hledger-web behind a reverse proxy

[Marko Kocić]

Hi,

I'm trying to run hledger-web behind a nginx reverse proxy. I managed to configured it to basically work (though did not do much testing) except for one small thing.

I'm running hledger-web as following:
hledger-web --base-url=http://myhost.com/hledger/

And the relevant nginx.confiuration is:
server {
  listen 80;
  server_name myhost.com;
  location / {
  }
  location /hledger/ {
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_pass http://localhost:5000/;
  }
}

/static/combo_select.gif returns 404. Seems like dhtmlxcombo.js doesn't play well in this scenario and ignores base-url directive, since it tries to fetch the gif directly.

I'm using hledger-web 0.18.1 as provided by ubuntu, since I was not able to built the latest from the source code / cabal.

Cheers,
Marko

[Xinruo Sun]

This was a bug in hledger-web and is fixed in darcs (latest dev branch). 

You need to compile hledger and hledger-web yourself to make use of it.

See the original patch: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/hledger/76FmCe4Rrmc/VKHmlYOWvEIJ

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[Simon Michael]

Hi Marko, let us know if you're still having trouble building the latest hledger-web from darcs (if necessary, after a package reset[1]). It's supposed to be buildable right now.

-Simon

[1] https://www.fpcomplete.com/user/simonmichael/how-to-cabal-install

[Marko Kocić]

Hi Simon,

I finally got on to try to build hledger from the darcs again today. I was able to build hledger-lib, but got an error when trying to build hledger/hleger:

marko@monet:~/src/hledger/hledger$ cabal install
Resolving dependencies...
cabal: Could not resolve dependencies:
trying: hledger-0.19.4
rejecting: cmdargs-0.10.2/installed-871... (conflict: process==1.1.0.2,
cmdargs => process==1.1.0.1/installed-c55...)
trying: cmdargs-0.10.2
rejecting: hledger-lib-0.19.4/installed-25e... (conflict: cmdargs==0.10.2,
hledger-lib => cmdargs==0.10.2/installed-871...)
rejecting: hledger-lib-0.19.3, 0.19.1, 0.19, 0.18.2, 0.18.1, 0.18, 0.17,
0.16.1, 0.16, 0.15.2, 0.15, 0.14, 0.13, 0.12.1, 0.12, 0.11.1, 0.11, 0.10, 0.9
(conflict: hledger => hledger-lib==0.19.4)

I'm using stock ghc-7.4.2 that comes with the ubuntu server 12.10.


Thanks,
Marko

[Simon Michael]

Hi Marko, the easy fix is to reset your packages as in the how to. Any reason not to do that ?

Best

-Simon

[Marko Kocić]

Hi Simon,

This is after doing the reset. Maybe my ghc is too old? I'll try to update ghc and try again.

Cheers,
Marko

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[Simon Michael]

Aha, hmm. I'm pretty sure I built successfully with 7.4 the other day, I'll check again later.

[Simon Michael]

Hi Marko,

I was confusing hledger and hledger-web there for a minute. hledger built fine for me, but indeed I saw a problem building hledger-web with GHC 7.4.

After much huffing and puffing It turns out I caused this problem with a commit last week. http://hub.darcs.net/simon/hledger/patch/20130319012209-3c3f9 should make all hledger packages installable with GHC 7.4 and 7.6 again (at least). Thanks for the report.

-Simon

On Mar 18, 2013, at 10:55 AM, Marko Kocić wrote:

This is after doing the reset. Maybe my ghc is too old? I'll try to update ghc and try again.

On Mar 18, 2013 3:31 PM, "Simon Michael" <si...@joyful.com> wrote:

Hi Marko, the easy fix is to reset your packages as in the how to. Any reason not to do that ?

On Mar 18, 2013, at 7:28, Marko Kocić <ma...@euptera.com> wrote:

I finally got on to try to build hledger from the darcs again today. I was able to build hledger-lib, but got an error when trying to build hledger/hleger:

marko@monet:~/src/hledger/hledger$ cabal install
Resolving dependencies...
cabal: Could not resolve dependencies:
trying: hledger-0.19.4
rejecting: cmdargs-0.10.2/installed-871... (conflict: process==1.1.0.2,
cmdargs => process==1.1.0.1/installed-c55...)
trying: cmdargs-0.10.2
rejecting: hledger-lib-0.19.4/installed-25e... (conflict: cmdargs==0.10.2,
hledger-lib => cmdargs==0.10.2/installed-871...)
rejecting: hledger-lib-0.19.3, 0.19.1, 0.19, 0.18.2, 0.18.1, 0.18, 0.17,
0.16.1, 0.16, 0.15.2, 0.15, 0.14, 0.13, 0.12.1, 0.12, 0.11.1, 0.11, 0.10, 0.9
(conflict: hledger => hledger-lib==0.19.4)

I'm using stock ghc-7.4.2 that comes with the ubuntu server 12.10.

On Friday, March 15, 2013 8:21:30 PM UTC+1, Simon Michael (sm) wrote:

Hi Marko, let us know if you're still having trouble building the latest hledger-web from darcs (if necessary, after a package reset[1]). It's supposed to be buildable right now.

[1] https://www.fpcomplete.com/user/simonmichael/how-to-cabal-install

[Marko Kocić]

Hi Simon,

seems like I'm now in the middle of the cabal/dll hell.
After giving up on trying to build it with ghc-7.4.2 I finally bite the bullet and installed ghc-7.6.2 binary.

However, I wasn't able to install even after that.

What bring me furthest is the following:

rm -rf ~/.cabal .~/.ghc

cabal update
cabal install cabal-install
cabal install cabal-dev

cd path-to-hledger-tree

darcs pull

cd hledger-lib
cabal-dev install -s ~/build/hldev

... success

cd ../hledger
cabal-dev install -s ~/build/hldev

... success

cd ../hledger-web
cabal-dev install -s ~/build/hldev
...
...
Linking dist/build/yesod/yesod ...
Failed to install yesod-1.1.9.2
cabal: Error: some packages failed to install:
hledger-web-0.19.4 depends on yesod-1.1.9.2 which failed to install.
yesod-1.1.9.2 failed during the building phase. The exception was:
ExitFailure 9

In short, I am still not able to build hledger-web, but this time due to yesod build issues.

The internet didn't help find me the solution here.

<rant>

Seems like every time I tried to build something moderately complex in haskell I end up with probleems like this.Sometimes I wish it just used something simple and working like java build tools like ant/maven/leiningen

</rant>

Thanks,

Marko

[Simon Michael]

Hi Marko,

On Mar 20, 2013, at 6:07 AM, Marko Kocić wrote:
> seems like I'm now in the middle of the cabal/dll hell.

Yes. Sorry! I can understand your feelings. There are some tricks and habits you need to stay out of trouble with cabal, not yet clearly documented all in one place.

> rm -rf ~/.cabal .~/.ghc
> cabal update
> cabal install cabal-install
> cabal install cabal-dev

I wouldn't use cabal-dev yet. You've already reset your packages so it's not necessary, and it might bring new failure modes.

> cd hledger-lib
> cabal-dev install -s ~/build/hldev
> ... success
> cd ../hledger
> cabal-dev install -s ~/build/hldev
> ... success
> cd ../hledger-web

It's better to install all of these in one command, so cabal can see the bigger picture. Eg:

.../hledger$ cabal install ./hledger-lib ./hledger ./hledger-web

However, your current problem sounds like neither of the above, since cabal is finding an install plan and attempting to build things. It failed to build yesod - what error does it report, e.g. with the above command ? (don't use the -j option). Also note sometimes cabal builds fail transiently due to insufficient memory, repeat the install command once or twice to see if it succeeds.

[Marko Kocić]

Hi Simon,

I tried cabal-dev just in case it might work, but the results are the same as when using cabal directly. It always boils down to being unable to build yesod-1.1.9.2

I'm trying to build hledger-web on small VPS instance with 512M of RAM and 2G of swap. While RAM goes down while building, the swap is not used much, so I guess it's not about insufficient memory. I tried multiple times.

The error is:
Loading package hpc-0.6.0.0 ... linking ... done.
Loading package ghc-7.6.2 ... linking ... done.
Loading package hinotify-0.3.5 ... linking ... done.
Loading package fsnotify-0.0.6 ... linking ... done.
[4 of 9] Compiling Paths_yesod      ( dist/build/autogen/Paths_yesod.hs, dist/build/yesod/yesod-tmp/Paths_yesod.o )
[5 of 9] Compiling Keter            ( Keter.hs, dist/build/yesod/yesod-tmp/Keter.o )
[6 of 9] Compiling Options          ( Options.hs, dist/build/yesod/yesod-tmp/Options.o )
[7 of 9] Compiling Devel            ( Devel.hs, dist/build/yesod/yesod-tmp/Devel.o )
[8 of 9] Compiling AddHandler       ( AddHandler.hs, dist/build/yesod/yesod-tmp/AddHandler.o )
[9 of 9] Compiling Main             ( main.hs, dist/build/yesod/yesod-tmp/Main.o )

Linking dist/build/yesod/yesod ...
Failed to install yesod-1.1.9.2

ExitFailure 9

There's no more error details even when I try building with -v option.

I know that it is not hledger problem, but yesod or ghc instead, but it prevents me from building hledger-web.

Thanks for the patience,

Marko

[Simon Michael]

On Mar 20, 2013, at 9:23 AM, Marko Kocić wrote:
> I'm trying to build hledger-web on small VPS instance with 512M of RAM and 2G of swap. While RAM goes down while building, the swap is not used much, so I guess it's not about insufficient memory. I tried multiple times.

...

> [8 of 9] Compiling AddHandler ( AddHandler.hs, dist/build/yesod/yesod-tmp/AddHandler.o )
> [9 of 9] Compiling Main ( main.hs, dist/build/yesod/yesod-tmp/Main.o )
> Linking dist/build/yesod/yesod ...
> Failed to install yesod-1.1.9.2
> ExitFailure 9

Have you tried with -v3 ?

512M is definitely tight for building yesod & yesod-based apps. If (using top, with fast refresh time) you see RAM fill up, with ld using most of it and exiting soon after RAM is maxed out, then that's your problem. If so, here are some ideas:

- kill something else to free up more RAM temporarily
- first cabal install yesod-1.1.9.2 by itself, then cabal install hledger-web. Contradicts my previous advice I know, but usually works and may use less RAM.
- use less RAM while building, by adding --ghc-option '+RTS -M300m' to your cabal install command (adjust the 300 up or down if needed).

[Marko Kocić]

Hi Simon,

I finally managed to build yesod and hledger-web. The trick was to up the instance to 1GB RAM. I tried playing with different ghc memory settings, as you suggested, but to no result. I don't understand why the build fails with insufficient memory when there is more than enough available in swap. Luckily, running hledger-web doesn't require much memory at all.

However, back to the hledger-web. Now that I buit it and it runs, I noticed another problem when run behind reverse proxy.

- The file "http://host/ledger/static/tmp/x0PsQ9Am.css" cannot be found.

- The app is not optimized for mobile browsers. The layout is not mobile friendly, and autocomplete doesn't work when trying to add new transaction using Android browser.

Cheers,

Marko

[Simon Michael]

On 3/20/13 3:10 PM, Marko Kocić wrote:
> I finally managed to build yesod and hledger-web. The trick was to up
> the instance to 1GB RAM.

Hi Marko.. great. Another trick I've heard is to apply GHC flags to do
first the compilation, then the linking as a separate command (#haskell
probably knows the magic flags).

> However, back to the hledger-web. Now that I buit it and it runs, I
> noticed another problem when run behind reverse proxy.
> - The file "http://host/ledger/static/tmp/x0PsQ9Am.css" cannot be found.

I set up a config like yours at http://demo2.hledger.org/hledger. Here,
the register page fails to fetch
http://demo2.hledger.org/static/combo_select.gif within this dhtmlXCombo
call in Common.hs:

/* dhtmlxcombo setup */
window.dhx_globalImgPath="#{staticRootUrl}/";
var desccombo = new dhtmlXCombo("description");

staticRootUrl is based on this in Settings.hs:

-- | The base URL for your static files. As you can see by the default
-- value, this can simply be "static" appended to your application root.
-- A powerful optimization can be serving static files from a separate
-- domain name. This allows you to use a web server optimized for static
-- files, more easily set expires and cache values, and avoid possibly
-- costly transference of cookies on static files. For more information,
-- please see:
--
http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/request.html#ServeFromCookielessDomain
--
-- If you change the resource pattern for StaticR in Foundation.hs, you will
-- have to make a corresponding change here.
--
-- To see how this value is used, see urlRenderOverride in Foundation.hs
staticRoot :: AppConfig DefaultEnv x -> Text
staticRoot conf = [st|#{appRoot conf}/static|]

So I think you need to customize this for your setup. If someone can see
how to make this depend on the run-time options, I'd welcome that patch.

> - The app is not optimized for mobile browsers. The layout is not mobile
> friendly, and autocomplete doesn't work when trying to add new
> transaction using Android browser.

Yes, I'd love to work on this.

-Simon

[Simon Michael]

On Mar 20, 2013, at 4:24 PM, Simon Michael wrote:

staticRoot :: AppConfig DefaultEnv x -> Text
staticRoot conf = [st|#{appRoot conf}/static|]

So I think you need to customize this for your setup.

Actually that should work already. Ignore me. For some reason it didn't show your error at first, but now I see it failing to fetch http://demo2.hledger.org/hledger/static/tmp/x0PsQ9Am.css . I don't know the right fix, but building hledger-web in development mode seems to be a workaround (cabal install hledger-web -fdev).

[Marko Kocić]

Hi Simon,

after importing my ledger files to the box where hledger-web is running a trying to use exclusively web interface for a while, let me share a few observations.

- missing css file. I noticed that the file is minified css, and it is located in ./static/tmp subforlder of the folder from which hledger-web is started. My wild guess is that it is yesod generated file which is optimized and used only in production mode, and that's why it is not present in dev build. Hope there is some switch to disable this. Probably this is a yesod bug, but I don't have enough knowledge to have a qualified call.

- adding transactions: it's a bit painful and slow. Auto-complete helps, but not much. Some kind of tree structure for selecting categories instead of plain list would be much better. As an intermediate solution, maybe allowing autocomplete only up to the first next ":" would help. Right now, I have to way of navigating long trees without typing out full prefix. Idealy, I should be able to type "a:b:my:c" and get to "assets:bank:mybank:checking". Right now, I have to type "assets:bank:mybank:c" in order for autocomplete to trigger in. For expenses is even worse, since there are many more categories. Maybe tree that can be navigated using keyboard only would still be a better choice that autocomplete list.

- adding transactions: ability to add more then 2 account into same transaction is missing.

- adding transactions: after adding transaction, there'r no way to go back to register view except typing the url again. Or I just don's see the link ;)

- adding transactions: it would be good if choices from previous transactions are remembered, so I can only modify what's not the same. That would help a lot when adding many transaction for the same day, the same source account into the same journal file.

- main view: ability to have a view of incomestatement, date filters, cashflow would be great to have in web.

- mobile access: already mentioned that site is not optimized for mobile browsers, and that entering transactions doesn't work because of autocomplete missbehaving. It would be nice if hledger-web used responsive design for a UI, so that it could offer better mobile and tablet support. Native android client would be even better ;)

Don't get me wrong, and don't get this list as a criticism. You made a wonderful software that I really like and use for a long time, it's just that I finally tried to host it on the internet to be able to use it from multiple places, so I feel a need to suggest things that might improve the overall experience for me.

My Haskel skills are not there yet, thought that might change in the future, but I'm ready to at least do some testing and give a feedback.

Cheers,

Marko

[Simon Michael]

Hi Marko, that's good feedback.

I don't run production builds of hledger-web anywhere, even at demo.hledger.org, which is probably why I haven't noticed/dealt with that css issue. More research needed there. If you have time, that would be a good one to add to the bug tracker.

Lots of known issues that I agree with, you'll see some of them in the issue tracker. Note, in case you think of adding more wishlist issues there, I suggest not doing that as I am considering reserving the tracker for bugs only (cf interesting discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5405880 …)

I have a huge backlog of hledger tasks and can't afford more than an hour or two per day at present. So help is welcome. Testing, reporting issues and discussing tasks is a great start, thank you.

All: if you want to upgrade your coding/project management/support/documentation skills while helping the project, you'll get lots of help from me!

Best

-Simon

[Thomas Hartman]

Simon: I think you should have somewhere a way to put wishlist items
into bug tracker, even if that means starting a second bug tracker
like "hledger-wishlist."

Grouping / maintaining / prioritizing wishlist items is a way that the
community could help without runing around in circles repeating
themselves.

Hledger is only going to keep getting more popular, so it's going to
be interesting finding a way to keep it going without paying a high
time cost. Not easy, I realize. But worth the effort.

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 6:37 PM, Simon Michael <si...@joyful.com> wrote:
> Hi Marko, that's good feedback.
>
> I don't run production builds of hledger-web anywhere, even at
> demo.hledger.org, which is probably why I haven't noticed/dealt with that
> css issue. More research needed there. If you have time, that would be a
> good one to add to the bug tracker.
>
> Lots of known issues that I agree with, you'll see some of them in the issue
> tracker. Note, in case you think of adding more wishlist issues there, I
> suggest not doing that as I am considering reserving the tracker for bugs
> only (cf interesting discussion at

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5405880 ...)

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[Simon Michael]

It's an interesting topic. I'm brainstorming because of what I've seen with other projects.

We don't want to squash or miss important ideas and creative energy. But do we really help ourselves by curating an ever-growing database of wishes (enhancement requests, design thoughts) that outpace the project's development velocity ? That can potentially distract, cost resources, and create a sense of stagnation.

I think when the number of wishes to be gathered and organized is high relative to bugs and development velocity, it becomes more important to have a tracking process that is sufficiently nimble and keeps wishes from obscuring bugs.

So what's best for hledger at this stage ?

- org outline ? I track my own wishes (currently about 200) in the NOTES.org file, which is cheap but won't work well for all of us.

- mail list ? I hear the linux kernel tracks all issues on their mail list. You can imagine doing this with wishes, perhaps with a curator posting a weekly list. This method has the lowest barrier to entry and quickest feedback for submitters.

- trello ? Trello is really good at organizing and visualizing lists. https://trello.com/board/hledger/5127f6bb0698a36663002981 exists. Submitters need a trello account.

- Google issue tracker (also very good) for all, replacing NOTES.org ? Submitters need a google account. Keeps bugs and wishes all in one place.

- Google issue tracker for community-submitted wishes, continuing the status quo ? Perhaps refining the setup to keep bugs more visible, and the submit form to encourage mail list discussion ?

- something else ? Strange ideas are fine, part of the fun is finding new ways to do things.

On Mar 22, 2013, at 8:49 PM, Thomas Hartman wrote:

Simon: I think you should have somewhere a way to put wishlist items
into bug tracker, even if that means starting a second bug tracker
like "hledger-wishlist."

Grouping / maintaining / prioritizing wishlist items is a way that the
community could help without runing around in circles repeating
themselves.

[Thomas Hartman]

> - mail list ? I hear the linux kernel tracks all issues on their mail list.
> You can imagine doing this with wishes, perhaps with a curator posting a
> weekly list. This method has the lowest barrier to entry and quickest
> feedback for submitters.

maybe.

> - trello ? Trello is really good at organizing and visualizing lists.
> https://trello.com/board/hledger/5127f6bb0698a36663002981 exists. Submitters
> need a trello account.

I like trello, but I don't think it's right for hledger.

> - Google issue tracker (also very good) for all, replacing NOTES.org ?
> Submitters need a google account. Keeps bugs and wishes all in one place.

maybe.

> - Google issue tracker for community-submitted wishes, continuing the status
> quo ? Perhaps refining the setup to keep bugs more visible, and the submit
> form to encourage mail list discussion ?

maybe.

> - something else ? Strange ideas are fine, part of the fun is finding new
> ways to do things.

Generalized Todo list / bug tracker is the great unsolved problem of
2013. (Also 1993.)

> On Mar 22, 2013, at 8:49 PM, Thomas Hartman wrote:
>
> Simon: I think you should have somewhere a way to put wishlist items
> into bug tracker, even if that means starting a second bug tracker
> like "hledger-wishlist."
>
> Grouping / maintaining / prioritizing wishlist items is a way that the
> community could help without runing around in circles repeating
> themselves.
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 6:37 PM, Simon Michael <si...@joyful.com> wrote:
>
> Lots of known issues that I agree with, you'll see some of them in the issue
>
> tracker. Note, in case you think of adding more wishlist issues there, I
>
> suggest not doing that as I am considering reserving the tracker for bugs
>
> only (cf interesting discussion at
>
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5405880 ...)
>
>

[Simon Michael]

On Mar 24, 2013, at 2:54 PM, Thomas Hartman wrote:

- trello ? Trello is really good at organizing and visualizing lists.

https://trello.com/board/hledger/5127f6bb0698a36663002981 exists. Submitters

need a trello account.

I like trello, but I don't think it's right for hledger.

Why, out of interest ?

More for the list, not very serious:

- the hledger wiki ? 

- the hledger wiki in issue tracker mode ? http://zwiki.org/IssueTracker

- WISHES MUST HAVE CODE OR BOUNTY ENCLOSED

- NO WISHES ONLY PATCHES

[Thomas Hartman]

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 3:05 PM, Simon Michael <si...@joyful.com> wrote:
>
> On Mar 24, 2013, at 2:54 PM, Thomas Hartman wrote:
>
> - trello ? Trello is really good at organizing and visualizing lists.
>
> https://trello.com/board/hledger/5127f6bb0698a36663002981 exists. Submitters
>
> need a trello account.
>
>
> I like trello, but I don't think it's right for hledger.
>
>
> Why, out of interest ?

Because I think trello is best for managing "do it now" type tasks,
not for long running "do it sometime nebulously" things like
wishlists.

Disclaimer: I'm not a serious trello user, just poked around it a bit,
and that was my impression.

> More for the list, not very serious:
>
> - the hledger wiki ?
>
> - the hledger wiki in issue tracker mode ? http://zwiki.org/IssueTracker
>
> - WISHES MUST HAVE CODE OR BOUNTY ENCLOSED

I like the idea of bounties. Try and see what happens is my advice.

Bitcoin community is very bounty friendly, so if you have a bitcoin
tie in somehow... who knows. I might even try one ;)

> - NO WISHES ONLY PATCHES
>

[David J Patrick]

Firstly, it's an awesome topic :)

I'm all for an hledger zwiki IssueTracker as will as a big sloppy wiki (as opposed to the meticulous hledger.org/docs/) all wrapped up in a development "culture" that strongly encourages patches and/or bounties, but carefully collects wishes, and keeps them safely on the back-burner.

If your all thinking about it, why not extend the thinking to agile/ kaisen development, put things in swim-lanes, treat bounties as customers, and speediliy develop a comprehensive, open-source personal-finance solution?

please?

;-)

djp

[Marko Kocić]

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 10:45 PM, Simon Michael <si...@joyful.com> wrote:

It's an interesting topic. I'm brainstorming because of what I've seen with other projects.

We don't want to squash or miss important ideas and creative energy. But do we really help ourselves by curating an ever-growing database of wishes (enhancement requests, design thoughts) that outpace the project's development velocity ? That can potentially distract, cost resources, and create a sense of stagnation.

I think when the number of wishes to be gathered and organized is high relative to bugs and development velocity, it becomes more important to have a tracking process that is sufficiently nimble and keeps wishes from obscuring bugs.

So what's best for hledger at this stage ?

Since you are the only maintainer right now, the only reasonable answer is what's working for you best. However, if the goal is to try to attract more people to take an active role, then I guess that the way to go is the way of least friction.

- org outline ? I track my own wishes (currently about 200) in the NOTES.org file, which is cheap but won't work well for all of us.

I like org mode too, but there's no easy way to edit it on the web. Updating it would require commit access to the repo.

- mail list ? I hear the linux kernel tracks all issues on their mail list. You can imagine doing this with wishes, perhaps with a curator posting a weekly list. This method has the lowest barrier to entry and quickest feedback for submitters.

Mail list is only a good entry point for bugs/features, but it still needs to end up in bug tracker in order to be accessible, so, why the extra effort.

 

- trello ? Trello is really good at organizing and visualizing lists. https://trello.com/board/hledger/5127f6bb0698a36663002981 exists. Submitters need a trello account.

I wouldn't sign up for a random service just to report a bug in one project. I guess any developer already have google, github or bitbucket account, why create another one unless you are already a trello user?

 
 

- Google issue tracker (also very good) for all, replacing NOTES.org ? Submitters need a google account. Keeps bugs and wishes all in one place.

Might work.
 

- Google issue tracker for community-submitted wishes, continuing the status quo ? Perhaps refining the setup to keep bugs more visible, and the submit form to encourage mail list discussion ?

- something else ? Strange ideas are fine, part of the fun is finding new ways to do things.

As I said, removing friction would probably be the way to go in order to try to attract more devs and users, but only if it doesn't create more friction to you, current sole developer. That means going mainstream, if not in implementation language, than in project infrastructure. Though darcs was the first DVCS and I stubbornly used it just out of habit, seems like everyone now is using git, and consider darcs an esoteric options. Switching to something like google code, github or bitbucket, which all provide a kind of issue tracker, wiki and git hosting may be the way to go.

Just my 2c.

Cheers,
Marko

[Simon Michael]

On Mar 25, 2013, at 2:21 AM, Marko Kocić wrote:
> As I said, removing friction would probably be the way to go in order to try to attract more devs and users, but only if it doesn't create more friction to you, current sole developer. That means going mainstream, if not in implementation language, than in project infrastructure. Though darcs was the first DVCS and I stubbornly used it just out of habit, seems like everyone now is using git, and consider darcs an esoteric options. Switching to something like google code, github or bitbucket, which all provide a kind of issue tracker, wiki and git hosting may be the way to go.

Ouch, github. I didn't think of it because I love darcs, but yes that's another option if we wanted to move the whole infrastructure. Submitters would require a github account. We would experience service outages from time to time.

(Micro poll: how many of you who post to this list would be more like to submit patches via git(hub) ? and how many via darcs(hub) ?
SM: darcs
)

[Marko Kocić]

MK: git, regardless if it is github or bitbucket. For personal projects I prefer bitbucket, but github is also fine and more popular. They both provied dvcs, issue tracker, wiki, and most developers have at least one account. 

Btw, for cloning a public repo you don't need an account on both github and bitbucket. You need an account if you want to have commit access. So, it can be used to track mainline and send patches to review, the same way as it is now.

Another question is wheather we should have separate developers and users mailing list? Is discussion about development, discussing and reviewing patches ok for this list, or should be taken using mail?

Cheers,

Marko

)

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[Simon Michael]

On Mar 25, 2013, at 1:02 PM, Marko Kocić wrote:
> Another question is wheather we should have separate developers and users mailing list? Is discussion about development, discussing and reviewing patches ok for this list, or should be taken using mail?

This one is easy: a single mail list is plenty, at least for the moment. Everything from the most basic beginner questions to the noisiest developer traffic is welcome. Even bug tracker traffic, though I've discovered there's a checkbox for sending email when you update an issue, so I try to remember to uncheck it when making trivial bug updates.