Status: June 28

Once again, a good day and great progress. I have one serious bug to be solved, otherwise looks good. For some reason, the main screen UI only shows one configuration details, even though it should show all that are parsed. Well, that isn't a blocker in this stage, I can just say that the first release doesn't support multiple configuration files.

In addition to fixing the bug, I should have only pretty straightforward and mechanic work and then make the first release.

Status: June 27

Today was another good day and the project progressed in all fronts. I worked on kdesu integration, internal logic and UI. Tomorrow I will work on main screen UI.

Status: June 26

Worked on internal data structures and was able to produce a clean solution. Now I have to work on the UI side and then make a first release to CVS.

Status: June 25

This was a very good day. I figured out the bug that was haunting me in the main screen widget. While debugging, I found that the whole widget was too complex and reimplemented it using standard widgets.

After that task was completed, I started backup-manager integration. I had some problems, but currently I'm able to backup my home folder using the tool :) Some values are still hard-coded in the source, but tomorrow I should be able to make good progress in the UI and internal logic.

Good news

I got my laptop back and all the source code files are now safe. So fortunately the project continues as planned. First version of main screen widget is implemented, but for some reason it does not work as expected. Tomorrow the first task is to get it working and after that maybe start the backend integration.

Bad news

A serious setback has happened. I was travelling back home on Saturday evening, when I was attacked by three young men. I tried to run away, but they catched me and managed to push me over to the ground. After being kicked in the head for a while, I was unable to defend my backpack, so they took it and ran away. Unfortunately my laptop was in my backpack, so I lost it.

The bad news is that all the source code for the project was in the laptop's hard drive, and no backups were made. This means that I have to reimplement everything that has been done to date. Of course as I have already designed the classes, reimplementing doesn't take too long, but I expect it to take at least a couple of days, maybe even the rest of the week.

So, the lessons learnt:

1. Always backup your important data on a safe medium.
2. Never carry your laptop around when not necessary.

P.S. The same group that attacked me was really berserk that night and assaulted somebody else in the exact same location during the same evening: See news article by Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish).

Status: June 14

Today I started the main screen widget. The implementation is not pretty and I'm not proud of it, but it will anyway have to be redone. The current implementation is only a prototype, which allows the software to be developed and tested.

Status: July 13

No updates for a couple of days. I've been working on the basic functionality. Currently there is a basic wizard, which is able to write a configuration file and open it, so the project is has progressed quite nicely.

One task that is still missing is the main screen widget. A preliminary version should be made soon.

Another (possible) problem that should be taken care of is that the data flow of the program should probably be properly designed. Currently the data flow changes all the time, which is most likely not a good thing.

Status: June 7

I reworked the parser, because I found a more elegant (?) solution. Still some work to do, but after that it should be fine for the rest of the project. So tomorrow I am going to finish the parser and if there is still time available, maybe do a prototype main screen widget?

Next week will be spent entirely on the user interface.

Status: June 6

I worked on the configuration file parser. Although it uses only pretty simple regexes, progress was incredibly slow and the task is not yet finished. The feature must be finished tomorrow or first iteration is at risk.

Status: June 5

As planned, I started to implement the tab-based window for editing existing configurations. I had a fair number of problems, but in the end managed to create what I had in mind. I also worked on the wizard classes, which are ready to be used as well.

For the current iteration, three tasks are yet to be done:

• Design and implement the user interface in detail. This one should not cause any problems, but may be time-consuming.
• Design and implement the main screen widget. This is likely a hard task. The implementation should therefore be incremental.
• Implement a parser to read configuration files.

I'll probably work tomorrow on the parser. There are still 8 working days left in the iteration, so the current situation is looking pretty good.

Off-topic: I am using git to manage the project source code internally, which works really well! Once there is something worth releasing, I can easily export a CVS commit.

Status: June 4

The second day of coding is completed. It was both a good and a bad day. I had planned to implement a wizard dialog, but in the morning I found out that such a class was added to QT API in version 4.3. Unfortunately, the documentation was not good and it took several hours just to get the example code working in my project.

After I figured out what the problem was, the development continued and the basis of the wizard classes have been coded.

To be done tomorrow: Finishing the wizard classes and implementing preliminary classes for editing existing configurations. The implementation uses tabs in UI and should be a straight-forward exercise in QT programming.

Status: June 1

The first day of coding is pretty much done. Much of the day was spent planning and reading documentation,

Achievements:

• The main screen class was started
• Preliminary plan of needed widgets made

Problems:

• Not any so far

To be done next:

• Main screen widget
• Wizard for creating a new backup task