My micro-ISV Way

Eternity remembers which of the Activities/Favorites/Recents you used before exiting the app and will show it automatically when you open it again. Just to save you some seconds when you’re in a rush It does not apply to Logs, Reports and Settings screen however. I assume that what you want to do quickly after opening the app is to start or stop a timer. If you want to analyze logs or reports, you probably have some extra seconds for it

When editing activity, you can now assign a color. It will be used on all activities list and on pie charts. It should make it easier for you to highlight some of your activities on the lists and find them. Colors are now also consistently shown on pie charts. Whether an acivity has a color assigned explicitely by you, or not, it will not change when you navigate pie charts (shift or change presented interval). That was a main complain related to charts so now it’s gone too

If you like your log entries to be nice and round now Eternity can make them so for you automatically As long as a timer goes, it will be exact to a second. Once it’s stopped, seconds will be rounded.

Start time for in progress timer is not rounded on start so you don’t jump with “Gee, I’m 44s behind!” when starting something at 08:30:44

This will be a welcomed addition for heavy noters, I hope There had been some troubles in 1.6 related to device orientation handling and disappearing keyboard but they were solved by 1.6.1 bugfix update.

Initially I wanted to include calendar-like logs presentation in this update. It would be pinch-zoomable, touch-adjustable and absolutely fantastic in any way you can imagine It worked beautifully! But only on an iPhone Simulator, on my MacBook  :-(. On real devices there were graphical glitches and artifacts which would not be acceptable in a final product. I invested quite a lot of time implementing it but was forced to put it on a back burner just to push this update out the door. But I will get back to it!

That’s all folks . Big THANK YOU to all users who provided feedback and helped in testing! Enjoy .

Eternity 1.7 is available on App Store with the following new features:

• Log entry tagging
• Log entry continue with note & tags
• Report filters (full version only)
• WiFi data backup (full version only)
• Support for iOS 4, retina display and other minor improvements

Log entry tagging

Log entry tagging adds another level of flexibility to time tracking and reporting. In addition to defining any activities hierarchy you like, you can now also tag your log entries across hierarchies. Tags are not only notes on steroids for repeatable texts but also work with report filters (new in 1.7) for advanced and flexible reports.

So now you have activities hierarchy for general structure, tags for cross-hierarchy classification and reports with filers to make it all work together.

Tags are accessible in two ways. You can add and assign tags to any individual log entry from a timer screen or log entry edit screen…

…or you can go to “More tab”->Tags to add, rename or delete any tag. If you try to delete a tag that is assigned to an entry, you’ll get a warning.

To add a new tag, just tap on the search bar, start typing and you’ll get search results based on the “Starts with”, “Contains” or “Ends with” criteria. If you find the desired tag, use it. If you don’t, add it.

Searching works this way for selecting/unselecting, deleting and renaming as well. Just start typing and work with the search results.

Log entry continue with note & tags

Since now you can have notes and tags assigned to your entries, you can reuse them to continue your activities without re-entering the same data. If the last entry on the timer screen had a note or tags assigned you can tap “Continue” to run a new timer with this info assigned or “Start” to run a fresh one without note and tags. You can also do that from any log entry on Logs tab.

Report filters

Filters are menat to add more flexibility to report generation. They can also let you learn about your daily habits and patterns.

You can define your report filters on Reports->top-right-icon->Filters. You can give a filter a descriptive name like “Weekend work”, “Workday evenings” or “Projects – design”. There are 4 filtering criteria to choose from: activities, tags, weekdays and hour ranges. You can enable/disable each individual criteria or make it inclusive or exclusive any time. Once you apply a filter, it’s shown as the first row in the report. Tap on the filter row to select another one or tap (>) to modify the filtering criteria.

Defining criteria should be really straightforward.

Example 1 “Weekend work”: activities – include “work”; weekdays – include Saturday and Sunday.

Example 2 “Weekday evenings”: weekdays – exclude  Saturday and Sunday; hours – include 6:00 pm – 00:00 am.

Example 3 “Projects – design”: tags – include any tag: design

You can modify this of course. Like excluding sleep activity in Example 2.

WiFi backup

Eternity database is backed up every time your backup your device in iTunes. You can restore from itunes backup and Eternity data will be restored as well. But restoring the whole device is not always convenient. For example when you want to restore your device to a clean, fresh OS installation or just move Eternity data from one device to another. WiFi backup and restore can help you in such situation. You’ll need your device connected to a local WiFi network and a PC or Mac with a web browser.

To backup or restore your data go to More->Bakcup and tap the Backup button.

Tap on Backup and Eternity will prepare a backup file and let you know when it’s ready for download. Open a browser on your PC/Mac, type the address and click the backup link to download the file.

Similarly, when you want to restore from backup, go to More->Backup and tap Restore. Type the address in your browser and follow the instructions to upload the backup file to restore from. Once uploaded, the file will be verified on your device and you’ll be asked for final confirmation.

Don’t close the screen or lock your device during the backup/restore operations.

The backup mechanism uses port 27000 for Eternity<->web browser communication. If you have any problems accessing the backup page in the browser, please make sure you have this port open in your PC/Mac firewall.

Support for iOS 4, retina display and other minor improvements

Eternity 1.7 adds support for iOS 4.0 Fast App Switching and it has updated artwork to look better on your iPhone 4 retina display. There are also some small improvements in log entry editing and report generation.

Enjoy .

Eternity 1.6.1 is available on App Store with the following new features:

• Favorites/Recents
• Activities color coding
• Automatic seconds rounding
• Custom reports
• Per report row log entries listing
• Native email client support for reports exporting and feedback
  
• Logs presentation ordering
• Landscape mode support for notes editing

Favorites/Recents

You can add activities to Favorites when editing them, you can add from the Favorites edit screen. You can also auto-generate your Favorites list from the top 10 most frequently used activities in the last 7 days. Our lifes are usually structured around weekly rhythm so I think it makes sense. If you add manually you’re free to add as many as you like, of course, and reorder to your taste.

Recents list is generated automatically from the 10 recently started timers. I hope it’s a nice addition to the Favorites.

This way you can have deep hierarchies and still have quick access to the ones you choose, use most and used recently. Favorites auto-generation is an easy way to refresh the list when your activity patterns change over time.

Eternity remembers which of the Activities/Favorites/Recents you used before exiting the app and will show it automatically when you open it again. Just to save you some seconds when you’re in a rush It does not apply to Logs, Reports and Settings screen however. I assume that what you want to do quickly after opening the app is to start or stop a timer. If you want to analyze logs or reports, you probably have some extra seconds for it

Activities color coding

When editing activity, you can now assign a color. It will be used on all activities list and on pie charts. It should make it easier for you to highlight some of your activities on the lists and find them. Colors are now also consistently shown on pie charts. Whether an acivity has a color assigned explicitely by you, or not, it will not change when you navigate pie charts (shift or change presented interval). That was a main complain related to charts so now it’s gone too

Automatic seconds rounding

If you like your log entries to be nice and round now Eternity can make them so for you automatically As long as a timer goes, it will be exact to a second. Once it’s stopped, seconds will be rounded.

Example: projectA started: 08:10:23 stopped: 08:15:46 will be rounded to 08:10:00 – 08:15:00 after the timer is stopped. The only exception is when the entry is started and stopped the same minute: projectB 08:20:15 – 08:20:44 will be rounded to 08:20:00 – 08:21:00.
Start time for in progress timer is not rounded on start so you don’t jump with “Gee, I’m 44s behind!” when starting something at 08:30:44

This feature is disabled by default and can be enabled on Settings.

Custom reports

This feature is only available in the paid version. You can access it from Reports>Top-right icon>Custom report. Just select any date range and a report will be generated for it. You can go back and forth using arrow buttons besides the date button and the interval will be shifted by the amount of days in your original cutom report. Change dates by tapping on the date button. Easily go back to the last shown daily/weekly/monthly report by tapping on the button at the top. You can of course see a pie chart for a custom report by turning your iPod/iPhone to landscape position.

Per report row log entries listing

Tapping on a report row, presents a list of all log entries related to given activity hierarchy and time interval. To change hierarchy level you now tap on a (>) button in a given report row.

Native email client support for reports exporting and feedback (iPhone OS >= 3.0)

Eternity now supports native email client interface on devices with iPhone OS >= 3.0. Up to 1.6 update Eternity used my server to format and send emails since 3rd party apps on iPhone OS < 3.0 could not send emails with attachments. This had its drawbacks: if server was down, you could not send report, some email servers have black and white lists for incoming email servers because of spam. Now you can edit email content and send emails using native iPhone email client and email servers you have defined on it. No single point of failure, more power to the users.

Logs presentation ordering (earliest/latest first)

Some users like to have their logs presented earliest first, some latest first. The best approach – make it configurable. Now you can change it with tapping on one button and Eternity will remember it. This applies to “Insert/delete” mode also. The “Earliest/Latest first” presents action, not state (so it tells you what will actually happen when you tap, not what the current mode is). It’s always a tricky choice, but just to make it consistent with the “Insert/delete button”, which obviously must be action oriented, I decided for it.

Landscape mode support for notes editing

This will be a welcomed addition for heavy noters, I hope There had been some troubles in 1.6 related to device orientation handling and disappearing keyboard but they were solved by 1.6.1 bugfix update.

What’s not in the update?

Initially I wanted to include calendar-like logs presentation in this update. It would be pinch-zoomable, touch-adjustable and absolutely fantastic in any way you can imagine It worked beautifully! But only on an iPhone Simulator, on my MacBook  . On real devices there were graphical glitches and artifacts which would not be acceptable in a final product. I invested quite a lot of time implementing it but was forced to put it on a back burner just to push this update out the door. But I will get back to it!

That’s all folks . Big THANK YOU to all users who provided feedback and helped in testing! Enjoy .

Summary of changes

Update 1.5 contains the following improvements:

• new: ChartFlow – navigable pie charts for reports (full version only)

• new: easy date switching for logs and reports

• new: manual reordering of activities

• new: text editing settings (capitalization, auto-correction) for activity names and notes

• new: easy data migration from Lite to full version

Below you can find more extensive description…

ChartFlow – navigable pie charts for reports (full version only)

Pie charts for reports can be displayed by tapping on the top-left button or by rotating iPhone/iPod to landscape position on Reports view. You can go back to reports table by changing device orientation to portrait mode. Charts represent times in the same way as you have them configured for reports table (against, interval, total time, parent).

So you can go back and forth just by rotating your iPhone/iPod. But I’ve added the chart button for the sake of discoverability. To avoid angry emails (”You promised pie charts! Well, where the frig are they?!!!”) and for users who don’t really have time to check what’s new in the latest update . The spot was free anyway, so why not use it.

But the chart itself is not all. You can go to chart for previous/next interval by swiping right and left. You can also switch between daily/weekly and monthly modes by swiping up and down. And when you go back to Reports table, it’s in sync with your last chart. Cool, isn’t it ?

For those who don’t have time to read silly blogs, there are instructions under the ‘i’ button.

Why pie charts? It wasn’t the most requested feature, but:

• One picture is worth thousands of words. Many people (including me) digest data much easier when served as pictures, not text.

• Many users exported data to spreadsheet just to make pie charts. Now they can use that time for something else

• It’s an eye-candy and everybody loves eye-candy . After all, we bought our iPhones/iPods because they are nice and shiny, didn’t we (”Nope! Actually I’ve bought mine to develop life-changing apps bla, bla, bla” – yeah, sure

• Pie charts are not rocket science really, but I had to learn some new iPhone development tricks to implement them. I also had to rewrite some reports-related code to make reports faster (you should generally notice that reports are calculated faster, export quicker and even scroll smoother now. Especially when you have data from many months). So there was a challenge and some new things to learn. Two most important ingredients of a fun project soup.

• Developing Eternity I wanted to use standard GUI frameworks as much as possible. It makes development faster and the app consistent with iPhone user expectations. But the standard controls delivered by Apple frameworks, as nice as they are, have their limitations. It became obvious to me when I developed auto-adjustment functionality. The wheels-based time controls with separate, independent months, days, hours, minutes and AM/PM settings just don’t work very well in that context. I need to learn some lower-level tricks to go beyond standard controls in such cases and pie charts project was a good one to start from.

• I don’t follow competition that much, but I hope it will differentiate my app a bit. When I first get requests for adding pie charts I was not convinced at all. “The report screen is crowded already. How do I present the data, the charts, the legend and all the controls.” (I’m not sure now, but I might have been influenced by a picture of another app I’ve had seen on App Store). But then I thought “Why not get rid of the legend, the controls and draw everything in landscape mode so there is more space for labels?”. Eureka (gee, it’s sad that I have to discover the obvious in such pains ).

Easy date switching for logs and reports

This is a no-brainer. Interval labels are tappable now. I made them more button-like looking to make it discoverable. You can pick any date and switch to today with one tap.

Manual reordering of activities

When you tap on Edit activities, the editable rows have standard reorder controls on the right side. You can also sort activities alphabetically with one tap.
In addition, activities editing/deleting/reordering can be cancelled now if you’ve done some mess. The ordering you set here is respected in reports too.

Text editing settings (capitalization, auto-correction) for activity names and notes

Go to Settings->Text editing to switch auto-correction and capitalization ON or OFF for activity names and notes.

Easy data migration from Lite to full version

Now you can upgrade from Lite to full version without loosing your data. In three easy steps:

1. Install full version on the same device
2. Open Lite version, go to Settings->Full version, tap on “Migrate data to full version”
3. Full version is opened and asks for confirmation. Confirm.

Enjoy !

Summary of changes

Update 1.4 contains the following improvements:

1. new: inserting log entries without starting new timer
2. new: easier log entries deleting
3. new: auto-adjusting times for previous and next log entry
4. new: changing activity for past log entries
5. new: hierarchy paths for logs and reports
6. new: more Excel friendly dates in exported log files
7. new: data purge

Below you can find more extensive description…

Inserting log entries without starting new timer and easier log entries deleting

That was one of the most requested features. Now if you forget to start a timer you can always insert it later easily. On Logs view, the first row is always “Insert/Delete”.

After tapping on it, a new view is presented with options to delete existing entries and insert new ones.

You can insert new entries between any existing ones. If there is a time gap between existing entries, the new entry will automatically take the size of that gap. If there is no gap, the new entry will have zero duration, but you can change it easily with the new “auto-adjust time for previous and next log entry” feature (described below). You can also tap on any existing entry to edit it. I hope it’s pretty straightforward and you’ll find it useful.

Auto-adjusting times for previous and next log entry

That was a tough one. The problem I had here was that the date and time selection picker takes half the screen space all by itself. The rest of it I can use for presenting times for the previous, current and next log entries.
So here is the solution. When you select the “Start” time for the current entry, you will have a previous entry presented (first screen). If you select the “Stop” time, you will have the next log entry presented (second screen).
The “Adjust prev. and next” switch allows you to turn auto-adjusting on and off.

One rule in auto-adjusting is “you can push, you can’t pull”.

Example. When your current entry ends at 3:16 and the next next one starts at 3:20, you can set current end for 3:25 and the start for the next will be auto-adjusted to 3:25. But when you change your mind and set current end back to 3:16 the next start will stay at 3:25. But you can tap on next entry row to adjust its start time and push current end stop time. Why you can’t pull? That’s to avoid constant switching between auto-adjust on and off when you happen to make a mistake.

When you turn auto-adjust off you’re free to set times however you want. Overlaps will be indicated by orange colors and time start/stop inversion (stop precedes start) will be indicated by red color. Trying to save them can result in a warning or error message. The error is when one entry completely overlaps other or when the times are inverted. The warning appears when the current entry starts before the previous ends or ends after the next starts.

Changing activity for past log entries

In log entry editing view you can now tap on the activity to change it.

Here you can go through your activities hierarchy to select a new one for the edited log entry.

Hierarchy paths for logs and reports

You have seen them on the screen shots above already. They will also be in a few other places and in the exported logs file, in a separate column (so you can easily hide it).

More Excel friendly dates in exported log files

Previuosly, dates in exported logs had format like “Wednesday 13 May ‘09″. This turned out to be hard to digest for Excel and other spreadsheets. Looks like I thought too much like a human and too less like a machine this time around . Now the dates have only numeric representation formatted depending on your iPhone/iPod local date format.

Data purge

There is a new “Logs” row to tap on the Settings view.

For now, the only option here is to purge logs. You can pick any date to purge all logs older that that. By default it’s set to “tomorrow” which purges all your logs. After tapping on purge you will be asked for confirmation.

When the purge is running you can still cancel it (if you tap quick enough that is ).

One more thing. The Lite version will be ad-supported beginning V1.4.

That’s all for now. Let me know if you have any comments or requests.

Enjoy