Tiempo

A timetrap compatible command line time tracking application. Read the fine manual.

Installation

For Archlinux (and derivatives) users

There are a binary and a source package in the AUR:

• tiempo-bin
• tiempo-git

For every other linux users

Go to gitlab releases page and grab the latest binary for your linux. There is a .deb file for Debian and Ubuntu as well as a binary for any x86_64 Linux.

For Rust developers

You have cargo! you can run:

cargo install tiempo

For everyone else

You need to compile tiempo by yourself. But don't worry! It is not that hard. Just clone the repository, make sure you have rust installed and run:

cargo build --release

inside the repository. The binary will be named t (or t.exe if you use windows) and it is located inside the target/release directory that was created during compilation.

Why did you write this instead of improving timetrap?

• timetrap is hard to install, hard to keep updated (because of ruby). With tiempo you can get (or build) a binary, put it somewhere in your PATH, and it will just work forever in that machine. I'm bundling sqlite.
• timetrap is slow (no way around it, because of ruby), some commands take up to a second. Tiempo always feels snappy.
• needed major refactor to fix the timezone problem (in a language I'm not proficient with). I was aware of this problem and designed tiempo to store timestamps in UTC while at the same time being able to work with a database made by timetrap without messing up. And there are a lot of tests backing this assertions.

Other advantages

• Columns in the output are always aligned.
• Fixed some input inconsistencies.
• CLI interface is easier to discover (ask -h for any sub-command)
• End times are printed with +1d to indicate that the activity ended the next day in the 'text' formatter.
• Solved some old issues in timetrap.
• Added new features!

How to build

You need rust, then clone the repo and simply run

cargo test

to check that everything is working, and then

cargo build --release

to have a binary at target/release/t that you can then move to a directory in your PATH or use it by its absoulte or relative paths.

Run

t --help

to see the options.

Development database

When developing I prefer not to mess with my own database, so I use this .env file:

export TIMETRAP_CONFIG_FILE=/absolute/path/to/repo/dev_config.toml
PS1="$ "

and when I want to test some commands against such config file I just source it:

source .env
cargo run -- in 'hola'

Documentation

The docs are written using sphinx, so first you need to install it somehow. Two options I can offer are:

• using your computer's package manager. Install a package with a name similar to python-sphinx.
• using pipenv. Just ensure you have python 3.9 on your computer, enter the docs directory and do pipenv install.

To build the docs just enter the docs directory and run:

make html

for the html version (output located at docs/build/html), or

make man

for the man page (output located at docs/build/man/tiempo.1). To test the man page you can do:

man -l docs/build/man/tiempo.1

If you are using pipenv to build the docs just prefix the commands with pipenv run or run pipenv shell before running any command.

The contents of the docs are located in docs/source/index.rst, formatted as reStructuredText.

Special Thanks

To timetrap for existing, to samg for creating it. It is the tool I was looking for and whose design I took as reference, keeping compatibility when possible.

Release checklist

(mostly to remind myself)

• Ensure tests pass and that clippy doesn't complain
• Add documentation about the new features
• Create an entry in CHANGELOG.md with the target version, stage it but don't commit
• run vbump
• git push && git push --tags && cargo publish && cargo build --release && cp target/release/t ~/.local/bin/t