As mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, some users were experiencing connection problems using the Yahoo widget.

In collaboration with one of our users, Adrian Gawrys, we were able to determine the problem. It turned out that we weren’t escaping usernames (or password) which might contain url-obstructive characters, resulting in a mall-formed url and a failure to load that url. At the same time we have made the ‘unable to connect’-message give a more detailled story.

Anyhow, download the latest widget and everything should be fine.

PS: we’re still looking for Adobe Air widget developers.

Some of our users are experiencing connection problems when using the Yahoo widget and since we (digitalbase) aren’t having enough time to spare, we’re now looking for third-party developers who can develop a new widget for us.

We’d like it to be developed using Adobe Air, so if you’re skilled, interested and up for the job, make sure to have a look and bid at Elance.

To please more developpers, we introduce today our JSON API.

You could already write your own apps using our API (see documentation), but if you prefer the JSON format than you can now use for example https://secure.trackmypeople.com/api/status.json instead of https://secure.trackmypeople.com/xml/status.

Please note that some xml responses have changed, so if you were already writing an application then you better use the new xml-url, which is https://secure.trackmypeople.com/api/$action.xml, where ‘.xml’ may be ommitted.
All old xml responses remain the same if you use the old url: https://secure.trackmypeople.com/xml/$action, but it will become deprecated and the new responses contain more information.

As always further suggestions are welcome at info@trackmypeople.com.

We have been working quite hard on TrackMyPeople lately. New features/improvements/fixes are a daily routine and that’s a good thing. But sometimes you have to keep an eye on the ‘basics’, time tracking is what it’s all about. That’s why i decided to sum up the different ways to track your time using this free service !

1. Using the time entry page

Time entry is split up in day and week views. The weekly overview allows you to quickly register your weekly time sheet. Use the tracker drop-down (see : what is a tracker?) to select/add trackers to the list, and then easily add the time spent on a day-to-day basis. You can use different formats too, the system will notice the difference between time entered in another format (for example 3:30 is the same as 3,5). When you’re done, press the “save” button to register your time-blocks.

The day view allows you to work in a more detailed way. The time-block entry contains a field allowing you to enter the ‘description’ of the timeblock. Clicking add will instantly save the block to our system.

Note that time entry uses the “free block” principle (see : what is the difference between free and fixed blocks). Basically this means we do not have a start/stop date for this timeblock, meaning we cannot ‘draw’ it on on the calendar.

2. Using our time punch clock

Have you noticed the play/stop buttons on the right top of the page (only when logged in), this is the timeclock. This clock is displayed on most pages and will display the total time registered for the current day. Using the start/stop buttons allows you to easily “punch” in your time, just don’t forget to press “stop” when you are finished.

time punch clock

3. Quickadd (one by one) timeblock

Next to the clock we have the “quick add” button. So now you might be thinking : what is difference between time entry and quickadd ? For that you have to understand the difference between free & fixed blocks. Quick add allows you to add a single block forcing you to enter an exact start and stop date.

When saving the system will verify you don’t have any other timeblocks for the same timerange. If this is the case it will allow you to fix the problems by moving or deleting the duplicate time entry.

4. Use on of our widgets

If you want to enter your time on a regular base, this is the way to go ! Our widgets/applets allow you to easily “register” your time right from your desktop. Pick a widget from our download page and install it. Afterwards you can easily press start/stop to register your timesheet as you go. If you want to switch to a different project, just use the dropdown to switch to a different tracker (company/project/task or issue).

We have a public API allowing developers to write new widgets/applications that interact directly with your trackmypeople account. If you want to give us a hand drop us an email, we’ll be glad to help.

The developers behind TrackMyPeople love the open-source community & the tools it has given this world. With our new api documentation we’d want to give developers the opportunity to easily interact with the TrackMyPeople engine.

Our own widgets of course already use this interface, but we believe that the best software is developed by & for the community. The software is more inclined to move towards the real needs of the actual users, plus you can’t do everything yourself. With this announcement we’d like to once more ask you for your feedback, suggestions & perhaps we might even feature some of your own applications.

By the way, we’re really interested in an iPhone app for TMP, so if anyone’s interested, feel free to contact us!