Project names as uniq identifiers

[yolk]

miteclock expects project names to be uniq in mite. But this isn't the case. A lot of mite.users use the same project name for different projects per customer.

For example:

» m start a p 'This and that'
'Alltag' matched the following multiple projects:
Alltag
Alltag

Please provide an unambiguous pattern.

It would be very helpful to have a simple way to specify the customer name in a project shortcut.
Alternatively, why not ask on first usage (instead of the error message shown above) which project from which customer to use and store it in the config file?

Also m status only shows the project name. It would be helpful to also show the customer. The name of the customer is included in the project.json as customer_name.

[iliakur]

Oh, I was totally unaware of the customer name scope, interesting!

I don't have a feeling about the ergonomics of the workflow here, do you mind answering some questions about it?

1. Do users who have the same project for different customers expect to compose those, i.e. m start a a... for ACME Alltag and m start b a for BBC Alltag?
2. How common is it to search by both project name and customer id? i.e. something like this in the config file: a = {name='Alltag', customer='ACME'}

[yolk]

1. I would not go this route, because it somewhat contradicts the whole idea behind shortcuts. Would be better to allow them to add shortcuts like m start aa ... for ACME Alltag and m start ba for BBC Alltag.
2. Something like this would be perfect to specify the exact projects in the shortcuts.

[iliakur]

Hey! Sorry, I've been a bit unresponsive, a lot happening at work. I'll have time now, however, to chip away at this consistently!

[iliakur]

@yolk I've pushed a new release where this and #4 have been implemented. Let me know what you think!

Especially welcome are ideas for how to document this behavior :)

[yolk]

Thanks for the update! Tried to play around with it, but I can't figure out how to specify the client in the TOML-file. Could you give me a quick example?

[iliakur]

aha, the missing docs strike again!

Here's an example:

x = {project = 'test', client = 'ACME'}

[yolk]

Thx for the example!

But when I put this in my config:

[shortcuts] # Add your shortcuts inside this section.
a = {project = 'Alltag', client = 'mite'}
z = "Zukunft"
p = "Programmierung"

miteclock throws an error:

$: m start a p                                                                                                            ruby31-puma
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/m", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1128, in __call__
    return self.main(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1053, in main
    rv = self.invoke(ctx)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1659, in invoke
    return _process_result(sub_ctx.command.invoke(sub_ctx))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1395, in invoke
    return ctx.invoke(self.callback, **ctx.params)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 754, in invoke
    return __callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/decorators.py", line 38, in new_func
    return f(get_current_context().obj, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/miteclock/cli.py", line 169, in start
    spec = to_time_entry_spec(activity, settings.shortcuts, projects, services)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/miteclock/activities.py", line 151, in to_time_entry_spec
    else find_unique(projects, "projects", proj_pattern)["id"]
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/miteclock/activities.py", line 118, in find_unique
    matched = [e for e in entries if pattern.matches(e)]
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/miteclock/activities.py", line 118, in <listcomp>
    matched = [e for e in entries if pattern.matches(e)]
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/miteclock/activities.py", line 109, in __call__
    return all(pred(entry) for pred in self.predicates)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/miteclock/activities.py", line 109, in <genexpr>
    return all(pred(entry) for pred in self.predicates)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/miteclock/activities.py", line 101, in __call__
    return self.pattern in entry[self.fieldname]
KeyError: 'client_name'

Any idea?

[yolk]

"If" I understand your code correctly, you are using the filedname "client_name" in your test data. But the mite.api returns the field as "customer_name". Maybe this is the problem?

[iliakur]

Yes, you're right, I've pushed a fix!

[iliakur]

Do you think the fieldname "customer" would be better than "client"? I was, as usual, trying to save keystrokes, but maybe it's better to stay consistent with mite terminology :)

[yolk]

Thanks for the fix. It is working now!

And yes, I would stay more consistent with the mite terminology.

For the documentational aspect: it would be pretty useful (and I guess quiet easy) to change the error from

'Alltag' matched the following multiple projects:
Alltag
Alltag

Please provide an unambiguous pattern.

to something like this:

'Alltag' matched the following projects:
    Alltag (Customer: X)
    Alltag (Customer: Y)

Please provide an unambiguous pattern
in your config file, like:
    {project = 'Alltag', customer = 'X'}

[iliakur]

Oki-doki, I'll release those changes next week when I'm back at the computer. Thanks for all the feedback!

[yolk]

Thanks! Another idea, regarding customers:

~ » m status
The clock is running!

Below is the entry being tracked.
Project: Open-Source
Service: QA
Note:
Time spent: 0h0m

Total time clocked in today: 0h0m

It would be good to add another line ala Customer: XYZ or append a suffix to the project line (Project: Open-Source (XYZ)). I guess the extra line would be better, because some of the mite clients use rather long names for projects and/or customers.

[iliakur]

Hi @yolk!

Thanks very much for all the feedback. I've implemented most of it:

• client -> customer
• Client information (if present) is now displayed for projects in error messages and also in m show projects.
• A new section in the README describes more "advanced" shortcut definitions, which includes the feature in this ticket.

It turned out that suggesting a pattern is not that trivial, so I've left that for a future date.

Give release 22.3 a spin and let me know what you think!