What's new in PhunTime?

: 17. April 2001

This document describes all the changes to the different releases of PhunTime.

Last modified October 3, 2002

Changes in PhunTime V2.3F Released: April 15, 2001
Changes in PhunTime V2.2F Released: July 29, 1999
Changes in PhunTime V2.1F Released: September 24, 1998
Changes in PhunTime V1.2F Released: February 7, 1998
Changes in PhunTime V1.1F Released: February 2, 1998

Changes in PhunTime V2.3F

Summary

New Siena version available.
New "List Mode" functions Ctrl-Right-Arrow and Ctrl-Left-Arrow to scroll the project-/detail-column.
The "Sum by Project" reports may now summarize by month..

Details

A Siena version is available. It is functionally equivalent to the Series 3c/mx version but the text of messages and dialog boxes has been adapted for the smaller screen size of the Siena models.
In "List-Mode" Ctrl-Right-Arrow and Ctrl-Left-Arrow can be used to scroll the display of the project or detail column right or left, resp..
The "Sum by Project" report can now also summarize by month instead of by a number of days. The option last used will automatically be saved in the INI-file.
There is a new INI-file version to hold the above "Sum by Project" setting.
The "Detail" field will be copied to new tracking records by default. This can still be changed through the settings menu. Merely the default has been changed.

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Changes in PhunTime V2.2F

Summary

New "List Mode" function Psion-L to toggle between Project and Detail fields to be shown. List mode V-key shows the currently "invisible" field in the lower left corner.
The "Sum by Project" reports may now summarize on Projects, Details or both.
The "Sum by Project" summary lines may be sorted for display and up to 60 different projects may be shown.
The project record's Detail field (previously called Description field) may automatically be copied to new tracking records.
Tracking records may be exported to DIF format files, which can be directly opened by Psion's Spreadsheet.
The "Print Tracking Records" menu has been renamed to "Exporting Tracking records".
Psion-Key combinations are now handled correctly even if CAPS is on.
PhunTime.OPA has been split into two modules: PhunTime.OPA and PhunTime.LIB.

Details

You can now choose whether the Project field or the Detail field is shown in the "List Mode" window. Use either the "Special" menu or Psion-L in list mode to toggle the field shown. The current setting is automatically saved in the .INI file. The V-key always shows the currently "invisible" field in the lower left corner, i.e. the Detail field when the Project field is shown in the list and vice versa.
The "Sum by Project" report can be run against the Project field, as it always was, or it can be run against the Detail field or even both fields combined. The Project and Detail fields are joined with " > " when the content of both fields are taken to create the report. The seletion is automatically saved in the .INI file.
The "Sum by Project" report lines may be sorted before they get displayed or printed. The seletion is automatically saved in the .INI file. Previously only the first 30 projects were taken into account when building the report. This limit has been extended to include the up to 60 different projects.
The Project record's Description field has been renamed to Detail field. The content of a Project record's Detail field may automatically be copied to the Tracking record's Detail field whenever tracking is started on a new record. This option is disabled by default and may be activated from the "Special" menu. The current setting is automatically saved in the .INI file.

There is an additional format to which tracking data can be exported: The DIF format. This format can directly be opened by Spreadsheet on the Psion. Spreadsheet will always convert the file to Psion's Spreadsheet format. The DIF format does not allow to save cell formatting information in the file. Therefore, you need to assign the correct cell format after you have opened the file in Spreadsheet. The first row contains column headings. All other lines contain the tracking data for the selected records, one row per record. The first column contains the tracking record's date. The second column is the start time, the third the end time. Fourth is the duration and fifth and sixth are the Project and Detail fields.
The "Print Tracking Records" menu item as been renamed to "Export Tracking Records" since it is more appropriate. There is still the option to get a formatted list (which was the original printed report) but there are two other formats that are more like export functions: The delimited fields format and the new DIF format.
PhunTime did not recognize some Psion-Key combinations if you happened to have CAPS on. This is now handled correctly.
I got into some OPL translation size limitations to which the only solution was to split the code into two modules. Beginning with version 2.2F, PhunTime consists of the following modules: PhunTime.OPA, PhunTime.LIB, PhunTime.SRT and, optionally, PhunTime.HLP.
PhunTime 2.1F erroneously had a 60 character size limitation for the tracking record Detail field. Both the Project record's and the Tracking record's Detail fields are now 64 character fields. This change did not change the tracking data file format but only some dialog fields. Consquently, I did not create a new PhunTime file version. There's a drawback, however: If you happen to enter more than 60 characters into the Detail field of any Tracking record(s) in PhunTime 2.2F, you will no longer be able to edit this record(s) with PhunTime 2.1F. But honestly, why on earth would you want to do this :-)

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Changes in PhunTime V2.1F

Summary

Added a special record to recognize PhunTime files and their version. A conversion program was added to the package to convert PhunTime files between versions (currently 1.x & 2.1)
Added a new field Details that may optionally contain some details for any single tracking record. This field may be shown with the V-key function in the list mode. It may also be printed on the tracking data report.
Date/time format and language may be set explicitly or may be inherited from Series 3c/a's Time application settings.
The Tidy function allows records to be tidied to be selected by project, similar to the print tracking record function.
Tracking records may be printed in a delimited field format. This file may be imported into spreadsheets or word processors.
New function with keys 5 and 0 to start/stop with a delta of 5 or 10 minutes, resp.
New function to search tracking records for matching text in project and/or detail fields.
Corrected a small error in GoTo function: Second line was high- lighted instead of first when search date was before or at first record in file.
Corrected an error in the "Print tracking records" report. The first start time after a day break showed the minutes value of the latest day or week duration field instead of the start time's. The duration has always been calculated correctly!
Corrected a minor error in project window scrolling: Right arrow did not always scroll past 3rd column.

Details

The tracking data and project files now contain a special identification record that allows PhunTime to check for correct files when opening a file set. A conversion Program (PhunTCnv.OPO) has been provided separately to convert file sets between PhunTime version 1.x and version 2.1 file sets.
The tracking data file has an additional field called "Detail Field". You may enter some additional text in this field to further describe your detailed activity while working on a project. The field will not be used by PhunTime to produce the "Summary by Project" report, i.e. this report will show one summary line per project found in the period no matter what the detail fields may contain. The field will, however, optionally be shown in the "Print Tracking Records" report.
PhunTime now shows date and time in either the format you set on your Series 3mx/c/a using the Time Application or you may set it explicitly. The same applies to the Start-of-Week setting. PhunTime will check for any format changes whenever it is brought to foreground if you have chosen to inherit the settings from the Series 3mx/c/a. The display will then be adjusted immediately.

The tracking data records may be printed in an "unformatted" way which allows them to be imported into other applications, like spreadsheets, word processors, etc.
The Tidy function now allows only records matching specific projects to be tidied.
You can now search for records matching a search argument in either the project field, the detail field or in both fields.

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Changes in PhunTime V1.2F

Summary

The Print Tracking Data Records function now has an option to print all records in the selected date range or only part of them.
The report will also show a summary by week in addition to the summary by day.
Additional memory availability check done before starting the background sort process.

Details

For the Tracking Record Report, you can now select whether all records in the specified period should be printed or only those which match a given project. If printing only part of the records, you'll have to decide whether the project field must exactly match your selection ("Exact match") or if it only has to start with the given string ("Start with").
The tracking record report now shows a summary by week (optional). This line is in addition to the summary by day line.
PhunTime is starting a separate process to sort either of the files in a file set after a merge operation or when the user is explicitly requesting a file to be sorted.

This new process will run in the background and will eventually "tell" PhunTime that it has finished. If the sort process could not be started because you were short on system memory (Psion's epoc operating system has a 512KB limit for all running processes), PhunTime would wait forever (or until you killed the process).

PhunTime will now make sure at least 64KB of system memory are available or the sort process will not be started.

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Changes in PhunTime V1.1F

Summary

This was the first release to the public.
More complete error handling has been added.
New function Enable/Disable automatic re-ordering and new settings option Start of Week have been added.

Details

PhunTime has been in use for several months before releasing it as FreeWare+. Intensive testing was done and no bugs have been found so far (they are clever and know how to hide :-).

One problem that always may occur is an

Out of Memory

condition. Not all of them can be caught by an OPL application.

The error checking and handling has been enhanced to give the user better information in case of an unexpected error (such as an

Out of Memory

error).