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Sync Things across multiple Macs via Dropbox
Authored by: tempel on Dec 02, '10 09:44:40AM

While Things is indeed a nice and well working Todo manager with support for iOS devices, Dropbox use with it is actually rather alarmingly dangerous:

Things does not notice when its database file got modified by another Things app, which happens both with Dropbox as described by the hint giver and when trying to share it over the network.

This leads to conflicts when the Things db is edited on two computers at quasi the same time.

Even worse, the following can also go wrong: You use Things on one Mac, put that Mac to sleep, use the other Mac, launch Things, add a Todo item, quit Things. This updates the db, via dropbox. All appears fine. Now wake up the other Mac: if you forgot to quit the Things app on this Mac before leaving it, you are now in trouble: That Things version still has the old db version in memory, and once you quit Things, it will overwrite your latest update without warning. Even though you did not even make any further updates to it since theb. Thus you lose the note you thought already being safely taken over.

I had asked the Things team to do something about this. The least they could do it to detect this conflict when saving over the previously updated db, and warn the user so that he knows something could be lost. But even this simple change to their app they didn't find necessary. I find it rather disappointing to see that a company shows so little concern and instead rather tells their users: We do not support this. your problem.

Hence, be warned to use Things on Dropbox, and get used to always quitting Things on all Macs before opening it on another Mac, or lose your changes without warning.

Edited on Dec 02, '10 09:45:42AM by tempel



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Sync Things across multiple Macs via Dropbox
Authored by: tempel on Dec 02, '10 09:50:03AM

Oh, and before someone responds that this is no problem because Dropbox does indeed detect such conflicts, preserving both versions of the DB files:
The problem is that you will then have two DB files, each containing a different set of Todo items. But these files are in a very cryptic format, making it close to impossible to merge the differences for the average user. It can be done, but it's a big pain. And if you don't notice this conflict immediately, it'll only get harder merging them later.

Edited on Dec 02, '10 09:51:08AM by tempel



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