Implement Time Tracking for Active Applications with SQLite Database Integration

Devlog — 2025-12-28

Overview

This project adds functionality to track the amount of time spent on active applications in a Windows environment. It monitors the currently focused window, records usage duration, and persists the data in a SQLite database for later review.

Features

• Tracks time spent on active applications using win32api and win32gui
• Stores application usage data in a SQLite database
• Continuously monitors active windows via a main tracking loop
• Handles user input to:
  • Exit the tracking process gracefully
  • Print a summarized report of time spent per application
• Includes error handling for access-denied scenarios when querying active windows

Implementation Details

• Uses Windows APIs to detect the currently active application window
• Aggregates time spent per application during execution
• Persists records in a structured SQLite database schema
• Provides a simple CLI interaction model for runtime control

References

• https://docs.python.org/3/library/time.html#time.strftime
• https://docs.python.org/3/library/time.html#time.asctime
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23675821/how-to-track-how-long-an-application-is-running-for-using-a-timer
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44689546/how-to-print-out-a-dictionary-nicely-in-python
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5409025/whats-the-difference-between-localtime-and-gmtime-in-c
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8331469/python-dictionary-to-csv