If you think you have found a bug or hamster applet seems to be behaving strange on your system, here is what you can do before trying to contact anybody:

  • Starting from version 2.32 hamster applet is split in d-bus service and client, so first fire up one terminal and run
    killall hamster-service && hamster-service
  • Then fire up another terminal and run
    /usr/lib/hamster-applet/hamster-applet -w
    The -w switch tells hamster to run in a tiny little window instead of as applet. Now try to do the same thing you did and see if terminal prints out any errors.
  • Check if the same thing happens, when you install hamster from sources. If you are reporting against stable version, follow the linked instructions, and just right after the git clone, perform switch to the stable branch:
    git checkout gnome-2-32
  • Look in the list of existing bugs, and there is nothing like that mentioned, hooray for you, you might have found a new bug, file it away.

We will be very grateful if you follow these steps because it shortens all the bouncing back and forth until we figure out what is going on.

Frequently asked questions

Where did the filtering by category in save report window go in version 2.30+?

in 2.30 you have the free-text search field on top right of the overview window. use it to filter out results. you can filter by tags, categories, activities and comments.
so if you want to export activities from the work category, just type in “work” there and hit enter. use comma as an “or”. so “work, hacking” will filter out activities that are either work or hacking.
you don’t have to stick to single field filtering, so say, you have have activity “bananas” in work category and “oranges” in hacking category, you can do “work bananas, hacking oranges” and as there is the comma in between, it will translate to “either work bananas or hacking oranges”

I installed hamster but it does not appear in the list of applets

Sometimes the bonobo server just does not pick up the changes. Try logging out and back in and then look for the applet.

What about Gnome-Do plugin?

Where is the database file?

~/.local/share/hamster-applet/hamster.db

It’s SQLite.
Before 2.30 the data was stored in ~/.gnome2/hamster-applet/hamster.db

What about synchronization and backups?

Just copy the db file (see previous)

What about tracking open windows and such?

We are more for the approach that you control what is being tracked, so you get the result on the level of detail you prefer. Tracking open windows and then trying to figure out what you are doing is the other time tracking. We might get there at some point. But it has many implications and currently looks like it would just make things complicated.

How to request a new feature?

Check existing bugs and if not there, file a new one.