Detecting User Inactivity

I imagine that most of us have are Instant Messengers configured to automatically put us in mode Away or Not Available if we remain inactive for more than 5, 10 or 15 minutes. Most often this saves us from finding the following lines waiting for us on our screen after we get back from a lunch break:

My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:01:20: Hey baby!
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:01:25: Want to chat with me?
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:03:15: Why aren’t you saying anything?
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:07:00: ;(
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:12:48: ….
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:20:32: ;(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:20:50: OK I understand
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:21:30: I knew you were like that the first time I laid my eyes on you!
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:22:15: Well don’t bother to call me anymore you …
My.Super.Sexy.Girlfriend 13:22:23: … you Mr. don-hav-no-time-to-speak-to-my-girfriend!

… yes … whatever.

Implementing user innactivity detection generally means scanning for events from any input devices like keyboard, mouse, touchpad and others, and in case no such events have been triggerred for a preconfigured amount of time it is logical to assume that the user is currently not actively using the machine.

The delicate part about implementing such behavior in Java is the fact that there is no way (or at least I can’t think of any) to perform such a global scan.

This project would consist in finding the best approach for a Java application to scan for user inactivity. It might also be a good idea to add a light native module that could do the scanning and notify the SIP Communicator if it has determined the user to be inactive.

Contacts:
Yana.Stamcheva (at) sip-communicator.org

References:
Other SIP Communicator student projects
http://www.sip-communicator.org/students

The official SIP Communicator website
http://www.sip-communicator.org

The SIP Communicator developer website on Java.net
http://sip-communicator.dev.java.net/index-jn.html