VARS 6.1.0 has been released

[Brian Schlining]

VARS 6.1.0 can be downloaded from https://sourceforge.net/projects/vars/files/vars/VARS-6/. This release includes numerous enhancements as well as whole train-load of bug fixes. Some notable additions:

• Undo/redo
  
• Image measurement tool
  
• Resizable video playback window
  

This release is backwards compatible with all 6.x version databases. If you have an existing annotation database you can continue to use it with this release. As always, don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions.

Have a Merry Christmas and a joyous Winter Solstice.

Brian Schlining

[Brian Schlining]

Hi Pamela,

Hey, long time no see! Hope all is going well with you down in Hobart.

We are looking at VARS v6 and apparently will need to migrate our old

Oracle VARS tables to a new version. Can you please provide

information on this?

Yes. I've migrate both SQL Server and an Apache Derby from the old Castor schema to the new JPA schema. I don't have Oracle specific instructions, but I'll give you what I have. 

Step 1: Back up your database!!

Step 2: Download the latest version of VARS from https://sourceforge.net/projects/vars/files/

Step 3: Configure VARS to point at your Oracle database. You can find the directions for that at http://vars.sourceforge.net/Development/howto_postgresql.shtml under the Configuring VARS section . The directions are for Postgresql, so you'll to adjust the JDBC URL and Driver name for Oracle. 

Step 4: Verify that you can connect using VARS. To do this you can fire up a groovy shell (i.e. run VARS_HOME/bin/gsh). Inside, gsh run the following command:

    dao = new vars.ToolBox().toolBelt.annotationDAOFactory.newVideoArchiveSetDAO()

If the database is not configured correctly you will get an error that looks something like:

Internal Exception: java.sql.SQLNonTransientConnectionException: java.net.ConnectException : Error connecting to server localhost on port 1527 with message Connection refused.

Step 5: I've attached SQL code to alter the annotation tables named update-migrateSolsticeToEquinox1-anno.sql. You may need to translate it to Oracle's SQL dialect, then run it.

Step 6: Next run a Groovy script that does some database housekeeping. You may not NEED to run this but it shouldn't hurt. Again fire up a groovy shell (VARS_HOME/bin/gsh) and at the prompt run: new vars.migrations.CastorToJPAMigration().apply()

Step 7: Translate the files update-migrateSolsticeToEquinox2-anno.sql and update-migrateSolsticeToEquinox2-kb.sql to Oracle's SQL and run them.

Step 8: Increment all the 'nextid' values in the UniqueID table to something larger (e.g. … add a thousand to each row)

And that should do it. If you run into any issues let me know. Oh, one more thing. I added password encryption to VARS and I can't remember if the version you're running is using encyrpted passwords. If you get everything set up and users can't log in with their accounts there's 2 groovy scripts you can run. One is 'encrypt_passwords' which you can just run as VARS_HOME/bin/gsh encrypt_passwords. That will go and encrypt all the passwords in the database. The other is 'change_password', which you run as VARS_HOME/bin/gsh change_password <username> <newPassword>. That script can be used to change a users password to whatever they want.

p.s. I'll also sent you schema diagrams of our current database just in case I missed something. You can use that as a reference. As always, if you run into any head-scratchers don't hesitate to contact me.

Cheers and say Hi to everyone for me.

-- 

Brian Schlining 

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