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Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

timeretain.com

11–20 of 30 posts

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#11

I think we should stop relying on unreliable web sites and go back to the roots: https://timewarrior.net/

Any reason why you think it's unreliable? Note my aim is to make it a PWA in the future, meaning it would be installed on your machine and run perfectly fine without an internet connection.

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#12
I've been meaning to build something similar for some time and never got the chance to do it. What you built looks really good and does almost everything I had planned.

The main feature missing for me (the one I wanted to build first if I ever started) is a dashboard with all (start/pause) buttons with current tasks ready to be clicked. Let's say I'm working on ticket TICK-123 and also "customer care". Then I would love to have a dashboard with a start/pause button for TICK-123, "customer care" and a "new task" one that behaves like the "Start stopwatch" you have. That way start/pause is one click away and tracking time is less in the way of what I'm currently doing.

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#13

I've been meaning to build something similar for some time and never got the chance to do it. What you built looks really good and does almost everything I had planned. The main feature missing for me (the one I wanted to build first if I ever started) is a dashboard with all (start/pause) buttons with current tasks ready to be clicked. Let's say I'm working on ticket TICK-123 and also "customer care". Then I would l…

Great idea, thank you! Shorthands are on my list. Would it work if you could immediately start a stopwatch + assign a tag, such as “customer care” with a single click?

I preferably don’t want to include projects/folders/tickets, this is what I found cumbersome to deal with in other trackers.

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#14

I've been meaning to build something similar for some time and never got the chance to do it. What you built looks really good and does almost everything I had planned. The main feature missing for me (the one I wanted to build first if I ever started) is a dashboard with all (start/pause) buttons with current tasks ready to be clicked. Let's say I'm working on ticket TICK-123 and also "customer care". Then I would l…

Great idea, thank you! Shorthands are on my list. Would it work if you could immediately start a stopwatch + assign a tag, such as “customer care” with a single click? I preferably don’t want to include projects/folders/tickets, this is what I found cumbersome to deal with in other trackers.

yes, especially if this stopwatch-tag combo became visible on the home page after that until I decide to hide/delete them

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#15
"No signup needed" is the way to go!

As the world has moved to everything online, I've gotten sick and tired of having to create a new account for every single service I might want to use. At the same time, I hate the idea of logging in with an account of one of the big leechers so that they can profile me even better.

I get that there are some things where it makes sense to have a personal account. But a lot of smaller stuff out there really has no excuse for forcing me to create an account - and I'm so annoyed by it that I mostly just don't even bother trying out something I otherwise would.

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#16
Very nice, well done! I built something similar (although with far fewer features): https://jameswhoughton.github.io/timetracker/

Some suggestions:

- Have the option to round the times when reporting (for example, at my work we log in 15m increments).

- Have the option to see the combined total grouped by description/tag, e.g. if I'm working on a ticket ABC-123 and I log multiple entries throughout the day, it would be nice to see the total time spent on the ticket without having to manually calculate.

- It could also be useful to add a button to copy the description/tags, for example if you needed to transfer your times to an internal system.

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#18
Time tracking 101, you should never allow two time trackers to run at the same time (especially if you are planning on tracking and billing your time on a project funded by the government). Starting a timer should always stop all the others.

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#19

Time tracking 101, you should never allow two time trackers to run at the same time (especially if you are planning on tracking and billing your time on a project funded by the government). Starting a timer should always stop all the others.

Good one - that sounds like great optional behavior. Having said that, I consciously built it this way. I personally use simultaneous stopwatches to track a full day of work and tagged items within that day, such as a specific meeting (each another stopwatch).

The "Personal Time" option subsequently merges the overlapping hours so that on Statistics, I'm looking at time spent in real life (as a person), while still being able to zoom in on specifically tagged items.

Re: Show HN: TimeRetain – A browser-based personal time tracker, no sign-up needed

#20
post #15

"No signup needed" is the way to go! As the world has moved to everything online, I've gotten sick and tired of having to create a new account for every single service I might want to use. At the same time, I hate the idea of logging in with an account of one of the big leechers so that they can profile me even better. I get that there are some things where it makes sense to have a personal account. But a lot of smal…

Fully agree, I dislike auth walls as well. It's also great for distribution, so everybody wins.
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