Version:	1.7
File:
Subversion URL:	http://github.com/bsag/tracks/commits/1.7_branch

I’m pleased to announce that Tracks 1.7 has been released.

You can download this new stable version of Tracks at here and an updated manual can be found on github and on the Tracks website

What is new in 1.7:

• The included Rails version is updated to 2.2.2
• Tracks now supports recurring/repeating todos
• Cleanup of feed page and add feed for starred actions
• New interface to import an email / sms messages into Tracks (needs an email server on the same server as Tracks)
• New buttons to quickly defer an action 1 or 7 days
• Calendar view to review upcoming due actions, includes iCal feed to use in your calendar app (tested with Google Calendar, Evolution, Outlook 2007)
• You can now sort projects on number of active todos
• Support for OpenSearch. This means you can add a Tracks as a search provider in your webbrowser (tested on FF3 and IE7)
• We now allow users again to stay logged in on two devices at the same time
• Move site specific configuration out of environment.rb into site.yml for easier updating

• Bugfixes, including fixing OpenID

  (for those using 1.7RC1/1.7RC2 we dropped the initial importer of yaml files because of its experimental state)

  There are changes to the database in Tracks 1.7, and changes to the way you configure Tracks, so please migrate your database and redo your Tracks configuration.

  In Tracks 1.7 the site specific configuration is moved from environment.rb into the new site.yml. This makes updating environment.rb much easier without you needing to set your site specific settings after each update. After you install/upgrade to Tracks 1.7 there will be no environment.rb.tmpl anymore. You will find an environment.rb which you can leave untouched. Just fill in your settings from your old environment.rb in the new site.yml. If you have made any other customizations to environment.rb in the past, you can put them in your own configuration file (for example, in my-config.rb) in config/initializers. Please let us know if you think they should be in site.yml.tmpl.

  WARNING: if you update to 1.7 using git, your environment.rb will be overwritten. SO PLEASE MAKE BACKUPS

  This release of 1.7 will include enhancements made by a lot new contributers (Jakub, Hans, Piotr, MHarris, Piglop, Farzy, Vitaliel, McVeat and Simon; I hope I didn’t forget anyone…). Thank you all for helping Tracks getting better every release. As ever particular thanks to Luke (for updating Tracks to 2.2.2) and to Eric Allen for lots of work on a many fronts, including the site.yml improvements!

  Very many thanks to Reinier for his hard work yet again in getting this release together!

  Filed under: Comments (0)

Version:	1.7RC2
File:
Subversion URL:	http://github.com/bsag/tracks/commits/1.7_branch

Reinier Balt has already announced the release of Tracks 1.7RC2, but I’ve finally (and belatedly!) found time to upload the zipped file and update the manual.

Reinier’s release notes:

We have many improvements based on the feedback on RC1. We felt we should first do a RC2 to make sure all improvements did not introduce new regressions. Please help out to test this second pre-release to find any bugs before we release 1.7 in a few weeks

What was new in RC1:

• The included Rails version is updated to 2.2.2
• Tracks now supports recurring/repeating todos
• Cleanup of feed page and add feed for starred actions
• Initial importer of yaml files (still very EXPERIMENTAL; please send feedback on whether to include this; make backups while testing it)
• New interface to import an email / sms messages into Tracks (needs an email server on the same server as Tracks)
• New buttons to quickly defer an action 1 or 7 days
• Calendar view to review upcoming due actions, includes iCal feed to use in your calendar app (tested with Google Calendar, Evolution, Outlook 2007)
• You can now sort projects on number of active todos
• Support for OpenSearch. This means you can add a Tracks as a search provider in your webbrowser (tested on FF3 and IE7)

• Bugfixes, including fixing OpenID

  New in RC2:

• We now allow users again to stay logged in on two devices at the same time
• Move site specific configuration out of environment.rb into site.yml for easier updating

• Bugfixes, including the upgrade of has_many_polymorphs which will fix the problem of not being able to migrate from 1.6 because of non-existing recurring_todos table.

  There are changes to the database (even between RC1 and RC2), and changes to the way you configure Tracks, so please migrate your database and redo your Tracks configuration.

  In Tracks 1.7RC2 the site specific configuration is moved from environment.rb into the new site.yml. This makes updating environment.rb much easier without you needing to set your site specific settings after each update. After you install/upgrade Tracks 1.7RC2 there will be no environment.rb.tmpl anymore. You will find an environment.rb which you can leave untouched. Just fill in your settings from your old environment.rb in the new site.yml. If you have made any other customizations to environment.rb in the past, you can put them in your own configuration file (for example, in my-config.rb) in config/initializers. Please let us know it you think they should be in site.yml.tmpl.

  WARNING: if you update to RC2 using git, your environment.rb will be overwritten. SO PLEASE MAKE BACKUPS

  This release of 1.7 will include enhancements made by a lot new contributers (Jakub, Hans, Piotr, MHarris, Piglop, Farzy, Vitaliel, McVeat and Simon; I hope I didn’t forget anyone…). Thank you all for helping Tracks getting better every release. As ever particular thanks to Luke (for updating Tracks to 2.2.2) and to Eric Allen for lots of work on a many fronts, including the site.yml improvements!

  Filed under: Comments (0) (0) Trackbacks •

Version:	Tracks 1.7RC
File:
Subversion URL:	http://github.com/bsag/tracks/commits/1.7_branch

I’m pleased to announce that Tracks 1.7RC has been released. This is a pre-release of version 1.7. Please help out to test this pre-release to find any bugs before we release 1.7 in a few weeks

What’s new:

* The included Rails version is updated to 2.2.2 * Tracks now supports recurring/repeating todos * Cleanup of feed page and add feed for starred actions * Initial importer of yaml files (still very EXPERIMENTAL; please send
feedback on whether to include this; make backups while testing it) * New interface to import an email / sms messages into Tracks (needs an
email server on the same server as Tracks) * New buttons to quickly defer an action 1 or 7 days * Calendar view to review upcoming due actions, includes iCal feed to
use in your calendar app (tested with Google Calendar, Evolution, Outlook
2007) * You can now sort projects on number of active todos * Support for OpenSearch. This means you can add a Tracks as a search
provider in your webbrowser (tested on FF3 and IE7) * Bugfixes, including fixing OpenID

There are changes to the database, and a few changes to config/environment.rb.tmpl, so please migrate your database and copy the template file and merge your personalisations with it. More upgrade instructions are in the manual in the /doc directory.

This release of 1.7 will include enhancements made by a lot new contributers (Jakub, Hans, Piotr, MHarris and Simon). Thank you all for helping Tracks getting better every release. As ever particular thanks to Luke (for updating Tracks to 2.2.2) and to Reinier for masses of work on a lot of fronts, not least in making it extremely easy for me to announce and distribute this release!

Version:	Tracks 1.6
File:
Subversion URL:	svn co --username=guest http://www.rousette.org.uk/svn/tracks-repos/tags/tracks-1.6

I’m pleased to announce that Tracks 1.6 has been released.

What’s new:

• The included Rails version is updated to 2.0.2
• You can now search the contents of todos, projects and notes (thanks, Jeffrey Gipson!)
• Improvements to the mobile view, including a few iPhone specific improvements for those of you lucky enough to have an iPhone

• A few bug fixes

  An important caveat is that OpenID support is broken in 1.6. The fix is a bit complicated because of changes to the ruby-openid gem, so we wanted to get 1.6 out before fixing it. If you depend on OpenID support, we’d advise waiting until the next release.

  There are no changes to the database, but quite a few changes to config/environment.rb.tmpl, so please copy the template file and merge your personalisations with it.

  Many thanks to Luke, Reinier and Jeffrey for their hard work on this release!

  Filed under: releases • Comments (10)

Version:	Tracks 1.5
File:
Subversion URL:	http://www.rousette.org.uk/svn/tracks-repos/tags/tracks-1.5/tracks

I’m delighted to announce the release of Tracks 1.5 final!

New features since Tracks 1.043:

Some highlights of this release:

1. Show from date allows you to postpone the appearance of actions in the list until you can do something about them (like a ‘tickler’)
2. Tagging of actions
3. Simple management of users (deleting users through the web interface)
4. Import and export of data in various formats
5. Fantastic RESTful API to provide access to actions via scripts
6. Mobile interface designed for use on mobile phone browsers
7. Improved ease-of-use for installation and upgrading
8. Optional support for authentication via OpenID or LDAP
9. Update to Rails 1.2.3
10. Per-user time zone preference
11. Use autocomplete fields for Project and Context specification to support on-the-fly adding of each
12. Add a “Hidden” status to projects
13. Add optional Default Context for a Project
14. Add ability to sort projects alphabetically
15. Add “starring” of actions
16. Statistics page with graphs

1. Rake task to set password. Usage: rake tracks:password USER=username

   There are also some bug fixes since 1.5rc1:

   • You can now use tags containing dots
   • Badge count on tag page works properly
   • Auto-complete drop down menu works properly
   • New todos that belong to hidden or completed projects are not added to the home page or context page
   • Now report revision number from TRACKS_ROOT instead of the current directory. To use this fix if you’re using 1.5 or trunk, you need to recreate your environment.rb from the template
   • When viewing a context, actions without projects are now shown
   • Various improvements to rendering time on home page when you have a lot of todos
   • Edit form now uses the correct default context after you have changed it
   • Clears completed_at field when you mark a completed task as incomplete again

• New tests for new features and bug fixes

  As ever, many thanks are due to everyone who has helped on this release, particularly Reinier Balt.

  Update 2008-04-01: Updated the zip package so that Tracks displays the correct version number (1.5).

  NEW! All-in-one installation!

  If you want an easy, automated install which includes everything you need, download the BitNami Tracks Stack. There are versions for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (PPC and Intel). It includes Tracks 1.5, and now sets up an admin account for you as part of the installation process.

  Filed under: releases • Comments (4)

Version:	Tracks 1.5RC1
File:
Subversion URL:	http://www.rousette.org.uk/svn/tracks-repos/tags/tracks-1.5rc1/tracks

It’s nearly here!

This is the first release candidate for the Tracks 1.5 release. If you are currently using Tracks 1.043, you’ll find heaps of brilliant new features, bug fixes and improvements in this version. The manual is included in the /doc directory of the download and the subversion version, but you can dowload it separately here if you like. There are also a few screenshots to whet your appetite on the wiki.

Some highlights of this release:

1. Show from date allows you to postpone the appearance of actions in the list until you can do something about them (like a ‘tickler’)


2. Tagging of actions


3. Simple management of users (deleting users through the web interface)


4. Import and export of data in various formats


5. Fantastic RESTful API to provide access to actions via scripts


6. Mobile interface designed for use on mobile phone browsers


7. Improved ease-of-use for installation and upgrading


8. Optional support for authentication via OpenID or LDAP


9. Update to Rails 1.2.3


10. Per-user time zone preference


11. Use autocomplete fields for Project and Context specification to support on-the-fly adding of each


12. Add a “Hidden” status to projects


13. Add optional Default Context for a Project


14. Add ability to sort projects alphabetically


15. Add “starring” of actions


16. Statistics page with graphs


17. Rake task to set password. Usage: rake tracks:password USER=username

Version:	Tracks 1.043
File:
Subversion URL:	http://www.rousette.org.uk/svn/tracks-repos/tags/tracks-1.043

Security fix. Closes the hole reported in ticket 372 for the 1.04x release. This release is recommended for anyone running Tracks on a publicly-accessible server.

There are no other changes from 1.041 or 1.042, so if you’re running 1.041 or 1.042, upgrading is simple. Change the name of your old Tracks directory to (for example) tracks-1041-old. Unzip Tracks 1.043 to a new directory, then copy over config/database.yml, config/environment.rb, and the log directory from tracks-1041-old to the correct locations in your new Tracks directory. If you’re using sqlite or sqlite3, you’ll also need to copy over your sqlite database from the old db directory to the new one. Once you’ve got the new copy of Tracks working, you can delete the old directory.

Version:	Tracks 1.042
File:
Subversion URL:	http://www.rousette.org.uk/svn/tracks-repos/tags/tracks-1.042

This is a maintenance release only, with a security update applied to counter the vulnerability in Rails reported by the Rails core team. There are no other changes from 1.041, so if you’re running 1.041, upgrading is simple. Change the name of your old Tracks directory to (for example) tracks-1041-old. Unzip Tracks 1.042 to a new directory, then copy over config/database.yml, config/environment.rb, and the log directory from tracks-1041-old to the correct locations in your new Tracks directory. If you’re using sqlite or sqlite3, you’ll also need to copy over your sqlite database from the old db directory to the new one. Once you’ve got the new copy of Tracks working, you can delete the old directory.

This is a recommended upgrade for all users.

Version:	newTodo.rb
File:
Subversion URL:

Damien Cirotteau has written a nice Ruby script to add a new next action from the command line. He writes:

I have set up a small ruby script to add a Next Action in tracks. All the parameters (user name, token,...) are written in hard in the script and configurable from the command line. Instructions are in the script or run “newTodo.rb -h”. I use it mainly to add todos from the command line and from my Mail application.

In the process of reorganizing my (digital) life I have also changed my mail application from Mutt to Sylpheed. Sylpheed lets you define custom actions. One of mine that I apply to a message for which I am waiting a reply is shown below. Context 6 is my waiting for context:

newTodo -c 6 "Waiting from`cat %f|grep From:|sed -e 's/<sup>From://'` about `cat %f|grep Subject:|sed -e 's/</sup>Subject://'`" [0]

Thanks, Damien!

Version:	sms_todo.pl
File:
Subversion URL:

Eric Lesh has written a great Perl script which you can use from a mobile phone by sending an SMS or email containing the details of the action to add. In his words on the mailing list:

“Tracks has been great to me, but too often I find myself without a computer when I have to write down something important.  I am lazy, and suffer from my-Moleskine-is-too-nice-to-write-in-itis, so usually.  I just don’t write anything down at all. Since I usually have my cell phone, and it can send emails through SMS, this seemed the ideal candidate for adding next actions.“

“To make it work, add a procmail recipe like so:“

 :0:
 * ^From:.*MYNUMBER@MYPROVIDER.COM
 | /path/to/sms_todo.pl

“With Evolution, Mail.app, Outlook, or whatever else you use for mail, there is probably a way to do this also.  Just pipe the email through the script when it comes from your phone.“

“Messages should be in the format:

Email Bill about TPS reports.  Context computer.“

Thanks, Eric! For those who might not know how to send an SMS to an email address, you probably need to check your provider’s site for details, but for T-Mobile UK, I found that I could send an SMS to 191 in the following form:

email@mydomain.com#Email bill about TPS reports. Context computer.

Version:	todo.pl API Perl script
File:
Subversion URL:

Russell Harrison distributed a nice Perl script which communicates with the Tracks API to add a new next action. The instructions and description of the dependencies are given in comments within the script. Thanks, Russell!

Version:	1.041
File:
Subversion URL:	http://www.rousette.org.uk/svn/tracks-repos/tags/tracks-1.041

See doc/CHANGELOG for the full details of what’s new in this release, but the highlights are:

1. Tracks now has an API, written by Luke Melia, which allows you to create new actions in a particular context remotely, using scripts. See http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/downloads/comments/adding-next-actions-via-scripts-the-tracks-api/ for some example scripts and instructions. If anyone creates scripts for other platforms (Windows or Linux), or more fancy ones for Mac OS X, do share them!
2. The feeds page now lists iCal links alongside each RSS and TXT feed link. Copying your chosen link and pasting it in to the text box that appears in iCal when you choose Calendar > Subscribe.. Name your calendar as you wish, but make sure that you get it to refresh periodically and that the ‘Remove Todo items’ checkbox is UNCHECKED (obviously ). Then your Tracks next actions should appear as todo items in iCal, with proper due dates assigned, and notes in the notes field. The todos should update periodically in iCal as you add, delete or complete items in Tracks, but the subscription is read-only from iCal’s end. However, it does allow you read access on the move if you sync iCal with your Palm or mobile phone.
3. Setting no_completed in the user preferences to zero now removes the completed items box completely from the home page and from the individual context and project pages, if you don’t like completed items cluttering those pages up.
4. You can set a local time zone in environment.rb if your local time zone is different from the time zone setting on the server running Tracks.
5. ‘Add users’ link added to the navigation bar for the admin user, which is a convenient way to get to the signup page.
6. Luke fixed the edit actions method so that changing an action’s context immediately moves it in an Ajaxy way to the new context.

1. Updated vendor directory to Rails 1.1

Version:	API Applescripts
File:
Subversion URL:

The Subversion trunk version of Tracks now has a nice API, provided by Luke Melia. This means that it’s possible to communicate with Tracks via scripts to add next actions without using the browser interface. This is all exciting stuff, and I decided to knock up a couple of AppleScripts for the Mac OS X users to take advantage of this. One (NewTodoAPI.scpt) is a fairly simple thing that pops up a dialog box asking for a description, and then sends that to your Tracks installation to a hard-coded context. The other, NewTodoMailAPI.scpt takes the sender and subject of the selected email(s) in Mail and creates a new action for each one, with the description, “Email [sender] about [subject]”. The description gets truncated to 100 characters (the validation limit for the field) if it’s longer than that. It also has Growl notifications if you’ve got Growl installed.

Luke then took my scripts and raised me a Quicksilver: his lovely script (quicksilver_add_to_tracks.zip) can be used very smoothly from Quicksilver. His instructions are as follows.

1. Download the AppleScript.
2. Edit the script to include your own username, token, context id, and url
3. Compile and save the script
4. Copy the script to ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/ (you may need to create the Actions directory)
5. Restart Quicksilver
6. Activate Quicksilver (Ctrl+Space by default)
7. Press ”.” to put quicksilver into text mode
8. Type the description of the next action you want to add
9. Press tab to switch to the action pane.

1. By typing or scrolling, choose the “Add to Tracks” action.

   For both scripts, you need to edit them to include your username, your token (check the feed links for a long string of letters and numbers and copy that), the id of the context you want the actions to go into, and the URL for your installation. The comments should make it all fairly self explanatory. Have fun!

   Filed under: tips • Comments (10)

Version:	1.04
File:
Subversion URL:	http://www.rousette.org.uk/svn/tracks-repos/tags/tracks-1.04

Tracks 1.04 is now available for download. The installation instructions are in a file called ‘installation.html’ in the root of the distribution. Installing from a new database is pretty easy, but if you’re upgrading from a version 1.03 database you need to read the upgrade instructions carefully.

Version:	Startup items for Tiger
File:
Subversion URL:

If you’re using Tiger, you can use the file download above to start WEBrick (or lighttpd) at login. The full instructions are here.