Topic: Fred is a platform-independent time tracking tool for project management Java 5

[Software Santa]

Fred is a platform-independent time tracking tool for project management written in Java 5 (Java 1.5)

About Fred

For Fred’s server see: https://sourceforge.net/projects/fredserver

Fred is a platform-independent time tracking tool. With Fred you can very easily file, view and record efforts (periods of work time), structure them into tasks and projects and exchange them (in multi-user projects) with your project leader.

Those efforts can be filed directly (by specifying the start and end timestamp, a description, etc.) but they can also be recorded as you work. To achieve this Fred comes with a built-in stop watch (call Quick Bar) which is located at one of your screens borders. With this Quick Bar you can easily start a new effort, pause it when you’re doing something else, and continue it when you’re again working on your project.

All efforts are associated with a task (and thus associated with a project) and a category. In multi-user projects tasks can be provided for the team members by the project leader (over a server) and the project leader can collect the efforts of his/her team members. This way Fred can provide a good overview over the project’s progress for the project leader.

To start with Fred, simply download it and take the “Quick Start” tour. You can start this tour be either clicking the “Quick Start Guide” button at Fred’s main screen or selecting “Show Quick Start Guide” from the “Help” menu.

Just download the archive for your operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X), extract it and run it. For more information have a look at the readme file provided with the download.

Note 1: You need Java (at least version 1.5) to run Fred. Mac OS Tiger (10.4) or later required for Macintosh Ten systems

Note 2: All recent operating systems provide a built-in way to extract a archive. For users of Windows 2000 or earlier: You may use the free tool 7zip to extract the archive.


We’re pleased to announce Fred 2009 version 1.4.1 (stable). This release contains a lot of bugfixes, improvements and new features.

As usual: Though this release is considered stable there may be still bugs/problems present. If you find one, feel free to report it back to our Bug Tracking System.
Changelog for this version

    * Major new features:

          o The projects and tasks are now sorted by their name in the project tree and all comboboxes (issue #88, r679). They’re also sorted in the “Subscribe Task” dialog.
          o Added a feature to change the task and the category of a selection of efforts (issue #94, r679, r680).
          o The Quickbar display code was rewritten. It now displays correctly on every screen border on the latest Gnome Desktop (tested on Ubuntu 8.10) and on Mac OS X. Also the position of the quickbar has changed slightly. It’s now positioned at the borders of the available desktop area (i.e. without task bar or similar things) instead at the borders of the screen.
          o A new button has been added to the Quickbar to bring the main window to the front.
          o A new launching system has been added. This way running Fred directly from the commandline via the “java” command is a lot easier. Simply run “java -jar lib/launcher.jar” or the plattform-specific launcher (available on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X). This change includes that there is now only one launch script for Linux (instead of two as in previous versions).
          o Fred files can now be specified via the command line. Simply pass the Fred work file a first parameter to Fred (issue #96).
          o New translation: French
    * Minor new features:

          o The Quickbar now only becomes visible when the cursor is actually on the primary screen.
          o A currently recorded effort is now saved when the user logs out without previously exiting Fred.
          o Added a menu item to report problems with Fred (in the Help menu).
          o The “Reallocate Time” dialog now doesn’t require the main window to be restored, if it was minimized.
    * Bugfixes:

          o The linux launch script can now be called from anywhere (i.e. the user doesn’t need to be in Fred’s directory).
          o The change of Fred’s language now works completely (i.e. no labels remain in the previous language after a language change). A restart of Fred is required for this to work but this is automatically handled by Fred.
          o The splash screen’s texts should now display correctly on any platform.
          o All file dialog (Open Work File, Save Work File, …) didn’t work on Ubuntu 8.10. This is now fixed.
          o The buttons of the quickbar should now respond correctly to any click on them. (Sometimes they didn’t respond for some reason, especially when working on a tablet pc.)
    * Other changes:

          o The default locale is now English, if it can’t be determined (was German before).
          o The TrayIcon support for Linux has been disabled due to too many problems. It may come back later if the problems have been resolved.
          o Changed Fred’s year number to 2009.
          o Fred’s configuration files (UserMode.xml, Recent.xml, Settings.xml) are now stored as Java XML properties. This previously used, proprietary file format was discarded.
          o Quite a lot code changes and code cleanup.

http://fred.mayastudios.com/download/