Have you ever wondered where most of your time goes when using your computer? I always did, so I wrote a small script which logs the currently visible and focused apps:
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84 | #!/usr/bin/python
import json
import os
import time
import subprocess
visible_workspaces = []
filtered = [ # filter everything which is not a window
"root", "LVDS", "DFP1", # monitors
"i3bar for output LVDS", "i3bar for output DFP1", # i3bar
"topdock", "content", "bottomdock", # docks
"1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "10", # workspace numbers
"#00FF00", "#aa00aa", "#00aa00" # window title bar colors
]
clean_mapping = { # strings to recognize apps by and the correct app name
"XChat": "XChat",
"Sublime": "Sublime Text 2",
"Chrome": "Google Chrome",
"Skype": "Skype",
"VLC": "VLC",
"calibre": "calibre",
"GNU Image Manipulation": "GIMP",
"Buddy List": "Pidgin",
"jabber": "Pidgin",
"pts": "Terminal",
"Defender's Quest": "Defender's Quest",
"Desura": "Desura"
}
visible_apps = []
focused_apps = []
# i3's windows are contained in a tree structure, so we need to parse that
def parse_node(node):
if "num" in node and node["num"] not in visible_workspaces:
return
name = node["name"]
if name not in filtered:
visible_apps.append(name)
if node["focused"] == True:
focused_apps.append(name)
for n in node["nodes"]:
parse_node(n)
# clean up window titles
def clean_name(name):
for key in clean_mapping:
if key in name:
return clean_mapping[key]
return name
screensaver_enabled = False
try:
screensaver_enabled = "non" not in subprocess.check_output(
"xscreensaver-command -time 2> /dev/null", shell=True)
except:
pass
workspaces = json.loads(
subprocess.check_output(
"i3-ipc -j -t 1", shell=True))
for w in workspaces:
if w["visible"] == True:
visible_workspaces.append(int(w["name"]))
apps = json.loads(subprocess.check_output(
"i3-ipc -j -t 4", shell=True))
parse_node(apps)
visible_apps = [clean_name(n) for n in visible_apps]
focused_apps = [clean_name(n) for n in focused_apps]
output_template = """{ "time": %d, "visible": %s, "focused": %s }"""
if screensaver_enabled:
focused_apps = ["screensaver"]
print (output_template %
(time.time(), visible_apps, focused_apps)
).replace("'", "\"")
|
It uses the IPC interface to communicate with [cached]i3, the tiling window manager I use. (if you don't already use a tiling wm: I highly recommend it!) Communication also relies on the [cached]i3-ipc ruby library, which you'd have to install to use my script.
Output looks like this:
| { "time": 1331935529, "visible": ['Terminal', 'Sublime Text 2'], "focused": ['Terminal'] }
|
The current time in seconds, a list of all visible windows and finally a list of the currently focused windows. Each line is one json object, so you can easily pare it. I use cron to run this script every minute and log it's ouput to a file:
| # m h dom mon dow command
* * * * * export DISPLAY=:0 && /home/mononofu/.app_usage.py >> /home/mononofu/.app_usage.log
|
It's important to set the DISPLAY variable or the script won't work! I'll publish a script for easy analysis of the data in the next few days, so stay tuned.