Re: [Gramps-users] Gramps inside Dropbox

[Doug B. <dou...@gm...>]

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 11:18 AM, Peter Kidd <pj...@gm...> wrote:
> I know that various versions of this question have been asked and
> answered before, but (i) I don't fully understand the answers that
> have been given, and (ii) I think my needs are a little different from
> those of the people who asked previously.
>
> I know that some people want to use Gramps from a shared/networked
> location so that they can use a single Gramps database on different
> machines (e.g. laptop at the library, desktop at home). The usual
> response is that this is dangerous, because small differences in
> Gramps version or OS version can cause problems.

Yes, I think that is the only problem, in a nutshell.

> I would like to run Gramps from inside Dropbox for two rather
> different, but I think important, reasons:
>
> (i) Dropbox keeps multiple backups, going back 30 days, so if I
> realise (within a month) that I've done something dumb, or corrupted
> my database, I can roll back to one of the earlier versions.

Yes, backups of the database are important. But what is more important
(IMHO) is that you have backups of Gramps XML exports. You will always
be able to read those, but it is not guaranteed that you'll be able to
match the right DB software to read an old BSDDB database backup.

> (ii) Because I experiment with different software, and tinker in
> various ways to refine my system, I occasionally run into problems and
> decide to do a clean (re)install of the OS (I use Ubuntu, but have
> also experimented with Debian and Mint). I know that I can keep my
> /home folder intact from one OS version to the next, but sometimes I
> need to start afresh, and in these cases it would save me a lot of
> hassle if Gramps were not buried, hidden, inside the /home folder.
> There are other situations in which I might want to keep Gramps
> separate from the /home folder: for example, for a while I had a small
> but fast harddrive which I used just for the OS, and kept all my data
> on another, larger but slower HD.

You can move the Gramps database directory to wherever you would like
using the Preference -> Family Tree -> Family Tree Database path. You
can also change that on the command line, such as:

gramps --config=behavior.database-path:\"/path/to/database\"
or
gramps --config=behavior.database-path:DEFAULT

> So, can anyone tell me if I can move all the necessary files into
> Dropbox folder, and if so, in a newbie-friendly step-by-step way
> (suitable for adding to the wiki), how to do it?

cp -r /home/dblank/.gramps/grampsdb /home/dblank/Dropbox/
gramps --config=behavior.database-path:\"/home/dblank/Dropbox/grampsdb\"

That copies the grampsdb folder recursively, and then starts gramps
pointing to the new folder.

To revert back to the factory folder:

gramps --config=behavior.database-path:DEFAULT

> Thanks in advance,

Hope that helps,

-Doug

> Peter