Tracks http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/tracks/index/ en butshesagirl@rousette.org.uk Copyright 2006 2006-03-05T16:08:00+00:00 Absent for August http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/absent-for-august/ communication, site-admin I’m off to Brazil for a work course again on Monday, and I’ll be away for 3 weeks. I won’t have email or web access during that time, so can I ask that you direct any questions to the forum or mailing list where other Tracks users will be able to help you. If you want to make a pull request on GitHub, or if you’ve got a patch, lukemelia, lrbalt and epall all have commit rights to the main repository, so you can send your request to them.

Have a great summer everyone, and I’ll post again when I get back!

]]> 2008-08-02T18:22:00+00:00 Pledgie button http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/pledgie-button/ communication GitHub provides a handy shortcut for creating a Pledgie campaign, and shows the button on the repository page. We were previously accepting donations using a Paypal button, which meant I then had to do some mental arithmetic and manually update the MacBook-O-Meter to show the additional donations. Pledgie is much easier to use, so I’ve now embedded the Pledgie button on the Contribute page, and also in the sidebar of the site. Click the button if you feel like making a donation! Pledgie donations can be anonymous or you can display your name proudly in the donors list, and you can use PayPal or a credit card for payment.

]]> 2008-06-28T11:23:00+00:00 BitNami screencasts in Spanish http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/bitnami-screencasts-in-spanish/ buzz, links Spanish-speaking Tracks users will be interested to know that BitNami have a couple of screencasts in Spanish, showing the installation process with BitNami (which was produced by Javier Martínez) and an introduction to using Tracks. Many thanks to Antonio Santos at BitNami for pointing me to the screencasts, and for telling me that Tracks was the third most downloaded Stack on BitNami last month!

]]> 2008-06-28T10:27:01+00:00 Tracks moves to GitHub! http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/tracks-moves-to-github/ I'm happy to say that Tracks has now moved to GitHub. The subversion repository is still available as a read-only repository, but all new development will happen via Git at GitHub. The main reason for this move is to make it much easier for people to contribute to the project. Anyone can clone the repository and submit patches, but to make life even easier, you can sign up for a free account at GitHub and then fork Tracks. GitHub provides a 'pull request' button, so when you've added something cool or fixed a bug, hit the button and we'll pull in your changes. Git makes merging *much* easier than Subversion, even if the codebase has moved on a bit since you created the patch. communication, development I’m happy to say that Tracks has now moved to GitHub. The subversion repository is still available as a read-only repository, but all new development will happen via Git at GitHub. The main reason for this move is to make it much easier for people to contribute to the project. Anyone can clone the repository and submit patches, but to make life even easier, you can sign up for a free account at GitHub and then fork Tracks. GitHub provides a ‘pull request’ button, so when you’ve added something cool or fixed a bug, hit the button and we’ll pull in your changes. Git makes merging much easier than Subversion, even if the codebase has moved on a bit since you created the patch.

The latest stable version of Tracks can still be downloaded as a .zip file (see the download link in the sidebar). If you don’t want to install Git, but you are feeling adventurous and want to get the very latest development version, you can use the ‘Download’ button on the GitHub page to get a tarball of the project.

To clone Tracks, change to a directory in which you want to store Tracks (e.g. ~/Sites):


git clone git://github.com/bsag/tracks.git
cd tracks

If (when!) you produce a cool new feature or fix a bug, create a patch. If you develop in a branch called ‘experiment’:


git diff master..experiment > my_feature.patch

Then attach my_feature.patch to a ticket.

Or you can sign up for a free account on github and fork Tracks using the convenient button. You can then use the button to issue a pull request for your changes to be pulled into the main repository.

]]> 2008-06-15T11:33:00+00:00 Tracks 1.6 http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/tracks-16/ releases 2008-06-03T18:53:02+00:00 Comment moderation http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/comment-moderation/ I’ve been getting a fair bit of spam slipping through Akismet’s fingers recently, so I’ve decided to turn comment moderation on and see how it goes. Please feel free to comment as usual, but remember that your comment won’t show up immediately. If you are a spammer, your comment won’t turn up at all! site-admin

I’ve been getting a fair bit of spam slipping through Akismet’s fingers recently, so I’ve decided to turn comment moderation on and see how it goes. Please feel free to comment as usual, but remember that your comment won’t show up immediately. If you are a spammer, your comment won’t turn up at all!

]]> 2008-05-22T20:36:00+00:00 Morphexchange - Tracks as a hosted service http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/morphexchange-tracks-as-a-hosted-service/ If you’d like to have a globally-accessible installation of Tracks, which you could access from any computer on the internet, but you either don’t have a web server, web host, or don’t want the hassle of installing it yourself, you could try “Morph eXchange”:http://www.morphexchange.com/. The Morph Application Platform allows you to run certain Ruby on Rails applications as services. They have some services which require a paid subscription, but their Tracks service is free to use. All you need to do is go to the “homepage”:http://www.morphexchange.com/, signup for an account, then under subscriptions you will see Tracks listed. Click subscribe, and you can launch Tracks and enter your data. links If you’d like to have a globally-accessible installation of Tracks, which you could access from any computer on the internet, but you either don’t have a web server, web host, or don’t want the hassle of installing it yourself, you could try Morph eXchange. The Morph Application Platform allows you to run certain Ruby on Rails applications as services. They have some services which require a paid subscription, but their Tracks service is free to use. All you need to do is go to the homepage, signup for an account, then under subscriptions you will see Tracks listed. Click subscribe, and you can launch Tracks and enter your data.

]]> 2008-04-07T18:47:00+00:00 New screencast http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/new-screencast/ I've just uploaded an introductory screencast to the "screenshots":http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/screenshots/index page. In it, I introduce the basics of starting with a new, blank installation of Tracks, adjusting the preferences, adding contexts, projects and actions, and editing actions. In due course, I'll add more screencasts on specific aspects, like using tags, the tickler, and the statistics page. It's the first screencast I've done with a voiceover, so please forgive the stumbling, mumbling parts. Watching the screencast, you might marvel at the fact that I lecture for a living. The thing is, I'm used to a live audience (except at 9am Monday lectures, where the audience is mostly asleep), and talking to myself felt distinctly odd I also seemed to be channelling Bill Lumbergh from "Office Space":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/, with my "let's go ahead and...". I don't know why, because I almost never say that in real life. Anyway, enjoy, and try not to laugh too hard. communication, site-admin I’ve just uploaded an introductory screencast to the screenshots page. In it, I introduce the basics of starting with a new, blank installation of Tracks, adjusting the preferences, adding contexts, projects and actions, and editing actions. In due course, I’ll add more screencasts on specific aspects, like using tags, the tickler, and the statistics page.

It’s the first screencast I’ve done with a voiceover, so please forgive the stumbling, mumbling parts. Watching the screencast, you might marvel at the fact that I lecture for a living. The thing is, I’m used to a live audience (except at 9am Monday lectures, where the audience is mostly asleep), and talking to myself felt distinctly odd wink I also seemed to be channelling Bill Lumbergh from Office Space, with my “let’s go ahead and…”. I don’t know why, because I almost never say that in real life. Anyway, enjoy, and try not to laugh too hard.

]]> 2008-04-01T18:26:01+00:00 Tracks 1.5 http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/tracks-15/ releases 2008-03-27T17:11:12+00:00 BitNami Tracks Stack http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/site/bitnami-tracks-stack/ Manuel Morales from "BitNami":http://bitnami.org/ emailed to tell me about the "Tracks Stack":http://bitnami.org/stack/tracks they have developed. These are easy to install, multi-platform packages for installing various Open Source applications. You download a package which installs as a stand-alone stack of all of the components required to run the application. What this means is that if you want to run Tracks on Windows XP, Linux or Mac OS X, but you don't really know where to start with installing Ruby, Rails and MySQL, you can just download the stack. It installs everything you need and even configures the application and the database for you. The Tracks Stack installs the brand spanking new Tracks version 1.5rc1. So if you're interested by Tracks but have been daunted by the installation procedure, give a "Tracks Stack":http://bitnami.org/stack/tracks a whirl! linux, macosx, releases, windows Manuel Morales from BitNami emailed to tell me about the Tracks Stack they have developed. These are easy to install, multi-platform packages for installing various Open Source applications. You download a package which installs as a stand-alone stack of all of the components required to run the application. What this means is that if you want to run Tracks on Windows XP, Linux or Mac OS X, but you don’t really know where to start with installing Ruby, Rails and MySQL, you can just download the stack. It installs everything you need and even configures the application and the database for you. The Tracks Stack installs the brand spanking new Tracks version 1.5rc1.

So if you’re interested by Tracks but have been daunted by the installation procedure, give a Tracks Stack a whirl!

]]> 2008-03-15T19:12:00+00:00