[Gramps-devel] Resolution on the integrity/portability issue

[Don A. <don...@co...>]

I have checked in what we've decided to be the final resolution to the
portability/integrity issue.

A brief summary: In 2.2, GRAMPS implements atomic transactions to ensure
data integrity. If you are running python 2.4 (which most systems are),
a bug in python prevents the .grdb file from being portable. So the
options are:

 1) Leave transactions enabled to protect data, and require people to=20
    export to a GRAMPS package to move the data to a different machine.

 2) Disable transactions, which puts data a risk, but allows
    portability.

The resolution is:

We have added an option in the preferences to allow the user to choose.
By default, transactions are enabled to protect data. If a database is
opened with transactions enabled, a dialog is displayed telling the user
that the database is not portable (you can disable this dialog).
Disabling transactions will allow for portability, but will slow down
access and may not protect the data in the case of a crash.

The decision to disable transactions must be done before the database is
created.