CueKeeper

Copyright Thomas Leonard, 2020

CueKeeper is a web-based GTD system (a fancy TODO list) that runs entirely in your browser (the data is stored on your computer, in your browser).

Installation

Download the latest cuekeeper-bin zip from the releases list, e.g.

https://github.com/talex5/cuekeeper/releases/download/v0.4/cuekeeper-bin-0.4.zip

Extract it somewhere permanent (not your Downloads folder) and open the index.html file inside in a web browser. Most browsers will allow you to "pin" the tab so that it is always available. e.g. In Firefox, right-click on the browser tab and choose "Pin Tab" from the menu. The tab icon will go red when something becomes due.

Instructions for using CueKeeper can be found here:

http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2015/04/28/cuekeeper-gitting-things-done-in-the-browser/

Upgrading: You can just unpack the new archive over the old one and refresh the browser tab. If you just get a blank window, you probably have another CueKeeper tab open somewhere and will need to close that first so it can update the database schema to the latest version. If upgrading from versions earlier than 0.3, you will need to upgrade to version 0.3 first (it will prompt you to do this if needed).

Chromium note: If it says "The user denied permission to access the database." try turning off Block third-party cookies (I don't know why it thinks a local HTML file writing to a local database is a third-party cookie). Also, it seems that all file://... pages will see the same database on Chromium, whereas on Firefox each page gets its own one.

Backups

All data will be stored locally in your web browser, so make sure you're backing up your browser's data! Also, the data will be stored based on the location of the index.html file - if you move the cuekeeper directory, you will get a fresh database (and it will look as if your data has gone - don't panic!).

For example, I use Firefox on Linux. The data is stored at

~/.mozilla/firefox/XXX.default/storage/default/file++++home+user+cuekeeper+index.html/

Building (using Docker)

The easiest way to build CueKeeper is using Docker:

make docker-build

Then load test.html in a browser to test locally (no server required).

Building (without Docker)

You'll need the opam package manager. It should be available through your distribution, but you can use a generic opam binary if it's missing or too old (I use opam 2.0.4). Ensure you're using OCaml 4.07.1 (check with ocaml -version). If not, switch to that version:

opam switch create 4.07.1

Install the dependencies (-t includes the test dependencies too):

opam pin add -yn cuekeeper.dev .
opam depext -t cuekeeper
opam install --deps-only -t cuekeeper

Build:

make

Load test.html in a browser to test locally (no server required).

Note that this defaults to "dev" mode, where the Javascript generated will be very large (about 9 MB) and not optimised. To get a smaller file, use dune build --profile=release ./js/client.bc.js (should be about 980 KB).

Running a server

While test.html can be opened directly in a browser, as above, you can also build a server. This allows you to sync between devices (e.g. a laptop and mobile phone).

Warning: This is a work-in-progress:

• The server does not yet persist the data itself (the client sends the whole history the first time it connects after the service is restarted).
• You have to sync manually by clicking the Sync button - it does not send or fetch changes automatically.

First, generate an access token (a long random string that grants access to the server). The pwgen command is useful for this:

$ pwgen -s 32 1
dtXZ7fQfX52VsnJNk22J6uKy8JSn6klb

To avoid storing the secret in the server binary, generate its SHA256 hash:

$ echo -n dtXZ7fQfX52VsnJNk22J6uKy8JSn6klb | sha256sum
774400f3384a6f37cc2bc54b2fd0280193b613a5bc401c0e54fd17fe4ec19572

Copy the file server/devices.ml.example as server/devices.ml and add the hash you generated above, e.g.:

let lookup = function
  | "774400f3384a6f37cc2bc54b2fd0280193b613a5bc401c0e54fd17fe4ec19572" -> Some "Laptop"
  | _ -> None

The string at the end ("Laptop") is just used for logging. You can generate a different access token for each device you want to sync and list them all here, one per line. Make sure the None line comes last - this rejects all unknown tokens.

To build the server component:

opam pin mirage 3.7.3
make server

You will be prompted to create a self-signed X.509 certificate. Just enter your server's hostname as the "Common Name" (for testing, you could use "localhost" here and generate a proper one later).

To run the server:

./server/cuekeeper

By default the server listens on TCP port 8443, but this can be changed by editing server/unikernel.ml.

Open the URL in a browser, e.g.

https://localhost:8443/

You'll probably now get some scary-looking warning about the certificate not being trusted. To get rid of the warning, add your newly-generated server.pem as follows:

In Firefox:

1. Firefox will say "This Connection is Untrusted".
2. Expand the I Understand the Risks section.
3. Click Add Exception, then Confirm Security Exception (and "Permanently store this exception").

In Chrome:

1. It will say "Your connection is not private" (in fact, the opposite is true; if encryption wasn't being used it wouldn't have complained at all).
2. Go to Settings -> Show advanced settings.
3. Click the Manage certificates button (in the HTTPS/SSL section).
4. In the Authorities tab, click Import... and select your server/conf/server.pem file.
5. Select Trust this certificate for identifying websites.

Finally, you should be prompted for your access key. Paste in the token you generated above (e.g. dtXZ7fQfX52VsnJNk22J6uKy8JSn6klb in the example above - not the hash).

Deploying as a Xen VM

In fact, the server is a Mirage unikernel and can also be compiled and booted as a Xen virtual machine:

make server MIRAGE_FLAGS="-t xen"
cd server
xl create -c cuekeeper.xl

Bugs

Please any send questions or comments to the mirage mailing list:

http://lists.xenproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mirageos-devel

Bugs can be reported on the mailing list or as GitHub issues:

https://github.com/talex5/cuekeeper/issues

Conditions

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

This project includes Foundation (http://foundation.zurb.com). These files are released under the MIT license.

This project includes the Pikaday date picker (https://github.com/dbushell/Pikaday). These files are released under the BSD & MIT licenses.

This project includes FileSaver.js (https://github.com/eligrey/FileSaver.js), which is released under a permissive license.

Full details of all licenses can be found in the LICENSE file.