Now that we are sitting on a much improved server setup, let’s get back to what really matters, Slife and Slifeshare. Slife 1.1 is almost ready, so I thought it would be fun to give you an idea of what we are working on and thinking of.
The big feature in version 1.1 is that it will offer support for *any* app. Yep, you heard that right, Slife 1.1 will be able to track usage of any application! Here’s the story. For some applications like Safari and Mail, Slife can observe ‘when’ you use the app and also ‘how’. In this case, ‘how’ means obtaining additional info from the app, such as getting the title of the web page you are visiting, the subject of the message you are reading or the name of the document you are working on. Slife 1.1 will be able to track the ‘whens’ and ‘hows’ of more than 40 apps. Here’s the list we have so far, in no specific order:
WriteRoom, VoodooPad, TeXShop, Smultron, BBEdit, TextMate, Word, TextEdit, TextWrangler, Safari, Firefox, Flock, Opera, OmniWeb, Shiira, Camino, Mail.app, Entourage, Thunderbird, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, OmniGraffle, Excel, PowerPoint, Keynote, OmniOutliner, OmniOutliner Pro, OmniPlan, iChat, Adium, Snak, iTunes, iPhoto, RealPlayer, QuickTime Player, GarageBand, iDVD, NetNewsWire, Vienna, endo, Transmit, MarsEdit
What about for apps from which Slife can’t get any additional info? Well, as long as the app is within the Applications folder, Slife will be able to talk to it. If Slife can’t obtain any information for the app (lots of apps out there are not scriptable unfortunately), then Slife only records how much time you spent using it, which is fine for a lot of purposes – your activities will still end up in the visualizations, taken into account in the summary view, etc. It’s really cool!
In additional to bug fixes and small tweaks here and there, Slife 1.1 will also offer an Export feature. It will let you save your interactions with your apps in an XML file, and then it’s up to you to decide what to do with it – you might want to save it, create visualizations around it, analyze it, pass it on to other services, other apps, etc.
There is one final important point about the 1.1 release. After being under development for more than a year, we have decided that this might the time to start charging for the app. The plan would be to continue offering Slife for free, but you would have to register (probably around $35) in order to track more than, say 3 applications at a time. This would ensure that anyone would still be able to have fun with the app (and Slifeshare), while we would be in a great position to continue developing Slife and a whole bunch of other stuff we have in the works.
Anyways, we are very pleased with this upcoming release and we think you will like it too! We are planning to get it out of the door around Mid-May.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:44 am
You should make sure that VLC is covered in the update… It’s the only video player worth using on a mac. I’d develop a script myself… But i have no idea how to go about it (i tried checking the how-to’s).
April 26th, 2007 at 9:09 am
That would be an excellent addition. Thanks for pointing it out.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Preview.app support would really be nice. Maybe the default functionality will take care of that–all you really need is window title (although path/URL and other metadata would be nice too).
Other desirables:
-Quicksilver (I’d love to visualize QS ‘blips’ linking my usage of other applications on the Slife timeline)
-Growl (same idea–registering Growl events with a visual or audible alert would be great ‘blips’ on the timeline.)
-Eclipse
-LyX
-Coda (newly released)
-FrontRow
-Democracy Player
Also, the various productivity and knowledge management applications: DEVONthink, Tinderbox, MindManager, NovaMind, Scrivener, iGTD, Yojimbo, Yep, Papers…. (and so on).
(I think there’s a good crossover of interest there with people who would be interested in Slife)
I’d like to throw in Mellel and Bookends too, but those are probably of almost exclusive interest to people doing academic work.
The universal functionality in 1.1: will it capture window titles?
April 27th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
What about support for Eudora? And Journler?
April 27th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Great, I will check these apps and see if it’s easy to support them. It shouldn’t be too bad, but unfortunately (and surprisingly), even Apple doesn’t do a very good job supporting Applescript in some of its own apps, like Preview.
The universal functionality in 1.1 doesn’t support capture of window titles, but that would be the next step up!
April 29th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Have you considered capturing screenshots at regular interviews like TimeSnapper? This would be a killer feature.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:30 am
[...] There are two things to note. Slife 1.0 currently supports only a dozen or so applications. If it’s not on the list, it won’t work. Luckily, according to the SlifeLabs blog, Slife 1.1 will provide support for any application. The interface also requires a little time to get used to. Still, a great application nonetheless. [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm
I’ve seen TimeSnapper before. Seems pretty cool. Just out of curiosity, do you have any specific scenarios in mind where screenshot capture comes in handy?
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:18 am
How about apples pro apps Final Cut Pro, DVD studio Pro, Motion, Live Type, Sound Track. It would be great to be able to use this for billing clients. Great product
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I love timesnapper on the pc, and am still waiting around for something similar on the mac. I use it extensivley for tracking exactly what i was working on at what time, and the timeline can clearly show breaks where you have left the comptuer / started a new job. While not as sophisticated as Slife, i think it would perform admirably as a stop-gap for those programs that will never have a plugin written for them, thereby increasing your possible user base considerably.
Also, a plugin for Coda would be awesome, espescially considering how popular it is