nx-work-log 1.2.0

NX Work Log

I wrote this program originally in Borland C++ Builder. It adds an icon to the windows system tray that is green when it’s measuring time and red when it’s paused. I use it to measure my working hours, so I can switch it off when doing non work related tasks.

When I found Simon Brunning SysTrayIcon I decided to rewrite the application in Python as I wanted to make some improvements to the tool and no longer wanted to use my outdated version of C++ Builder.

As I was exploring the winpy32 package I found it contains a resource file parser and I thought it would be cool to define the dialog in Microsoft Visual Studio and see how this can be used in Python.

Linux port

As I’m also working on Projects requiring Ubuntu, I wanted to make the tool cross platform.

The Linux tray implementation uses pystray and behavior depends on the backend provided by the desktop environment.

• Left/right mouse button behavior is not always identical to Windows. With the AppIndicator backend, primary click is menu-focused, so left click may open the menu instead of toggling pause.

• Hover tooltip text is often not shown by Linux shells even when the application updates the tray title.

• As a workaround for missing hover text, the current logged time is shown as the first (disabled) menu entry.

• If AppIndicator libraries are missing, the app falls back to the Xorg backend. On Xorg, menu support is limited and right-click menu entries may be unavailable.

For full tray menu support on Ubuntu, install:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libayatana-appindicator3-1 gir1.2-ayatanaappindicator3-0.1

You can force a specific backend for troubleshooting by setting the PYSTRAY_BACKEND environment variable (for example appindicator or xorg) before starting nxworklog.