Recorded time is kept as time slices, each a stretch of time spent on an assignment. This topic covers changing them after the fact: editing a slice, reshaping time in the timeframe editor (Split Time, Fill Gap and While You Were Away), combining slices with Merge Time, and deleting them.
Where to start
Most of these commands work on a view of time slices, such as the Time Slices view. Select a row, then use the view’s toolbar or right-click the row:
- Edit Selected (or double-click the row) changes a slice’s assignment, time and other fields.
- Split Time opens the slice in the timeframe editor, where you can divide it and give parts of it to other things.
- Merge Selected combines several slices into one.
- Delete Selected deletes slices.
Two other ways into the timeframe editor start elsewhere: Fill in Find Gaps (see Filling one gap), and It’s complicated in Welcome Back (see Sorting it out on a timeline).
For selecting rows and the rest of a view’s toolbar, see Working in a view.
Editing a time slice
Edit Selected opens the slice’s editor. Its Assignment is what the time was spent on, and its Time is when it started and ended. Below those are the slice’s other fields, such as notes, if your workspace has them.
- The assignments you can choose are the ones belonging to the same person as the slice.
- You can’t change Time while the slice is being timed.
- If you select several slices, you can change their Assignment and other fields together, but not their Time. Their Assignment can only be changed together if they all belong to the same person.
The timeframe editor
The timeframe editor shows a stretch of time as a bar, with a list of the slices in it underneath. A line above the bar says when the stretch starts and ends and how long it is. Nothing you do here is saved until you choose OK.
The bar
Each slice is a colored block on the bar, labeled with what it’s for and how long it is. Hatched areas are gaps: time that won’t be recorded. Slices for work items you aren’t assigned to yet have a dashed outline.
Once you change something, a thin strip above the bar shows the slices as recorded when you began, so you can compare.
Under the bar, Recorded totals the time in slices and Not recorded totals the gaps.
Moving and resizing
With Move and Resize chosen, drag a slice to move it, or drag either of its edges to resize it. Whatever it runs into gives way: a slice it covers is trimmed, split around it, or removed if it’s covered completely.
While you drag, edges snap to the edges of other slices and to steps that suit how much time the bar shows. Hold Alt to go by the second instead.
You can also use the keyboard. Click a slice, then:
- Left Arrow and Right Arrow move it.
- Shift with an arrow moves its end.
- Ctrl with an arrow moves its start.
- Add Alt to any of these to go by one second.
- Delete or Backspace removes it.
Painting
The chips beside Move and Resize are what you can paint with: everything already in this stretch of time, plus anything you add with Find another or New Work Item. Choose one, then:
- Drag across the bar to give that time to it.
- Click a slice to switch the slice to it.
- Click a hatched gap to fill the whole gap with it.
Find another searches your assignments and the work items you aren’t assigned to yet. If you paint with a work item you aren’t assigned to, saving assigns you to it. Choose the chip again, or Move and Resize, to stop painting.
The slice list
The list under the bar has a row for each slice. In a row you can:
- Choose a different Subject for the slice.
- Type a new Start or End. Times are kept within the stretch the editor shows.
- Choose Details to fill in the slice’s other fields, such as notes, in Time Slice Details.
- Choose Remove to take the slice out.
Timing while you edit
If what you’re timing is in this stretch, the bar ends at now, and timing keeps going while you edit. The summary under the bar says what Keeps timing after you save. If you change things so that no slice reaches now, it says Timing stops, and saving stops timing.
Saving or undoing
- OK saves everything at once.
- Cancel closes the editor without changing anything.
- Undo All puts everything back as it was when you began, without closing.
If someone changes or deletes something you’re working with while the editor is open, the editor warns you. If something a slice uses was deleted, choose something else for that slice, or cancel.
Split Time
Split Time opens the timeframe editor on one slice, from its start to its end. Paint parts of it with other things, or resize it to leave a gap. The editor can’t make the slice reach outside its original start and end; use Edit Selected for that.
Fill Gap
Fill on a gap in Find Gaps opens the timeframe editor, titled Fill Gap, on the gap, along with any slice that runs right up to either end of it. Paint the gap, or stretch a neighboring slice across it. To fill several gaps with the same thing at once, see Filling several gaps at once.
While You Were Away
When you answer Welcome Back with It’s complicated and choose Sort It Out, Grindstone opens the timeframe editor, titled While You Were Away, from when you left until now. Sort out the time however you like and choose OK; you can choose OK without changing anything, too. Cancel takes you back to Welcome Back. For the rest of Welcome Back, see Welcome Back.
Merge Time
To combine slices, select two or more in a view of time slices (see Selecting rows), and choose Merge Selected. Merge Time shows what you’ll get: one slice, for the same assignment, from the earliest start to the latest end. If one of them is being timed, timing continues on the merged slice.
You can only merge slices of the same assignment that adjoin or overlap one another.
The merged slice’s fields are combined from all of them:
- Text fields, such as notes, are joined together, leaving out blanks and repeats.
- Other fields take the earliest slice’s value. If it has none, they take the value from the earliest slice that has one.
Choose Details to review and change the combined fields before you choose OK.
Deleting time slices
Select one or more slices and choose Delete Selected, or press Delete. Grindstone asks you to confirm, because this can’t be undone. If one of them is being timed, timing stops.
To take time out of the middle of a slice instead, use Split Time and resize or remove the part you don’t want.
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