Subject: Re: [Time Sink Talk] create pools based on file system location?

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:07:17 -0800

On Feb 18, 2013, at 4:03 PM, Cheryl ML <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I've attached a pic of how I name it. 

That should capture any windows whose titles begin with OMQ. If you have windows whose titles include OMQ in the middle of the string, you'd want to use *OMQ*.

As a general note, however, Time Sink is window-title based, not project based. So if the window title doesn't contain those characters, and you want it in a pool, you'd have to manually drag it there.

regards,
-rob.

---

From: Cheryl ML <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:03:22 -0800 (PST)

On Friday, February 15, 2013 11:04:24 AM UTC-8, Many Tricks wrote:
>
> On Feb 14, 2013, at 4:13 PM, Cheryl ML <[email-masked] <javascript:>> 
> wrote: 
>
> > I've tried the suggestion of naming pools based on projects and it 
> doesn't 
> > seem to work for me. I still have to drag any file I open into the pool 
> in 
> > order for it to be counted in the pool. Any suggestions? 
>
> If the window name doesn't exactly match the window in the pool, this will 
> happen. Can you give me some more info on the windows' titles? 
>
> You can also use wildcards in pools to grab all related windows: 
> *youtube*, etc. 
>
> regards, 
> -rob.

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:04:24 -0800

On Feb 14, 2013, at 4:13 PM, Cheryl ML <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I've tried the suggestion of naming pools based on projects and it doesn't 
> seem to work for me. I still have to drag any file I open into the pool in 

If the window name doesn't exactly match the window in the pool, this will happen. Can you give me some more info on the windows' titles?

You can also use wildcards in pools to grab all related windows: *youtube*, etc.

regards,
-rob.

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 May 2012 06:20:42 -0700

On May 8, 2012, at 7:35 PM, Margaret Trauth wrote:

> I will probably just not use pools until you guys come up with a way to get the filesystem location, then, as I like my naming conventions.

We'll try in Time Sink's major update (no scheduled date), but it may not be possible.

> I'd also love to see an option to have the Activity Report always display the last N hours/days/weeks. I shut my computer down maybe once every couple months on average, and the default of displaying the entire history since Time

That's on our possible future feature list.

> (And on that thought, it'd be nice to have a few tick marks telling me where hours/days/weeks/months are, as appropriate to the Activity Report's scale.)

Also on the list.

regards,
-rob.

---

From: Margaret Trauth <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2012 19:35:40 -0700 (PDT)

I will probably just not use pools until you guys come up with a way to get the filesystem location, then, as I like my naming conventions. I'm quite happy with Time Sink's basic feature of helping me be aware of where I spend my time, just knowing that there's a bar labeled "Safari" that's slowly filling up instead of one labeled "Illustrator" does a LOT to keep me on task.

I'd also love to see an option to have the Activity Report always display the last N hours/days/weeks. I shut my computer down maybe once every couple months on average, and the default of displaying the entire history since Time Sink was invoked is already getting unwieldy after a week or so of use. I know you can fiddle with the dates at the bottom, but that requires a lot of thinking and calculating when I just want to say "hey how long have I been working is it time for a break".

---

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 May 2012 06:12:34 -0700

On May 1, 2012, at 5:40 PM, Margaret Trauth wrote:

> I feel like I should just be able to drag a folder into the 'pool' section and have that become a pool that constantly expands to include every file in it, but the UI is based entirely on dragging around Time Sink's own personal proxies

The way Time Sink works, it knows nothing at all about files; it only knows about windows. That's because the mechanism we rely on to do the automatic tracking is based on tracking open windows. There's not a similar mechanism available that would let us say "track all documents in this folder any time they're opened, and automatically monitor that folder for newly-added files."

With that said, Time Sink could work perfectly for you, if you were able to alter your naming mechanism. Instead of 001.ai, wheels.ai, somefile.doc, start using a project-specific appendix (or prefix, if you prefer). It doesn't have to be long and complex, just unique. So naming files like...

C1I1 001.ai, C1I1 wheels.ai, C1I1 somefile.doc, etc. (for comic 1 issue 1, just as a random example)

...would let you create a simple pool named C1I1* that would capture any file you applied that prefix to.

I know it's not always practical to change one's naming scheme, but if it is, that's really the best way to solve this issue in Time Sink. As much as we'd love to do automatic document tracking and awareness, it's just not technically feasible at this time.

regards,
-rob.

---

From: Margaret Trauth <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 17:40:06 -0700 (PDT)

I'm trying to figure out how to create a pool for the comic book I'm 
working on. Each page has the stunningly prosaic name of its page number 
padded to three digits - 001.ai, 047.ai, etc.

There's also various other stuff related to it with pretty random 
filenames, like "flier.ai" or "carol's wheels.ai" or.. all kinds of 
filenames. There's stuff in other programs besides Illustrator - there's 
some Indesign files, there's jpgs and gifs, etc, etc. It's a whole ton of 
files, and I'm creating at least two new ones every week as I draw new 
pages. I really don't want to have to drag 

The one thing that unifies them is that they're all in the same directory. 
I do this with other projects, too; every comics project ends up with a 
directory to hold all its bits, a lot of boringly-numbered files for the 
pages, and a bunch of varyingly-named files in the same directory (or in 
subdirectories of it) for ancillary stuff.

Is there a way to say "any file in this particular directory is in this 
pool"? The help does mention wildcards but it sounds like it only works on 
the filename, or the webpage URL.

I feel like I should just be able to drag a folder into the 'pool' section 
and have that become a pool that constantly expands to include every file 
in it, but the UI is based entirely on dragging around Time Sink's own 
personal proxies for open documents.