in other ways. We could change our minds depending on customer demand. If you desire to do this, just copy the database file that contains the projects to be archived to another file, bring that new file into Xtimelog with the Open item on the File menu and then delete the projects that you don't want with the Deleted Selected Project item on the Edit menu.

Exatech is always interested in hearing from users about new features that would increase the usefulness of Xtimelog.


New Menu Item
File Menu Item - New

The "New" item  in the File Menu creates a new Database of projects.

Choosing this item causes a dialog box to appear that prompts you for a database name. This name will be used in the various Reports that can be generated from the database.

Immediately after entering the database name a file dialog box will appear in order for you to enter the name of the file to contain the new database.

The full path name of the new database file will appear in the title bar of the main window when you press the OK button in the file selection dialog box. The ListBox should then be empty because a new database will not yet have any projects.

You can then use the Edit Menu Add Project item to add projects to the new database.


Open Menu Item
File Menu Item - Open

The "Open" item  in the File Menu reads in  an existing Database of projects.

Choosing this item causes a file selection dialog box to appear that prompts you for the file name of the database file. The full path name of the new database file will appear in the title bar of the main window when you press the OK button in the file selection dialog box. The ListBox will then contain the names of the projects in the newly read database.

If the new database contains an open work session, the icon in the upper left corner of the main menu will be belching black smoke.


SaveAs Menu Item
File Menu Item - SaveAs

The "SaveAs" item in the File Menu writes the Database of projects held by Xtimelog to a file that you are allowed to name.

Choosing this item causes a file selection dialog box to appear that prompts you for the file name of the new database file. The full path name of the new database file will appear in the title bar of the main window when you press the OK button in the file selection dialog box.

Using SaveAs is equivalent to copying the Database file to a file with a different  name and then using the Open item in the File Menu  to bring that new file's contents into Xtimelog as the database.


Exit Menu Item
File Menu Item -Exit

The "Exit" item  in the File Menu kills Xtimelog. It is equivalent to clicking on the "Quit:" button in the main window or choosing the "Close" item in the Control Menu Box.

You are not prompted to save the  Database  when you quit the program since the disk resident database is always updated whenever you  Punch In, Punch Out or Add a New Project.


Add Project Menu Item
Edit Menu Item - Add Project

The "Add Project" item  in the Edit Menu allows you to add a new project to the open Database. When you choose this menu item, a dialog box will appear to prompt you for the name of the new project. When you enter the name and click on the OK button, the new project is added to the open database on disk and the project name is added to the list of projects displayed in the List Box.


Delete Selected Project  Menu Item
Edit Menu Item - Delete Selected Project

The "Delete Selected Project" item  in the Edit Menu allows you to delete a project from the open Database.  The project that will be deleted is the one selected in the  main window List Box. When you choose this menu item, a dialog box will appear to confirm that you want to delete the project. If you confirm by clicking the "Yes" button in the dialog box, the project and all of its sessions disappear from the open database's disk file and from the in memory representation of the database.

Occasionally you might go through this procedure and to your horror realize that it was a terrible mistake. You have one fallback. Don't do anything else. Quit Xtimelog. Then rename your database's ".tim" file to something you can remember in case of ultimate disaster. Then copy your database's .bak file to become a new version of your database's .tim file.

Whenever a transaction is committed to disk, Xtimelog copies the previous database to a ".bak" file. See Data Security. We hope this saves you. But sometimes the best laid plans ... You know how it goes.


Edit Selected Project Menu Item
Edit Menu Item - Edit Selected Project

The "Edit Selected Project" item  in the Edit Menu allows you to edit  a project from the open Database.  The project that will be edited  is the one selected in the  main window List Box.

When you choose this menu item, a dialog box will appear. The first item at the top of this box, is the project name. You can change the project name by placing the cursor in the box containing the name and editing the name from the keyboard. When you choose the "Quit" button at the bottom of the dialog box, the project's name in the disk resident Database is updated to reflect your editing.

There are a number of items grouped together and labeled with the word "Session". This group allows you to edit the set of sessions owned by the project that you are editing. The group has three text entry boxes and four push buttons.

The text entry boxes will contain data for one of the sessions or they will be blank if the project has no sessions. You can delete the session that is displayed by choosing the "Delete" button". You can add a new session by choosing the  "Add New" button. The session added in this case will have the Punch In and Punch out times set to the system time. You can then edit these to be what you require.

You can move through the sessions owned by the project by choosing either the "Back" or the "Next" buttons.

In the case of the Punch In and Punch Out data, the date and time format expected by Xtimelog is the Windows default format. This default format is set by using the Windows Control Panel in your Program Manager's Main program group.


Aggregate Report
Report Menu Item - Aggregate Report

The "Aggregate Report" item  in the Report Menu produces a report that  shows the total time for each project and the sum for all projects in the open Database.  This report suppresses the detailed punch in and punch out times for each session.


Detailed Project Report
Report Menu Item - Detailed Project Report

The "Detailed Project Report" item  in the Report Menu produces a report that  shows the details of the session activity for the project selected in the main window List Box. It also rolls up the total time for all the work sessions in that project.


Dump Entire Database
Report Menu Item - Dump Entire Database

The "Dump Entire Database" item  in the Report Menu produces a report that contains the complete contents of the open Database.


License Registration
Product Registration

This program is copyrighted by Exatech Corporation. Exatech's  copyright is protected by the United States copyright laws and international treaty provisions.

A single user/single CPU license may be obtained from Exatech Corporation for  $49.95 plus a $5.00 shipping and handling fee. The License Registration item on the Help menu will give you a way to have the program print out an order form. Please send your license registration fee to:

Exatech Corporation

6547 N. Academy Blvd. Suite 527

Colorado Springs, Colorado 809l8

Please include your name, address and telephone number with your order. Upon receipt of your order, Exatech will provide you with a diskette containing the latest version of the program, a registration number that will also serve to deactivate the initial Registration Information dialog box ,a telephone support number and a copy of the license agreement.

EXATECH CORPORATION DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THIS SOFTWARE. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED FOR USE AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. ANY USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. EXATECH CORPORATION DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR USE.

No license to use this software for other than demonstration purposes exists until the registration fee is paid to Exatech Corporation. At that time, a copy of the license agreement will be supplied by Exatech.


Purge data Earlier Than Time Menu Item
Edit Menu Item - Purge Data Earlier Than...

The "Purge Data Earlier Than Time..." item  in the Edit Menu allows you to remove logged time from the open Database. The dialog box that appears when you choose this menu item allows you to specify whether you wish to purge only the selected project or all projects.


Options Menu

The Options Menu is the fourth menu from the left hand side of the menu bar. It contains three menu items:

       Set Icon Label Max. Length...

       Set Reporting Period...

       Set Reminder Interval...

Each  item on this menu allows you to set a default value that will affect the behavior of the Xtimelog.


Icon Label Length
Options Menu Item - Set Icon Label Max Length...

The "Set Icon Label Max Length..." item  in the Options Menu allows you to control the number of characters in the label that appears with the Xtimelog icon when Xtimelog is minimized. The value you enter is recorded in the Xtimelog.ini file in your windows directory. Consequently, the value will be remembered when Xtimelog is not running.


Reporting Period
Options Menu Item - Set Reporting Period...

The Set Reporting Period... item  in the Options Menu allows you to define a time window that controls what part of the time logged in the Database will appear on reports and be reported to DDE clients. Setting a reporting period does not change the database. The reporting period is not recorded in your Xtimelog.ini file and is forgotten when you quit Xtimelog.

Besides the normal OK and Cancel buttons, this dialog box contains five other push buttons. The one labeled, "Now" will cause the current system date and time to be placed into the boxes that determine the end of the new reporting period. The button labeled, "Year" will cause a date and time one year before the end of the new reporting period to be placed in the boxes that determine the beginning of the new reporting period. The button labeled, "Month", "Week", and "Day" work similarly to the "Year" button with the obvious differences.


Reminder Interval
Options Menu Item - Set Reminder Interval...

Xtimelog's main window or Icon will periodically rise to the top of the stack of other active windows. The Set Reminder Interval... item in the Options Menu allows you to set the time interval between these reminder interruptions. The value that you enter will be saved in your Xtimelog.ini file in your windows directory so that it will be remembered when Xtimelog is not running. The initial default interval is preset to be about 8.8 hours. So you might not initially notice this feature. If you never want to see it, set the interval even longer.


Append Menu Item
File Menu Item - Append

The "Append" item  in the File Menu allows you to append an existing Database to the open database.

Choosing this item causes a file dialog box to appear that prompts  you to specify the name of a project database  file to append to the open database.


Sort Selected Project's Sessions  Menu Item
Edit Menu Item - Sort Selected Project's Sessions

The "Sort Selected Project's Sessions...." item in the Edit Menu allows you to sort the sessions in a project according the start time of each session. It can happen that as a result of appending different database files or as the result of editing sessions that project reports may contain sessions in some arbitrary order. If this must be fixed, use this menu item.


Today's Activity Report
Report Menu Item - Today's Activity Report

The Today's Activity Report... item in the Report Menu produces a report with the same information as the Aggregate Report. However, the time shown on this report only includes time logged during the present day. The time included is any time logged since midnight of the previous day until midnight of the present day.

Generating this report does not change the reporting period that may have been entered using the Set Reporting Period... item on the Options Menu.


Daily Activity Report
Report Menu Item - Daily Report

The Daily Report... item in the Report Menu produces a report that breaks out the time spent on each project by day.

Generating this report does not change the reporting period that may have been entered using the Set Reporting Period... item on the Options Menu.