As Patryk put it: “as there is currently no migration path for applets, we’ll skip this release entirely and push a 2.34 bugfix release instead”.
I’ve been short in time these last 6 month, busy moving between jobs and countries and trying to understand what’s the current trend of 3.0 is was the last of my concerns. So I say, we better wait a moment until the dust settles, than release a half-assed-last-minute hack.
It’s all python, so the current stand-alone version will run without problems on the 3.0. There is no place for applets yet though, but i’m sure we’ll find a way as soon as i’m running that thing on my desktop.
There are a few bugs out there that could use a hand, so if you are prolific in python and have some time – jump in and write some patches!
The messaging tray would be a lovely new home for the hamster, wouldn’t it?
that’s exactly where it should not go as that was the reason why people started complaining about a crowded notification panel in the first place.
hamster deserves a permanent place. i’d argue that that login name with the log out button that you can see in every shell screenshot does not deserve to be living on the screen at all. so why not give us that space, and while at it – why don’t we move the clock back to the right so we can use some fitt’s to access a more commonly used tool
I don’t follow – adding it to the messaging tray would make it too crowded? I don’t see why that would be a problem: the tray can take it.
The panel is for system-owned functionality. Hamster is an application, not part of the system – it doesn’t belong there.
hamster has no message to send you per se so it does not belong to the messaging tray.
it’s an integral piece of the user’s daily experience and the timer with current task main function is to be an unobtrusive reminder of the current ongoing activity
so it belongs to the system as much as the clock does and much more than the login name that, hell, you will have trouble finding more than 20% users using desktop switching in whole world.
That’s a rather narrow understanding of the messaging tray. Check out the guidelines: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Guidelines/MessageTray . There’s a design for a weather thingy in there, for instance. You could do something like this: http://img130.imageshack.us/i/hamsterz.png/
Hamster’s something that a user has to install and run: that makes it an app (which isn’t to say that it’s unimportant to users). Having applications changing the appearance of the panel would be a bit weird.
The people who participated in the user tests I conducted had no problems using the user menu, fwiw…
thanks for the mockup!
regards “narrow” – first sentence from the guidelines: ‘..to quickly assess an event..’ <– there is no event in the case of hamster. nor there is one for the weather. so writing in guidelines "that's ok" just does not solve the issue – looks to me more like a "oh bugger, where do we put this now?".
you can't just first kick everybody out of the top of the screen "because they don't belong there" and then suggest going to the bottom off the screen "where we will hide you away".
i think the name makes a difference and it was named messaging tray to convey that very [messaging] purpose.
the unobtrusive display that is listed in fifth position, last time i remember was so unobtrusive that it was not displayed at all – the messaging tray goes away when there are no events (can be brought in by mousing over, of course – but then we are dismissing the case of not being able to remember what you are looking for until you see it).
Lastly, what makes an app does not define one, and if there is no entry to a room, one will use tools to get in
[I'm replying out of thread - seems we've run of nesting capacity]
Let me know if you want a high-definition version of the mockup – I’m aday on GNOME IRC.
You’re not wrong about the messaging/event focus of the tray, but there is a bit of room for other things (it would seem). One of the stated aims is to ‘provide a lightweight interface to background operations’ – that seems about right for Hamster.
I’m not too worried about the naming of the tray. What counts is appearance, interaction, and functionality. For most users, the messaging tray will be ‘that thing that pops up when something’s going on.’
just out of curiosity – are you using hamster?
Agree. For hamster to be useful for tracking and switching tasks it needs to be visible at all times.
In fact it provides more relevant information than the clock/date panel/applet so I would like to see an argument why one is allowed in the top panel, and the other is not.
Hey John,
The panel is not intended to be a dynamic repository of functionality. There are a few reasons for this (you can find the information on the GNOME Shell design page):
* Consistent visual identity – the pane should be a visual signature that people can recognise.
* Touch friendly – the functionality available through the panel should be available through other means – we can’t rely on someone being able to ‘click’ on the panel
* Distraction avoidance. The panel is supposed to blend into the background – having additional functionality in there would make it the focus of attention.
There’s an excellent mechanism in the shell to allow quick and convenient access to background information – that’s the messaging tray. I think that it would work very well having hamster there.
If you’re interrested, this summer I wrote a shell extension that display Hamster next to the clock. I guess it’s now broken because the shell “API” changed a lot, but it was not very difficult to write, so ask me if you want some help on that part.
how about sharing the code in github or somewhere?
This may be a bit heretical. However, what about not being an applet? Hamster could do something like gnome-do and be an application that displays when a certain key combination is pressed (like the already used H).
Just a thought.
hamster has been more than “just” an applet for a good while now. having it some place central is what i’d call a solid integration though
Totally unrelated but couldn’t post elsewhere:
I wrote a snippet – how to get the current Hamster status using Python dbus:
http://pastebin.com/nb4BRVLk
thanks to http://excid3.com/blog/2010/05/an-actually-decent-python-dbus-tutorial/
yarp, it’s dead easy, and we have python bindings too
any plans for hamster for ubuntu unity? maybe indicator-hamster?
good luck! hamster is great!
P.S. for windows I use manictime (check it!, great app), it has very nice tags timeline, will be very cool to have something similar in hamster…
Thanks for letting us know about Hamster and Gnome 3. I’d like to follow up on this query about Hamster and Unity. I assume the standalone version will also “just work” in Unity, but I was wondering if you have any specific plans to support or not to support Unity?
Thanks for such an essential piece of software!
i plan to take a serious look at unity and see where we can squeeze in. As also pointed out by Luke Stanley above too – getting basic integration is dead easy, but i’d be looking for a core one.
Great news! Thanks
I am new to Hamster; been using it about 3 weeks and LOVE it for it’s simplicity, functionality, and value. It does its job VERY well and is elegantly simple to use. The report is brilliant and I am very happy to know that others can be developed. I am not a programmer, but I do a lot of database work and I port the Hamster report data to a database I developed years ago to manage my business. I’m very excited to learn that Hamster is written in Python! Perhaps I can use Python to programmatically port Hamster data to my database?
Thank you very much for this app! It has earned a permanent place in my daily work and I am grateful for all the hard work that has made this app. possible. Though I’m not a programmer, I would be very interested in learning to expand the reporting capability and the process required for porting data to other DB applications. If there’s anything I might be able to do along these lines, I’d be happy to share anything I learn/produce. I think Hamster has great potential! Feel free to contact me.
http://projecthamster.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/experimentation-with-real-data/
Hi,
Is there a method to control hamster only via the keyboard with simple shortcuts? At the moment I’ve only found a method to spawn the hamster applet window with a shortcut, but curiously it’s not focused, so that everytime I have to focus it manually by mouse. A shortcut to start and stop the last task would also be great. Any advices how to accomplish this?
So far I haven’t found any additional information regarding shortcuts in hamster.
Using Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit.
Thanks in advance!
I don’t know if you have checked but hamster is the only good time tracking tool on Linux. It is great!
But I moved from Gnome to Openbox recently and sadly it doesn’t use system tray.
Some people want to stay away from gnome panel (because it is way too heavy) but stay close to Hamster time tracker.
So it would be great if there would be an optional feature to start it in system tray.
What do you think?
there is a patch somewhere in the bugs that did just that but now i can’t find it.
generally though the system or notification tray is the no-go zone and one that triggered all the shunning in the panels (too many icons behaving too differently etc).
Oh well, es arī nevarēju sameklēt.
Būs pašam jāmēģina uztaisīt…
Problem solved.
http://www.janhouse.lv/blog/linux/hamster-time-tracker-in-system-tray/
Will try to maintain it for some time and make is work as official panel applet.
kudos! wanted to blog about it but the pressword is teh b0rken right now
What password?