Track The Time Spend on Different Application

Track down how much time are you spending on different application while you are working.

A few days back I got the idea of figuring out how much time I was spending on different application while working. So I made this small console application. It's not perfect but it can give you a head start. So I am using the following three classes. There is no complex code but still i will try to explain it.

 

In this test app I am collecting the data for five applications, but you can always extend it.  

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        ActiveApplicationPropertyThread activeWorker = new ActiveApplicationPropertyThread();
        Thread activeThread = new Thread(activeWorker.StartThread );
        activeThread.Start();
        Dictionary<string, Double> temp;
        while(true)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(activeWorker.AppInfo);
            if (activeWorker.activeApplicationInfomationCollector._focusedApplication.Keys.Count  > 5)
            {
                temp = activeWorker.activeApplicationInfomationCollector._focusedApplication;

                break;
            }

            Thread.Sleep(1000);
        }

        foreach (var j in temp.Keys)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(j + "         " + temp[j] / 1000);

        }
    }  }

This is the main thread that is monitoring the application and checking if these applications is started and if it is, it will log it and start a time against it.

public class ActiveApplicationPropertyThread
{
   private bool _stopThread = true;
   private string _appName = "Idle";
   [DllImport("user32.dll")]
   static extern int GetForegroundWindow();
   [DllImport("user32")]
   private static extern UInt32 GetWindowThreadProcessId(Int32 hWnd, out Int32 lpdwProcessId);

   public ActiveApplicationInfomationCollector activeApplicationInfomationCollector;
   private string _justSentApplicationName = "";
   public ActiveApplicationPropertyThread()
   {
       activeApplicationInfomationCollector = new ActiveApplicationInfomationCollector();
   }

   public void StopThread()
   {
       _stopThread = false;
   }

   public void StartThread()
   {
       while(_stopThread)
       {
           ActiveAppName();

           if(_justSentApplicationName == "")
           {
               _justSentApplicationName = _appName;
               activeApplicationInfomationCollector.ApplicationFocusStart(_appName);
           }
           if(_justSentApplicationName != _appName )
           {
               activeApplicationInfomationCollector.ApplicationFocusEnd(_justSentApplicationName);
               activeApplicationInfomationCollector.ApplicationFocusStart(_appName);
               _justSentApplicationName = _appName;
           }

           Thread.Sleep(2000);
       }
   }

   public string AppInfo
   {
       get { return _appName; }
   }

   private Int32 GetWindowProcessID(Int32 hwnd)
   {
       Int32 pid = 1;
       GetWindowThreadProcessId(hwnd, out pid);
       return pid;
   }

   private void ActiveAppName()
   {
       Int32 hwnd = 0;
       hwnd = GetForegroundWindow();
       try
       {
           _appName = Process.GetProcessById(GetWindowProcessID(hwnd)).MainModule.ModuleName;
       }catch(Exception e)
       {

       }

   }  }

This helper class is just collecting data for different applications and adding the total time being used. 

public class ActiveApplicationInfomationCollector
{

    public DateTime _startTime;
    public Dictionary<string, Double> _focusedApplication;
    public ActiveApplicationInfomationCollector()
    {
        _focusedApplication = new Dictionary<string, Double>();
    }
    public void ApplicationFocusStart(string appName)
    {
        _startTime = DateTime.Now;
        if(!_focusedApplication.ContainsKey(appName ))
        {
            _focusedApplication.Add(appName, 0);

        }
    }
    public void ApplicationFocusEnd(string appName)
    {
        //end the timer and update the seconds
        TimeSpan elapsed = DateTime.Now - _startTime;
        _focusedApplication[appName] = _focusedApplication[appName] + elapsed.TotalMilliseconds ;
    }

}