Keeping track of weight

[Ashley Brown]

Hmmm, saving is still giving me problems. I make a bunch of changes, then wait. But the changes are not always applied when I later log in to the page. Plus I'm still getting the "Reading from geargrams.com…" message sticking around for ages.

Auto-saving is great if it works, but really annoying when it doesn't. Would prefer to have the option of clicking a button, or even just seeing some confirmation somewhere that changes have been saved. This is a bit of a critical bug for me, but I'm not sure whether you can reproduce it on your system. Occasionally I leave the page a few seconds after editing something, but even the changes I made 10-15 minutes earlier are gone when I come back. I'll try not leaving the page for a few minutes after editing anything to see whether this works.

Cheers, A

[Aaron Spjut]

I've been having issues with my isp and database all night.

Looks like better error reporting is needed so its known when things are not working.

Sorry for the frustration. I plan to have some time tomorrow night to work on this.

Thanks again for all your interest an feedback.

[Ashley Brown]

No problem. I'll leave it alone for a few days. Let me know when you want me to test it out again.

[Aaron Spjut]

Looks like the server is working again and I've added updates to help with this in the future.

I've added a "Saving…" status message that shows in the lower left when saving is going on.

Also, alerts should now show if there is a save error and the timeout is set to 20 seconds so there will be no more 15 minute waits.

[Randall Zrubek]

Thanks for the program Aaron, I greatly appreciate it. It works really well and I can't wait for the future improvements.

[Dean F.]

To add to your frustrations…

I'm using Firefox 3.0.10 on Ubuntu 8.04 and I get a blank window. Nothing at all.

EDIT:

Works fine in Firefox when I boot XP. Wow. Seems like a genuinely useful app, albeit to a very narrow subset of users- gramweenies. No more screwing around cutting and pasting in MS Excel or OOo Spreadsheet.

I'll be honest, though- finding so many apps that depend upon some innate Microsoft functionality (or whatever) annoys the h3ll out of me. This is, after all, how Microsoft tries to control the universe. :)

I do all my computing in Ubuntu nowadays, for many reasons. If someone isn't willing to make an app that isn't usable cross-platform then I rarely go out of my way to boot XP to accommodate them. And though it isn't applicable in this case I sure as h3ll don't give them my money. I use XP for exactly one purpose anymore- obscure games that I can't get to run in Wine.

I hope you get this thing running in Linux, Brother. It looks great! You MIGHT be one of the few who tempt me to boot XP. I'll do some soul-searching. But if you don't have an Ubuntu machine- for the love of Gawd its free! Load GRUB and partition a few gig for Ubuntu.

(Shameless ranting Ubuntu plug from a Linux convert could EASILY follow, but I will spare everyone.)

[Rod Lawlor]

Thanks Aaron,

I can't believe this has only been up for a couple of weeks.

Here's a couple of suggestions
Is it possible to CTRL click on multiple items and drag them into a gear list. I couldn't seem to get this to work on my Mac with Safari.

Also can I import (steal) someone else's list to populate mine? ie if I send mine to a friend, can he use that data to populate his list, if we share multiple duplicate items?

Thinking this through further, is there an option to import data from Excel, and maybe to offer a master list (wiki?) that users can contribute to?

Once again, great work. You seem to be attracting a decent Australian fanbase.

Regards, Rod

[Aaron Spjut]

You can now export a list in CSV (excel readable) format.
There is a little button at the bottom of the list with an window looking thing and an arrow on it. Click it to export.

Dean F : gramweenies rule! No Microsoft tech here. Only Adobe Flex and RoR.

Rod:
Multiple selection is on my list.
Importing is a great idea. I'll make it possible to import the same CSV file that is exported.
By master list you mean a big list of items that anyone can use?
Thats a good idea too. What about a search that could search all items that have been entered by everyone?

Thanks everyone for feedback and suggestions. Motivates me to keeping working on it :)

[Adam Hurst]

Aaron, nice work man!

I love this little program. I cant stop playing with it. I am also amazed at how fast you are working out the "issues" with it. Keep up the great work!

Adam

[Aaron Spjut]

Thanks Adam!

I have more features for you:

1. Multiple select is now possible (added a nice drag view as well)

2. There is now a report page ("report" button in lower right). This page has a pie graph and breaks everything up into categories.

[Marianne van Ginhoven]

Hello, I have just found out about your programme and I can say I like it very much, so I started to fill in the Gear Library with all my camping gear. Very busy weighing everything. There is one thing I would like to be able to do and that is: reorganising all categories b/c now I have various categories behind each other. If I add an item for let's say shelter, it's now at the bottom of the list and I would like to have all items in the category shelter together.
But for my upcoming week long trip it's marvellous. Thank you. Marianne

[Aaron Spjut]

Hi Marianne,
Try clicking on the column title"Category". This will sort all items by their category. You can sort by clicking on any of the other column titles.
Is this what you were looking for?

[Dean F.]

Hmm. Now when I try to fire it up on Firefox in Ubuntu, I get this:

Neither hotlink works.

But the REAL bummer is that I already have flashplugin-nonfree installed, so I'm not sure what's going on. Do you require a bleeding-edge Flash version or something? (Adobe is also really bad at 64-bit Linux support. A reason to avoid them, frankly- they remain beholden to the evil Micro$oft empire.)

[Aaron Spjut]

Ack, I forgot there is no flash 10 for linux. I am requiring flash 10 for some new file saving features. I'll see if I can disable the export features and put up a flash 9 version.

[Dean F.]

Well, I sort of found an answer here:

http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2007/12/31/why-cant-ubuntu-install-adobe-flash-player-anymore/

However, I followed the instructions and installed the package that they listed, but now I get this:

WTF? Seems like the same problem.

In case anyone is wondering, the link I posted above explains why I CAN'T just click the link in the error message- md5sum will always return an error and not install.

EDIT:

Well, this is proof that you should always read commands before you cut and paste them- this was another Flash 9 version. Thus, it obviously still won't work with your Flash 10 requirement.

Bummer.

[Aaron Spjut]

I was wrong about no flash 10. There is no flash 10 64 bit for linux yet.

will this help?
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-install-flash-player-10.html

[Aaron Spjut]

I've fixed a number of small issues and also added a url field to each item. The URL field is meant to point to information about the gear item (manufacture site, review …).

I also added the tutorial video to the login page so you can see what the app does before creating an account.

[Dick Beamish]

Works with Linux SUSE 11.1 and Firefox

[Dean F.]

> will this help?
> http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-install-flash-player-10.html

Nope. No joy. This plugin is, as you mentioned, not for 64-bit machines. I installed with –force-architecture (which sometimes works) but I still get the same error as my last screen-shot.

Bummer.

[Aaron Spjut]

You may be able to hit the swf url directly:
http://www.geargrams.com/GearGrams.swf

There is also a flash player alpha for 64-bit linux:
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

[Dean F.]

When I type in the swf url directly I get a message from my installer saying it needs to install GStreamer. (I'm not sure why.) So I did, but then when I try to run it it always tries to run in Totem and I get a 'general supporting library' error. I'm not enough of an ubergeek to figure that one out.

Likewise, I'm not sure I'm up to playing around with alpha releases.

I'll keep toying with this, though, and wait for a beta.

[Aaron Spjut]

try this:
http://www.geargrams.com/dean/

This branch has no flash 10 stuff (export to csv)

[Dean F.]

Well, I tried it and got that same second error screen I posted. But, I couldn't find the flash player when I checked about:plugins, so I reinstalled it. Now I keep getting this:

And, Aaron, don't kill yourself over this. I was really just indulging in token whining about the whole anti-Linux conspiracy thing. I'm sure that 99.99% of your target audience can use your site as is. (And even I can, if I boot XP.) Don't waste time trying to make me happy. I'm a happy guy. Really.

And, eventually a 64-bit Flash 10 plugin for Linux will come along…

EDIT:

Well, that was a temporary problem. Now I'm getting that second error screen I posted again. I now think that this is MY problem, not YOUR problem, though I'm not entirely sure how.

And, Y'know what? I STILL can't see the flash plugin when I check about:plugins. Totem lists that it can play flash video, but no Flash plugin. When I check Synaptic Package Manager, though, it says that flashplugin-nonfree is installed (as it did the last time, when I reinstalled it).

I've probably screwed this all up somehow, playing around with these plugins. I now keep getting error messages on other sites telling me I need a plugin, when I never did before.

More to follow…

[Dean F.]

Well, I broke down and tried the 64-bit Linux Flash 10 beta, and wonder of wonders… it works. Nothing exploded, caught fire, or dumped core.

But it STILL doesn't show up under about:plugins.

WTF?

Well, anyway Aaron, problem solved. It's still kind of asinine that Adobe hasn't gotten behind the Linux community very enthusiastically, but I guess I just had to muster enough intestinal fortitude to leave my comfort zone a bit.

EDIT:

I've played around with it a bit, and the biggest item on my wish list would be a way to get total weights separated out into 'pack weight' and 'worn/carried weight' and 'consumables', etc. Is that functionality present?

By the way, I've now officially bookmarked your page under the 'Backpacking' tab on my toolbar…

:)

[Aaron Spjut]

Awesome! Good to hear its working for you. I'll remove the flash 9 version.

There is a button in the lower right called "report" which will separate the items by category and give category weight totals. Is the is the feature you were looking for?
One of my next projects will be to make this view more readable.

Your probably my first bookmark, thanks :)

[Author]

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