Tracker

Insallation

The first thing you want to do is install Tracker:

sudo gem install -y Tracker

Bootstrap the Database

After that, change directory to the root of your project. From here, you can bootstrap your database (this creates a .tracker_db file which contains your SQLite3 database):

trac bootstrap

Like a Rakefile, Tracker will look for a .tracker_db file in the current directory or any parent directories. So you're free to use trac commands anywhere inside your project.

Creating and Listing Tickets

Tickets in Tracker are simple - all you need is a message:

trac create -m "Bug in IE6, transparency issue"
trac create -m "Bug in IE7, should we just tell the client to download Firefox?"

Now you can list tickets, which shows summaries of each ticket's messages (up to 65 characters).

trac list
> #1:    Bug in IE6, transparency issue
> #2:    Bug in IE7, should we just tell the client to download Firefox?...

Adding Comments and Showing Details

When you start working on a ticket, you might want to add comments on what progress has been made. You can do this with the add command and giving it the ID of a ticket:

trac add 2 -m "I notified the client that the staging site has issues in IE7.  They downloaded Firefox to use temporarily."

To see a full description of a ticket (including its comments and keywords) use the show command:

trac show 2
> Ticket:     #2
> Messages: - 23 May 23:13
>  * - Bug in IE7, should we just tell the client to download Firefox?
>  1 - I notified the client that the staging site has issues in IE7.  They downloaded Firefox to use temporarily.

If you ever want to remove a comment, you can use the remove command and pass it a ticket ID along the comment's position.

trac remove 2 --position 1

Opening and Closing Tickets

You can open or close tickets using the open or close commands.

trac close 2

By default, listing tickets will only show open tickets. To list all closed tickets, use the --closed option:

trac list --closed

Searching and Keywords

Tickets also have the keywords field, which can be used for tagging or setting milestones. I like to use them for milestones. You can set the keyword of a ticket when creating it using the --keywords flag:

trac create -m "Implement user avatars" --keywords "version 1.0"

If a ticket already exists, you can update it to change the keyword or message.

trac update 1 -m "New message" --keywords "version 0.5"

Now, you can search for particular tickets using the search command. Searching will look through a ticket's main message and keywords:

trac search 1.0
> Ticket:     #3
> Keywords:   version 1.0
> Messages: - 23 May 23:19
> * - Implement user avatars

When all else fails...

If you're ever confused about what to use, use the --help flag.