A thought on Small Business version..

[Linas Vepstas]

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On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 07:43:04AM -0700, Darren Remington was heard to rem=
ark:
> Linas,
>=20
> Where does the GNOME Time Tracker tool fall short for
> you? I installed Ximian's GNOME a while back and it
> came with the GNOME 1.2 installation by default. What
> would you like different in your TimeTracker?=20

Well, have yu tried using it?

First, foremost & most important, I'd like to be able to=20
anotate entries: idealy, free-form strings where I can type in=20
what I've been working on.  But maybe this is not so important,
If I preconfigure enough entries (project x read mail,=20
project x talk phone, project x write code).

So maybe a better setup would be a two-level thing:
in one column, pick project x, or client z, in another column,
pick task 'readmail', task 'talkphone'.  Yeah, that could work
well.

The log file: it only logs start and stop times,=20
and not the project that was started and stopped.
This should be a trivial fix.

The log file should write delta-time entries as well.
The log file needs to be properly escaped, so that tabs/commas
don't screw up its parsing when we import into gnucash.
again, these are trivial changes.

Finally, an edit ability.  This is a bit harder ...
but if I accidentally leave the tracker running during lunch,
I can undo the entries.

I thik that's about it.  That, and an importer of the gtt
log file-format into gnucash.

(ohh, ideally, gtt project entries could be picked out of the list of
clients that I store in the addressbook ... but that bonus points.)

> Time Tracking & Labor Collection is something I do
> have experience with - I worked on a tool called
> Autotime for a company called Applied Automation
> Techniques. The tool is a middleware solution between
> ERP and Accounting for big manufacturing operations
> (such as Boeing or Allison Engines.)

Excellent!

> However, having admitted to the experience, I think it
> would be more productive for me to start with the
> Addressbook component to GNUCash. I also think the

Uhh, no. I think the mods to gtt are mostly fairly=20
straightforward and not hard to do.  It'll get you warmed up.
The addressbok work is harder, I beleive, because its
more pervasive.

> addressbook should be integrated with Open Office,
> instead of Evolution. The Open Office addressbook is
> actually an integration of the Mozilla addressbook.

I suppose that's OK.  Making it pluggable, so I could someday
use the evolution addressbok would be better...

The evolution addressbook is much much slicker, nicer layout,
nicer forms.  And it prints out to something beautiful.=20
And its got search capabilities.

> The addressbook could be incorporated into GNUCash
> without putting off the 'home user'. But the Time
> Tracker would be along the lines of small business
> interest and would fit more into a separate project
> along with the other business-oriented components.

sort-of.

I envision the time-tracker would run more or less independently,=20
and every now an then, one could start up gnucash, and import
time-tracker log files. (or should I say 'sync to' time tracker=20
logs)  This would *not* interfer with anyone. =20

> What did you think of the name GNUBooks? I could start
> work on the Time Tracker after I get the Addressbook
> component made.

Well, there is a move afoot to modularize gnucash, to make
it more configurable into different 'products'. Its being disussed on
the mailing list.

I'm ccing the mailing list.


>=20
> Regards,
> Darren
>=20
> --- Linas Vepstas <linas@linas.org> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 13, 2001 at 11:13:17AM -0700, Darren
> > Remington was heard to remark:
> > > Linas,
> > >=20
> > > That brings up the perfect 'itch'. When I first=20
> > > started contract programming, the contracting=20
> > > organization I worked with wanted invoices for=20
> > > my billed hours. I had little idea where to even
> > > start.
> > > I ended up using the Star Office spreadsheet as I=20
> > > cobbed an invoice off someone who sent me one that
> >=20
> > > they used in Excel.
> >=20
> > This another occasional request.
> > I hunted around for some time-trackers, but didn't
> > find any nice
> > GUI/desktop ones, although there seemed to be some
> > web-based ones.
> >=20
> > Someone would need to write an exporter for teh
> > web-based things, and an
> > importer for gnucash.  a quickie scheme based script
> > would be ideal for
> > this:  you'd learn scheme, and also see how easy it
> > is to poke data in.
> >=20
> > I'd prefer a gui time tracker, since the web-based
> > ones require a web
> > admin to install aache, then install and config the
> > tool.  I'm
> > big on 'trivial install'.=20
> >=20
> > --linas
> >=20
> >=20
>=20
> > ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature=20
>=20
>=20
>=20
> __________________________________________________
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--=20
Linas Vepstas -- linas@gnumatic.com -- http://www.gnumatic.com/

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