I wish to build a software in Qt (on Linux) which tracks
the time I spend on all websites.

I need to know what is the way in Qt to grab the URL
from the currently active browser.

I would say that is not possible, but probably you can give us better description of your requirements.
What do you mean by "spend time on a website"?

For example if I spend some time browsing a particular
website, I need to know when I started it and for how much
did I browse it.

This software will be helpful to me to remind me to work
when I should rather than refreshing stackoverflow or LQ.

What would be the way to make it possible then?
What other language or environment or library do I need to make it possible?

and how can you specify it? (I mean for example how do you know you started/finished browsing LQ)? If it handled by the browser itself you need to add something like a plugin to detect those activities.

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I want that to be the software's job to find that out.
Okay, so now I need to find out how to write a plugin for
firefox and chrome.

no, I think you misunderstood. You need to specify the action (of the human being) to observe (by the software).

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Hi.

This looks like the job for a browser plugin. If you are familiar with javascript it is relatively easy to write pligins for firefox, and chrome. The plugin should probably record when you opened particular url (or tab) and when closed/navigated from it and notify you if you spent too much time on the site.

Good luck.

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Okay, well, I'd say the software can observe the following
condition:

* A website is open and the browser is in the foreground.

I'll make sure to minimize the browser when I am not at the
computer.

@firstfire
Thankful for the useful links.

I think the fact that you see a need to write software to monitor your computer internet use should tell you something for starters. Besides the fact that you'd be writing this software once again, instead of working?

I think the idea of writing plug-ins is probably the key, but I really have no experience to contribute there. Just really the thought processes that there are two or more types of web use. Work related, personal related, but also personal related - expected + normal, versus personal related - not normal. For instance, someone goes online to pay a bill or two, does so in about 2 minutes and that's what they do. Or they rapidly scan the weather, traffic, major news; that all seems normal for probably a desk person and their day. If someone is on social media and on there a lot as part of their day. Having a widget to monitor their time and warn them is potentially good. It all brings me back to the awareness that time is being expended incorrectly, there is internal knowledge of it, consider a non-technical method to gauge and control this instead?

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Do you really need to write your own?

A program to log how much time you spend in what program

Looks like there are several firefox plugin timers. Have you searched for any yet?
Have no idea how wel or if any work but here is one:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/fir...mind-the-time/

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That link doesn't work for me, says: This webpage is not available.

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Well, as you know, I am recovering from my depression on my own. It will take some
time to get rid of the self destructive habits.
BTW, I initially thought of writing this in Qt which I use for my
office work. I thought that'd be a nice project for my part time.

It didn't work for me either, but I was able to select/copy/paste the link text as posted in their reply into the goto location part of my browser and that does work. Also just worked in checking your quoted copy. I think you may see what I see, click -> no result. So you can select that text, copy it, and paste it into your location bar for a new tab or window on your browser and that gets you to their reference.Yes with some parallel thread knowledge I do realize this. Just be aware of some things, which I think you are:

1. Tools such as this help to retain proof of non-work habits ...
2. Persons and company members may be compassionate, in both appearance as well as sincerity and be very supportive. However when "push becomes shove", no one remains your "friend", and especially the corporate side where their best interests are to protect the integrity of their company

I think Qt is an excellent choice for UI programming. Yet again, unsure if browser plug-ins are something which Qt works well to produce. That's my lack of any plug-in experience talking. And I think the suggestions of plug-ins offered may be helpful in doing some self-research.

I've fixed it.