FreshBooks Vista Sidebar Gadget

1. Mike Robbins

   

   I’ve tried all of the 3rd party time tracking utilites on Freshbooks’ site. This is by far the best….. A link taking me directly to my Freshbooks login page and it would be perfect!

   Thank-you for this valuable tool and keep up the good work!

   Jul 15th, 2008

2. Andrew Flusche

   

   @Mike – Try clicking on the clock icon in the upper left corner of the gadget. That should take you straight to your FreshBooks home page.

   Jul 16th, 2008

3. Erica

   

   Awesome app for the vista sidebar! Now I have an excuse to actually use it. It’s nice to see your time as you work without having to stop and click or hover over a system tray icon. I definitely needed this since I love Freshbooks. Thanks!

   Jul 26th, 2008

4. Andrew Flusche

   

   @Erica – I’m glad you like the gadget. Please feel free to provide any constructive criticism for the next release!

   Jul 26th, 2008

5. Denise

   

   Brilliant!

   Jul 28th, 2008

6. Andrew Flusche

   

   @Denise – Thanks.

   Jul 28th, 2008

7. Troy

   

   Is there any way to add an employee select field? Otherwise it’s freaking awesome! Nice work..

   Jul 31st, 2008

8. Andrew Flusche

   

   @Troy – I thought that each user got their own API string. If you enter the staff member’s API string in the Settings panel, the hours should be logged for that person. Is there some other functionality you are looking for?

   Jul 31st, 2008

9. nancy

   

   Hi – I just signed up for Freshbooks and downloaded the sidebar gadget to track time ….it asks me to enter FreshBooks address and API token in setting menu. I’m technically challenged and I don’t know what or where to find that – can you help? thanks. Nancy

   Aug 3rd, 2008

10. Dan

    

    nancy: go to settings > Enable FreshBooks API and enable it. your token then will be displayed.

    Thanks for the widget Andrew… One thing though, clicking on the clock icon does take me to my fb page, but it opens it in IE, and not my default browser (firefox)…

    Aug 3rd, 2008

11. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Dan – Thanks for helping out Nancy. I’ve noted the default browser issue as well. Hopefully I can fix it in the next release.

    Aug 3rd, 2008

12. crushlabs

    

    This would have been great for Windows XP…
    Any thoughts to develop something for Windows XP taskbar?

    Aug 26th, 2008

13. Andrew Flusche

    

    @crushlabs – I don’t have any plans to take this to XP. You might post a request over in the FreshBooks forums. Who knows what might happen!

    Aug 26th, 2008

14. Francis Wooby

    

    Love it, love it, LOVE it! Great work, Andrew. Thank you so much.

    One thing that would make the gadget even better is the ability to have more than one project and/or task open. Sometimes work on one thing gets temporarily interrupted by work on another. It’d be nice not to have to stop the timer, record the hours, input the interruption, and reenter data and start the clock again on the original task.

    This is a mere quibble, though. Overall, this is a very effective, convenient, and mightily appreciated tool.

    Aug 28th, 2008

15. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Francis – Thanks for the feedback! I’ve made a note of your suggestion, but I’m not sure if I can make it happen. That would take a significant change to the gadget, and it might not be something that’s very feasible to do.

    Aug 28th, 2008

16. Mendy Elishevitz

    

    It worked great for a while, but recently I started getting an error “HTTP status 12019″ and the projects don’t load. Otherwise, it’s really a great app.

    Sep 5th, 2008

17. Mark Figueredo

    

    I have just been experimenting with the solution and I see that task associate with a project show up, but how about workin on tickets that are submitted through the support system?

    Sep 18th, 2008

18. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Mendy – I’ll have to research that 12019 error. Odd indeed.

    @Mark – I have no plans to add support tickets to the Gadget. It’s simply designed as a timekeeping application, not to manage your entire FreshBooks account.

    Sep 18th, 2008

19. Erica

    

    I’m still liking this gadget! I now have a suggestion, could you make it so that it opens to the default browser? I’m a die-hard Firefox user and the gadget opens in IE. Eck!

    Sep 29th, 2008

20. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Erica – That’s a bug to be fixed in the next release. Sorry about that.

    Sep 29th, 2008

21. Erica

    

    Thanks and keep up the good work with it. It’s extremely useful.

    Oct 1st, 2008

22. HobbesPDX

    

    This gadget is the sole reason I am now using FreshBooks.

    This gadget should be in the Windows Live Gadget directory. I’d vote it up.

    There is no easier way to track time (project & task-based) in Windows Vista.

    Oct 27th, 2008

23. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Hobbes – Thanks! I’m glad you’re enjoying the gadget!

    Oct 27th, 2008

24. Simon Martin

    

    I have to say I really love this app. It makes logging my hours in freshbooks so easy.
    Having said that I have 1 request, would it be possible to auto round up the time? The smallest unit of time I bill for is 15 minutes, so if the clock were to run to 1:08:25 I need to manually edit that to 1:15:00 in order to keep my billing looking tidy. Possibly this could be an option, as other people might bill to the nearest 1/2 or even full hour…?

    Otherwise I’ll say it again… I LOVE this app

    Nov 6th, 2008

25. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Simon – Thanks for the kind words. I will add your suggestion to my to-do list. It might be a bit difficult to accomplish, so I don’t know that it will happen. But I will certainly consider it.

    Nov 6th, 2008

26. Chris

    

    Hey, great idea! just noticed, though, if you double click it anywhere it startts the time over and you lose your session

    Nov 24th, 2008

27. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Chris – Thanks for the heads up. I’ll make a note of that bug for the next version.

    Nov 24th, 2008

28. Christine Nesbitt VA

    

    Hi Andrew!

    I am having problems with my Sidebar gadget. I am using the one for Vista. I have it on my sidebar but it is showing up badly. The background is all white and the time doesnt appear. It’s only half there so to say. I thought maybe it would still record my time but it didn’t I uninstalled it and downloaded it again but it is still doing it.
    It had worked great for me up until a week ago when it started doing this.

    Any ideas what I can do to get it working for me again?

    Thanks!

    Nov 26th, 2008

29. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Christine – I honestly have no clue. I will send you an email to help diagnose the problem.

    Nov 26th, 2008

30. Arlo Mason

    

    I downloaded your widget for my freshbooks account, but when I installed it it gave me an error and asked me if I want to debug. The widget appears white and very garbled. When I enter my API and hit return I get the same debugging message. Any clue what might be the issue? I would really like to use this nifty widget.

    Thanks,
    Arlo

    Jan 15th, 2009

31. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Arlo – You aren’t the first person to have this issue, but I haven’t been able to figure it out. If you are willing, I could do a screen sharing session with you and see if I can diagnose the problem. Just email me at andrew@andrewflusche.com, if you would like to try this.

    Jan 16th, 2009

32. Lucy

    

    I just downloaded your app, but my FB api URL does not end with freshbooks.com; it continues through a few more directories. So It doesn’t seem to fit with the form you have for entering my user settings. At any rate, I think this is the reason that absolutely nothing happens when I enter my URL and token. Any hints? Would love to be able to use this great tool…

    May 3rd, 2009

33. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Lucy – You don’t enter your API URL in the URL box. You enter the URL you use to access your FreshBooks account. It should be something like “myaddress.freshbooks.com.” Enter “myaddress” in the gadget settings field. That should do it!

    May 3rd, 2009

34. Roger Craig

    

    For those who want to tinker..

    Works in XP!

    You just need to download Windows Sidebar, just type Windows Sidebar for XP into google and you’ll download everything you need to get it working!

    Works like a charm, great app and makes it GREAT to track your hours on various projects throughout the day.

    Aug 11th, 2009

35. Ashwin

    

    I am starting to use Freshbooks for all my tracking purposes and this tool sounds awesome for my Vista desktop. Thanks! I am planning to try it tonight on my Home computer…

    Aug 26th, 2009

36. D. Waschow

    

    I had been using this gadget with no problems. I had to reload Windows 7 and now when I try to run it I get the HTTP Status 12019 error and my projects/tasks don’t show up. Has this been figured out yet?

    Aug 29th, 2009

37. Aaron

    

    Hi,
    This works great. As a feature request, it would be great to be able to add tasks through the gadget.

    Thanks

    Dec 20th, 2009

38. Andrew Flusche

    

    @Aaron – I’m glad you like it, but I’m actually not supporting the gadget any longer. You can contact the FreshBooks guys for feature requests, support, etc.

    Dec 20th, 2009

39. Hugo

    

    Awesome! Works well. Thank you!

    Jan 19th, 2010

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