Hello again Tarsnap users,

As promised in an earlier e-mail, Tarsnap GUI version 0.6 is out:

https://github.com/Tarsnap/tarsnap-gui/releases/tag/v0.6

I won't reproduce the verbatim Changelog here, but I do encourage you to go 
over it to get an idea of why you should update to this version:
https://github.com/Tarsnap/tarsnap-gui/blob/v0.6/CHANGELOG

In short, this release harnesses the feedback received following the previous 
release, adds a handful of new features as well as smaller overall improvements 
and fixes.

I'd like to get some attention and discussion towards a couple outstanding 
topics next.

1. First and foremost, the caveat. This release updates the Sqlite DB schema, 
as likely all future releases will until we reach some degree of feature 
completeness, and currently there is no code to update an existing DB instance 
to a new schema version. Therefore the v0.6 update won't play ball with the 
v0.5 version DB. Resolving this is a top priority for the next release. So in 
order to update to 0.6, which I strongly encourage you to do for many reasons 
listed here and in the Changelog, you have these options:
    a) Reset the app state via the "Settings -> Run Setup Wizard" before or 
after installing the new version;
    b) Just delete the Sqlite tarsnap.db file before running the new version. 
The db file is located in the same directory(system user app data) as the 
default generated key path. You can easily find it out by looking at the Help 
-> Console log output.
    Either of these actions will have the effect of FORGETTING ALL of your 
DEFINED JOBS (tarsnap archives aren't touched of course). In the hope that you 
haven't had the chance to create dozens of jobs yet, it should be easy to 
recreate from memory or otherwise, just make sure you reproduce the job names 
verbatim and upon an Archive pane refresh Tarsnap will reassign the existing 
archives with the 'Job_' prefix to the newly created jobs based on the job name.
    If by any chance you're already a heavy user with dozens of jobs defined ( 
kudos to you then :-) ), maybe it would be more comfortable for you to just 
wait for the next release. My apologies again for any inconvenience this might 
incur to any of you.

2. There's now a method for queueing automatic job backups via the --jobs. This 
is controlled by the "Include in scheduled backups" job option. Each job that 
has that option checked, will be backed up, in sequential order, upon execution 
of the application from the command line with the --jobs option. No UI is 
displayed for this. So queueing automatic job backups could be as simple as 
creating a cron task executing "/path/to/tarsnap-gui -j" at your own time 
intervals or cadence of course. Cron is just an example, you can use whatever 
platform or otherwise scheduler you like. More details into this have been 
outlined in my previous e-mail to the list. 
http://mail.tarsnap.com/tarsnap-users/msg01134.html

3. There's now both -h and -v arguments that could be used for integration into 
the Homebrew repository, Dave, can you please resubmit the recipe for 
inclusion? Let me know how it goes.

4. You can now cancel executing Tarsnap tasks by clicking on the rotating busy 
icon in the bottom right corner. Does any of you think it would be useful to 
also be able to clear the queued tasks too?

5. The file picker tree view now supports tristate checkboxes. It should be 
easier for you now to inspect defined Job file selections or make more complex 
ones without losing track of things. Detailed explanation here 
https://github.com/Tarsnap/tarsnap-gui/wiki/Ideas.

I hope this release is enticing enough for you to try it out. Please remember 
that the app is still considered beta, until otherwise announced. I encourage 
you to play with it and provide feedback be it either good or bad. I'm also 
welcome to new ideas or tarsnap options coverage requests.

Looking forward, for version 0.7 I plan to work on:

* The DB update mechanism mentioned above;
* Grab some basic account info from the Tarsnap website and display in Settings 
- Account;
* Maybe the persistent journal log? Should it include all operations or just 
backup operations? This is relevant for jobs backed up via -j too.
* Smaller additions like a setting to ignore system and/or dot files;
* Better tarsnap client error handling and recovery;

Best of luck,
Shinnok

 


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