Ivan Yurlagin, 
This page is devoted to my schedule system, based on a very old ABC time management system. It allows to classify all of your tasks into three groups (A, B and C) which are described as following:
Raville also allows to keep statistics about how much time you spent on each task, day and similar.
Download Safety Technique Stopwatch · Dummy GUI (needs the MS Visual Studio installed)
Project is now suspended.
I wanna show the [Issue] structure now:
- Description
- Goal
- Initiator
- Beginning Date
- Status
- Question(s)
- Todo(s)
- Tag(s)
- ID (dd:mm:yy-hh:mm:ss based)
- Result Comment (Was this helpful? Did I get what I desired to?)
Google® said there are two approaches in manipulating with the desktop:
The first one allows to set either .html and graphical files as the desktop background. But it doesn't work. It requires shell32.dll of 4.71 or later version. I've got later than even 6.0 and it the studio does not know what the IActiveDesktop is.
The second approach allows to set only graphical files as the background which is obviously not appropriate. So, what to do?
Today I've realized that the file that is being used upon my desktop has an Internet tag in the System.Environment.SpecialFolder.MyComputer folder. May be I can replace that tag with the same name but different content pointing to refreshed file. But if the file has the same name — I guess the Windows won't refresh the background of my Active Desktop. So, I'm to keep looking for a function in the WinAPI ones which sets an Active Desktop background (wallpaper).
I again tried to use Google Desktop Gadgets in order to manage time. But it seems to me they have only Tasks Gadget which does not provide an explicit option to measure the time.
However, Google has its nice GUI I've been looking for manual all over. I wanna make nice GUI. With nice shapes. With content made of images and pretty much the same as web-interface looks like. There just should be standart controls, but the panels and containers should be nice. Not standart. How is that possible? How do those WinXP Tweakers work? They completely change the appearance.
Also I have tried the organizer today. But the problem is that information is hidden in those window forms — it is not presented on the worktable. And it makes that information much harder to influence on my work rhythm. Does not affect on me at all actually. Cause it is not in front of my eyes all the time.
Each task after a midnight is to dump its time to database. Each task has its unique tag which is seen on the desktop. And also a string which specifies a concrete deal on this tag. For example, the project has already been seen in many different specifying string with the same tag:
See it is all is under the Raville's tag but has different specifying strings. So the time spent on Raville is gonna be added to the same value.
Another peculiarity that each task has is a datestamp: we don't leave spent time without a day, month, year, minutes and hours when it was done. In order that we can calculate how many hours we spent and how efficient it was in the morning and in the evening. So, summarizing, each left time has:
It is gonna be like this:
<tag>Raville</tag> <option>time</option> <datestamp>050208</datestamp> <timestamp>1515</timestamp> <timespent>25m</timespent>
The question is should I use some third part database (SQL-like one) or should I write a simple xml parser for my database.
I think it would be reasonable to add another essence into Raville. I'm talking about everyday deals like physical exercises (e.g. push ups, tightenings, jogging, swimming, whatever), cooking, sleeping and so on. I.e. things that are not end aims. They are just life-keeping and joyfull ones. Of course this ability should be done as option. You can use it or not.
I would call it routine stuff.
Why can it be more convenient/ better/ efficient to use the Raville instead of manual html-editing?
There is another feature that came to my head just an hour ago — each new day Raville can add new (daily) hours to those which were done earlier, so each new day morning I'll see no time at all in on any of my tasks and by the end of day I'll see how much have I spent today. It seems to be a good idea and an useful feature for me. And of course this is totally difficult to perform manually though possible. Statistics is good.
I've got a question how to deal with a task list that doesn't fit into screen? :) A simple answer is: if you have more tasks than your screen has screen for it means something wrong with your TQM or you just have to accomplish those which are on top.
Another approach is to use scroll — I can put that table inside a div. In fact it is already in the div. So I can say: «Hey, div, you're going to have the overflow-y: scroll; option if you don't mind.» There can be a problem with the desktop-rendering because it might not be able to do the scroll-thing.
Ok, what's going to be implemented in my such an amazing Raville system? First off all — every program has its input and uotput. Let me start from the end. The result of the program is an html-file, which is going to be placed on my desktop instead of picture I use now. (By the way, if you are a desktop wallpaper fan, we can add the picture into the html. It is obviously not a problem.) So, the result is an html-file, which can be placed instead of your desktop-picture (wallpaper) or just directly seen by an Interner-browser.
Then, what about options? Well, as I has just told, picture on background. Centered, tiled, whatever.
The task list. Ok, I deeply believe that there should be three columns in the task-table:
I also believe that tasks belonging to different groups should have different colours in order to make them easily distinguishable from each other. Then the list should an option to be vertical and horizontal aligned.
Another option which might be useful is to have some text on my desktop — it can be either some sort of a wise thought (that I like) or some another information. Or even hyper-links to the Internet that I can directly launch from my desktop having nothing opened or searched for a couple tens of minutes :)
Then, I want my program to set the result (the html-file) as a desktop-background by itself — not by clicking the right mouse button, choosing the file and so on. No, the program should set that file by itself.
Finally, Raville is going to look like some WYSIWYG web editor. But it is going to be wa-a-ay simplier and lighter.
Ok now, Ima keep tuning this. Will be back.
Ivan Yurlagin,