Menu bar and panel

The menu bar item

The Deskathon item in the menu bar: the odometer icon followed by 2.3 km, today’s distance.

The item shows the Deskathon icon and one figure for today, such as 2.3 km. The figure updates at most once a second. You choose which figure it shows in the next section.

Left-click opens or closes the panel.
Right-click or Control-click opens a menu.
While counting is paused, the item looks dimmed. The text doesn’t change.
The item keeps its place in the menu bar between launches. Hold ⌘ and drag it to move it.

Hover over the item to see Deskathon as its tooltip. VoiceOver reads it as, for example, “Deskathon, 2.3 kilometers today”, and “Deskathon, paused” while counting is paused.

If the notch or other items hide it, see If you can’t see the icon.

Item	What it does
Open Deskathon	Opens the main window.
Resume	Appears only while paused. Starts counting again.
Pause	A submenu: Pause for 1 Hour, Pause Until Tomorrow and Pause Until I Resume.
Settings…	Opens Settings › General. Shortcut `⌘,`.
Deskathon Help	In versions after 1.0, opens this guide in your browser.
Quit Deskathon	Quits Deskathon. Nothing is counted until you open it again. Shortcut `⌘Q`.

Choose what the item shows

Choose Settings… from the right-click menu, or press ⌘, in the panel. Settings opens on General.
In the Menu bar section, open Menu bar text and choose an option.
Switch Short numbers on or off.

A preview in the same section shows the item on a light and a dark menu bar.

Menu bar text	The item shows
Distance today	Today’s distance. This is the default.
Clicks today	Today’s clicks.
Scroll today	Today’s scroll distance.
Keys today	Today’s key presses. Offered only while keyboard counting is on.
None (icon only)	Just the icon.

Short numbers is on by default. It keeps the item narrow next to the notch by dropping a decimal from the distance: 2.3 km instead of 2.31 km. Counts are always short, for example 12.4K. Either way, Deskathon cuts digits off rather than rounding them up, so the figure only ever counts forward.

Settings, General: Open at login and Show in Dock off, App language System (English), the Menu bar previews showing 2.3 km, Menu bar text Distance today, Short numbers on, Distance Metric, and Week starts on Monday (System). — Settings › General, with the Menu bar section.

The panel

Everything in the panel is free.

The Deskathon panel under the menu bar item: Today, Thursday, October 15, 2,310.4 m on the odometer, about 1.3 times the Brooklyn Bridge, 427 m to go to the Golden Gate, then Clicks 4,887, Scroll 38.6 m and Keys 9,420 with small hourly charts, a Last 7 days road of 14.9 km, and the Open Deskathon, Pause and more buttons.

Header and hero

The header reads Today with the date. Below it, today’s distance rolls on odometer digits, with a comparison such as ≈ 1.5× Burj Khalifa. Below half a meter, it reads Not moved yet.

Landmark tape

A tape shows the landmark you have passed and the next one, with how far is left, for example 427 m to go. Lifetime, landmarks and trips lists them all.

Clicks, scroll and keys

Each row shows today’s total and a 24-hour chart.

Clicks: left, right and other clicks added together.
Scroll: how far you scrolled.
Keys: key presses, if keyboard counting is on. When it’s off, the row says Off with an Open Settings link that opens Settings › Keyboard. See Keyboard counting.

Last 7 days

Last 7 days shows the total for the last seven days and a bar for each, with weekday letters. It’s a rolling window that ends today.

Buttons

Open Deskathon opens the main window on Today. It’s the default button, so Return works too.
Pause opens a menu with the three pause choices.
⋯ (More) opens a menu with Share…, Settings…, Deskathon Help (in versions after 1.0) and Quit Deskathon. Share… opens the share sheet on the Today card.

While the panel is in front, Return opens Deskathon, ⌘, opens Settings and ⌘Q quits.

Pause counting

You can pause from the panel, from the right-click menu, or in Settings › Privacy & Data. There are three choices.

Choice	Counting resumes
Pause for 1 Hour	1 hour from now. The panel shows the end time.
Pause Until Tomorrow	At the next midnight where you are.
Pause Until I Resume	When you choose Resume.

The panel while counting is paused: an orange Paused until 3:30 PM banner with a Resume button and the note Nothing is counted while paused., with the day’s numbers shown in gray.

While paused, the panel header is replaced by a banner such as Paused until 3:30 PM, with a Resume button and the line Nothing is counted while paused. The menu bar item is dimmed and widgets show Paused. A pause survives quitting and reopening Deskathon.

Notices in the panel

Notices appear under the counters, only while they apply. Troubleshooting explains what to do about each.

Notice	When you see it
Keyboard counting is paused: Input Monitoring is off	You turned off Input Monitoring for Deskathon after keyboard counting was on.
Secure Input is on, keys aren’t counted right now	Secure Input has been on for more than 10 seconds.
Counts can’t be saved right now. Deskathon keeps them in memory and keeps trying.	Saving has failed for 5 minutes.
Saved by a newer version. Read-only, nothing is counted.	Your data file was written by a newer version of Deskathon.
Your data can’t be saved. Counts are lost when you quit.	Deskathon couldn’t open or repair its data file.
Deskathon counts only while it’s open…	The login hint, shown once from your second launch on while Open at login is off.