Org-sync: Synchronize Org-mode Files with Bug Tracking systems
CAUTION This package is under a heavy reconstration, please be patient. Feel free to contribute!
Org-sync is a tool to synchronize online bugtrackers with org documents. It is made for relatively small/medium projects: I find Org documents are not really suited for handling large bug lists.
Org-sync was developed during the Google Summer of Code 2012, the original project
page can be found on Worg:
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/gsoc2012/student-projects/org-sync/.
Installation
The ordinal way to install Org-sync is to issue the command:
M-x package-install RET org-sync RET
You could use the bleeding edge version from the repository:
git clone https://github.com/arbox/org-sync.git
Put the org-sync directory in your load-path and load the org-sync backend you
need. You can add this to your .emacs:
(add-to-list 'load-path "path/to/org-sync")
(mapc 'load
'("org-sync" "org-sync-bb" "org-sync-github" "org-sync-redmine"))Tutorial
After you have installed org-sync you need to import a working project.
First open a new org-mode buffer and run M-x org-sync-import. It prompts you
for an URL. You can try my Github test repo: github.com/arbox/org-sync-test.
Org-sync should import the issues from the repo.
Note: This is just a test repo, do not use it to report actual bugs.
Now, let's try to add a new issue. First you have to set a user/password to be able to modify the issue remotely.
Set the variable org-sync-github-auth to like so:
(setq org-sync-github-auth '("ostesting" . "thisisostesting42"))
Try to add another issue e.g. insert ** OPEN my test issue. You can
type a description under it if you want.
The next step is simple, just run M-x org-sync. It synchronizes all
the buglists in the document.
How to write a new backend
Writing a new backend is easy. If something is not clear, try to read
the header in org-sync.el or one of the existing backend.
;; backend symbol/name: demo
;; the symbol is used to find and call your backend functions (for now)
;; what kind of urls does you backend handle?
;; add it to org-sync-backend-alist in org-sync.el:
(defvar org-sync-backend-alist
'(("github.com/\\(?:repos/\\)?[^/]+/[^/]+" . org-sync-github-backend)
("bitbucket.org/[^/]+/[^/]+" . org-sync-bb-backend)
("demo.com" . org-sync-demo-backend)))
;; if you have already loaded org-sync.el, you'll have to add it
;; manually in that case just eval this in *scratch*
(add-to-list 'org-sync-backend-alist (cons "demo.com" 'org-sync-demo-backend))
;; now, in its own file org-sync-demo.el:
(require 'org-sync)
;; this is the variable used in org-sync-backend-alist
(defvar org-sync-demo-backend
'((base-url . org-sync-demo-base-url)
(fetch-buglist . org-sync-demo-fetch-buglist)
(send-buglist . org-sync-demo-send-buglist))
"Demo backend.")
;; this overrides org-sync--base-url.
;; the argument is the url the user gave.
;; it must return a cannonical version of the url that will be
;; available to your backend function in the org-sync-base-url variable.
;; In the github backend, it returns API base url
;; ie. https://api.github/reposa/<user>/<repo>
(defun org-sync-demo-base-url (url)
"Return proper URL."
"http://api.demo.com/foo")
;; this overrides org-sync--fetch-buglist
;; you can use the variable org-sync-base-url
(defun org-sync-demo-fetch-buglist (last-update)
"Fetch buglist from demo.com (anything that happened after LAST-UPDATE)"
;; a buglist is just a plist
`(:title "Stuff at demo.com"
:url ,org-sync-base-url
;; add a :since property set to last-update if you return
;; only the bugs updated since it. omit it or set it to
;; nil if you ignore last-update and fetch all the bugs of
;; the repo.
;; bugs contains a list of bugs
;; a bug is a plist too
:bugs ((:id 1 :title "Foo" :status open :desc "bar."))))
;; this overrides org-sync--send-buglist
(defun org-sync-demo-send-buglist (buglist)
"Send BUGLIST to demo.com and return updated buglist"
;; here you should loop over :bugs in buglist
(dolist (b (org-sync-get-prop :bugs buglist))
(cond
;; new bug (no id)
((null (org-sync-get-prop :id b)
'(do-stuff)))
;; delete bug
((org-sync-get-prop :delete b)
'(do-stuff))
;; else, modified bug
(t
'(do-stuff))))
;; return any bug that has changed (modification date, new bugs,
;; etc). they will overwrite/be added in the buglist in org-sync.el
;; we return the same thing for the demo.
;; :bugs is the only property used from this function in org-sync.el
`(:bugs ((:id 1 :title "Foo" :status open :desc "bar."))))That's it. A bug has to have at least an id, title and status properties.
Other recognized but optionnal properties are :date-deadline,
:date-creation, :date-modification, :desc. Any other properties are
automatically added in the PROPERTIES block of the bug via prin1-to-string
and are read back by org-sync. All the dates are regular emacs time object.
For more details you can look at the github backend in org-sync-github.el.
More information
You can find more in the org-sync.el commentary headers.