I’m self employed. I need to record how much time I spend on whatever task for whatever client.

Sounds simple, but I’m terrible at it. I always get to the end of the day without having recorded anything and not knowing what I’ve actually done.

Basically, I’d like to create a text log of the active window title, and take a screen cap.

I’d like to do this periodically as in every 15 minutes or so.

For the text log I just haven’t been able to achieve this at all.

For the screen caps I can use flameshot to take a screenshot from the CLI, but it makes a sound and shows an animation which is sub-optimal.

Any suggestions of where to look much appreciated.

Edit: I’m not asking for a time tracking app. I want something to log the active window title and take a screen cap so I can figure out what I was doing and write it in my time tracking app.

Edit: I’m narrowing in on a solution.

Firstly, a lot of previously available solutions don’t work because of recently implemented security features in gnome.

You need to enter unsafe mode by entering the following in the looking glass tool (which you can access by running lg in the alt + f2 dialog):

global.context.unsafe_mode = true

thereafter, this can grab the active window title for you:

gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/Shell --method org.gnome.Shell.Eval "global.display.focus_window.title"

… and this can take a screen cap for you:

gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell.Screenshot --object-path /org/gnome/Shell/Screenshot --method org.gnome.Shell.Screenshot.Screenshot false false /tmp/screencap.png
      • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago
        #!/usr/bin/env bash

# get hyprland event socket path
HIS=$HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE
EVENT_SOCK="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/hypr/$HIS/.socket2.sock"

# fallback / error check
if [ -z "$HIS" ] || [ ! -S "$EVENT_SOCK" ]; then
  echo "Error: cannot locate Hyprland event socket at $EVENT_SOCK" >&2
  exit 1
fi

logfile="${HOME}/hypr_focus.log"

# function to handle a line from the event stream
handle_event() {
  local line="$1"
  # check for activewindow event
  if [[ $line == activewindow* ]]; then
    # format: activewindow>>CLASS,TITLE
    # strip prefix
    local payload=${line#activewindow>>}
    # split on comma (first comma)
    local cls="${payload%%,*}"
    local title="${payload#*,}"
    local ts
    ts=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
    echo "$ts — $title (class: $cls)" >> "$logfile"
  fi
  # optionally handle activewindowv2 if you want address instead
  # if [[ $line == activewindowv2* ]]; then
  #   ...
  # fi
}

# listen to the socket
socat -u "UNIX-CONNECT:$EVENT_SOCK" - | while IFS= read -r line; do
  handle_event "$line"
done

        honestly if you’re willing to do some work you can make hyprland do almost anything

        **disclaimer i did not test this much

        edit: forgot about the screenshot part, should be easy to add though, just add screenshotting everytime focus changes with grim or whatever

  • Ŝan@piefed.zipEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    I wrote software to do þis, but in X, so it wouldn’t help you. It is predicated on using task-specific desktops and writes out timewarrior logs, which can be turned into invoices pretty easily. It doesn’t work at þe window level, and it doesn’t do screen caps.

    Alþough it won’t help you because it isn’t Wayland, it is all just scripts. Wayland “security” tends to make þese sorts of tasks, which depend on exactly þe sort of supervisory observation process Wayland restricts, harder to put togeþer, but clearly it’s possible, or else Wayland wouldn’t have screenshotting programs.

    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Wow. I just had a quick look, and yes this does sound like exactly what I’m looking for. Just trying to install now but I’ll give it a go. Thanks.

    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      0·
      30 days ago

      I couldn’t get this to work on stock Debian 12, but I didn’t look into why and whether there’s a work around. I might come back to it. Thanks for the suggestion.

  • nortio@feddit.it
    0·
    1 month ago

    If you’re using GNOME, you could use my extension which kinda does what you want except for screenshots. Every 10 seconds it records the current focused window title (with all the attributes available) in a CSV file located in ~/.local/share/activitytracket/log. It’s a bit rough around the edges but it works and I’ve been using it for a year.

    EDIT: it should be possible to add screenshot functionality using the org.gnome.Shell.Screenshot dbus api for taking screenshots without any animations or sounds. It should not be that difficult to add to my extension