New Design​

Long overdue, we’ve completely overhauled the client design. From every page getting a new look, to new buttons, icons, and one of my favorites; a new tray menu.

Windows on the left, macOS on the right

Besides looking pretty, the new menu also has a glance at your current stats. You can also jump directly to a specific tab in the client or launch to your online profile.

Inside the client, everything’s updated. Here are two examples:

The keyboard heat map looks a lot nicer, sleeker, and is more responsive. Getting rid of the bulky keyboard image is also step one in getting to fully dynamic keyboard layouts (instead of the hardcoded and limited layout selections). In case you’re wondering what that message about Apples’ M1 support is about, here’s the help article.

New Website Design​

Not wanting to be left behind, our home page, downloads, and premium page, now also sport a better look. In the upcoming months, the entire website will be transformed into this new look.

Database Optimisations​

Some of you are still getting regular ‘critical database errors,’ and it’s annoying. Lose power at the wrong time, or experience a computer crash, and your history might’ve been lost. Most of 2020 went into making sure we minimize this. There are more integrity checks, and the client doesn’t freeze when loading big data sets, and more. One of my focuses in early 2021 is to get the database backups running again so that if something still happens — you’ll have a backup.

Permissions setup for macOS​

To operate within macOS, the client needs system permissions. To be precise, it needs Accessibility and Input Monitoring permissions. Previously, a not-so-smart popup told you that the permissions weren’t set up correctly. Now, it’ll guide you through the process:

WhatPulse 3.0 also brings macOS 11 (Big Sur) support.

Windows Network Counting​

The WhatPulse client uses Pcap to monitor the network traffic and count the traffic on a per-interface and per-application level. On Windows, we’ve used WinPcap for years, and it has some troubles on the newer versions of Windows 10. Counts might be off when you’re downloading at high speeds, or your network interface wasn’t supported. We’ve moved to Npcap, which promises to solve these issues.

Release Notes​

There are more changes in 3.0, like how auto pulsing now restarts, or high-resolution screens with scaling now works. Take a look at the release notes to learn about the smaller things!

Update now using the Check for Updates function, or download the client from our downloads page.

Take a look:

Downloads​

You can find 2.9b2 in your update feed (enable beta versions and hit Check for Updates), but you can also find the installers here:

• https://static.whatpulse.org/files/beta/whatpulse-win-2.9b2.exe

• https://static.whatpulse.org/files/beta/whatpulse-mac-2.9b2.dmg

• https://static.whatpulse.org/files/beta/whatpulse-linux-2.9b2_amd64.snap

There’s More​

The interface changes are the biggest changes in 2.9b2, but it doesn’t stop there. Here’s an overview:

• Full redesign of the client, moving from 1990s design to the 21st century. All-new icons, buttons, heatmaps, and more!

• Sign Windows installer and client. Removes the “unknown publisher” warning.

• Improve rich tray menu usage significantly. Better hovering, icons, and more.

• Upgrade to Qt 5.15.

• Windows: Let Qt handle scaling on high DPI screens. This should significantly improve the presentation of the client on high DPI and scaled monitors.

Note on macOS 11​

I have the client working on macOS 11. The primary problem with the current client is the shift from OpenSSL to LibreSSL that Apple did. I’m looking for a way to make 1 client that will work on macOS 10.x and 11. If macOS 11 is released before I can make that happen, there will be 2 clients for macOS; 1 for 10.x and 1 for 11. Stay tuned!

With the 2.9 beta 2 update, I’m happy to release a preview of the snap!

You can download it here: https://static.whatpulse.org/files/beta/whatpulse-linux-2.9b2_amd64.snap

Installation​

While we work on finalizing the snap, you’ll have to install it in development mode. Here’s how:

snap install whatpulse-linux-2.9b2_amd64.snap --devmode --dangerous

If WhatPulse has never run on your system before, you also need to run the ‘setup-input-permissions.sh’ script. This makes sure that the client can read your keyboard and mouse.

Known Issues​

• Network monitoring does not work yet

• The Operating Systems will not be detected properly (in the Overview tab)

• Some settings checkboxes might be black

• The client might not autostart with the system

Feedback​

Please let us know how it works for you; we feedback on this snap. Thanks!

Special thanks to Krzysztof and Zach for getting us this far!

Dark mode will be effective throughout the entire dashboard. From your statistics dashboard to account management and all your Premium pages, everything will be in a stylish dark theme.

To enable the dark mode, simply click the “Dark Mode” menu item. This toggles between light and dark mode. When you’re in dark mode and want to switch back to light mode, click the “Light Mode” menu item.

Fun fact: the mode is saved to your account settings, so if you spin up another browser or go mobile; you’ll see the same color!

Before I begin; these are projections, not hard promises. ;-)

Applications​

A few years ago we introduced application information in the client and on the website. There are now almost 120.000 different applications in the database and it’s overdue for the next step.

We’re going to focus on improving the quality of the application information and create a way to categorize them. With that, you can see how much time you’ve been spending on work tasks, browsing, gaming, etc.

Second, there’s an idea to add metadata to the applications. We only have name and version numbers now, but it would be very cool to get the vendor, its website, maybe a rating and comparative applications.

User Experience​

There are a few areas where we can do better with the user experience. We’ve identified a few where we’re going to focus on in 2019:

Client Interface​

Let’s be honest; although it’s nice, it looks like it’s from 2005 (which it is! ;-)). We’ve had a new client design waiting on implementation for a while now and it looks like 2019 is the year we’ll focus on it.

Client Database​

After having some issues with the client database (mostly the backups), they’ve mostly cleared up. It still can’t take unexpected computer shutdowns very well, which means it can get corrupted when your computer crashes or something else weird happens. We’ll be implementing a new database system which will significantly improve making sure the database keeps intact and have a much better backup if the primary database does indeed get corrupted. Hopefully, no more fresh starts when something crashes.

Website​

The new dashboard is a huge step forward in the usability of the website. However, there’s still the old parts of the website where most of the overall statistic tables are located. While the My WhatPulse transition took a very long time, we should be able to transition the rest of the pages much quicker and have them join the 21st century.

Backend Work​

Also on the list for 2019, are some improvements to the website backend. This includes a move to the cloud, which means the website will have some maintenance downtime somewhere during 2019. We’ll announce that when it’s planned.

Premium​

Because the above goals are pretty ambitious, we also need to focus a bit more on the Premium subscription. While it’s currently bringing some awesome features to your client and website experience; 2019 will bring more of that. This one is going to be kept under wraps for now (to keep it a surprise), but I’ll share the reason why.

Premium was first conceived to help pay for the hosting costs of the website. Right now, Premium is indeed paying for the hosting and gives me the ability to outsource small projects. A very specific feature here and there. Sometimes also some bigger projects, like the new client design you’ll be seeing. Our goals for 2019 are pretty ambitious and we’ve got plenty more awesome ideas in our imagination. To get some real progress, we’d like to outsource more and hire people for specific projects (and not 2 guys doing this on the side).

That’ll cost us, so if we focus a bit more on Premium this year, hopefully, that’ll pay off and we can put more into moving WhatPulse forward.

Starting with this, we’re offering more flexibility on the Premium subscription. You can now also choose a yearly subscription.

Linux Client​

Now for a personal pain point. I’m not a Linux person. I like things to just work, without having to put too much effort into personalizing a system, something that Linux provides. It takes me a lot of effort in maintaining the Linux client (which is also why Linux doesn’t do application stats), too much effort. Considering Linux people make up 1.39% of you guys and the effort it takes me to keep it running, is around 3–4 times higher then for Windows or MacOS, I need to make a decision, get help with it or stop offering it.

Consider this an official call for help to maintain the Linux client.

You’ll be responsible for making sure it runs on the different Linux distributions, hopefully improving it and helping me make Linux people happy again. The client itself is written in C++, a little bit of C and uses Qt as a wrapper to speed up development.

If you love stats as we do, are a Linux person and willing to help me. Please contact me and we’ll go through specifics.

Here’s to 2019!​

These are the primary goals for us and hopefully, this is going to make 2019 an awesome year for stats. We wish you a very happy 2019 and all the geekiness in statistics you can handle!