DailyTracker is a program to track things that you do every day. Check in with Daily Tracker on a daily basis, and then you can view results in graph or tabular format. You can track almost anything and view your results in daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly. Use it to track the weather, your work hours, exercise information, or whatever you come up with.
DailyTracker now includes support to move data from your Palm device to your desktop in CSV (Comma Seperated Values) format, which can be read by any spreadsheet.
INSTALLATION
Follow the standard PalmPilot installation procedure for DailyTracker:
First, unzip dtracker.zip somewhere on your PC or Mac. Then from Windows, run the PALMPILOT INSTALL TOOL program which will be in the same group as your PalmPilot Desktop application. When the install dialog comes up, click on the BROWSE button and navigate to the directory where you unzipped the dtracker.PRC file. Select dtracker.PRC by double-clicking it in the FILE OPEN dialog and then click on the INSTALL button. On the next HotSync, the DailyTracker application will appear in your list of applications.
DailyTracker creates a database on your Palm Pilot with registration information, and your preferences, and the data that you enter. If you delete this database you will lose any data that you have entered. This database is automatically backed up by the Palm Desktop and will be restored if you re-HotSync.
SHAREWARE REGISTRATION
Why register? Two reasons, the first is that it helps me develop and
maintain better software. I have a number of programs available,
hopefully they will make you Palm a more useful tool. The other
reason to register Daily Tracker is that the unregistered version
limits the number of things you can track to 8, and you get the
statistics screen once you are registered.
There are several ways to register this shareware program:
1) Go to www.palmgear.com and register on-line, where they can take the usual credit cards and such. They also handle phone orders at 800 741-9070 or fax at 817 640-6614. They can handle getting you the registration code.
2) Send a check or money order for $12 to:
Rick Eesley
1804 Middle Road
Martinsville, NJ 08836 (USA)
Include an email address or return address so I can mail you the code
to enter in the shareware screen. If there are problems contact me
via Email at: reesley@reesley.com.
You go to the check in form every day at some point at least once and enter the values for the day. If you miss a day you can go back and get it later, or you can just leave it blank, and that day will be ignored in the statistics and graphing. Daily Tracker can track several kinds of data. It can track integer data (like 1, 2, -4), or floating point data (like 3.534 or 4e12), boolean data (simple Yes or No), time data (like 4:52AM or 12:01PM), and Fivers and Niners.
Fivers and Niners are unique to Daily Tracker, they are a way to track things that are textual in nature. For example, as delivered, Daily Tracker tracks Health which can be one of five values: Charged, Good, Average, Tired, Sick. Health is a Fiver, since there are five values. An example of a Niner is Weather which has nine different values ranging from Sunny to Apocalypse. To create a Fiver or Niner of your own, you add it just like any other track, and a form pops up in which you can type in five or nine names. See the section on Setup for more detailed information.
The Results button on the main page lets you view your data, either in a graphical or tabular view. By default, it comes up with a graphical view. Go to the Options screen to set the view type, and weather you want to view a graph of a day at a time, week at a time, month at a time, half year, or year at a time. Also, in the registered version you can get statistics such as average, standard deviation, curve fitting, number of items, range, sum, and minimum and maximum values.
OPERATION
Use these buttons to navigate to the different features of Daily
Tracker. Check In allows you to enter data into Daily Tracker, Setup
allows you to add or delete things to track, and Results allows you to
view your data from previous entries. You can also go to the menu to
select each of these other screens, as well as to select the shareware
screen so that you can register Daily Tracker and get the powerful
benefits of the statistics screen and software updates.
Enter values or select from pulldown menus to put data in the fields
for each thing you are tracking. If you are tracking more than 4
things, use the Next and Prev buttons to navigate the back and forth through the
items you are tracking. Each screen shows up to 4 things you are
tracking. Go to each of the 4 entry screens and enter values for the
things you tracking. In the case of integers and floats, just type in
the numbers. For Time values you can click on the Time button to get
a dialog for the time, or just type in the time like: 3:52AM. For
boolean values just enter yes or no, or click on the Y/N button to
toggle the current value. For fivers and niners (described in the
introduction) click on the pulldown to pick the value. It then be
updated on the input field so you can check that you got the right
one.
To edit data for a different day use the <Day, Day>, and
Day buttons. <Day takes you to the previous day, Day> takes you to
the next day, and Day brings up the calendar view so you can select a
day to go to. You cannot use Day> to go past the current day.
When you are finished entering data click on Done to
return to the Main screen. If you click Next when on the last screenful
of items you will also get back to the Main screen.
To add an item to be tracked, first enter the name in the field next to the Add button. The name entered must be no longer than 15 characters, it will be checked when you click the Add button. Next, select the type of data from the pulldown list just below the name you entered. See the introduction for the different types of data that can be tracked. Then click the Add button to add the item. If you chose to add a Fiver or a Niner you will go to a seperate dialog screen where you can enter the five or nine names. The maximum string length you can enter for a Fiver or Niner is 15 characters, you will get an error if a name is longer. Additionally, you are not allowed to repeat a name or you will get an error.
To delete a category of data to be tracked simply select the Track name from the listbox of all the tracked things next to the Del button. Then click the Del button and it will be removed from your database. Once this operation is performed you cannot get the data back, so be sure before clicking on Del.
To purge old records, first click on the Date button and select a date to purge before. Any data which has a date older than the date you select here will be deleted. After selecting a date, click on the purge button. You will be prompted for confirmation, click Cancel if you change your mind, otherwise, click Done and the data will be deleted.
Click Done when you are finished doing Setup.
By default, the Results screen comes up in a graphical view. Use the
pulldown menu on the upper right to select which track you would like
to be
graphed. Without any options set the tool tries to display ALL the
data ever entered for a given thing you are tracking. You can go to
the options screen to select between graphs or tables, and you can
select how much data to see. You can choose to see all the data, a
week at a time, a month at a time, 2 months (bimonthly), a half year,
or a year at a time. If you select anything other than the default
the < and > buttons will move the view of the data back and
forth.
Click Done when you are finished looking at results.
From the options menu you can select to see a table of your data
rather than a graph. The table can only display 8 or so values at a
time, so use the < and > buttons to scroll data around. Note
that the data in the tables is in the order that it was input.
Normally data is entered in date order, but if you back fill data it
may be out of order.
Click Done when you are finished looking at results.
Items: The number of items
Average: Average of the values.
Standard Dev: The standard deviation of the values.
Curve: This is a curve fitting (for a straight line) best fit using linear regression. The equation given is in the form "y = mx + b", just like your old algaebra class.
Min: Minimum value of the data.
Min: Maximum value of the data.
Sum: Summation of the data values.
Range: Range of the data (essentially Max-Min).
When you are finished looking at statistics click Done to return to
the graphing menu.
DT Desktop
DailyTracker also includes a desktop based program to manage
your data.
This program reads your DailyTracker database
after you HotSync, and creates a CSV file which you
can read into Excel (or most any other spreadsheet)
on your IBM compatible PC.
The program is in the distribution zip file with the name dtdesk.exe, just put it somewhere, and then run it from Windows 95/98/NT/2000 when ready.
When it comes up there is a small menu with the options of File and Help. Choose File, then from File choose "Open Tracker Database".
DtDesk wants to locate your HotSync backup directory so the first time you use it, it will prompt for your username and where you installed your Palm Software. It then tries to find the Tracker.DB file at the location made from:
Your_Palm_Software_Location\Your_Username\Backup\Tracker.DB.
So if you installed at C:\Palm, and your username is Smith, it expects to find the db at:
C:\Palm\Smith\Backup\Tracker.DB
If it is elsewhere, point the FileFinder dialog to that place.
After successfully loading up the database it will put information about your data on the screen which you can scroll around and look at. The next step is to go to the File Menu and select "Export Data CSV". This will take you to a File Dialog to select a place to put the CSV file. Once selected it will be written and you can exit the program. The CSV file can be read most any spreadsheet.
SUPPORT
If you have any problems or questions about this product or
suggestions for improvements, please send them in an email to
reesley@reesley.com.
RELEASES
- Changed compiler settings which reduced executable size from 37K to 31K. (Cool!).
- Fixed a bug, when a user added things to track after a Time type its input value was ignored. Did not corrupt data internally, but displayed data was incorrect.