Linux - partly off topic - searching for a new workflow

[Nicole]

Recently I changed from Windows to Linux.

I miss very helpful tools.

1)
One is called "Klebezettel NG" and old, outdated Windows software, which works like post-it. Double click at the tray icon shows a new one.

At the moment I use in Linux xpad, which needs 2 clicks to show a new one and it does not stay at top of all windows by itself. "Klebezettel" (= sticking sheets) was that comfortable to have running several windows and just write on what you need to save.

Do you have my "ideal" note-function for yourself in Linux? (if somebody likes to have Klebezettel for Windows, I can mail it. It may be not around any more. The nicest tool I found, and I searched a lot)

2)
The next is Personal Backup. Written by an computer scientist who originally wrote it - to save his Delphi programming code. You do not want to save all the stuff crawling in our developer directories. This software allows to save exactly what we need. Unfortunately it is for windows only. What do you use? (at the moment I give deja double or similar a try)

3)
How to get rid of the backup folder in Lazarus? There is never in it, what I have messed up.

4)
In Windows I have had a system of saving my complete environment. This will not work in Linux any more. Do you have any depository either offline or without login every day? What I would need is to name versions alike "red car start worked", "green image display worked"... sometimes I need such a singe pas-file 6 months later. It must be EASY. e.g. github overwhelmed me and the double-login I hate.

Thank you for sharing your everyday workflow.

5)
and, this is that old "Greenshot". It allows to take screenshots, how boring. Additionally it allows to define a name by parameters of the file which is saved. e.g. "Monday Morning, the 12th of April" and takes the screenshot to any software you tell it to open. You can work on in your favourite graphic software and the background cares, the date of the first image is saved.

6)
And I need a searching tool. At the moment I use Catfish and the Kitty seems to miss all. I had Agent Ransack, which is even better than Everything. But Windows only.

[Zvoni]

@ 1) TomBoy-NG by our very own dbannon
https://en.ubunlog.com/tomboy-ng-a-simple-note-taking-application-on-ubuntu/

@ 6) Search-Tool: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=373643
For the life of me i can't remember the name of the tool i use on my Manjaro-Machines
EDIT: Found it:SearchMonkey
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/searchmonkey

[Martin_fr]

3) Backups by Lazarus:

Tools > Options ==> Environment > Backup
There are 2 sections, both have "No backup file".

I would recommend to keep some, just because compile will save files, and may overwrite something.

2) Backup for projects

It may sound like overkill, but it is infinitely versatile: GIT.
(try a few GUI clients to find one you like)

When you create a new project,
- create a local git repo for it "git init"
- edit .git/info/exclude

Code: Text  [Select][+][-]

1. **/backup/*;[1-9]
2. **/lib/**
3. **/*.lps
4. **/*.o
5. **/*.ppu
6. **/*.or
7. **/*.res

- git add --all
- git commit -m 'first version'


You can commit every tiny change, even temporary => lots of rollback potential if things go south. (You can later learn to rebase and squash the micro commits into one big commit, or remove incorrect commits).

You can add a "remote" in a different folder on the same disk, or on a different disk (e.g. usb stick) on your system. Then you can regularly push and voila you have a backup

And you can get yourself an account with a githoster, and make online backups, if you want to. But you don't have to.

You can also use that git to sync your laptop and your PC, or between different virtual machines. That works either via shared folders, or with git daemon - running your own git server.

You can also keep "given up trial and error attempts" in some branch. So you still have them for reference...

The possibilities are endless...

You can even configure "external tools" in the IDE, to trigger git actions...



I recently somewhere read about a tool (based on git) called gitbuttler, that is supposed to track your diskchanges, and keep them all. Supposedly you can go back and forth to any version you ever had on disk.
I didn't try it, nor did I investigate it any further...

[paule32]

if it "old" Windows Software, you can let WINE a try.
WINE = Wine Is Not a Emulator
can run old Windows Software under Linux.

To start your tour, let PlayOnLinux a try.
This is a wrapper Software for WINE.

It comes with portable Software Installer for a wide range of Software.

As far as I know the Delphi Pedant on Linux was Kylix 3.
And Kylix was driven by/under WINE

[Nicole]

yes, this wine... I gave it a try already for a certain software. hm. Did not work. Not sure, if this was the fault of Wine or the software.

This "Sticky Note" (Klebezettel) and the Personal Backup... I am quite sure, they will not work: The first slips into the windows right side task bar and shows on top of the windows. The windows windows. I would nearly bet, it cannot work.

The Personal Backup uses the system of file-endings and user-directories of Windows. Is is married with Windows, I am afraid. I sent a mail to the developer. If it works, he will give me a hint. Maybe he even lets me have the source code. Then we can try it by ourselves. This backup is the best I ever have seen. If I cannot do it, somebody here can.

[paule32]

if you a Windows 95 Fan, there are a Project called ReactOS.

It is a Free and Open Source Project which will aim to run on older Computer machienes and simulate a Windows Operating System.

I followed it few years ago, so I can not tell you the current status of the Project.
I only know, that the display driver was a Standard Driver and as such the Display is a little bit slow.

But I was thinking to investigate some effort into the Project by makeing my own Display Driver with the support of VBE - also the extended graphics support (more colors, and more faster than Video Interrupt 12 - 16 Colors) - but that was only a mind experiment.

The fact, that I am a Windows Fan tends me to investigate more Time in such a Project.
Because new Windows Versions don't support my old Hardware - and I don't want to buy every year new.

[dbannon]

@ 1) TomBoy-NG by our very own dbannon
https://en.ubunlog.com/tomboy-ng-a-simple-note-taking-application-on-ubuntu/

https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy-ng

(Windows, Linux, Mac, and easy sync between them.)

Davo

[CM630]

5) Flameshot

if you a Windows 95 Fan, there are a Project called ReactOS.
...

Sadly, it never reached even 1 % of the support it deserved. There is a new release from March, maybe it is not completely dead, but rather in the state of Schumacher.

[paule32]

it was not in my intention to make a flame war or a face palm.
I am the opinion that each of us should use his/her own Operating System of choiche.

Each of them and us have advantages and disadvantages.

So, it makes no sense to propagate Linux, Windows, Mac or what ever.

[Thaddy]

Sadly, it never reached even 1 % of the support it deserved. There is a new release from March, maybe it is not completely dead, but rather in the state of Schumacher.

Not exactly. The last few years they have been coöperating the Wine project and because of that made huge strides.
In some countries it is even a state supported OS (everywhere ms can not be obtained legally).
There are more reactOS users than you think. And there is a lot of sponsorship for it by well known companies.
The fact that after 30 years or so there is not a formal stable release is just a joke. (maybe like fpc 4.0)
After all, Windows itself is a moving target.
And of course it runs Freepascal and Lazarus without flaws.

The beauty of reactOS is that when some Windows software is NOT running on it, it is - bold statement with few exceptions - guaranteed that the program was written using undocumented stuff or with a completely new API.
If you report that, it will get investigated and fixed.
But since Wine code - which is very stable and well maintained - is now integrated that does not happen a lot anymore.
I always have a couple of VM's that run it. And I know others do for the same reason.

[Warfley]

Do you have my "ideal" note-function for yourself in Linux? (if somebody likes to have Klebezettel for Windows, I can mail it. It may be not around any more. The nicest tool I found, and I searched a lot)

When it's about programming stuff I usually write TODOs into my code as comments, Lazarus has a TODOs functionality that scans your code after comments containing "TODO" and can neatly list them for you.

The next is Personal Backup. Written by an computer scientist who originally wrote it - to save his Delphi programming code. You do not want to save all the stuff crawling in our developer directories. This software allows to save exactly what we need. Unfortunately it is for windows only. What do you use? (at the moment I give deja double or similar a try)

Git with a gitignore. It not just backups your code but also versions it. There are other tools like svn or mercurial but git is pretty much the most common one. Takes a bit to get into tho, and there are no good GUI tools so you better get comfortable with the command line

How to get rid of the backup folder in Lazarus? There is never in it, what I have messed up.

You can deactivate backups in Lazarus, but if you are using git, you can clean your repository using "git clean -xdff" which will remove all files that are not tracked by git, so it will get rid of the backup folder, the compiled binaries and ppus, etc.

In Windows I have had a system of saving my complete environment. This will not work in Linux any more. Do you have any depository either offline or without login every day? What I would need is to name versions alike "red car start worked", "green image display worked"... sometimes I need such a singe pas-file 6 months later. It must be EASY. e.g. github overwhelmed me and the double-login I hate.

Yeah, git:

Code: Bash  [Select][+][-]

1. git commit -a -m "implemented feature xyz"

And I need a searching tool. At the moment I use Catfish and the Kitty seems to miss all. I had Agent Ransack, which is even better than Everything. But Windows only.

Grep and find:

Code: Bash  [Select][+][-]

1. egrep -ir "Text to search for" src

Will search all files in src for the text "Text to search for", it's case insensitive and allows for regular expressions.
If you want something from within Lazarus use Find in Files

[Martin_fr]

About TODO:

Some of my todo, are more like "someday that may need to be checked" notes. For those I use a combination of the "todo comment" and git.

I make a todo-comment. Then I git commit it into a branch (the name usually starts with todo/ ). I then return to my main branch, and don't bother about that new branch.

I can then periodically look at my branches starting with "todo/".
Once in a blue moon, I rebase those branches to keep them in sync with other changes.

The advantage is, that the note itself, is directly placed at the code to which it belongs.

About SEARCHING

git also allows you to search, when something was added or last changed. If you committed with a meaningful commit-message, then you that can help you finding out why something was implemented the way it is.

See "git blame"
As well as "git log -G filter" or "git log -S filter" (pickaxe)

[Nicole]

this sounds great, desireable.

My situation:
There is my code and overwhelming new things and information there.

On the other side there are a lot of things, which are called git. Gitlab, Github... I keep mixing them up. Logging in there I hate. It takes minutes, because it needs double check until it is working.

When I am logged in there, - I lose orientation. There are so many branches and options and menus. Usually I click at one and am lost somewhere I never wanted to go and do not find back.

To resume: Do you have a specific link to connect to a git? With no login every day? I think, 50 percent of my computer time is logging in somewhere. My Keepass has nearly 300 entries and many entries hold groups of passwords.

[Martin_fr]

"git" is just a command line utility.

"github"/"gitlab"/... are all just build around it.

To install git, you do something like (depends on the version of linux)

Code: Text  [Select][+][-]

1.     sudo apt install git

But before you do, just open a terminal, and type in "git" and see if it is there already.

Many distros have some sort of GUI "software" installer. That may not offer "git", because it only does GUI, but it may offer "kgit" or "gitgui" (one of the frontends), and then it should install git as dependency).
There are others: https://git-scm.com/downloads/guis


Again: "git" is a local program. git needs no server. git needs no web-service.

Look at my steps earlier to create a new git repo.
Also check our wiki, it has a few steps.


Mind you, git is extremely powerful. And while you can get the most basic steps
git init
git add
git commit
git log
git checkout // or better: git switch

and then later
git branch
git restore
git stash
git push  // git pull
....

You will keep discovering and learning. And you will make error are couple of times, and it can get rough.

1) Don't force git, when you have files that you haven't committed yet. You can make git overwrite them. (And you probably don't want that)
2) If you end up lost, ask other first, then try your own. (or backup the entire folder: .git and all files)

If you had a file committed, (so long as you don't play in the .git folder) then the file can be restored. Even if you can't see it, even if you think you deleted all references. git has an internal recycle bin, that keeps between 2 and 6 weeks of data. So files are there.
Except: if you had never committed them.

But then, the problem of overwriting files existed before git.

The first couple of month, when I wasn't sure, I copied the entire folder (files and .git) before doing something that I hadn't done before.

I know it sounds scary. But it is worth it. Really.

Once you done the basics, you can set up git, to mirror into a 2nd folder. Then even if you delete the .git in one folder, you still have it in the other.

[CM630]

For windows there are  TortoiseSVN and TortoiseGit, I could not find something so comfortable for Linux.