Chronologicon

v5.7 — 190130

A minimal time tracker, now rewritten for the command line. Chronologicon records your work sessions and displays graphs based on your projects.

Note: This software is built specifically as a productivity tool for myself, not as a consumer resource. While I do my best to resolve issues and implement new features, I cannot commit a large amount of time to maintaining the software.

Install

From the Repo:

git clone https://github.com/rutherfordcraze/chronologicon
cd chronologicon
pip install --user -e .

Via pip:

pip install chronologicon

Logs

Chronologicon stores work sessions as logs. Each log has a named discipline and project, along with an optional note. The project should be self-explanatory; the discipline refers to the general type of work. I separate mine into visual, code, and research, but you should use whichever categories feel most suited to your workflow.

The note is optional, but may be useful to you for recording the specific task you're working on.

A list of all logs is saved in logs.json, in Chronologicon's save directory. This file can (and should) be backed up with the $ chron backup command.

stat.json contains a more lightweight summary of these log data, which is used to display the graphs. It's overwritten every time you complete a log.

Commands

start <args>      Start a new log timer
stop              Complete the current log
status            Check whether a log is in progress
cancel            Abort the current entry
stats <args>      View stats & graphs
backup            Backup the log data file
list              Show the 10 most recent logs
edit <args>       Edit an attribute of a specific log
remove <id>       Remove a specific log
directory <dir>   Change the save directory

The first time you use Chronologicon, you'll need to specify a save directory with the directory command.

Example Usage

$ chron directory ~/Documents/Chron Change the save directory to a folder on your computer.

$ chron start 'discipline' 'project' 'note' Create a new log with discipline, project, and (optionally) a note.

$ chron stop Stop tracking and save the current log.

Stats

$ chron stats has optional arguments:

verbose      Show additional projects
uniform      Display project graphs as full width
refresh      Force recalculate stats

Example usage:

$ chron stats uniform verbose

$ chron stats refresh

Synonyms

Some commands have synonyms, which you can use if you prefer. Some are actual synonyms, others are shortcuts or legacy commands:

start       s, -s, begin
stop        x, -x, end
cancel      abort
list        ls
remove      rm, delete, del
stats       v, -v, graphs
backup      b, -b
directory   d, -d

Editing

Warning! Edition and removal of previous logs is a new and largely untested feature.
Make sure your logs file is backed up.

• Listing entries:
• $ chron list: view the IDs of your 10 most recent logs.
• $ chron list verbose: view the ID of every log.
• Modifying attributes:
• $ chron edit <logID> <attribute> <newValue>
• Example: $ chron edit 204 discipline 'music'
• Removing entries:
• $ chron remove <logID>
• Example: $ chron remove 42

Contributors

Carlos Aguilar made a huge number of cleanup and refactoring changes, along with adding the remove feature.

Luke Charsley and Ricard Garcia have both been extremely valuable in finding bugs and providing their feedback.

Other direct contributors are listed on the repository.

Chronologicon is inspired and influenced by time trackers created by Devine Lu Linvega, Josh Avanier, Vi and Autophagy. Thank you for making such wonderful things.

Devine also maintains a list of self-authored time tracking tools and their creators, in the form of a github repository.