Tracks

I’ve just posted about updating the zip package of Tracks 1.043 to make it even easier for people to install using Locomotive. Give it a try if you’ve been having trouble installing!

A really easy installation for MacOS X users

Thanks for the update!

Two questions:
1) Is there a way to migrate data from an existing Tracks installation using the default database of the previous zip built (using mySQL I believe) to the new SQLlite setup?

2) How do I synchronize between two computers? I have tried just syncing the Tracks folders between two machines but that strangely does not work. I am probably doing a silly mistake somewhere. I cannot put it on a server elsewhere because then there is no easy way to access it from inside the instutite. In the long run I am going to sort out something with the IT department but that will take time. I’d also need to take the data with me when I am on the road with just a laptop.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Prion

It looks like initial installation is indeed easier but upgrading is more difficult. This is the flip-side You cannot just unzip over your current installation, because you config and logs will be overwritten. This should be in the upgrade manual for a new release.

Shouldn’t this be 1.044 in stead of 1.043? Because of the login_controler change?

Prion: There is, but it’s not as straighforward as I’m hoping it will be in the next release

You need to dump just the contents of your existing MySQL db. Since boolean fields are integers in MySQL and either ‘f’ or ‘t’ in sqlite3, you’ll need at some point to change the contents. I suggest you do it when you’ve imported to sqlite3. It’s also not easy to merge the contents of the two dbs, so I would make sure that you empty the SQLite3 db first, then import the full contents from mysql. So, supposing that your existing MySQL db is called tracks1043, do this inside your new tracks-1.043 folder:


mysqldump -ct -u MYSQL_USERNAME -pMYSQL_PASSWORD tracks1043 > db/tracks-104-dump.sql

sqlite3 db/tracks-104.db < db/tracks-104-dump.sql


Then you need to go into the SQLite3 db and convert the boolean fields from integers to ‘t/f’ values. The fields in question are:

* todos “done”
* contexts “hide”
* projects “done”
* users “is_admin”

As an example, here’s how you would convert the todos table done field:


sqlite3 db/tracks-104.db
sqlite> update todos
sqlite> set done = ‘f’
sqlite> where done = 0;
sqlite> update todos
sqlite> set done = ‘t’
sqlite> where done = 1;
sqlite> .q


Go through the same procedure for all the tables/fields I noted, and you should be OK. As I said, this will be made much more automated for the next stable release. I’m only half way there, but I wanted people to have a chance to use Locomotive with the latest release.

As for syncing, you *should* be able to just copy the sqlite3 db across between computers, but I haven’t tried it. What error do you get?

Reinier Balt: As I said, I’ll automate the process for the next release as much as I can, and will update the upgrade manual when the new stable release comes out. You shouldn’t really unzip *over* the old installation anyway, and this isn’t what I recommend. People using SQLite3 should be able to just copy over the db from the old installation to the new.

I decided not to make a point upgrade because it’s such a trivial change. It’s just security patched really.

@bsag
thanks for preparing this streamlined zip package, this will make it much easier for people expecting to install and run tracks right away without too much fiddling. Incidentally, it would have been easier for these people should they wander by in the near future to give this minor release a new name (1.043b ) but the release of an all new version is imminent anyway, I understand.

As to transferring the content of my existing Tracks installation to the new version I have to apologize. For two reasons. One, I did not have time to read the installation.html where you explain just that - oh, well. Two: I will rather keep the new version as is and lose tally of the things in the done category and transfer the rest manually. I consider it one of the many incarnations of my weekly review process, very GTD’ish way of stating that I might be doing more bad than good while doing it in a rush

Oh, and one last comment: If the “add” button in Locomotive never lights up while setting up the new Tracks, it is worth checking the Locomotive’s folder name. If you (like me) have renamed to e.g. “Locomotive2.08” then reverting to the default name (Locomotive) solves that problem.

Many thanks everybody. I am looking forward to the new version. Will it have (UNIX) remind-like capabilities? That I would be looking forward to even more…..hard and soft recurs, would that be asking too much? Probably, but I’ll gladly take what you come up with.

Prion

Prion: No problem

No, I’m afraid that the next release won’t have remind-like features or recurring todos (though the latter is definitely on the cards), but it will have a show-from date (i.e. tickler-like feature), tags, amazing API and much, much more! If we don’t set the feature set now, the next release will never be done

No problem, I understand that all too well

That being said and considering that ths is a nono in the software industry: Can you give a rough estimate when the next version will be available?

Prion

Well, we’re not exactly an industry, and I think the best I can do is say “when it’s ready”

The truth is that I really don’t know. We’re going as fast as we can, but it must be right and solid, and we have inconvenient full-time jobs that take up most of our time.

A quick update, because some recent downloaders have been having difficulties, which are down to the ‘Bundle’ version changing since I uploaded the package:

When I first experimented with the January Locomotive bundle, I got a 500 error straight away, but discovered that by adding the line ‘server: lighttpd’ to the locomotive.yml file that Locomotive automatically generated and placed in the config folder of Tracks, the problem was solved.

What I didn’t know was a) that they update bundles very frequently, and b) that the line in the locomotive.yml config file pointing to the bundle doesn’t auto-update to point to the bundle you’ve got installed.

I’ve just installed the latest version of the bundle (Standard Rails Mar 2007), and you no longer have to add the server: lighttpd line to get it to work.

So probably the best thing for you to do if you have already downloaded Locomotive and Tracks is:

1. Download the March Bundle (just the bundle), and place it in your Bundles folder within Locomotive2 folder.
2. Delete the tracks-1.043/config/locomotive.yml file
3. Set up an entry for Tracks within Locomotive as described in the installation.html file, making sure that you select March 2007 as the bundle to be used.

Then it should work.

I’ll try to update the download as soon as I can with the changes and mention the importance of getting the right bundle in the installation document.