anyone want to help me with a program?

Have you had a look at one of the Cocoa books like the hiligass one?

 

Sure

Amazon (US)

 

The easiest way to do it is with an AppleScriptStudio application.

inside of the idle handler say

set timewords to every word of (do shell script "uptime")
set timewords to every word of (do shell script "uptime")
set uptime to (item 4 of timewords) * days + (item 6 of timewords) * hours + (item 7 of timewords) * minutes

 

A simple obj-C application will use less CPU resource than applescript, but assuming you have a modern Mac (fast G4/G5/Intel) you'll be OK, from experience an applescript application (on an iMac G5) uses about 0.3% CPU while sleeping.

 

Yep, it's excellent.

 

The code I gave will generate the uptime as seconds but won't do anything useful with it. You will need code to store it some place and calculate useful information with it.

A straight cocoa solution would be much more efficient but not easier.

 

Have a text field that you update.

 

I was away at WWDC and not watching the forums.

Did you end up with the Cocoa solution or the AS solution.

For AS
set contents of text field "Foo" to timewords

The text field has to be named "Foo" in Applescript in Interface Builder for this to work.



For Cocoa
[myTextField setStringValue:timeWords];

The text field has to be connected to an IBOutlet on the class you are working on.

 

Uneditable is fine, you have to make sure the box is being pointed too correctly from the code.

 

Could you post your whole Xcode project here? I can't really see from the snippet above what is going on...

Also, do you only want to store the longest uptime, or do you want more detailed stats?

 

Take a look at NSUserDefaults. Very easy to use.

Code:

defaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
if ([defaults floatForKey:@"MaxUptime"]< currentUptime) 
    [defaults setFloat: currentUptime ForKey:@"MaxUptime"];

 

Here's my solution. I've changed the name of your class to AppController, because it makes more sense (and starts with a capital letter!).

AppController.h:

Code:

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>


@interface AppController : NSObject
{
	IBOutlet NSTextField *textField;
}

- (IBAction)createTime:(id)sender;

- (NSNumber *)longestRecordedUpTime;
- (NSArray *)lastTenRecordedUpTimes;
@end

AppController.m:

Code:

#import "AppController.h"

NSString *MBLongestRecordedUpTime = @"MBLongestRecordedUpTime";
NSString *MBLastTenRecordedUpTimes = @"MBLastTenRecordedUpTimes";


@interface NSNumber (MBUpTimeAdditions)

+ (id)currentUpTime;
- (NSString *)formattedUpTimeString;
@end


@implementation AppController

- (IBAction)createTime:(id)sender;
{
	NSNumber *currentUpTime = [NSNumber currentUpTime];
	[textField setStringValue:[currentUpTime formattedUpTimeString]];
	
	if ([[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:MBLongestRecordedUpTime] == nil || [currentUpTime compare:[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:MBLongestRecordedUpTime]] == NSOrderedDescending)
		[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject:currentUpTime forKey:MBLongestRecordedUpTime];
		
	NSMutableArray *lastTenUpTimes = [[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:MBLastTenRecordedUpTimes] mutableCopy];
	if (lastTenUpTimes == nil)
		lastTenUpTimes = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:10];
	[lastTenUpTimes insertObject:currentUpTime atIndex:0];
	if ([lastTenUpTimes count] > 10)
		[lastTenUpTimes removeLastObject];
	[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject:lastTenUpTimes forKey:MBLastTenRecordedUpTimes];
	[lastTenUpTimes release];
}

- (NSNumber *)longestRecordedUpTime;
{
	return [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:MBLongestRecordedUpTime];
}

- (NSArray *)lastTenRecordedUpTimes;
{
	return [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] objectForKey:MBLastTenRecordedUpTimes];
}

@end


@implementation NSNumber (MBUpTimeAdditions)

+ (id)currentUpTime;
{
	return [self numberWithUnsignedLongLong:UnsignedWideToUInt64(AbsoluteToNanoseconds(UpTime())) / 1000000000];	// UpTime in seconds
}

- (NSString *)formattedUpTimeString;
{
	unsigned days = [self unsignedLongLongValue] / (60 * 60 * 24);
	unsigned hours = ([self unsignedLongLongValue] / (60 * 60)) % 24;
	unsigned minutes = ([self unsignedLongLongValue] / 60) % 60;
	
	return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%ud %uh %um", days, hours, minutes];
}

@end