Great features and polish for Timekpr-nExT
Written for Timekpr-nExT by Eduards Bezverhijs on 2020-06-18
I had some time at my hands and in past weeks I was able to greatly polish Timekpr-nExT.
Last month Timekpr-nExT had lock screen time accounting improvements, now it's time for more polish...
TL;DR - new version is great, time to upgrade (firstly in beta form, of course)!
For curious readers, let's continue...
Visible enhancements
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* it's now possible to adjust limits and hour intervals for multiple days at once, just select desired days (or all of them) and set limits and intervals, do not forget to apply the configuration
* un-checking and checking days in day list will restore configuration that was set before instead of clearing it
* administration application now has two more fields - time left today and time left actual, the former is calculated from saved state and shows how much time user still has, latter is available only when particular user is logged in as it's calculated almost in real time
* for console users, administration application now shows a lot more information about user especially when he's logged in, it should greatly help to get the information about user when connecting to computer remotely, couple of labels have been changed as well as option name, please run timekpra --help to see the changes
* administration application will have access to newly created users right after they're added, open administration application and it's possible to adjust configuration right away
* timekpr will not switch to login screen if user which is being terminated is not active at the moment (i.e. other user is using the computer using user switching), this seems to work fine with KDE, Linux Mint Mate, etc., except when Gnome Display Manager is used, if GDM handles Your logins, it will switch to login screen even not being asked to (previously it did not switch even when single user was terminated)
* there's the possibility to turn off icon and notifications for users, it may be beneficial to unlimited users who do not want to see the limitations icon at all (as usual, the switch can be flipped using console mode as well)
Bug fixes
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* fixed an annoying bug for unlimited users when under some circumstances it still counted time despite being unlimited, it did not affect the unlimited time though, it still was unlimited
* fixed time spent for today, now it shows correct values even when more time was added on top of daily limit
Technical improvements
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* fixed control / configuration file recreation in case options are missing, this will help adding options transparently in case more features will be added
* timekpr will not try to switch (and fail) to login screen in case it can not (i.e. session does not have a seat assigned to it, so far to the best of my knowledge only RDP sessions do not have them), this had implication that user was not terminated at all, but now it should be fixed
* refactored quite a lot of code, names, parameters, etc., this was done to be more consistent and correct about actual functionality and names involved in it as well as help introducing a new features easier
Possible upcoming features
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Nikita, one of the users of Timekpr-nExT has developed a working proof of concept for counting time only when specified applications are running, i.e. count time when steam or some game is running. The feature itself is great, thanks Nikita!, but currently it's very technical and will not be understandable to average user.
There were some other technical nuances, which I was able to find a solution for.
If I'll have some more free time, together with Nikita, we'll make this feature available at some point in the future.
The other thing is to hide application icon for unlimited users. One of Timekpr-nExT users asked for it, because apparently it can not be disabled using standard startup application settings.
Closing notes
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Please be aware that 0.4.x versions are incompatible with previous versions. After installing 0.4.x version (even beta), it will not be possible to go back to 0.3.x without getting hands dirty (i.e. modifying config files manually).
If You have ideas for new features, please send them to my e-mail, we'll discuss them and if it's useful and possible to implement without breaking fingers, I'll try to do it :)
If You think I deserve something in return for making Timekpr-nExT or just want to contribute, please do so via PayPal: https:/
Thanks for listening!
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