#MyMonitor
The MyMonitor module contains a small set of commands for monitoring active window use. The Get-WindowTime function uses another "helper" function called Get-ForegroundWindowProcess to retrieve the active window process. However, processes that don't have interactive windows or those associated with Task Switching are excluded.
Get-WindowTime keeps track of how long you are spending on a window based primarily on its window title. At the end of the monitoring process, it writes results to the pipeline.
Time : 00:00:18.9084682
Application : Thunderbird
WindowTitle : Junk - Jeffery Hicks - Mozilla Thunderbird
Product : Thunderbird
Time : 00:00:12.6757123
Application : Windows PowerShell ISE
WindowTitle : Administrator: Windows PowerShell ISE
Product : Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
##MONITORING By default, Get-WindowTime will monitor active window use for 1 minute. You can specify a different number of minute or a specific date time. Another option is to use a process "trigger". This is the name of a process that you rarely use, such as CALC. When Get-WindowTime detects the presence of that process, it will stop monitoring and write results to the pipeline.
Because monitoring will block the prompt, you also have an option to run everything in a background job. Note that if you terminate the background job you will not get any results.
One potential drawback to this toolset, it that there is no way to pause and resume monitoring. Thus, you might have skewed results when you go to meetings or take a lunch break. One workaround is to select an application that you do not use, such as Calc.exe and run that during your away time. When you measure results, you can ignore or filter out that process.
##MEASURING When you are finished monitoring, you can use Measure-WindowTotal to analyze the data. Pipe your data to the command. The default is to display results by application.
PS C:\> $data | Measure-WindowTotal
Application TotalTime
----------- ---------
Windows PowerShell ISE 00:00:12.6757123
Windows PowerShell 00:00:22.6393253
Google Chrome 00:01:54.1870428
Thunderbird 00:03:10.1524340
Microsoft Management Console 00:04:19.7252959
You can also measure by product:
PS C:\> $data | Measure-WindowTotal -Product
Product TotalTime
------- ---------
Google Chrome 00:01:54.1870428
Thunderbird 00:03:10.1524340
Microsoft® Windows® Operating System 00:04:55.0403335
or by Title:
PS C:\> $data | Measure-WindowTotal -Title
WindowTitle TotalTime
----------- ---------
July 2015 - Mozilla Thunderbird 00:00:00.7309264
New Tab - Google Chrome 00:00:02.6440093
Calendar - Mozilla Thunderbird 00:00:02.7084472
Hootsuite - Google Chrome 00:00:07.6023926
Facebook - Google Chrome 00:00:09.0954287
Administrator: Windows PowerShell ISE 00:00:12.6757123
Junk - Jeffery Hicks - Mozilla Thunderbird 00:00:18.9084682
Administrator: Windows PowerShell 00:00:22.6393253
Inbox - Jeffery Hicks - Mozilla Thunderbird 00:00:29.1373713
Hyper-V Manager 00:00:49.1406603
Update Services 00:03:23.7454981
You can also filter by specifying a string or regular expression pattern for text in the Window title. This can be useful when you want to see how much time you are spending on a particular set of applications or products.
PS C:\> $data | Measure-WindowTotal -Filter "facebook|hootsuite"
Application TotalTime
----------- ---------
Google Chrome 00:00:16.6978213
The last measure-related command is Get-WindowTimeSummary. To use this you will need a variable holding all of the work items. This will show you not only the total time for products or applications, but also a range of the first and last item for each.
PS C:\> get-windowtimesummary $data | sort total | format-table -autosize
Name Total Start End
---- ----- ----- ---
Google Chrome Windows PowerShell ISE 00:00:00.2776561 8/25/2015 10:46:36 AM 8/25/2015 11:01:04 AM
Microsoft Word 00:00:01.4462946 8/25/2015 12:14:50 PM 8/25/2015 12:18:34 PM
Windows PowerShell 00:04:50.0923401 8/25/2015 11:38:14 AM 8/25/2015 12:19:31 PM
Thunderbird 00:05:35.3980271 8/25/2015 12:02:32 PM 8/25/2015 12:19:04 PM
Google Chrome 00:29:57.3321071 8/25/2015 11:56:36 AM 8/25/2015 12:20:27 PM
##CATEGORIES The module now includes support for categories. You can assign a category to an application. The application is the value of the Description property you see with Get-Process.
PS C:\> get-process winword | select name,description
Name Description
---- -----------
WINWORD Microsoft Word
In this situation, you can assign a category to "Microsoft Word". Categories are stored in a special XML file called Categories.xml. A sample entry looks like this:
<category>
<name>Internet</name>
<app name = "Waterfox"/>
<app name = "Firefox"/>
<app name = "Internet Explorer"/>
<app name = "Google Chrome"/>
<app name = "Skype"/>
<app name = "Spotify"/>
<app name = "Amazon Music"/>
</category>
You can assign an application to multiple categories. Note that the value you enter for the name is case sensitive.
The module includes a "starter" version of Categories.xml. It is strongly recommended that you create a copy in your Windows PowerShell directory using the same name. This is to avoid overwriting your customizations during module updates. You can edit this file as much as you would like.
When you import the module, it will first look for a copy of Categories.xml in your PowerShell directory and use it if found. Otherwise, it will use the file in the module script root.
After you have gathered data, you can use the categories.
PS C:\> measure-windowtotal $data -Category | format-table -AutoSize
Category Count Time
-------- ----- ----
PowerShell 4 00:21:01.9935934
Test 1 00:20:28.3669673
Development 1 00:20:28.3669673
Cloud 1 00:00:11.3705429
Internet 68 01:25:18.4329189
Mail 29 00:17:38.3666410
None 5 00:02:27.4945858
Utilities 2 00:00:29.5498958
Communication 1 00:00:07.3145639
Office 5 00:22:18.5841682
Or like this:
PS C:\> ($data).Where({$_.Category -contains "Internet"}) | Measure-WindowTotal
Application TotalTime
----------- ---------
Skype 00:00:07.3145639
Spotify 00:04:25.0623684
Waterfox 01:20:46.0559866
##CUSTOM VIEWS The MyMonitor module includes custom type and format extensions. The default display is a list. The module includes several views for Format-Table, but you should sort your data first, as the views group data by either product:
PS C:\> $data | sort Product | format-table -View Product
or application:
PS C:\> $data | sort Application,Time | format-table -View Application
The output from Get-WindowTime is no different than any other type of object in PowerShell which means you can export to a CSV or XML format, save to a text file or anything else. These commands only work for the current and local interactive user.
##ALIASES The module contains the following aliases:
gfwp --> Get-ForegroundWindowProcess
gwt --> Get-Windowtime
mwt --> Measure-WindowTotal
gwts --> Get-WindowTimeSummary
##IMPORTING AND EXPORTING It is recommended that you use the XML format to export and import work history.
PS C:\> $data | export-clixml C:\work\8-25-15-work.xml
The XML format will preserve property type. Before using any imported data, be sure to import this module first. This will properly format and display the imported data and allow you to measure it.
##KNOWN ISSUES Occassionally, you may see a result like this:
Time : 00:00:00.2095710
Application : {Google Chrome, Thunderbird}
WindowTitle : Hootsuite - Google Chrome Mozilla Thunderbird
This appears to be the result of task switching with either Alt+Tab or Ctrl+ Tab. For the most part, the time spent is in milliseconds and thus can be ignored.