[BUG] Review timer keeps running in background

[Robin-Haupt-1]

On mobile (Galaxy Tab S10+) the review timer keeps running when the app is minimized, which can lead to review times of 10h+ when the app is minimized overnight or seriously distort measurements when looking something up or using another app for a few minutes before continuing the review.

[hugomarins]

@Robin-Haupt-1 I don't have means to know if the user is not in another app for studying purposes (e.g. Reading a website in the browser instead of the RemNote Reader, making a research, etc) or not. There is a pause button if the user wants to do something else, or a cancel button that helps when he realizes a huge time has passed not related with the IncRem processing. What do you suggest? I don't think auto-pausing when losing focus would be a good idea.

[Robin-Haupt-1]

Do you know how many people actually depend on the app tracking time spent outside it but related to a certain document? It seems like a niche use case to me.

Perhaps this could be a settings option, for those that really need it?

I think people are less likely to regularly use the buttons to pause and resume since you can't often predict how long you'll be out of the app and pressing it every time you quickly google or check something is tedious.

And with digital devices being distraction engines, and seeing that people who are into incremental reading are probably not the type to focus on only one thing for hours, it's a stretch to assume they're only doing stuff related to the current document while not using the app.

I know Anki only tracks review duration for up to a minute, maybe a (configurable) grace period of say 5 minutes could be tracked before the inactive time maxes out.

[hugomarins]

But the time limitation makes no sense for IR. You can read a book for 1 hour, and register it (Ctrl+Shift+J) manually. If you opted to use the timer, I have no means to make a judgement of the quality of your use of time. If you see the timer shows a nonsense high number, you can cancel and use Ctrl+Shift+J and manually insert the time you evaluate you really spent. Also, the only use for this (time input) is to track the total time you spent in an IncRem or in a document (using the aggregated view of Ctrl+Shift+H widget).

While the ability to stop the timer when in the background can be seen advantageous by some, I don't know neither if it is worth the while nor how to implement it. But if it is important to you and if you can develop it as an optional setting and post a PR, we can incorporate it.

Thanks!