Hello and welcome to my blog for another exciting blog post.
The world of a developer revolves around the keyboard and the code editor. The developer spends countless of hours trying to clear a bug, build a new application according to the client specifications, or just code for fun. These hours spent are not just for coding. A good part of the hours is used for searching the internet for a solution, asking questions on stackoverflow, receiving calls, replying emails, or preparing coffee. Can you see that it鈥檚 not entirely all the hours spent on coding that is used for the coding proper? Numerous unrelated coding activities consume the bulk of those hours.
What if there is a way to track the actual time you use in coding?
There is a way and the way is Wakatime.
Wakatime is a plugin that tracks your programming activities across text editors, IDEs, and programming languages. The user coding activities are tracked and an automated metric is provided for that user on the wakatime dashboard. Wakatime is an open-source plugin that you need to install in any of the supported Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Only your coding activities are tracked and other activities such as searching the net or checking out your mails are not tracked. Those codes that you type are the ones tracked.
Let鈥檚 further look at this amazing application.
Wakatime is an easy to use plugin. It does not require any extra knowledge for its usage. New users are required to register before given access to use wakatime. You can either register with your email and password or simply sign up with your Github account. This will require authorization from Github to allow wakatime. Once you register, you will be asked to set up your IDE.
Wakatime currently support around 45 IDEs which includes Android Studio. App Code, Atom, Brackets, Blender, Sublime text, Vim, Visual Studio, VS Code, and Notepad++ just to mention but few. You can see that they are for everyone and not confined to a single IDE. You can see instructions on how to install and use the Plugins on any of the supported IDEs.
In the case of VS Code, you only need to search the Wakatime in the extension tab and then install. After installation, you will be asked for your account API key. The API key is a unique secret code that links your coding activity to wakatime. The API key is unique for every user and can also be refreshed to generate a new one.
You can then ahead and code just like you have been doing.
I have been using wakatime for some time now and I am impressed by the plugin. It does not interfere with your codes or slows down your computer. That shows how minute yet effective the plugin can be.
This is where the user coding details can be found. Remember you were given an API key that enables coding activities from your IDE to be tracked. You can view your coding metrics right in the wakatime dashboard.
Metrics such as the day and time spent are shown. You can also see the editor used and the programming languages are written are shown there.
You can see in my dashboard that I have made some coding activities. The first section there shows the total time spent and the date. It presently shows that I spent 8 minutes 45 seconds coding in just a day which is July 18, 2019. Beside this is a bar chart that shows the breakdown in 7 days. It shows a horizontal bar that gives information on the total minute spent in 7 days, followed by vertical bars that display the minutes spent each day. Both look similar but they have different functions. The first gives an in-depth overview while the second is like a summary. I can easily see my total minutes spent on coding in a week and see the breakdown daily.
Next is the section that shows you the exact time you wrote those codes. You can see that I wrote mine around 3am as shown in the section. You can easily see a user favorite coding hours from this section. You know if the user loves coding at night, morning, or afternoon.
Beside the coding hour section is a section that finds the average time spent coding. You can see that I currently have a daily average of 8 minutes simply because I only coded for a day and spent 8 minutes. Depending on the minutes you spent coding, the value will either increase or decrease and you will also see the percentage change. This is a very important metric to help developers know if they are slowing down or improving their coding abilities.
The last 2 sections are one of the awesome features Wakatime possess that set it apart from the rest. You can see the time spent on different programming languages.
As shown in the image, you can see that I have written codes in Html, CSS, and Javascript. Wakatime does not just accumulate them together and give you the time spent coding, it possesses the ability to tell you the time spent on each language. It displays this in a pie chart with percentages and the time given to each of the languages.
You can see that I spent 8 minutes which is equal to 89.13% on HTML, while CSS took 0.25%, and Javascript took 10.62%. This is an important tool that makes me know if I have spent much time on a particular language which may reduce my productivity. I can easily set myself a specific time to spend on each language and track it with wakatime.
The last section shows the editor I used in writing the codes. Remember that I installed wakatime only on Vs Code. This means if I use other editors like sublime text or Atom, my metrics will not be tracked. The project name is displayed just below the sections.
If you have a team working on a project either remotely or in the same office, you may want to track their activities. You want to know how efficient they are. The Team feature allows that. You can easily set up your team and you will see the
This will enable you to measure their productiveness and see who is the most effective and productive.
You can also improve your coding ability by setting goals for yourself. You can choose from a variety of options such as coding a new project, in a new language, or in a new text editor. You can now set the daily hours you wish to spend for you to accomplish this goal. This is a very effective tool that will help build your coding ability in no time at all.
This is the fun part of wakatime. It serves as a form of motivation for users. You can see those leading in the number of hours coding. You will see their name, hours coded, daily average, and the languages used. If you think you have what it takes to beat them and rank first, Install wakatime on your favorite editor and start coding now.
You can also create a private leaderboard between you and friends to see who ranks first at the end of a certain period. The free version allows only 3 friends to be added to the private leaderboard.
Wakatime is free to use but possess some paid plans that give you more features such as unlimited dashboard history, private leaderboards for all your friends and so on.
Wakatime is open source which means that the code is out there for anybody to inspect and use. You can be sure that your codes are not exported out for anything malicious. The plugin is just to track your coding activities and nothing more. You can work offline and wakatime will still track your activities. The activities are stored in a sqlite3 database until you have internet access when it will now synchronize with wakatime dashboard.
Wakatime is a very important file for every developer out there. It let you know the important metrics that are key to your coding work. The metrics will make you realize the actual time spent on each language and will help you improve in the future.
Additional tools like Team, Leaderboards, and goals ensure that wakatime provides more features than just tracking your activities. It improves your coding ability and makes you a better developer.
The fact that it is open source makes it a great plugin because you can easily vet the codes to make sure that any additional information is not gotten from your computer.
