Three More Useful Desktop Utilities

It’s been a few months since the last one, so it’s time to take another quick look at three more useful little tools for the Linux desktop. Tools that can help you quickly and efficiently tackle some simple tasks, especially tasks that you don’t tackle regularly.

Let’s jump in, shall we?

Add Times

Every Linux distribution comes with a desktop calculator. Which is great when you need to work through various figures. But that calculator isn’t all that great when it comes to computing time. Which is where Add Times comes in.

Add Times is aimed at people who need to log time spent of long tasks — for example, drivers and pilots. But anyone who needs to track time for timesheeting or invoicing might find it useful, too. Including full-time employees, freelancers, and contractors.

The application has a spare interface, one that’s easy to use. You enter time as hours and minutes — for example, punch in 247 for 2 hours and 47 minutes. Click + to add another block of time. Keep doing that until you’ve tracked all of the time and then press Enter to get a total, as shown below:

Flatsweep

When you remove software that you installed using Flatpak, there are often some residual files left over in a hidden directory in your /home folder. As you install and uninstall software over time, those straggling files can accumulate over time. To be honest, it’s a pain to go into that folder and zap all of those files.

Flatsweep helps you clean up that problem. It scans the hidden directory that I mentioned a paragraph ago, the one containing the lingering files. Flatsweep then lists the folders, as shown below:

If you need to, deselect any folders that you don’t want to get rid of, and then click Clean. In second or two, those errant files and folders are gone.

Switcheroo

Sometimes, you need to quickly convert one or more image files from one format to another. Sure, you can open it in an application like The GIMP or Pinta and save that image with a new extension. Or you can jump to the command line and use something like imageMagick to do the deed. But do you really need anything that heavy? Give Switcheroo a try instead.

Switcheroo converts images between these formats: PNG, JPG, WebP, HEIF, GIF, PDF, and ICO. You can also change some characteristics of the images (as you’ll see in a moment).

To use Switcheroo, fire it up and then click Open Images …. Select the images to convert and then click Select Images. The images that you selected, along with Switcheroo’s options, display as shown below:

You can select a new format for the images, whether you want to compress them into a .zip file, change the quality of the images, change the background colour, and resize them.

When you’re ready to go, click Convert. You’ll be asked to choose a location, and once you do it takes only a few seconds (depending on the number of images you have) for the Switcheroo to do its work.

— Scott Nesbitt