Bukuserver settings/DB selection wrapper script

[LeXofLeviafan]

Recently I've put together a shell script to run bukuserver and switch between multiple databases (as I find it more convenient to have stuff partitioned… and also I'm not about to use my actual database for development 😅)

This script is especially convenient for development purposes, as in the development mode it allows to restart the script while retaining database choice.

Database switching happens on server restart, which can be triggered by stopping the server process manually (e.g. by pressing Ctrl+C), or by running the script with a --stop argument (which is useful when the main script instance is being run in daemon mode).

Note that the UI dialogs are implemented by invoking Zenity; so if you want to try it out on Windows you'll need both Bash (which can be installed with Git) and Zenity in PATH.

Environment variables (override defaults via CLI or by modifying the script):

• DEVMODE – non-empty value enables developer mode (rebuild on restart)
• BUKUSERVER – path to executable, or directory to run from source (default is the bukuserver executable from PATH)
• VENV – path to venv (default is relative to BUKUSERVER if in DEVMODE)
• BUKUSERVER_* – Web-UI startup settings (see Bukuserver docs)

The latter can be also set up in a config file (which can still be overridden via CLI), e.g.:

# ~/.local/share/buku/bukuserver.env
BUKUSERVER_THEME='slate'
BUKUSERVER_DISABLE_FAVICON=false
BUKUSERVER_OPEN_IN_NEW_TAB=true

Screenshots

Shown in DEVMODE (developer mode) when restarting the server

Shown on startup (unless no DB files were found):

Shown if no DB was selected (or none found):

Shown if new DB name is taken already:

Shown if DB name contains an invalid character (/):

[LeXofLeviafan]

@jarun we can probably include this script in the repo… Though it'd likely need to be adjusted for cross-platform paths first (I've only tried using it on Linux so far).

The "switching DBs" functionality is likely to become more relevant going forward, when/if I'll implement DB customization functionality (e.g. if/when we support custom record fields, it'd be more convenient to have a DB for games with Developer / Platforms fields and another DB for stuff like web-novels with reading progress like Chapter/Page Link, than to lump them all together in one DB).

[LeXofLeviafan]

And of course the Git shell also has many dependencies. I quote:

Git for Windows relies on MSYS2

So, an entire faux-Linux ecosystem. ;-)

Why omit the important part of the quote though? "…for components such as Bash and Perl"
I.e. it uses "Bash from MSYS2 packages", not "all of MSYS2 packages just to have Bash available" 😅

[dertuxmalwieder]

bash from MSYS2 packages is not a standalone application with no dependencies. ;-)

Anyway, we're losing track of the topic, it seems.

[LeXofLeviafan]

…Managed to whip up a rough Python equivalent

It's over 3 times as long but seems to work alright on Windows as well.
(…Had to implement the list dialog as it was missing, and since TkInter is an optional dependency I've added a no-GUI mode as well.)

If you're wondering about the BUKUSERVER_DEBUG thing, I've added it in #782 (it seemed like an appropriate thing to be enabled along with devmode).

[dertuxmalwieder]

return find_process('name="python.exe" or name="pythonw.exe"',
                        r'\b(bukuserver-script\.py|bukuserver[/\\]server\.py)"? run$')

Or python3.exe or python3.\d\d.exe, I guess. (Not on a Windows machine until tomorrow.)

[LeXofLeviafan]

...I've replaced it with a LIKE matcher (not sure if regex matching is even supported here); this should work for any exec name suffix.