Web-Based Tracks Keeps Your GTD System In Order
Windows/Mac/Linux: Tracks is a flexible, web-based Getting Things Done server app that installs easily on your system and keeps your work flow accessible anywhere.
We’ve featured BitNami before, as they have a slew of handy installers for a variety of server applications. Now they’ve taken the fantastic Getting Things Done tool Tracks and rolled their own installation package, making it a breeze to install. If you’ve come across Tracks before and been put off by all the things you’d need to install and configure, the BitNami installer removes the hassle. Although the installation is entirely automated, it does take a chunk of time—on our test machine it took a good 20 minutes to fully unpack and install. Not a big deal if, but worth noting.
Once installed, there is a brief setup where you create a user name and login and then you’re on your way. The interface is easy to use and very polished. A significant amount of thought has been put into making entering and managing your tasks as easy as possible. You see the attention to little details in things automatic text completion and suggested options that pop up when you click on text fields.
The interface is largely drag and drop allowing you to move actions and contexts—handy for organisng your contexts by frequency of use. Projects can be marked as active, hidden, or completed. The “hidden” markine is great for tucking a project away when you want to put it on the back-burner and declutter your lists. You can also hide contexts, which allows you to maintain a prolific someday/maybe list while keeping your main context list neat.
The built-in web server ensures you can access your tasks while away from your home terminal and you can even set up accounts for friends and family to manage their GTD flow off the same Tracks server. For more screenshots—admittedly our test-run screenshot isn’t as interesting as their well fleshed out action lists—and information check out the Tracks website. At the link below you’ll find one-click installers for Windows, Linux, and Mac. Thanks Josh!
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
First post.
YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS ! ! ! !!
(yes, it's a boring Saturday for me :(
BumpusWI
@BumpusWI: No, please don't let Engadget infect Lifehacker!
Paul Little
@BumpusWI: Crawl in a hole and die.
Perhaps that would be overly mean if it was merely "First." But no. You had to follow on from such inanity with a prolonged all capitals word and multiple exclamation marks. Really, you think that passes the quality threshold?
Anyway, BitNami. No sign of keyboard shortcuts which, after using Gmail for years, is a bit of a disappointment, but oh well.
If you'd prefer not to deal with hosting it yourself, you can sign up for an account and use it at www.morphexchange.com.
deusnoctum
You can also use Tracks as a hosted service on Morph Exchange - [www.morphexchange.com]
Kandy477
Just tried out tracks - it's amazing. If only it had permissions and assignment so that you could use it in a team environment. That or Basecamp would take on Tracks' more flexible way of dealing with tasks (tags, due dates, start dates) rather than trying to fit your way of working into their philosophy of how you SHOULD be working with tasks.
KittyKittyKitty
@TheFu: I forgot to mention, I'm a data privacy freak, so using someone else's servers where I don't have complete server control is just wrong.
TheFu
@TheFu: I forgot to mention, I'm a data privacy freak, so using someone else's servers where I don't have complete server control is just wrong.
TheFu
Too bad it is Ruby on Rails. That means you'll need 512MB of RAM just to run gems, even if you can fit the application into 256MB. Gems is broken due to poor memory management.
So, if you run your own servers, having 512MB of RAM is easy. If you are using external hosting, you'll want a VM with at least that amount - 1GB would be better. That means higher monthly costs.
I've been looking for a web-based GTD system. It will be tough for anything to replace the simple elegance that is my multi-tabbed spreadsheet. Autofilter rocks!
TheFu
Too bad it is Ruby on Rails. That means you'll need 512MB of RAM just to run gems, even if you can fit the application into 256MB. Gems is broken due to poor memory management.
So, if you run your own servers, having 512MB of RAM is easy. If you are using external hosting, you'll want a VM with at least that amount - 1GB would be better. That means higher monthly costs.
I've been looking for a web-based GTD system. It will be tough for anything to replace the simple elegance that is my multi-tabbed spreadsheet. Autofilter rocks!
TheFu
@Sam Healer: Jealous, eh?
BumpusWI
how it it any different from Vitalist?
@Nabeel - TPB Dudes FTW:
And that was supposed to be who's , not whose.
Oops.
@Nabeel - TPB Dudes FTW:
And that was supposed to be who's , not whose.
Oops.
@BumpusWI:
What's there about jealousy? This isn't a competition to see who posts first.
Go on, do it again. We'll see whose jealous when the editors ban you.
@BumpusWI:
What's there about jealousy? This isn't a competition to see who posts first.
Go on, do it again. We'll see whose jealous when the editors ban you.
For starters, Tracks is free. Vitalist is not, unless you only have five projects in your life.
copacetic1
For starters, Tracks is free. Vitalist is not, unless you only have five projects in your life.
copacetic1
@BumpusWI: "First" comments are not permitted.
@BumpusWI: "First" comments are not permitted.
Does anyone else have problems exporting? I cannot get the XML file to open correctly.
Also, exporting the CSV says
"Application error (Apache).
Change this error message for exceptions thrown outside of an action (like in Dispatcher setups or broken Ruby code) in public/500.html"
Thanks
Joe Vaughn
1.7 just came out of beta so I'm waiting 'til they put that stack out.
Scott Hamlet
@TheFu: Interesting. I've taken to using a multi-tabbed spreadsheet too. It works pretty well. Each tab is a project. I have a Perl script to pull things out of it if I want a summary.
For me, to do lists and calendars are fine, but the trick I need to master is keeping several projects in my attention and organized. One tab per project is a pretty good solution.
RelativeRon
@TheFu: Interesting. I've taken to using a multi-tabbed spreadsheet too. It works pretty well. Each tab is a project. I have a Perl script to pull things out of it if I want a summary.
For me, to do lists and calendars are fine, but the trick I need to master is keeping several projects in my attention and organized. One tab per project is a pretty good solution.
RelativeRon
When I first discovered Bitnami I was able to run this on a local VM (Ubuntu Server 8.10) with only 128MB of Ram without any noticeable trouble. Of course that was 1 user, but I'd think a small group of 3-5 concurrent users would be possible though admittedly not optimal.
Just got this on a quick redirect to morphxchange.
This is going to up my productivity a lot.
Thanks for the link, Jason. : D
Allan 'kaecy.us' Bowden-Smith
Just got this on a quick redirect to morphxchange.
This is going to up my productivity a lot.
Thanks for the link, Jason. : D
Allan 'kaecy.us' Bowden-Smith
For this, I prefer www.tracks.tra.in
anyone having trouble with the .ics of the tracks calendar? Just got it setup and can't seem to read the calendar into my GCal. Otherwise, very nice find LH!
This looks interesting - I will have to spend some time playing with this software - thanks LH.
However, it would be almost impossible to find a GTD program more effective to me than "Things" - especially how well it functions with the iphone...
First tenet of GTD philosophy requires quick and efficient "collection" wherever you are and thus portability and syncing are crucial.
Xibalba
@suedehead: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo......I resisted the urge to share but I knew the secret would get out anyhow. I love it too but every once in a while the server goes down. I would love to be able to sync between an online version and another on my home computer. I haven't quite got the logistics down yet.
Scott Hamlet
@[www.getontracks.org]
One problem was the author says set your web folder to yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com/tracks/public. Needs to be yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com/tracks-1.7/public, which also seemed to be created during the install.
Beyond that, the only difference between what is done here and what is contained within the instructions in Dreamhost support is setting up a sub-domain to do it in the first place, and substituting 'rake migrate' for 'rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production'.
It must be stressed that I have absolutely no idea what any of that means ;)
GFrench
@iamellis: or on your data-capable mobile phone.
Neil Chilson
@GFrench: You got it to work on dreamhost? Did you go with passenger or FastCGI? I am having a hell of a time getting this going on my Dreamhost domain.
Neil Chilson
@boardtc: You appear to be able to email todos to it, provided you have Tracks running on the same domain as your mail handler.
If that sounds wooly and ill-understood, it's because it is. Took me about four hours to persuade it to setup on my Dreamhost domain, genuinely couldn't tell you how I got it running in the end. How much more organised is this going to have to make me to recoup the time lost installing it?
Note: not implying the programme is weak, just pointing out that I am duff at this stuff, and playing with it is simply one more variant of the procrastination curse that GTD was supposed to help me rid myself of. Sigh.
GFrench
@Xibalba: Tracks has an iPhone friendly mobile interface that works well.
ridiz
The only problem with this is that it requires you be in one context... at your computer desk.hmm
iamellis
@KittyKittyKitty: No team options?! Well, yhanks for saving me time trying this out...
@Kandy477 - great tip re morph exchange. Wish one could email todo's to tracks...
@TheFu: Any chance you can share that spreadsheet? (A blank one of course... without your tasks in it). I keep trying to make one and invariably mess it up. I'm sure I'm not alone
QuonDawlers