Using ConsultComm to Track Projects


So you've started up ConsultComm and you're facing an empty window. Start fillin' it up with projects. Click on Project->Add Project. A dialog box will pop up with four fields: Group, Project, Time and Billable.

The group is a category or client you want to group a list of projects by. For example, "Programming" or "Goober, Goober & Dumpling." The project field is for the project name itself, such as "Testing" or "Meeting." Time is for the time elapsed on the project - which defaults to zero. The billable checkbox determines if the project is billable or not... i.e. "Lunch" would be non-billable, but "Write Code" would be billable.

To edit a project, just double-click it. To delete it, either right- click on the project and select "Delete," highlight and hit the Delete key or highlight and select Project->Delete Project. To start the timer for a project, highlight the project to watch and hit the "Start" button. Hit "Stop" to, well, stop.


There are two things that govern the behavior of ConsultComm: the plugins and the preferences. Let's take a look at the preferences.

To edit preferences, go to Tools->Preferences. The first tab to open is General Properties. Here you can have time elapsed shown in minutes or seconds. You can also specify how often prefs and times are saved to your user directory. Animated icons used in ConsultComm (such as the rotating bar at the bottom of the window) can be turned on and off in the animated icons checkbox.

The next tab allows you to specify skins to change the look and feel of ConsultComm. Skinpacks can be downloaded for SkinLF at http://javootoo.l2fprod.com/plaf/skinlf/index.php - just specify the skinpack at the "Use Theme Pack" field.


ConsultComm supports third-party plugins used for extending it's functionality beyond what's listed above. ConsultComm ships with several standard plugins, such as:

  • JDBC Connectivity: Export your times to any JDBC compliant database!
  • Idle Monitor: Allow ConsultComm to pause or switch projects after a certain amount of user idle time
  • Totals Plugin: Keep track of how long you have left to work and how much you're earning by sticking around

    Plugins are installed simply by copying .jar files written for ConsultComm into the plugins/ directory. Visit http://consultcomm.sourceforge.net for more plugins and info on how to develop plugins.