Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks, TUAW Tips
TUAW Tips: Sync The Hit List on multiple machines with DropBox
One of the great torments of owning several computers is keeping all of your personal data in sync; having multiple copies of the same application speak the same jive. Take The Hit List, for example. I use this app on my MacBook Pro at work for organizing tasks and collecting thoughts like a virtual inbox to my brain. At the end of the day I need a way to get all the day's notes from my laptop into my home desktop, which also happens to be running THL as well. What to do?
The ideal solution is to get each machine sharing the same THL database file synced to the cloud, instead of a locally rooted file. Fortunately, there is an way to do just this, and all that is required is for each machine to be running Dropbox. By now all of you should be using this amazingly awesome free service for saving and sharing data to the cloud. If you haven't yet opened an account, and downloaded and installed the Mac desktop client, go now. It's ok, I'll wait. Got it? Good, now let's do this.
First, you need to locate THL's main database file which can be found hiding in /Users/userprofile/Library/Application Support/The Hit List. Look for a file called The Hit List Library.thllibrary. Find it? Good, now simply drag this file to your Dropbox folder. Hold on, we're not quite done yet. Here's where the magic happens.
Hold down the option key while launching The Hit List. A dialog window will appear, asking what the hell you've just done with its library. Just select "Choose Library" and point it the file located in your Dropbox folder. You must repeat this part of the process on every machine running THL. That's it!
There is one small caveat. It's a good idea to always ensure that Dropbox has fully synced all of your local changes before loading THL on another machine, or else you risk losing your most recent data. Be wise to this and you'll have no troubles at all. You're welcome.
By the way, if you use Things rather than The Hit List for your task management, be sure to see our previous post about how to sync it using Dropbox as well.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
tabaks said 8:36AM on 10-19-2009
1. "userprofile" refers to user's home folder.
2. It is NOT that easy if you have some notes which do not exist in the database you're putting online, you'll have to add those manually
3. Poorly written piece, have you found it on German-speaking website?
Reply
Kent Pribbernow said 9:44AM on 10-19-2009
1. I would think that was obvious to anyone, hence my use of the generic term "userprofile" - which represents a variable. I might just as well have said "insertyournamehere".
2. Why would you save an older library which didn't contain all of your notes to Dropbox?
3. Please provide a link to your own piece, then call me. And your mom is a poorly translated German article, with grammatical errors.
tabaks said 9:55AM on 10-19-2009
Kent, if that is your real name, you do need to go back onto your mood control medicines.
Anthony said 8:41AM on 10-19-2009
There's currently a Dropbox feature request for specifying sync priorities, until then you might want to make sure you don't have THL/Things launching on boot, it could start before Dropbox is sync'd. I'm no expert but I'd be worried about which version of the file you would end up with after syncing. Thankfully, Dropbox has revisions so you can always roll back to the newer one, but it's something to be mindful of..
Reply
Shay said 9:30AM on 10-19-2009
absolutely agree with Anthony. Dont start The Hit List until Dropbox has synced otherwise you lose any updates made on other machines :( - I have first hand experience of this. Obviously this isnt a specific Hit List issue but a painful one nonetheless.
Markus said 9:39AM on 10-19-2009
THL stores everything in a package. Therefore it is painful to restore a previous version. I wouldn't go for it.
Anthony said 9:47AM on 10-19-2009
@Markus, I see. To avoid any similar issues with Things.app, I run an applescript on login that opens Dropbox first and then waits 2 min before opening Things... Sync priority would be a really nice way to fix this though, as would some sort of "after sync, do this.." with the option of launching an app.
Markus said 10:54AM on 10-19-2009
Yep, it would also help if Droppbox supports packages. Did I mention resource forks? ;-)
DanyG said 8:43AM on 10-19-2009
www.rememberthemilk.com
You don't have to sync... Is all web based...
There are many Iphone apps, desktop widgets, etc...
Reply
LD said 9:28AM on 10-19-2009
Yeah, who is creating local software in a web-based world that requires manual syncing as a kludge? Use a product that's inherently web-based or has a web backend.
Reply
Kent Pribbernow said 9:37AM on 10-19-2009
Applications that store their data locally in walled gardens are a dying breed, IMO. Storing libraries in the cloud or tied to some form of web service is becoming standard practice. We shouldn't need to jump through hoops to make our data portable.
Markus said 10:15AM on 10-19-2009
Sure looks like it would be a cool feature for these kinds of apps to allow for having several databases - one 'main' database that's written into, and any number of others that are read-only - then you could set each computer to have a different main database and be synced without possible data losses.
Reply
Markus said 10:54AM on 10-19-2009
...or simply to do it like OmniFocus using WebDav (MobileMe).
Janichsan said 1:34PM on 10-19-2009
Burns: "I really like the Dropbox."
Smithers: "I gathered, yeah..."
Seriously, guys: I hope Dropbox pays you for all the advertising you do for them. Or why is there a Dropbox related article *every* day?
Reply
Theo said 2:38PM on 10-19-2009
I was hoping the same. I think that Dropbox is a great service (I am a paying customer myself), however I agree that the sheer number of Dropbox articles are getting out of hand.
Rockey04 said 6:22PM on 10-19-2009
TUAW must really love DropBox (or get paid a lot by them)!
Rockey04 said 6:26PM on 10-19-2009
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=dropbox+site%3Atuaw.com
Reply
Josh said 6:31PM on 10-21-2009
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https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTIxODYxNDU5
Reply
Rockey04 said 7:21PM on 10-19-2009
Get yourself (and me) 256mb extra space when you use this link:
https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTIxODQ5NjA5
Thanks!
Reply
tknice said 11:06AM on 10-20-2009
My account still has a few referrals left for the extra 250 bonus:
https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTI0MTY5ODc5