screentime: initial submission

[aliiakbarkhan]

Screen Time desklet

A simple desklet that shows today's active screen time on the desktop (e.g. 3h 42m).

Features

• Tracks active usage time only — counting automatically pauses when there's no mouse/keyboard input (idle/AFK)
• Resets automatically at midnight each day
• Idle threshold, font size, and whether to show seconds are all configurable via the desklet's settings
• Progress is saved to disk periodically so it survives a Cinnamon restart
• Uses Cinnamon/Mutter's built-in idle monitor, no external dependencies

Testing

• Validated with ./validate-spice screentime@aliiakbarkhan
• Tested locally on Linux Mint (Cinnamon)

[github-actions]

Best-practices scanner

This is a regex-based check for API usage that can pose security, performance or
maintainability issues, or that may already be provided by Cinnamon. Most findings
are advisory and do not automatically disqualify a pull request.

This check is not perfect and will not replace a normal review.

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Found 4 potential issue(s):

⚠️ WARNING

⚠️ sync_file_get_contents

screentime@aliiakbarkhan/files/screentime@aliiakbarkhan/desklet.js:83

let [ok, contents] = GLib.file_get_contents(DATA_FILE);

Synchronous file_get_contents() blocks the main loop.
Use Gio.File.load_contents_async() instead.

⚠️ sync_file_test

screentime@aliiakbarkhan/files/screentime@aliiakbarkhan/desklet.js:82

if (GLib.file_test(DATA_FILE, GLib.FileTest.EXISTS)) {

file_test() is a synchronous stat call that can block on slow/network filesystems.
Prefer attempting the operation and handling a Gio.IOErrorEnum.NOT_FOUND error instead.

⚠️ hardcoded_cache_dir

screentime@aliiakbarkhan/files/screentime@aliiakbarkhan/desklet.js:10

const DATA_FILE = GLib.get_home_dir() + "/.cache/screentime-desklet.json";

Avoid hardcoding .cache in paths. Use GLib.get_user_cache_dir() instead,
which respects the XDG_CACHE_HOME environment variable.

⚠️ lang_bind

screentime@aliiakbarkhan/files/screentime@aliiakbarkhan/desklet.js:67

Lang.bind(this, this._tick)

Lang.bind() is deprecated. Use arrow functions (() => {}) or Function.prototype.bind() instead.

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Automated pattern check.