Tracking time spent viewing tiddlers

[Craig in Calgary]

For my TiddlyWiki Tutorial (http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki/
t/2cdca3a12bfdc630?hl=en) I will have "sets" of tiddlers, each "set"
behaving like a slideshow. Is it possible for the TiddlyWiki to track
the time spent from when the first tiddler in a "set" is opened for
viewing until the last tiddler in the set is closed? I would store
these durations with the hope of generating a report showing what
"sets" have been viewed, how long was spent viewing each "set", and
total time spent viewing all sets.

Enhancement #1: once the timer starts, pause it while the user edits a
tiddler in the set (to see what's going on behind the scenes), then
resume the timer when the user returns to the tiddler in the set they
left off at.

Enhancement #2: once the timer starts, pause it while the user opens
any tiddlers NOT in the set, then resume the timer when the user
returns to the tiddler in the set they left off at.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[rouilj]

On Oct 23, 12:25 pm, Craig in Calgary <craig.prich...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> [...] I will have "sets" of tiddlers, each "set"

> behaving like a slideshow. Is it possible for the TiddlyWiki to track
> the time spent from when the first tiddler in a "set" is opened for
> viewing until the last tiddler in the set is closed? I would store

> these durations [...]

>
> Enhancement #1: once the timer starts, pause it while the user edits a
> tiddler in the set (to see what's going on behind the scenes), then
> resume the timer when the user returns to the tiddler in the set they
> left off at.
>
> Enhancement #2: once the timer starts, pause it while the user opens
> any tiddlers NOT in the set, then resume the timer when the user
> returns to the tiddler in the set they left off at.

Well it's meant for display of an actual slideshow, but some of the
code from:

http://www.math.ist.utl.pt/~psoares/addons.html#SlideShowPlugin

may give you some ideas. Also there is:

http://www.tiddlytools.com/#TaskTimerPlugin
http://www.tiddlytools.com/#SlideshowTimer

that do similar timer related things. My guess is you would need to
control the timer
from javascript in some way. Another possible way to do it would be
to:

store the start time for a "show" when viewing a slide in the show's
set
when the show is interrupted (focus shifts to another tiddler,
user edits a tiddler)
store the elapsed time (now - start time) for the show adding
it to any other time
already recorded for the current show in a tiddler.
when the user returns to (any) show, set the start time again and
continue the loop.

Seems like it should be doable in javascript.

-- rouilj

[Michael Mahemoff]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Craig in Calgary
<craig.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For my TiddlyWiki Tutorial (http://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki/
> t/2cdca3a12bfdc630?hl=en) I will have "sets" of tiddlers, each "set"
> behaving like a slideshow. Is it possible for the TiddlyWiki to track
> the time spent from when the first tiddler in a "set" is opened for
> viewing until the last tiddler in the set is closed? I would store
> these durations with the hope of generating a report showing what
> "sets" have been viewed, how long was spent viewing each "set", and
> total time spent viewing all sets.
>

I found this an interesting idea, I had some ideas on implementing it
and decided to try it:

http://tiddlywiki.mahemoff.com/ViewingTimesPlugin.html

The plugin takes periodic samples (once a second) to see what the user
is viewing. It looks at the first element in the story, which will
work fine for a slideshow-type tiddlywiki or one using SinglePageMode,
though mightn't be ideal for other situations. You could also replace
the sampling technique by one which hijacks display events.

It doesn't address all of your concerns, but hopefully gives you some
ideas on how one might implement this.

[shavinder]

@Mahemoff The link you just posted is blocked by my FF preferences
with Google reporting it as a "Reported Attack Site!".

Please look into this.

Here is the details of what google says about this:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for mahemoff.com

What is the current listing status for mahemoff.com?

Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm
your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s)
over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 4 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 3 page
(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed
without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on
2009-10-25, and the last time suspicious content was found on this
site was on 2009-10-25.

Malicious software is hosted on 1 domain(s), including
davtraff.com/.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS26347
(DREAMHOST).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further
distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, mahemoff.com did not appear to function as
an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90
days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate
sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

Next steps:

* Return to the previous page.
* If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review
of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the
review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-shavinder

On Oct 26, 5:20 am, Michael Mahemoff <mich...@mahemoff.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Craig in Calgary
>

[Alex Hough]

I like the idea; it could be used to track your work - how much you spend on a particular idea.

ALex

2009/10/26 shavinder <shavinde...@gmail.com>

--
http://www.multiurl.com/g/64

[Eric Shulman]

> I like the idea; it could be used to track your work - how much you spend on
> a particular idea.

http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#TaskTimerPlugin

is specificially suited to tracking 'how much time' you spend on a
task. It provides a pushbutton that, when clicked, starts a timer.
When you click it again, the timer stops, and you are prompted to
enter the title of a tiddler (default='ActivityLog') and a task
description (default=blank).

The plugin then writes a row of a TW table into that 'log' tiddler,
with the description, starttime, endtime and elapsed time. Each time
you start/stop a task timer button, it adds another row to the table,
creating a cumulative record of activities.

You can, of course, track different tasks in different 'log' tiddlers.
Thus, you could have project-specific or task-specific logs (e.g.,
Project1Log, Project2Log, etc.). You can also create multiple task
timer buttons, each targeted at a different 'log', so that rather than
asking for a target tiddler title, each button always writes to a
specific target, so you could have one button for Project1 and a
different button for Project2.

enjoy,
-e

[Michael Mahemoff]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 2:53 PM, shavinder <shavinde...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> @Mahemoff The link you just posted is blocked by my FF preferences
> with Google reporting it as a "Reported Attack Site!".
>
> Please look into this.
>
> Here is the details of what google says about this:

Yes, this came up this morning - my site was hacked among with
numerous other dreamhost sites in the past couple of months :(. I've
taken measures, but it will take a while for the message to clear.

You can click through anyway, or you can also find the code in my SVN area.
http://svn.tiddlywiki.org/Trunk/contributors/MichaelMahemoff/plugins/ViewingTimesPlugin/

[dickon]

I really like this idea, and it is similar to something I asked about,
but more sophisticated as it tracks actual time spent with the
tiddlers open. Would I be right that implicit within this
functionality would be a kind of "hit-counter" for each tiddler that
is opened? I am interested in that as an additional function in my
treatment manual (http://imp.peermore.com/imp/recipes/imp/
tiddlers.wiki) so as to track which bits a worker is visiting, and
which s/he is avoiding...

Dickon

On Oct 26, 5:50 pm, Michael Mahemoff <mich...@mahemoff.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 2:53 PM, shavinder <shavinderpalsi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > @Mahemoff The link you just posted is blocked by my FF preferences
> > with Google reporting it as a "Reported Attack Site!".
>
> > Please look into this.
>
> > Here is the details of what google says about this:
>
> Yes, this came up this morning - my site was hacked among with
> numerous other dreamhost sites in the past couple of months :(. I've
> taken measures, but it will take a while for the message to clear.
>

> You can click through anyway, or you can also find the code in my SVN area.http://svn.tiddlywiki.org/Trunk/contributors/MichaelMahemoff/plugins/...

[Michael Mahemoff]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 11:11 AM, dickon
<dickon.b...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> I really like this idea, and it is similar to something I asked about,
> but more sophisticated as it tracks actual time spent with the
> tiddlers open.  Would I be right that implicit within this
> functionality would be a kind of "hit-counter" for each tiddler that
> is opened?  I am interested in that as an additional function in my
> treatment manual (http://imp.peermore.com/imp/recipes/imp/
> tiddlers.wiki) so as to track which bits a worker is visiting, and
> which s/he is avoiding...

I should clarify that the plugin here just shows the information back
to the viewer, for their own purposes, rather than aggregating views
and providing server analytics.

It could be extended to do that. I could imagine a write-only (unless
you have admin permissions) tiddlyweb "views" bag that would contain a
tiddler for each time the user viewed something. It would grow big
quickly and therefore require something like the SQL store in most
cases. And it would need an analytics viewing tool too.

[dickon]

Thank you - i will foward this to the clever folk at peermore (Chris
Dent) and Jon Lister who have been helping with this project - one for
future consideration!

Best,

Dickon

On Oct 27, 3:28 pm, Michael Mahemoff <mich...@mahemoff.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 11:11 AM, dickon
>

[Alex Hough]

Hi,

This is an interesting thread. Here are some obserations on my own TW use and some thoughts.

Task Timer
I like TaskTimer and have played about with it. What happened was that i forgot to switch it off; the excitement of the next task was such that my self monitoring intentions went out the window.

Editing time = problem solving time.
I think that recording the time tiddlers are being edited would be interesting. It is not a tiddler's position in the story that directly correlates to the attention i personally give each chunk of information. Rather it is the editing of it. If the time spent editing a tiddler could be recorded in the tiddler, along with 'created', 'modified' etc then the tiddlers could be listed by this variable.

Cowpaths and time spent editing
I've manually generated lists of well trodden trails and put them in the sidebar next to timeline. (I called it 'cowpath' after the 'pave the cowpath' pattern [1].)  I found that I wanted my cowpath to change as I progressed. For example, at the start I'd be always opening PageTemplate, ViewTemplate and StyleSheet, but as I progressed into the content of the TW i would no longer need these. A list tiddlers listed by 5 most pondered could be a good addition to the navigation system.

Taxonomic Patterns in the mind as viewed as tiddler metadata
Once set up, once all the TW mechanism stuff has been tweeked, It could be interesting to compare relationships between tags and time spent being edited. One might be able to see patterns. For example It might be possible to map out where in a hierachy of ideas your attention was being spent. it is easy to get distracted along a path you find most enjoyable, but if your attention patterns were able to be viewed it might help with creativity. I'm thinking of a particualr creativity technique here - morphological analysis.


Ones perceptions of time spent thinking on certain topics are subjective. If you goal was to follow the path you thought most enjoyable and you though that you had spent less time on it than you really had -the illusion that the boring things make time drag skewing your perception - you would be subconsciously diverting from your consciously chosen path. Then when assessing your performance against your self set subconscious goals, you might create a delusion of in-efficiency for your self.

Plan - Do - Review
I am not sure if this is a formal learning model. I was introduced to it as one use of the internal triange of a Gurdjieff enneagram [2] as a 'chicken bones' method of systems analysis in production engineering. I've often though how to craft an eneagram structure on a TW. They are both non-linear navigation systems

Do - editing open tiddler
Review is viewing tiddler on top. I always drag a tiddler to the top
Plan - ????

TW and the mind
Using a TW is about sorting and working with ideas. My personal interest is in making a personal tool if not by osmosis, a structure which i build between the tool and the mind, both impacting on each other - a structural coupling if you like.

phew, time for a brew

Alex

[1] http://designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki/index.php?title=Pave_the_Cowpaths
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Way_Enneagram

2009/10/26 Eric Shulman <elsd...@gmail.com>

--
http://www.multiurl.com/g/64

[dickon]

Most fascinating!

My colleague Peter Fuggle and I have been reflecting recently on the
parallels between the neurodevelopmental phases that lead to a mature,
adapted brain, and the growth patterns of the TW treatment/case
management manual that I have supplied links for.

The human brain starts with an explosion or efflorescence of branching
and linking (though synapses) of brain cells to each other. Then,
from mid childhood and rapidly accelerating through adolescence
(probably the defining feature of adolescent brain development), the
whole developmental process goes into reverse, with synapses being
shed - so that the brain is literally 'moulting'. However the links
that "moult" and are lost, are those that simply are not carrying
traffic. Those links that ARE carrying traffic may even recruit extra
links - thus the brain's plasticity adapts its machinery to the
functions it is being called upon to perform.

The development of our manual has been (and continues to be) somewhat
similar - multiple iterations slowly evolve more efficient pathways
and links/tags/plugins/macros can be shed when they are found to be
superfluous. A tool to measure which are the key pathways, and the
under-used by-ways, would be a powerful tool in the collaborative
authoring of practically-oriented wiki-based information sets.

Best

Dickon

> Gurdjieff<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Gurdjieff>enneagram [2] as

> a 'chicken bones' method of systems analysis in production
> engineering. I've often though how to craft an eneagram structure on a TW.
> They are both non-linear navigation systems
>
> Do - editing open tiddler
> Review is viewing tiddler on top. I always drag a tiddler to the top
> Plan - ????
>
> TW and the mind
> Using a TW is about sorting and working with ideas. My personal interest is
> in making a personal tool if not by osmosis, a structure which i build
> between the tool and the mind, both impacting on each other - a structural
> coupling if you like.
>
> phew, time for a brew
>
> Alex
>

> [1]http://designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns.wiki/index.php?title=Pa...
> [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Way_Enneagram
>
> 2009/10/26 Eric Shulman <elsdes...@gmail.com>