Stalker Documentation

Travis-CI Build Status License Supported Python versions PyPI Version Wheel Support

About

Stalker is an Open Source Production Asset Management (ProdAM) Library designed specifically for Animation and VFX Studios but can be used for any kind of projects. Stalker is licensed under LGPL v3.

Features

Stalker has the following features:

  • Designed for Animation and VFX Studios.
  • Platform independent.
  • Default installation handles nearly all the asset and project management needs of an animation and vfx studio.
  • Customizable with configuration scripts.
  • Customizable object model (Stalker Object Model - SOM).
  • Uses TaskJuggler as the project planing and tracking backend.
  • Mainly developed for PostgreSQL in mind but SQLite3 is also supported.
  • Can be connected to all the major 3D animation packages like Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Fusion, Softimage, Blender etc. and any application that has a Python API. And with applications like Adobe Photoshop which does not have a direct Python API but supports win32com or comtypes.
  • Mainly developed for Python 3.0+ and Python 2.7 is fully supported.
  • Developed with TDD practices.

Stalker is build over these other OpenSource projects:

  • Python
  • SQLAlchemy and Alembic
  • Jinja2
  • TaskJuggler

Stalker as a library has no graphical UI, it is a python library that gives you the ability to build your pipeline on top of it. There are other python packages like the Open Source Pyramid Web Application Stalker Pyramid and the Open Source pipeline library Anima which has PyQt/PySide/PySide2 UIs for applications like Maya, Nuke, Houdini, Fusion, Photoshop etc.

Installation

Use:

pip install stalker

Examples

Let’s play with Stalker.

Initialize the database and fill with some default data:

from stalker import db
db.setup()
db.init()

Create a User:

from stalker.db.session import DBSession
from stalker import User
me = User(
    name='Erkan Ozgur Yilmaz',
    login='erkanozgur',
    email='my_email@gmail.com',
    password='secretpass'
)

# Save the user to database
DBSession.save(me)

Create a Repository for project files to be saved under:

from stalker import Repository
repo = Repository(
    name='Commercial Projects Repository',
    windows_path='Z:/Projects',
    linux_path='/mnt/Z/Projects',
    osx_path='/Volumes/Z/Projects'
)

Create a FilenameTemplate (to be used as file naming convention):

from stalker import FilenameTemplate

task_template = FilenameTemplate(
    name='Standard Task Filename Template',
    target_entity_type='Task',  # This is for files saved for Tasks
    path='{{project.repository.path}}/{{project.code}}/'
         '{%- for parent_task in parent_tasks -%}'
         '{{parent_task.nice_name}}/'
         '{%- endfor -%}',  # This is Jinja2 template code
    filename='{{version.nice_name}}_v{{"%03d"|format(version.version_number)}}'
)

Create a Structure that uses this template:

from stalker import Structure
standard_folder_structure = Structure(
    name='Standard Project Folder Structure',
    templates=[task_template],
    custom_template='{{project.code}}/References'  # If you need extra folders
)

Now create a Project that uses this structure and will be placed under the repository:

from stalker import Project
new_project = Project(
    name='Test Project',
    code='TP',
    structure=standard_folder_structure,
    repositories=[repo],  # if you have more than one repository you can do it
)

Define the project resolution:

from stalker import ImageFormat
hd1080 = ImageFormat(
    name='1080p',
    width=1920,
    height=1080
)

Set the project resolution:

new_project.image_format = hd1080

# Save the project and all the other data it is connected to it
DBSession.save(new_project)

Create Assets, Shots and other Tasks:

from stalker import Task, Asset, Shot, Type

# define Character asset type
char_type = Type(name='Character', code='CHAR', target_entity_type='Asset')

character1 = Asset(
    name='Character 1',
    code='CHAR1',
    type=char_type,
    project=new_project
)

# Save the Asset
DBSession.save(character1)

model = Task(
    name='Model',
    parent=character1
)

rigging = Task(
    name='Rig',
    parent=character1,
    depends=[model],  # For project management, define that Rig can not start
                      # before Model ends.
)

# Save the new tasks
DBSession.save([model, rigging])

# A shot and some tasks for it
shot = Shot(
    name='SH001',
    code='SH001',
    project=new_project
)

# Save the Shot
DBSession.save(shot)

animation = Task(
    name='Animation',
    parent=shot,
)

lighting = Task(
    name='Lighting',
    parent=shot,
    depends=[animation], # Lighting can not start before Animation ends,
    schedule_timing=1,
    schedule_unit='d',  # The task expected to take 1 day to complete
    resources=[me]
)
DBSession.save([animation, lighting])

Let’s create versions for the Animation task.

from stalker import Version

new_version = Version(task=animation)
new_version.update_paths()  # to render the naming convention template
new_version.extension = '.ma'  # let's say that we have created under Maya

Let’s check how the version path is rendered:

assert new_version.absolute_full_path == \
    "Z:/Projects/TP/SH001/Animation/SH001_Animation_Main_v001.ma"
assert new_version.version_number == 1

Create a new version and check that the version number increased automatically:

new_version2 = Version(task=animation)
new_version2.update_paths()  # to render the naming convention template
new_version2.extension = '.ma'  # let's say that we have created under Maya

assert new_version2.version_number == 2

See more detailed example in API Tutorial.

Table of Contents

Travis-CI Build Status License Supported Python versions PyPI Version Wheel Support

About

Stalker is an Open Source Production Asset Management (ProdAM) Library designed specifically for Animation and VFX Studios but can be used for any kind of projects. Stalker is licensed under LGPL v3.

Features

Stalker has the following features:

  • Designed for Animation and VFX Studios.
  • Platform independent.
  • Default installation handles nearly all the asset and project management needs of an animation and vfx studio.
  • Customizable with configuration scripts.
  • Customizable object model (Stalker Object Model - SOM).
  • Uses TaskJuggler as the project planing and tracking backend.
  • Mainly developed for PostgreSQL in mind but SQLite3 is also supported.
  • Can be connected to all the major 3D animation packages like Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Fusion, Softimage, Blender etc. and any application that has a Python API. And with applications like Adobe Photoshop which does not have a direct Python API but supports win32com or comtypes.
  • Mainly developed for Python 3.0+ and Python 2.7 is fully supported.
  • Developed with TDD practices.

Stalker is build over these other OpenSource projects:

  • Python
  • SQLAlchemy and Alembic
  • Jinja2
  • TaskJuggler

Stalker as a library has no graphical UI, it is a python library that gives you the ability to build your pipeline on top of it. There are other python packages like the Open Source Pyramid Web Application Stalker Pyramid and the Open Source pipeline library Anima which has PyQt/PySide/PySide2 UIs for applications like Maya, Nuke, Houdini, Fusion, Photoshop etc.

Installation

Use:

pip install stalker

Examples

Let’s play with Stalker.

Initialize the database and fill with some default data:

from stalker import db
db.setup()
db.init()

Create a User:

from stalker.db.session import DBSession
from stalker import User
me = User(
    name='Erkan Ozgur Yilmaz',
    login='erkanozgur',
    email='my_email@gmail.com',
    password='secretpass'
)

# Save the user to database
DBSession.save(me)

Create a Repository for project files to be saved under:

from stalker import Repository
repo = Repository(
    name='Commercial Projects Repository',
    windows_path='Z:/Projects',
    linux_path='/mnt/Z/Projects',
    osx_path='/Volumes/Z/Projects'
)

Create a FilenameTemplate (to be used as file naming convention):

from stalker import FilenameTemplate

task_template = FilenameTemplate(
    name='Standard Task Filename Template',
    target_entity_type='Task',  # This is for files saved for Tasks
    path='{{project.repository.path}}/{{project.code}}/'
         '{%- for parent_task in parent_tasks -%}'
         '{{parent_task.nice_name}}/'
         '{%- endfor -%}',  # This is Jinja2 template code
    filename='{{version.nice_name}}_v{{"%03d"|format(version.version_number)}}'
)

Create a Structure that uses this template:

from stalker import Structure
standard_folder_structure = Structure(
    name='Standard Project Folder Structure',
    templates=[task_template],
    custom_template='{{project.code}}/References'  # If you need extra folders
)

Now create a Project that uses this structure and will be placed under the repository:

from stalker import Project
new_project = Project(
    name='Test Project',
    code='TP',
    structure=standard_folder_structure,
    repositories=[repo],  # if you have more than one repository you can do it
)

Define the project resolution:

from stalker import ImageFormat
hd1080 = ImageFormat(
    name='1080p',
    width=1920,
    height=1080
)

Set the project resolution:

new_project.image_format = hd1080

# Save the project and all the other data it is connected to it
DBSession.save(new_project)

Create Assets, Shots and other Tasks:

from stalker import Task, Asset, Shot, Type

# define Character asset type
char_type = Type(name='Character', code='CHAR', target_entity_type='Asset')

character1 = Asset(
    name='Character 1',
    code='CHAR1',
    type=char_type,
    project=new_project
)

# Save the Asset
DBSession.save(character1)

model = Task(
    name='Model',
    parent=character1
)

rigging = Task(
    name='Rig',
    parent=character1,
    depends=[model],  # For project management, define that Rig can not start
                      # before Model ends.
)

# Save the new tasks
DBSession.save([model, rigging])

# A shot and some tasks for it
shot = Shot(
    name='SH001',
    code='SH001',
    project=new_project
)

# Save the Shot
DBSession.save(shot)

animation = Task(
    name='Animation',
    parent=shot,
)

lighting = Task(
    name='Lighting',
    parent=shot,
    depends=[animation], # Lighting can not start before Animation ends,
    schedule_timing=1,
    schedule_unit='d',  # The task expected to take 1 day to complete
    resources=[me]
)
DBSession.save([animation, lighting])

Let’s create versions for the Animation task.

from stalker import Version

new_version = Version(task=animation)
new_version.update_paths()  # to render the naming convention template
new_version.extension = '.ma'  # let's say that we have created under Maya

Let’s check how the version path is rendered:

assert new_version.absolute_full_path == \
    "Z:/Projects/TP/SH001/Animation/SH001_Animation_Main_v001.ma"
assert new_version.version_number == 1

Create a new version and check that the version number increased automatically:

new_version2 = Version(task=animation)
new_version2.update_paths()  # to render the naming convention template
new_version2.extension = '.ma'  # let's say that we have created under Maya

assert new_version2.version_number == 2

See more detailed example in API Tutorial.

Installation

How to Install Stalker

This document will help you install and run Stalker.

Install Python

Stalker is completely written with Python, so it requires Python. It currently works with Python version 2.6 and 2.7. So you first need to have Python installed in your system. On Linux and OSX there is a system wide Python already installed. For Windows, you need to download the Python installer suitable for your Windows operating system (32 or 64 bit) from Python.org

Install Stalker

The easiest way to install the latest version of Stalker along with all its dependencies is to use the setuptools. If your system doesn’t have setuptools (particularly Windows) you need to install setuptools by using ez_setup bootstrap script.

Installing setuptools with ez_setup:

These steps are generally needed just for Windows. Linux and OSX users can skip this part.

  1. download ez_setup.py

  2. run the following command in the command prompt/shell/terminal:

    python ez_setup
    
It will install or build the setuptools if there are no suitable installer for your operating system.
Installing Stalker (All OSes):

After installing the setuptools you can run the following command:

easy_install -U stalker

Now you have installed Stalker along with all its dependencies.

Checking the installation of Stalker

If everything went ok you should be able to import and check the version of Stalker by using the Python prompt like this:

>>> import stalker
>>> stalker.__version__
0.2.21

For developers

It is highly recommended to create a VirtualEnv specific for Stalker development. So to setup a virtualenv for Stalker:

virtualenv --no-site-packages stalker

Then clone the repository (you need git to do that):

cd stalker
git clone https://github.com/eoyilmaz/stalker.git stalker

And then to setup the virtual environment for development:

cd stalker
../bin/python setup.py develop

This command should install any dependent package to the virtual environment.

Installing a Database

Stalker uses a database to store all the data. The only database backend that doesn’t require any extra installation is SQLite3. You can setup Stalker to run with an SQLite3 database. But it is much suitable to have a dedicated database server in your studio. And it is recommended to use the same kind of database backend both in development and production to reduce any compatibility problems and any migration headaches.

Although Stalker is mainly tested and developed on SQLite3, the developers of Stalker are using it in a studio environment where the main database is PosgreSQL, and it is the recommended database for any application based on Stalker. But, testing and using Stalker in any other database is encouraged.

See the SQLAlchemy documentation for supported databases.

API Tutorial

Introduction

Using Stalker along with Python is all about interacting with a database by using the Stalker Object Model (SOM). Stalker uses the powerful SQLAlchemy ORM.

This tutorial section let you familiarise with the Stalker Python API and Stalker Object Model (SOM). If you used SQLAlchemy before you will feel at home and if you aren’t you will see that it is fun dealing with databases with SOM.

Part I - Basics

Lets say that we just installed Stalker (as you are right now) and want to use Stalker in our first project.

The first thing we are going to learn about is how to connect to the database so we can enter information about our studio and the projects.

We are going to use a helper script to connect to the default database. Use the following command to connect to the database:

from stalker import db
db.setup({"sqlalchemy.url": "sqlite:///"})

This will create an in-memory SQLite3 database, which is useless other than testing purposes. To be able to get more out of Stalker we should give a proper database information. The most basic setup is to use a file based SQLite3 database:

db.setup({"sqlalchemy.url": "sqlite:///C:/studio.db"}) # assumed Windows

or:

db.setup({"sqlalchemy.url": "sqlite:////home/ozgur/studio.db"}) # under linux or osx

Note

Although with Stalker v0.2.18 the SQLite3 support is dropped, Stalker can still work with an SQLite3 database. But the suggested database backend is PostgreSQL (preferably PostgreSQL 9.5).

Then if this is the first time you are connecting to the database, then you should initialize the database to create some default data:

db.init()

This will create some very important default data required for Stalker to work properly. Although it will not break anything to call db.init() multiple times it is needed only once (so you don’t need to call it again when you close your python shell and open up a new and fresh one).

Lets continue by creating a Studio for our self:

from stalker import Studio
my_studio = Studio(
    name='My Great Studio'
)

For now don’t care what a Studio is about. It will be explained later on this tutorial.

Lets continue by creating a User for ourselves in the database. The first thing we need to do is to import the User class in to the current namespace:

from stalker import User

then create the User object:

me = User(
    name="Erkan Ozgur Yilmaz",
    login="eoyilmaz",
    email="some_email_address@gmail.com",
    password="secret",
    description="This is me"
)

Now we have just created a user which represents us.

Lets create a new Department to define your department:

from stalker import Department
tds_department = Department(
    name="TDs",
    description="This is the TDs department"
)

Now add your user to the department:

tds_department.users.append(me)

or we can do it by using the User instance:

me.departments.append(tds_department)

Even if you didn’t do the latter, when you run:

print(me.departments)
# you should get something like
# [<TDs (Department)>]

We have successfully created a User and a Department and we assigned the user as one of the member of the TDs Department.

Because we didn’t tell Stalker to commit the changes, no data has been saved to the database yet. So lets send it the data to the database:

from stalker.db.session import DBSession
DBSession.add(my_studio)
DBSession.add(me)
DBSession.add(tds_department)
DBSession.commit()

As you see we have used the DBSession object to send (commit) the data to the database. These information are stored in the database right now.

Lets try to get something back from the database by querying all the departments, then getting the second one (the first department is always the “admins” which is created by default) and getting its first members name:

all_departments = Department.query.all()
print(all_departments)
# This should print something like
# [<admins (Department)>, <TDs (Department)>]
# "admins" department is created by default

admins = all_departments[0]
tds = all_departments[1]

all_users = tds.users  # Department.users is a synonym for Department.members
                       # they are essentially the same attribute
print(all_users[0])
# this should print
# <Erkan Ozgur Yilmaz ('eoyilmaz') (User)>

Part II/A - Creating Simple Data

Lets say that we have this new commercial project coming and you want to start using Stalker with it. So we need to create a Project object to hold data about it.

A project instance needs to have a suitable StatusList (see Statuses and Status Lists) and a Repository instance:

# we will reuse the Statuses created by default (in db.init())
from stalker import Status

status_new = Status.query.filter_by(code='NEW').first()
status_wip = Status.query.filter_by(code='WIP').first()
status_cmpl = Status.query.filter_by(code='CMPL').first()

Note

When the Stalker database is first initialized (with db.init()) a set of Statuses for Tasks, Assets, Shots, Sequences and Tickets are created along with a StatusList for each of the data types. Up to this point in the tutorial we have used those Statuses (new, wip and cmpl) that are created by default.

For now we have just created generic statuses. These Status instances can be used with any kind of statusable objects. The idea behind is to define the statuses only once, and use them in mixtures suitable for different type of objects. So you can define all the possible Statuses for your entities, then you can create a list of them for specific type of objects.

Lets create a StatusList suitable for Project instances:

# a status list which is suitable for Project instances
from stalker import StatusList, Project

project_statuses = StatusList(
    name="Project Status List",
    statuses=[
        status_new,
        status_wip,
        status_cmpl
    ],
    target_entity_type='Project'  # you can also use Project which is the
                                  # class itself
)

So we defined a status list which is suitable for Project instances. As you see we didn’t used all the generic Statuses in our project_statuses because for a Project object we thought that these statuses are enough.

And finally, the Repository. The Repository (or Repo if you like) is a path in our file server, where we place files and which is visible to all the workstations/render farmers:

from stalker import Repository

# and the repository itself
commercial_repo = Repository(
    name="Commercial Repository",
    code="CR"
)

New in version 0.2.24: Starting with Stalker version 0.2.24 Repository instances have stalker.models.repository.Repository.code attribute to help generating universal paths (both across OSes and different installations of Stalker).

Repository class will be explained in detail in upcoming sections.

So:

new_project = Project(
    name="Fancy Commercial",
    code='FC',
    status_list=project_statuses,
    repositories=[commercial_repo],
)

So we have created our project now.

Lets enter more information about this new project:

import tzlocal
import datetime
from stalker import ImageFormat

new_project.description = \
"""The commercial is about this fancy product. The
client want us to have a shiny look with their
product bla bla bla..."""

new_project.image_format = ImageFormat(
    name="HD 1080",
    width=1920,
    height=1080
)

new_project.fps = 25
local_tz = tzlocal.get_localzone()
new_project.end = datetime.datetime(2014, 5, 15, tzinfo=local_tz)
new_project.users.append(me)

Lets save all the new data to the database:

DBSession.add(new_project)
DBSession.commit()

As you see, even though we have created multiple objects (new_project, statuses, status lists etc.) we’ve just added the new_project object to the database, but don’t worry all the related objects will be added to the database.

Note

Starting with Stalker v0.2.18 all the datetime information needs to have timezone information (we’ve used the local timezone in the example).

A Project generally is group of Tasks that needs to be completed. A Task in Stalker is a type of entity where we define the total amount of effort need to be done (or the duration or the length of the task, see Task class documentation) to consider that Task as completed. All of the tasks (leaf tasks in fact, coming next) has resources which defines the Users who need to work on that task and complete it. These are all explained in Task class documentation.

For now you just need to now that Assets, Shots and Sequences in Stalker are derived from Task and they are in fact other type of Tasks or a specialized version of Tasks.

So lets create a Sequence:

from stalker import Sequence

seq1 = Sequence(
    name="Sequence 1",
    code="SEQ1",
    project=new_project,
)

And a Sequence generally has Shots:

from stalker import Shot

sh001 = Shot(
    name='SH001',
    code='SH001',
    project=new_project,
    sequences=[seq1]
)
sh002 = Shot(
    code='SH002',
    project=new_project,
    sequences=[seq1]
)
sh003 = Shot(
    code='SH003',
    project=new_project,
    sequences=[seq1]
)

send them to the database:

DBsession.add_all([sh001, sh002, sh003])
DBsession.commit()

Note

Even though, in this tutorial we have created Shots with one Sequence instance, it is not needed. You can create Shots without any Sequence instance needed.

For small projects like commercials, you may skip creating a Sequence at all.

For bigger projects, like feature films, it is a very good idea to use Sequences and then group the Shots under them.

But again, a Shot can be connected to multiple sequences, which is useful if your shot, let say, is a kind of flashback and you will use this shot again without changing it at all, then this feature becomes handy.

Part II/B - Querying, Updating and Deleting Data

So far we just created some simple data. What about updating them. Let say that we created a new shot with wrong info:

sh004 = Shot(
    code='SH004',
    project=new_project,
    sequences=[seq1]
)
DBSession.add(sh004)
DBSession.commit()

and you figured out that you have created and committed a wrong info and you want to correct it:

sh004.code = "SH005"
DBsession.commit()

later on lets say you wanted to get the shot back from database:

# first find the data
wrong_shot = Shot.query.filter_by(code="SH005").first()

# now update it
wrong_shot.code = "SH004"

# commit the changes to the database
DBsession.commit()

and let say that you decided to delete the data:

DBsession.delete(wrong_shot)
DBsession.commit()

If you don’t close your python session, your variable are still going to contain the data but they do not exist in the database anymore:

wrong_shot = Shot.query.filter_by(code="SH005").first()
print(wrong_shot)
# should print None

for more info about update and delete options (like cascades) in SQLAlchemy please see the SQLAlchemy documentation.

Part III - Pipeline

Up until now, we skipped a lot of stuff here to take little steps every time. Even tough we have created users, departments, projects, sequences and shots, Stalker still doesn’t know much about our studio. For example, it doesn’t have any information about the pipeline that we are following and what steps we do to complete those shots, thus to complete the project.

In Stalker, pipeline is managed by Tasks. So you create Tasks for Shots and then you can create dependencies between tasks.

So lets create a couple of tasks for one of the shots we have created before:

from stalker import Task

previs = Task(
    name="Previs",
    parent=sh001
)

matchmove = Task(
    name="Matchmove",
    parent=sh001
)

anim = Task(
    name="Animation",
    parent=sh001
)

lighting = Task(
    name="Lighting",
    parent=sh001
)

comp = Task(
    name="comp",
    parent=sh001
)

Now create the dependencies between them:

comp.depends = [lighting]
lighting.depends = [anim]
anim.depends = [previs, matchmove]

Stalker uses this dependency relation in scheduling these tasks. That is by appending “lighting” task as one of the dependencies of comp, Stalker now know that lighting should be completed to let the resource of the comp task start working. The “Task Scheduling” will be explained in detail later on in this tutorial.

Part IV - Task & Resource Management

Now we have a couple of Shots with couple of tasks inside it but we didn’t assign the tasks to anybody to let them complete this job.

Lets assign all this stuff to our self (for now :) ):

previs.resources = [me]
previs.schedule_timing = 10
previs.schedule_unit = 'd'

matchmove.resources = [me]
matchmove.schedule_timing = 2
matchmove.schedule_unit = 'd'

anim.resources = [me]
anim.schedule_timing = 5
anim.schedule_unit = 'd'

lighting.resources = [me]
lighting.schedule_timing = 3
lighting.schedule_unit = 'd'

comp.resources = [me]
comp.schedule_timing = 6
comp.schedule_unit = 'h'

Now Stalker knows the hierarchy of the tasks and how much effort is needed to complete this tasks. Stalker will use this information to solve the Scheduling problem, and will tell you when to start and complete this tasks.

Lets commit the changes again:

DBsession.commit()

If you noticed, this time we didn’t add anything to the session, cause we have added the sh001 in a previous commit, and because all the objects are attached to this shot object in some way, all the changes has been tracked and added to the database.

Part V - Scheduling

In previous sections of this tutorial we have created a Shot and then created a couple of Tasks to this shot and then assigned our self as the resource of these tasks.

Stalker knows enough about our little project now, but we don’t know where to start the project from. That is which task should we start from.

In Stalker, defining the start and end dates of a Task (also of an Asset, Shot and Sequence) is called “Scheduling”. Stalker, with the help of TaskJuggler, can solve this problem and define when the resource should work on a specific task.

Warning

You should have TaskJuggler installed in your system, and you should have configured your Stalker installation to be able to find the tj3 executable.

On a linux system this should be fairly straight forward, just install TaskJuggler and stalker will be able to use it.

But for other OSes, like OSX and Windows, you should create an environment variable called STALKER_PATH and then place a file called config.py inside the folder that this path is pointing at. And then add the following to this config.py:

tj_command = 'C:\\Path\\to\\tj3.exe'

The default value for tj_command config variable is /usr/local/bin/tj3, so if on a Linux or OSX system when you run:

which tj3

is returning this value (/usr/local/bin/tj3) you don’t need to setup anything.

So, lets schedule our project by using the Studio instance that we have created at the beginning of this tutorial:

from stalker import TaskJugglerScheduler

my_studio.scheduler = TaskJugglerScheduler()
my_studio.duration = datetime.timedelta(days=365)  # we are setting the
my_studio.schedule(scheduled_by=me)                # duration to 1 year just
                                                   # to be sure that TJ3
                                                   # will not complain
                                                   # about the project is not
                                                   # fitting in to the time
                                                   # frame.
DBsession.commit()  # to reflect the change

This should take a little while depending to your projects size (around 1-2 seconds for this tutorial, but around ~15 min for a project with 15000+ tasks).

When it is finished all of your tasks now have their computed_start and computed_end values filled with proper data. Now check the start and end values:

print(previs.computed_start)     # 2014-04-02 16:00:00
print(previs.computed_end)       # 2014-04-15 15:00:00

print(matchmove.computed_start)  # 2014-04-15 15:00:00
print(matchmove.computed_end)    # 2014-04-17 13:00:00

print(anim.computed_start)       # 2014-04-17 13:00:00
print(anim.computed_end)         # 2014-04-23 17:00:00

print(lighting.computed_start)   # 2014-04-23 17:00:00
print(lighting.computed_end)     # 2014-04-24 11:00:00

print(comp.computed_start)       # 2014-04-24 11:00:00
print(comp.computed_end)         # 2014-04-24 17:00:00

The dates are probably going to be different in your computer. But as you see Stalker has computed the start and end date values for each of the tasks. They are simply following one other, this is because we have entered only one resource for each of the task.

You should know that “Scheduling” is a huge concept and it is greatly explained in TaskJuggler documentation.

For a last thing you can check the to_tjp values of each data we have created for now, so try running:

print(my_studio.to_tjp)
print(me.to_tjp)
print(comp.to_tjp)
print(new_project.to_tjp)

If you are familiar with TaskJuggler, you should recognize the output of each to_tjp variable. So essentially Stalker is mapping all of its data to a TaskJuggler compatible string. A very small part of TaskJuggler directives are currently supported. But it is enough to schedule very complex projects with complex dependency relation and Task hierarchies. And with every new version of Stalker the supported TaskJuggler directives are expanded.

Part VI - Asset Management

Now we have created a lot of things but other then storing all the data in the database, we didn’t do much. Stalker still doesn’t have information about a lot of things. For example, it doesn’t know how to handle your asset versions (Version) namely it doesn’t know how to store your data that you are going to create while completing these tasks.

So what we need to define is a place in our file structure. It doesn’t need to be a network shared directory but if you are not working alone than it means that everyone needs to reach your data and the simplest way to do this is to place your files in a network share, there are other alternatives like storing your files locally and sharing your revisions with a Software Configuration Management (SCM) system, Stalker doesn’t support the latter right now.

We are going to see the first alternative, which uses a network share in our fileserver, and this network share is called a Repository in Stalker.

A repository is a file path, preferably a path which is mapped or mounted to the same path on every computer in your studio (also you can use autofs with an OpenLDAP server in which you can synchronize all off the mount points on all of your workstations and render slaves at once).

In Stalker, you can have several repositories, let say one for Commercials and another one for each big Movie projects.

You can define repositories and assign projects to those repositories.

We have already created a repository while creating our first project. But the repository has missing information. A Repository object shows the path that we create our projects into. Lets enter the paths for all the major operating systems:

commercial_repo.linux_path   = "/mnt/M/commercials"
commercial_repo.osx_path     = "/Volumes/M/commercials"
commercial_repo.windows_path = "M:/commercials"  # you can use reverse
                                                 # slashes (\\) if you want

And if you ask for the path to a repository object it will always give the correct answer according to your operating system:

print(commercial_repo.path)
# under Windows outputs:
# M:/commercials
#
# in Linux and variants:
# /mnt/M/commercials
#
# and in OSX:
# /Volumes/M/commercials

Note

Stalker always uses forward slashes no matter what operating system you are using. It is like that even if you define your paths with reverse slashes (\).

Assigning this repository to our project is not enough, Stalker still doesn’t know about the directory structure of this project. To explain the project structure to Stalker we use a Structure instance:

from stalker import Structure

commercial_project_structure = Structure(
    name="Commercial Projects Structure"
)

# now assign this structure to our project
new_project.structure = commercial_project_structure

New in version 0.2.13: Starting with Stalker version 0.2.13 Project instances can have multiple Repository instances attached. So you can create complex templates where you can for example store published versions on a different server/network share or you can setup so the outputs of a version (like the rendered files) are stored on a different server, and etc.

The following examples are updated in a simple way and examples showing the advantage of having multiple repositories will be added on later versions.

Now we have created a very simple structure instance, but we still need to create FilenameTemplate instances for Tasks which then will be used by the Version instances to generate a consistent and meaningful path and filename:

from stalker import FilenameTemplate

task_template = FilenameTemplate(
    name='Task Template for Commercials',
    target_entity_type='Task',
    path='$REPO{{project.repository.id}}/{{project.code}}/{%- for p in parent_tasks -%}{{p.nice_name}}/{%- endfor -%}',
    filename='{{version.nice_name}}_v{{"%03d"|format(version.version_number)}}'
)

# and append it to our project structure
commercial_project_structure.templates.append(task_template)

# commit to database
DBsession.commit()  # no need to add anything, project is already on db

By defining a FilenameTemplate instance we have essentially told Stalker how to store Version instances created for Task entities in our Repository.

The data entered both to the path and filename arguments are Jinja2 directives. The Version class knows how to render these templates while calculating its path and filename attributes.

Also, if you noticed we have used an environment variable “$REPO” along with the id of the first repository in the project “{{project.repository.id}}” (attention! project.repository always shows the first repository in the project), this is a new feature introduced with Stalker version 0.2.13. Stalker creates environment variables on runtime for each of the repository whenever a repository is created and inserted in to the DB or it will create environment variables for already existing repositories upon a successful database connection.

Lets create a Version instance for one of our tasks:

from stalker import Version

vers1 = Version(
    task=comp
)

# we need to update the paths
vers1.update_paths()

# check the path and filename
print(vers1.path)                # '$REPO33/FC/SH001/comp'
print(vers1.filename)            # 'SH001_comp_Main_v001'
print(vers1.full_path)           # '$REPO33/FC/SH001/comp/SH001_comp_Main_v001'

# now the absolute values, values with repository root
# because I'm running this code in a Linux laptop, my results are using the
# linux path of the repository
print(vers1.absolute_path)       # '/mnt/M/commercials/FC/SH001/comp'
print(vers1.absolute_full_path)  # '/mnt/M/commercials/FC/SH001/comp/SH001_comp_Main_v001'

# check the version_number
print(vers1.version_number)      # 1

# commit to database
DBsession.commit()

As you see, the Version instance magically knows where to place itself and what to use as the filename. Thanks to Stalker it is now easy to create version files where you don’t have weird file names (ex: ‘Shot1_comp_Final’, ‘Shot1_comp_Final_revised’, ‘Shot1_comp_Final_revised_Final’, ‘Shot1_comp_Final_revised_Final_real_final’ and the list goes on, we all know those filenames don’t we :) ).

With Stalker the filename and path always follows strict rules.

Also by using the Version.is_published attribute you can define which of the versions are usable and which are versions that you are still working on:

vers1.is_published = False  # I still work on this version, this is not a
                            # usable one

Lets create another version for the same task and see what happens:

# be sure that you've committed the previous version to the database
# to let Stalker now what number to give for the next version
vers2 = Version(task=comp)
vers2.update_paths()  # this call probably will disappear in next version of
                      # Stalker, so Stalker will automatically update the
                      # paths on Version.__init__()

print(vers2.version_number)  # 2
print(vers2.filename)        # 'SH001_comp_Main_v002'

# before creating a new version commit this one to db
DBsession.commit()

# now create a new version
vers3 = Version(task=comp)
vers3.update_paths()

print(vers3.version_number)  # 3
print(vers3.filename)        # 'SH001_comp_Main_v002'

Isn’t that nice, Stalker increments the version number automatically.

Also you can query all the versions of a specific task by:

# using pure Python
vers_from_python = comp.versions  # [<FC_SH001_comp_Main_v001 (Version)>,
                                  #  <FC_SH001_comp_Main_v002 (Version)>,
                                  #  <FC_SH001_comp_Main_v003 (Version)>]

# or using a query
vers_from_query = Version.query.filter_by(task=comp).all()

# again returns
# [<FC_SH001_comp_Main_v001 (Version)>,
#  <FC_SH001_comp_Main_v002 (Version)>,
#  <FC_SH001_comp_Main_v003 (Version)>]

assert vers_from_python == vers_from_query

Note

Stalker stores Version.path and Version.filename attributes in the database, so the values does not contain any OS specific path. It will only show the OS specific path on Version.absolute_path and on Version.absolute_full_path attributes by joining the Repository.path with the path values from database momentarily.

You can also setup your project structure to have default directories:

commercial_project_structure.custom_template = """
Temp
References
References/Movies
References/Images
"""

When the above template is executed each line will refer to a directory.

Part VII - Collaboration (not completed)

We came a lot from the start, but what is the use of an Production Asset Management System if we can not communicate with our colleagues.

In Stalker you can communicate with others in the system, by:

  • Leaving a Note to anything created in Stalker (except you can not create a Note to another Note and to a Tag).
  • Sending a Message directly to them or to a group of users. (Not implemented yet).
  • Anyone can create a Ticket for a Project.
  • You can create wiki Pages per Project.

Part VIII - Extending SOM (coming)

This part will be covered soon

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you have nearly learned a quarter of what Stalker supplies as a Python library.

Stalker is a very flexible and powerful Production Asset Management system. As of writing this tutorial it has been developed for the last 5 years (4 years with the only developer being yours truly and for another 1 year where his wife is also attended to the project) and it is currently been used in production of a feature movie.

But it is only a Python library so it doesn’t supply any graphical user interface.

There are other projects, namely Stalker Pyramid and Anima that is using Stalker in their back ends. Stalker Pyramid is an Pyramid based Web application and Anima is a pipeline library.

You can clone their repositories to see how PyQt4 and PySide UIs are created with Stalker (in Anima) and how it is used as the database model for a Web application in Stalker Pyramid.

Design

The design of Stalker is mentioned in the following sections.

Introduction

Stalker is an Open Source Production Asset Management Library. Although it is designed VFX and Animation studios in mind, its flexible Project Management muscles will allow it to be used in a wide variety of fields.

An Asset Management Systems’ duty is to hold the data which are created by the users of the system in an organised manner, and let them quickly reach and find their files. A Production Asset Management Systems’ duty is, in addition to the asset management systems’, also handle the production steps or tasks and allow the users of the system to collaborate. If more information about this subject is needed, there are great books about Digital Asset Management (DAM) Systems.

The usage of an asset management system in an animation/vfx studio is a must for the sake of the studio itself. Even the benefits of the system becomes silly to be mentioned when compared to the lack of even a simple system to organise stuff.

Every studio outside establishes and develops their own asset management system. Stalker will try to be the framework that these proprietary asset management systems will be build over. Thus reducing the work repeated on every big projects’ start.

Concepts

There are a couple of design concepts those needs to be clarified before any further explanation of Stalker.

Stalker on itself basically is the Model in an MTV system (where the Stalker Pyramid is the Template and View). So it defines the data and the interaction of the data with itself.

Because the idea behind Stalker was to build an open source library that any studio using it can build their own pipeline on top of it, it is designed to stay simple and solid at the same time. So the UI and other stuff is ripped off from the original Stalker package and moved to another Pyramid web application called Stalker Pyramid.

Stalker Object Model (SOM)

Stalker has a very robust object model, which is called Stalker Object Model or SOM. The idea behind SOM is to create a class hierarchy which is both usable right out of the box and also expandable by the studios’ developers. SOM is actually a little bit more complex than a basic possible model, it is designed in this way just to be able to create a simple pipeline to be able to build the system over it.

Lets look at how a simple studio works and try to create our asset management concepts around it.

An animation/vfx studios duty is to complete a Project. A project, generally is about to create a Sequence of Shots which are a series of images those at the end converts to a movie. So a sequence in general contains Shots. And Shots can use Assets. So basically to complete a project the studio should complete the shots and assets needed by those shots.

Furthermore all the Projects, Sequences, Shots or Assets are divided in to different Tasks those need to be done sequentially or in parallel to complete that project.

A Task relates to a work, a work is a quantity of time spent or going to be spend for that specific task. The time spent on the course of completion of a Task can be recorded with TimeLogs. TimeLogs show the total time spent by an artist for a certain Task. So it holds information about how much effort has been spent to complete a Task.

During the completion of the Task or at the end of the work a User creates Versions for that particular Task. Versions are the different incarnations or the progress of the resultant product, and it is connected to files in the fileserver or in Stalkers term the Repository.

All the names those shown in bold fonts are a class in SOM. and there are a series of other classes to accommodate the needs of a Studio.

The inheritance diagram of the classes in the SOM is shown below:

Inheritance Diagram

Stalker is a configurable and expandable and most importantly it is an open source system. All of these features allows the system to have a flexible structure.

There are two levels of expansion, the first level is the simplest one, by just adding different statuses, different types or these kind of things in which Stalker’s current design is ready to. This is explained in How To Customize Stalker.

The second level of expansion is achieved by expanding the SOM. Expanding the SOM includes creating new classes and database tables, and updating the old ones which are already coming with Stalker. These expansion schemes are further explained in How To Extend SOM.

Features
  1. Developed purely in Python (2.6 and over) using TDD (Test Driven Development) practices

  2. SQLAlchemy for the database back-end and ORM

  3. Uses Jinja2 as the template system for the file and folder naming convention, it is possible to use templates like:

    {repository.path}/{project.code}/Assets/{asset.type.name}/{asset.code}/ {asset.name}_{asset.type.name}_v{version.version_number}.{version.extension}

  4. File and folders and file sequences can be uploaded to the server as assets, and the server decides where to place the folder or file by using the template system.

  5. The event system gives full control for every CRUDL (create/insert, read, update, delete and list) by giving step like before insert, after insert call-backs.

  6. The messaging system allows the users collaborate efficiently.

  7. Has an embedded Ticket system.

  8. Uses TaskJuggler as the task management backend and supports basic Task attributes.

  9. Has a predefined workflow for task statuses called Task Status Workflow which manages the statuses of a Task during the project completion.

For usage examples see API Tutorial.

How To Customize Stalker

This part explains the customization of Stalker.

How To Extend SOM

This part explains how to extend Stalker Object Model or SOM.

Creating Data

There are some examples here, to create simple data.

Creating a Project

To create a Project, we need:

  1. A Repository
  2. A Structure object to define the file structure of the Project:
  3. FilenameTemplates for Task, Asset, Shot, Sequence types, to define the placement of the Versions created for them.
  4. An ImageFormat to define the output size of the project.
  5. A StatusList with enough Statuses that will define the desired Project Statuses. Stalker doesn’t have a Project Status Workflow, yet! so define yours.
  6. If desired we can also add a Type for the Project to distinguish commercials from Feature Film projects.
  7. We need to create a user as the lead for the project.

Here is the code:

from stalker import (db, Repository, Structure, FilenameTemplate, StatusList,
                     Status, Task, User)

# first setup the database connection (assuming that you have a config.py
# defined, so we do not need to supply a database address)
db.setup()

# initialize the database just for the first time
db.init()  # run this only for the first time, subsequent runs will not
           # create any errors, but it is unnecessary

# re-use Statuses NEW, WIP and CMPL from default statuses
status_new = Status.query.filter_by(code='NEW').first()
status_wip = Status.query.filter_by(code='WIP').first()
status_cmpl = Status.query.filter_by(code='CMPL').first()

# and create a new one
status_on_air = Status(name='On Air', code='OA')

# status list for project
project_status_list = StatusList(
    name='Project Statuses',
    target_entity_type='Project',
    statuses=[
        status_new,
        status_wip,
        status_cmpl,
        status_on_air
    ],
)

image_format_hd = ImageFormat(
    name="HD",
    width=1920,
    height=1080,
)

commercial_type = Type(
  name='Commercial',
  code='COMM',
  target_entity_type='Project'
)

repo = Repository(
    name='Commercials Repo',
    linux_path='/mnt/T/Commercials/',
    windows_path='T:/Commercials/',
    osx_path='/Volumes/T/Commercials/'
)

commercial_structure = Structure(
    name='Commercial Project Structure',
    code=''
)

lead = User(
    name='Erkan Ozgur Yilmaz',
    login='eoyilmaz',
    email='eoyilmaz@stalker.com',
    password='secret'
)

# lets create the Project
proj1 = Project(
    name='Test Project',
    code='TP',
    description="This is the first project",
    lead=lead,
    image_format=image_format_hd,
    fps=25,
    type=commercial_type,
    structure=commercial_structure,
    repository=repo,
    status_list=project_status_list,
    status=status_new
)

# just add the project to the database
from stalker.db.session import DBSession
DBSession.add(proj1)

# and commit the data to database
DBSession.commit()

It may seem too much for just creating a Project, but it is for the first time only. For a second project, we can use the previous Repository, Structure, Lead, StatusList etc.

Create a Task

Because we have a project now lets create a task for this project:

# connect to the database if you have not done yet
db.setup()

# create a new user as the resource for the task
resource1 = User(
    name='User1',
    login='user1',
    email='user@users.com',
    password='secret'
)

# now create the task
task1 = Task(
    name='Task1',
    description="This is our first Task, and it is about, creating "
                "something fancy",
    resources=[resource1],
    schedule_timing=1,
    schedule_unit='d',
    schedule_model='effort',
    project=proj1
)
# we do not need to supply a StatusList for the Task, statuses for tasks are
# created by default when we called db.init() in previous example

# add it to the database
DBSession.add(task1)

# and commit
DBSession.commit()

Now we have created a simple Task and assigned it to the resource1. Lets check the status of the Task:

print(task1.status)
# this should print something like <Ready To Start (RTS) (Status)>
# stating that our task is ready to start working on.

Configuring Stalker

To configure Stalker and make it fit to your Studios need you should use the config.py file as mentioned in next sections.

config.py File

Stalker uses the config.py to let one to customize the system config.

The config.py file is searched in a couple of places through the system:

  • under “~/.strc/” directory (not yet)
  • under “$STALKER_PATH”

The first path is a folder in the users home dir. The second one is a path defined by the STALKER_PATH environment variable.

Defining the config.py by using the environment variable gives the most customizable and consistent setup through the studio. You can set STALKER_PATH to a shared folder in your fileserver where all the users can access.

Because, config.py is a regular Python code which is executed by Stalker, you can do anything you were doing in a normal Python script. This is very handy (also dangerous!) if you have another source of information which is reachable by a Python script.

If there is no STALKER_PATH variable in your current environment or it is not showing an existing path or there is no config.py file the system will use the system defaults.

Config Variables

Variables which can be set in config.py are as follows:

actions

Actions for authorization system. These are used to create ACLs. Stalker uses CRUDL system. Default value is:

actions = ['Create', 'Read', 'Update', 'Delete', 'List'] #CRUDL
auto_create_admin

Tells Stalker to create an admin by default. Default value is:

auto_create_admin = True
admin_name

The default admin user name. Default value is:

admin_name = 'admin'
admin_login

The default admin login. Default value is:

admin_login = 'admin'
admin_password

The default admin password. Default value is:

admin_password = 'admin'
admin_email

The default email for admin user. Default value is:

admin_email = 'admin@admin.com'
admin_department_name

The default department name for admin. Default value is:

admin_department_name = 'admins'
admin_group_name

The default admin permission group name. Default value is:

admin_group_name = 'admins'
database_engine_settings

A dictionary of config values. The default value is:

database_engine_settings = {
    "sqlalchemy.url": "sqlite:///:memory:",
    "sqlalchemy.echo": False,
}
database_session_settings

This value is not used.

local_storage_path

The local storage path for Stalker.

local_storage_path = os.path.expanduser(‘~/.strc’)
local_session_data_file_name

The per user or local session file name. It is used for storing logged in user info. The default value is:

local_session_data_file_name = 'local_session_data'
server_side_storage_path

Storage for uploaded files. This used by Stalker Pyramid and shows the server side storage path. Will be moved to Stalker Pyramid in later versions. Not used by Stalker by default. Default value is:

server_side_storage_path = os.path.expanduser('~/Stalker_Storage')
key

The default keyword which is going to be used in password scrambling. Default value is:

key = "stalker_default_key"
version_take_name

The default take name for Version instances. Default value is:

version_take_name = "Main"
status_bg_color

Default background color for Status instances. Default value is:

status_bg_color = 0xffffff
status_fg_color

Default foreground color for Status instances. Default value is:

status_fg_color = 0x000000
ticket_label

Default ticket label. Used by Ticket when generating a ticket name. Default value is:

ticket_label = "Ticket"
ticket_status_order

Defines the ticket statuses and the order of them. Default value is:

ticket_status_order = [
    'new', 'accepted', 'assigned', 'reopened', 'closed'
]
ticket_resolutions

Defines the default ticket resolutions. Default value is:

ticket_resolutions = [
    'fixed', 'invalid', 'wontfix', 'duplicate', 'worksforme', 'cantfix'
]
ticket_workflow

Defines the default ticket workflow. It is a dictionary of actions. Shows the new status per action. Default value is:

ticket_workflow = {
    'resolve' : {
        'new': {
            'new_status': 'closed',
            'action': 'set_resolution'
        },
        'accepted': {
            'new_status': 'closed',
            'action': 'set_resolution'
        },
        'assigned': {
            'new_status': 'closed',
            'action': 'set_resolution'
        },
        'reopened': {
            'new_status': 'closed',
            'action': 'set_resolution'
        },
    },
    'accept' : {
        'new': {
            'new_status': 'accepted',
            'action': 'set_owner'
        },
        'accepted': {
            'new_status': 'accepted',
            'action': 'set_owner'
        },
        'assigned': {
            'new_status': 'accepted',
            'action': 'set_owner'
        },
        'reopened': {
            'new_status': 'accepted',
            'action': 'set_owner'
        },
    },
    'reassign': {
        'new': {
            'new_status': 'assigned',
            'action': 'set_owner'
        },
        'accepted': {
            'new_status': 'assigned',
            'action': 'set_owner'
        },
        'assigned': {
            'new_status': 'assigned',
            'action': 'set_owner'
        },
        'reopened': {
            'new_status': 'assigned',
            'action': 'set_owner'
        },
    },
    'reopen': {
        'closed': {
            'new_status': 'reopened',
            'action': 'del_resolution'
        }
    }
}
timing_resolution

Defines the default timing resolution for classes which are mixed with DateRangeMixin. Stalker uses the TaskJuggler default timing resolution which is 1 hour:

timing_resolution = datetime.timedelta(hours=1)
task_duration

Defines the default task duration. If only a start or end value is entered for a Task then Stalker calculates the other value by adding or subtracting the default task duration value from it. Default value is 1 hour:

task_duration = datetime.timedelta(hours=1)
task_priority

Defines the default task priority. This is used by TaskJuggler to prioritize tasks. Should be a number between 0 and 1000. Default value is 500:

task_priority = 500
working_hours

Defines the default weekly working hours per week day. Stalker uses the TaskJuggler default value of 9am to 6pm. The values entered are minutes from midnight, and it is a list of lists of two integers. Each list of two integers shows a working hour interval. Default value is:

working_hours = {
  'mon': [[540, 1080]], # 9:00 - 18:00
  'tue': [[540, 1080]], # 9:00 - 18:00
  'wed': [[540, 1080]], # 9:00 - 18:00
  'thu': [[540, 1080]], # 9:00 - 18:00
  'fri': [[540, 1080]], # 9:00 - 18:00
  'sat': [], # saturday off
  'sun': [], # sunday off
}
daily_working_hours

Defines the default daily working hour. This is strongly related with the working_hours, weekly_working_hours, weekly_working_days and yearly_working_days settings and shows a mean value of daily working hour. Default value is 9:

daily_working_hours = 9
weekly_working_hours

Defines the default weekly working hour. This is strongly related with the working_hours, daily_working_hours, weekly_working_days and yearly_working_days settings. Default value is 45:

weekly_working_hours = 45
weekly_working_days

Defines the default weekly working days. This is strongly related with the working_hours, daily_working_hours, weekly_working_hours and yearly_working_days settings. Default value is 5:

weekly_working_days = 5
yearly_working_days

Defines the default yearly working days. This is strongly related with the working_hours, daily_working_hours, weekly_working_hours and weekly_working_days settings. Default value is 260.714 which equals weekly_working_days * 52.1428:

yearly_working_days = 260.714
day_order

Defines the order of the week days. Default value uses European system:

day_order = ['mon', 'tue', 'wed', 'thu', 'fri', 'sat', 'sun']
datetime_units

Defines the date and time units. The order should match the datetime_unit_names setting. Default value is:

datetime_units = ['min', 'h', 'd', 'w', 'm', 'y']
datetime_unit_names

Defines the names of date and time units. The order should match the datetime_units setting. Default value is:

datetime_unit_names = ['minute', 'hour', 'day', 'week', 'month', 'year']
datetime_units_to_timedelta_kwargs

Defines the conversion ratios of each date and time unit. Default value is:

datetime_units_to_timedelta_kwargs = {
    'min': {'name': 'minutes', 'multiplier': 1},
    'h'  : {'name': 'hours'  , 'multiplier': 1},
    'd'  : {'name': 'days'   , 'multiplier': 1},
    'w'  : {'name': 'weeks'  , 'multiplier': 1},
    'm'  : {'name': 'days'   , 'multiplier': 30},
    'y'  : {'name': 'days'   , 'multiplier': 365}
}
task_schedule_models

Defines the default schedule models. These are highly related with TaskJuggler, so anything entered here should exist in TaskJuggler. Default value is:

task_schedule_models = ['effort', 'length', 'duration']
task_schedule_constraints

Defines the default schedule constraints. The order also defines a binary number corresponding to each value (00: none, 01: start, 10:end, 11:both) and used in defining which side of a Task is constrained to a date. Also used by TaskJuggler to constrain the start or end or both dates of a task to a certain date. Also a Task with schedule_constraint is set to 2 (both) is considered a duration task even if its schedule_model is set to effort or length. Default value is:

task_schedule_constraints = ['none', 'start', 'end', 'both']
tjp_working_hours_template

Defines a Jinja2 template for converting WorkingHours instances to a TaskJuggler compatible string. By default Stalker converts a WorkingHours instance to a workinghours statement in TaskJuggler. Default value is:

tjp_working_hours_template = """{% macro wh(wh, day) -%}
{%- if wh[day]|length %}    workinghours {{day}} {% for part in wh[day] -%}
        {%- if loop.index != 1%}, {% endif -%}
        {{"%02d"|format(part[0]//60)}}:{{"%02d"|format(part[0]%60)}} - {{"%02d"|format(part[1]//60)}}:{{"%02d"|format(part[1]%60)}}
        {%- endfor -%}
{%- else %}    workinghours {{day}} off
{%- endif -%}
{%- endmacro -%}
{{wh(workinghours, 'mon')}}
{{wh(workinghours, 'tue')}}
{{wh(workinghours, 'wed')}}
{{wh(workinghours, 'thu')}}
{{wh(workinghours, 'fri')}}
{{wh(workinghours, 'sat')}}
{{wh(workinghours, 'sun')}}"""
tjp_studio_template

Defines a Jinja2 template for converting a Studio instance to a TaskJuggler compatible string. By default Stalker converts a Studio instance to a project statement in TaskJuggler. Default value is:

tjp_studio_template = """project {{ studio.tjp_id }} "{{ studio.name }}" {{ studio.start.date() }} - {{ studio.end.date() }} {
    timingresolution {{ '%i'|format((studio.timing_resolution.days * 86400 + studio.timing_resolution.seconds)//60|int) }}min
    now {{ studio.now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M') }}
    dailyworkinghours {{ studio.daily_working_hours }}
    weekstartsmonday
{{ studio.working_hours.to_tjp }}
    timeformat "%Y-%m-%d"
    scenario plan "Plan"
    trackingscenario plan
}
"""
tjp_project_template

Defines a Jinja2 template for converting a Project instance to a TaskJuggler compatible string. By default Stalker converts a Project instance to a task statement in TaskJuggler. Default value is:

tjp_project_template = """task {{project.tjp_id}} "{{project.name}}" {
    {% for task in project.root_tasks %}
        {{task.to_tjp}}
    {% endfor %}
}
"""
tjp_task_template

Defines a Jinja2 template for converting a Task instance to a TaskJuggler compatible string. By default Stalker converts a Task to a task statement in TaskJuggler. Default value is:

tjp_task_template = """task {{task.tjp_id}} "{{task.name}}" {
{% if task.priority != 500 -%}priority {{task.priority}}{%- endif %}
{%- if task.depends %}
    depends {% for depends in task.depends %}
    {%- if loop.index != 1 %}, {% endif %}{{depends.tjp_abs_id}}
{%- endfor -%}
{%- endif -%}
{%- if task.is_container -%}
    {%- for child_task in task.children %}
        {{ child_task.to_tjp }}
    {%- endfor %}
{%- else %}
    {% if task.resources|length -%}
    {% if task.schedule_constraint %}
        {%- if task.schedule_constraint == 1 or task.schedule_constraint == 3 -%}
            start {{ task.start.strftime('%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M') }}
        {%- endif %}
        {%- if task.schedule_constraint == 2 or task.schedule_constraint == 3 %}
            end {{ task.end.strftime('%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M') }}
        {%- endif -%}
    {% endif %}
    {{task.schedule_model}} {{task.schedule_timing}}{{task.schedule_unit}}
    allocate {% for resource in task.resources -%}
        {%-if loop.index != 1 %}, {% endif %}{{resource.tjp_id}}{% endfor %}
    {%- endif -%}
    {% for time_log in task.time_logs %}
    booking {{time_log.resource.tjp_id}} {{time_log.start.strftime('%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S')}} +{{'%i'|format(time_log.duration.days*24 + time_log.duration.seconds/3600)}}h { overtime 2 }
    {%- endfor -%}
{% endif %}
}
"""
tjp_department_template

Defines a Jinja2 template for converting a Department instance to a TaskJuggler compatible string. By default Stalker converts a Department to a resource statement in TaskJuggler. Default value is:

tjp_department_template = '''resource {{department.tjp_id}} "{{department.name}}" {
{%- for resource in department.users %}
    {{resource.to_tjp}}
{%- endfor %}
}'''
tjp_vacation_template

Defines a Jinja2 template for converting a Vacation instance to a TaskJuggler compatible string. By default Stalker converts a Vacation instance to a vacation statement in TaskJuggler. Default value is:

tjp_vacation_template = '''vacation {{ vacation.start.strftime('%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M') }}, {{ vacation.end.strftime('%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M') }}'''
tjp_user_template

Defines a Jinja2 template for converting a User instance to a TaskJuggler resource statement. Default value is:

tjp_user_template = '''resource {{user.tjp_id}} "{{user.name}}"{% if user.vacations %} {
    {% for vacation in user.vacations -%}
        {{vacation.to_tjp}}
    {% endfor -%}
}{% endif %}'''
tjp_main_template

Defines a Jinja2 template for converting all the information coming from Stalker to a TaskJuggler compatible tjp file. Default value is:

tjp_main_template = """# Generated By Stalker v{{stalker.__version__}}
{{studio.to_tjp}}

# resources
resource resources "Resources" {
{%- for user in studio.users %}
    {{user.to_tjp}}
{%- endfor %}
}

# tasks
{% for project in studio.active_projects %}
    {{project.to_tjp}}
{% endfor %}

# reports
taskreport breakdown "{{csv_file_full_path}}"{
    formats csv
    timeformat "%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M"
    columns id, start, end
}
"""
tj_command

Defines the TaskJuggler command. Stalker uses this configuration value to call TaskJugglers tj3 command.

tj_command = ‘/usr/local/bin/tj3’,
path_template

Defines a default value for path template for FilenameTemplate instances to be used by Version instances. This value is not used yet. Default value is:

path_template = '{{project.code}}/{%- for parent_task in parent_tasks -%}{{parent_task.nice_name}}/{%- endfor -%}'
filename_template

Defines a default value for filename template for FilenameTemplate instances to be used by Version instances. This value is not used yet. Default value is:

filename_template = '{{task.entity_type}}_{{task.id}}_{{version.take_name}}_v{{"%03d"|format(version.version_number)}}'
sequence_format

Defines the default file sequence format to be used with PySeq. This value is not used yet. Default value is:

sequence_format = "%h%p%t %R"

Fore details about the format see the PySeq documentation.

file_size_format

Defines the default file size format to be used in UI. Default value is:

file_size_format = "%.2f MB"
date_time_format

Defines the default datetime format to be used in UI and string representations of datetime.datetime instances. Default value is:

date_time_format = '%Y.%m.%d %H:%M'
resolution_presets

Defines default resolution presets. This value is not used yet. Default value is:

resolution_presets = {
    "PC Video": [640, 480, 1.0],
    "NTSC": [720, 486, 0.91],
    "NTSC 16:9": [720, 486, 1.21],
    "PAL": [720, 576, 1.067],
    "PAL 16:9": [720, 576, 1.46],
    "HD 720": [1280, 720, 1.0],
    "HD 1080": [1920, 1080, 1.0],
    "1K Super 35": [1024, 778, 1.0],
    "2K Super 35": [2048, 1556, 1.0],
    "4K Super 35": [4096, 3112, 1.0],
    "A4 Portrait": [2480, 3508, 1.0],
    "A4 Landscape": [3508, 2480, 1.0],
    "A3 Portrait": [3508, 4960, 1.0],
    "A3 Landscape": [4960, 3508, 1.0],
    "A2 Portrait": [4960, 7016, 1.0],
    "A2 Landscape": [7016, 4960, 1.0],
    "50x70cm Poster Portrait": [5905, 8268, 1.0],
    "50x70cm Poster Landscape": [8268, 5905, 1.0],
    "70x100cm Poster Portrait": [8268, 11810, 1.0],
    "70x100cm Poster Landscape": [11810, 8268, 1.0],
    "1k Square": [1024, 1024, 1.0],
    "2k Square": [2048, 2048, 1.0],
    "3k Square": [3072, 3072, 1.0],
    "4k Square": [4096, 4096, 1.0],
}
default_resolution_preset

Defines the default resolution preset fro new Projects. This value is not used yet. Default value is:

default_resolution_preset = "HD 1080"
project_structure

Defines the default project structure. This value is not used by Stalker. Default value is:

project_structure = """{% for shot in project.shots %}
        Shots/{{shot.code}}
        Shots/{{shot.code}}/Plate
        Shots/{{shot.code}}/Reference
        Shots/{{shot.code}}/Texture
    {% endfor %}
{% for asset in project.assets%}
    {% set asset_path = project.full_path + '/Assets/' + asset.type.name + '/' + asset.code %}
    {{asset_path}}/Texture
    {{asset_path}}/Reference
{% endfor %}
"""
thumbnail_format

Defines the default thumbnail format. This value is not used by Stalker. Default value is:

thumbnail_format = "jpg"
thumbnail_quality

Defines the default thumbnail quality. This value is not used by Stalker. Default value is:

thumbnail_quality = 70
thumbnail_size

Defines the defaul thumbnail size. This value is not used by Stalker. Default value is:

thumbnail_size = [320, 180]

Upgrading Database

Introduction

From time to time, with new releases of Stalker, your Stalker database may need to be upgraded. This is done with the Alembic library, which is a database migration library for SQLAlchemy.

Instructions

The upgrade is easy, just run the following command on the root of the stalker installation directory:

# for Windows
..\Scripts\alembic.exe upgrade head

# for Linux or OSX
../bin/alembic upgrade head

# this should output something like that:
#
# INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Context impl PostgresqlImpl.
# INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Will assume transactional DDL.
# INFO  [alembic.runtime.migration] Running upgrade 745b210e6907 -> f2005d1fbadc, added ProjectClients

That’s it, your database is now migrated to the latest version.

How To Contribute

Stalker started as an Open Source project with the expectation of contributions. The soul of the open source is to share the knowledge and contribute.

These are the areas that you can contribute to:
  • Documentation
  • Testing the code
  • Writing the code
  • Creating user interface elements (graphics, icons etc.)

Development Style

Stalker is developed strictly by following TDD practices. So every participant should follow TDD methodology. Skipping this steps is highly prohibited. Every added code to the trunk should have a corresponding test and the tests should be written before implementing a single line of code.

DRY is also another methodology that a participant should follow. So nothing should be repeated. If something needs to be repeated, then it is a good sign that this part needs to be in a special module, class or function.

Testing

As stated above all the code written should have a corresponding test.

Adding new features should start with design sketches. These sketches could be plain text files or mind maps or anything that can express the thing in you mind. While writing down these sketches, it should be kept in mind that these files also could be used to generate the documentation of the system. So writing down the sketches as rest files inside the docs is something very meaningful.

The design should be followed by the tests. And the test should be followed by the implementation, and the implementation should be followed by tests again, until you are confident about your code and it is rock solid. Then the refactoring phase can start, and because you have enough tests that will keep your code doing a certain thing, you can freely change your code, because you know that you code will do the same thing if it passes all the tests.

The first tests written should always fail by having:

self.fail("the test is not implemented yet")

failures. This is something good to have. This will inform us that the test is not written yet. After blocking all the tests and you are confident about the tests are covering all the aspects of your design sketches, you can start writing the tests.

Another very important note about the tests are the docstrings of the test methods. You should explain what is this test method testing, and what you expect as a result of the test. It

After finishing implementing the tests you can start adding the code that will pass the tests.

The test framework of Stalker is unitTest and nose to help testing.

These python modules should be installed to test Stalker properly:

  • Nose
  • Coverage

The coverage of the tests should be kept as close as possible to %100.

There is a helper script in the root of the project, called doTests. This is a shell script for linux, which runs all the necessary tests and prints the tests results and the coverage table.

Note

From version 0.1.1 the use of Mocker library is discontinued. The tests are done using real objects. It is done in this way cause the design of the objects were changing too quickly, and it started to be a guess work to see which of the tests are effected by this changes. So the Mocker is removed and it will not be used in future releases.

Coding Style

For the general coding style every participant should strictly follow PEP 8 rules, and there are some extra rules as listed below:

  • Class names should start with an upper-case letter, function and method names should start with lower-case letter:

    class MyClass(object):
        """the doc string of the class
        """
    
        def __init__(self):
            pass
    
        def my_method(self):
            pass
    
  • There should be 1 spaces before and after functions and class methods:

    class StatusBase(object):
        """The StatusBase class
        """
    
        def __init__(self, name, abbreviation, thumbnail=None):
            self._name = self._checkName(name)
    
        def _checkName(self, name):
            """checks the name attribute
            """
    
            if name == "" or not isinstance(name, str):
                raise(ValueError("the name shouldn't be empty and it should \
                    be a str"))
    
                return name.title()
    
  • And also there should be 1 spaces before and after a class body:

    #-*- coding: utf-8 -*-
    
    class A(object):
        pass
    
    class B(object):
        pass
    
    pass
    
  • Any lines that may contain a code or comment can not be longer than 79 characters, all the longer lines should be cancelled with “" character and should continue properly from the line below:

    def _checkName(self, name):
        """checks the name attribute
        """
    
        if name == "" or not isinstance(name, str):
            raise(ValueError("the name shouldn't be empty and it should be a \
            str"))
    
        return name.title()
    

    This rule is not followed for the first line of the docstrings and in long function or method names (particularly in tests).

  • If anything is going to be checked against being None you should do it in this way:

    if a is None:
        pass
    
  • Do not add docstrings to __init__ rather use the classes’ own docstring.

  • The first line in the docstring should be a brief summary separated from the rest by a blank line.

If you are going to add a new python file (*.py), use the following line in the first line:

#-*- coding: utf-8 -*-

SCM - Git

The choice of SCM is Git. Every developer should be familiar with it. It is a good start to go the Git Web Site and do the tutorial if you don’t feel familiar enough with hg.

Adding Changes

Stalker is hosted in GitHub.

If you want to do changes in Stalker, the basic pipeline is as follows:

  • Fork Stalker from GitHub project page.
  • Clone your own Stalker repository to your own computer.
  • Do your addition, run your tests, and be sure that your part doesn’t have any errors or failures.
  • Commit your changes.
  • Before creating a pull request check if your repository is in sync with the upstream GitHub repository (the repository that you’ve forked Stalker from) by using the tools supplied in your GitHub project page.
  • In case there are new changes in upstream, merge them with yours.
  • Do the tests again. If there are problems in your part of the code, solve the errors/failures.
  • Commit your changes again.
  • And push them to your own GitHub repository.
  • And in the original GitHub page create a Pull Request.

Stalker Development Roadmap

This section describes the direction Stalker is going.

Roadmap Based on Versions

Below you can find the roadmap based on the version

0.1.0:
  • A complete working set of models in SOM which are using SQLAlchemy.ext.declarative.
0.2.0:
  • Web interface
  • Complete ProdAM capabilities.
0.3.0:
  • Complete working Event system

Stalker Changes

0.2.24

  • New: Repository instances now have a code attribute which is used for generating the environment variables where in previous versions the id attribute has been used which caused difficulties in transferring the data to a different installation of Stalker. Also to make the system backwards compatible, Stalker will still set the old id based environment variables. But when asked for an environment variable it will return the code based one. The code argument as usual has to be initialized on Repository instance creation. That’s why this version is slightly backwards incompatible and needs the database to be updated with Alembic (with the command alembic update head).
  • Fix: Repository methods is_in_repo and find_repo are now case insensitive for Windows paths.
  • Update: Updated Project class documentation and included information about what is going to be deleted or how the delete operation will be cascaded when a Project instance is deleted.

0.2.23

  • Update: Updated the setup.py to require psycopg2-binary instead of psycopg2. Also updated the configuration files for Docker and Travis. This changes the requirement of psycopg2 to psycopg2-binary, which will make it easier to get the installation to complete on e.g. CentOS 7 without requiring pg_config.

0.2.22

  • Fix: Fixed TaskJugglerScheduler.schedule() method to correctly decode byte data from sys.stderr to string for Python 3.x.
  • Fix: Fixed a couple of tests for TaskJuggler.
  • Update: Updated Classifiers information in setup.py, removed Python versions 2.6, 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2 from supported Python versions.
  • Fix: Removed Python 3.3 from TravisCI build which is not supported by pytest apparently.
  • Update: Updated TravisCI config and removed Python 2.6 and added Python 3.6.
  • Update: Added a test case for an edge usage of FilenameTemplate.
  • Update: Updated .gitignore file to ignore PyTest cache folder.
  • Update: Updated the License file to correctly reflect the project license of LGPLv3.
  • Update: Update copyright information.
  • New: Created make_html.bat for Windows.
  • New: Added support for Python wheel.

0.2.21

  • New: Switched from nose + unittest to pytest as the main testing framework (with pytest-xdist tests complete 4x faster).
  • New: Added DBSession.save() shortcut method for convenience which does an add or add_all (depending to the input) followed by a commit at once.
  • Update: Updated the about page for a more appealing introduction to the library.
  • New: Stalker now creates default StatusList for Project instances on database initialization.
  • Update: SQLite3 support is back. In fact it was newer gone. For simplicity of first time users the default database is again SQLite3. It was dropped for the sake of adding more PostgreSQL oriented features. But then it is recognized that the system can handle both. Though a two new Variant had to be created for JSON and Datetime columns.
  • Update: With the reintroduction of SQLite3, the new JSON type column in WorkingHours class has been upgraded to support SQLite3. So with SQLite3 the column stores the data as TEXT but seamlessly convert them to JSON when ORM loads or commits the data.
  • New: Added ConfigBase as a base class for Config to let it be used in other config classes.
  • Fix: Fixed testing.create_db() and testing.drop_db() to fallback to subprocess.check_call method for Python 2.6.
  • Fix: Fixed stalker.models.auth.User._validate_password() method to work with Python 2.6.
  • Update: Updated all of the tests to use pytest style assertions to support Python 2.6 along with 2.7 and 3.0+.
  • Fix: Fixed stalker.db.check_alembic_version() function to invalidate the connection, so it is not possible to continue with the current session, preventing users to ignore the raised ValueError when the alembic_version of the database is not matching the alembic_version of Stalker’s current version.

0.2.20

  • New: Added goods attribute to the Client class. To allow special priced Goods to be created for individual clients.
  • Fix: The WorkingHours class is now derived from Entity thus it is not stored in a PickleType column in Studio anymore. (issue: #44)
  • Update: Updated appveyor.yml to match travis.yml.

0.2.19

  • Update: Updated the stalker.config.Config.database_engine_settings to point the test database.
  • Fix: Fixed a bug in stalker.testing.UnitTestDBBase.setUp() where it was not considering the existence of the STALKER_PATH environment variable while doing the tests.
  • Update: Removed debug message from db.setup() which was revealing the database password.
  • Update: Updated the UnitTestDBBase, it now creates its own test database, which allows all the tests to run in an individual database. Thus, the tests can now be run in multiprocess mode which speeds things a lot.
  • Fix: Removed any module level imports of stalker.defaults variable, which can be changed by a Studio (or by tests) and should always be refreshed.
  • Update: Removed the module level import of the stalker.db.session.DBSession in stalker.db, so it is not possible to use db.DBSession anymore.
  • Update: The import statements that imports stalker.defaults moved to local scopes to allow runtime changes to the defaults to be reflected correctly.
  • Update: Added Python fall back mode to stalker.shot.Shot._check_code_availability() which runs when there is no database.
  • Update: stalker.models.task.TimeLog._validate_task() is now getting the Status instances from the StatusList that is attached to the Task instance instead of doing a database query.
  • Update: stalker.models.task.TimeLog._validate_resource() is now falling back to a Python implementation if there is no database connection.
  • Update: stalker.models.task.Task._total_logged_seconds_getter() is now hundreds of times faster when there is a lot of TimeLog instances attached to the Task.
  • Update: In stalker.models.task.Task class, methods those were doing a database query to get the required Status instances are now using the attached StatusList instance to get them.
  • Fix: A possible auto_flush is prevented in Ticket class.
  • Update: Version.latest_version property is now able to fall back to a pure Python implementation when there is no database connection.
  • Update: The default log level has been increased from DEBUG to INFO.
  • Update: In an attempt to speed up tests, a lot of tests that doesn’t need an active Database has been updated to use the regular unittest.TestCase instead of stalker.testing.TestBase and as a result running all of the tests are now 2x faster.
  • Fix: TimeLogs are now correctly reflected in UTC in a tj3 file.
  • Fix: Fixed a lot of tests which were raising Warnings and surprisingly considered as Errors in TravisCI.
  • Fix: to_tjp methods of SOM classes that is printing a Datetime object are now printing the dates in UTC.
  • Fix: Fixed stalker.models.auth.Permission to be hashable for Python 3.
  • Fix: Fixed stalker.models.auth.AuthenticationLog to be sortable for Python 3.
  • Fix: Fixed stalker.models.version.Version.latest_version property for Python 3.
  • Fix: Fixed tests of Permission class to check for correct exception messages in Python 3.
  • Update: Replaced the assertEquals and assertNotEquals calls which are deprecated in Python 3 with assertEqual and assertNotEquals calls respectively.
  • Fix: Fixed tests for User and Version classes to not to cause the id column is None warnings of SQLAlchemy to be emitted.

0.2.18

  • Update: Support for DB backends other than Postgresql has been dropped. This is done to greatly benefit from a code that is highly optimized only for one DB backend. With This all of the tests should be inherited from the stalker.tests.UnitTestDBBase class.

  • New: All the DateTime fields in Stalker are now TimeZone aware and Stalker stores the DateTime values in UTC. Naive datetime values are not supported anymore. You should use a library like pytz to supply timezone information as shown below:

    import datetime
    import pytz
    from stalker import db, SimpleEntity
    new_simple_entity = SimpleEntity(
        name='New Simple Entity',
        date_created = datetime.datetime.now(tzinfo=pytz.utc)
    )
    
  • Fix: The default values for date_created and date_updated has now been properly set to a partial function that returns the current time.

  • Fix: Previously it was possible to enter two TimeLogs for the same resource in the same datetime range by committing the data from two different sessions simultaneously. Thus the database was not aware that it should prevent that. Now with the new PostgreSQL only implementation and the ExcludeConstraint of PostgreSQL an IntegrityError is raised by the database backend when something like that happens.

  • Update: All the tests those are checking the system against an Exception is being raised or not are now checking also the exception message.

  • Update: In the TimeLog class, the raised OverBookedException message has now been made clear by adding the start and end date values of the clashing TimeLog instance.

  • Update: Removed the unnecessary computed_start and computed_end columns from Task class, which are already defined in the DateRangeMixin which is a super for the Task class.

0.2.17.6

  • Fix: Fixed a bug in ProjectMixin where a proper cascade was not defined and the Delete operations to the Projects table were not cascaded to the mixed-in classes properly.

0.2.17.5

  • Fix: Fixed the image_format attribute implementation in Shot class. Now it will not copy the value of Project.image_format directly on __init__ but instead will only store the value if the image_format argument in __init__ or Shot.image_format attribute is set to something.

0.2.17.4

  • Update: Updated the comment sections of all of the source files to correctly show that Stalker is LGPL v3 (not v2.1).

0.2.17.3

  • New: Added Shot.fps attribute to hold the fps information per shot.
  • Update: Added the necessary alembic revision to reflect the changes in the Version_Inputs table.

0.2.17.2

  • Fix: Fixed Version_Inputs table to correctly take care of DELETE``s on the ``Versions table. So now it is possible to delete a Version instance without first cleaning the Link instances that is related to that Version instance.
  • Update: Changed the id attribute name from info_id to log_id in AuthenticationLog class.
  • Update: Started moving towards PostgreSQL only implementation. Merged the DatabaseModelTester class and DatabaseModelsPostgreSQLTester class.
  • Fix: Fixed an autoflush issue in stalker.models.review.Review.finalize_review_set().

0.2.17.1

  • Fix: Fixed alembic revision

0.2.17

  • New: Added AuthenticationLog class to hold user login/logout info.
  • New: Added stalker.testing module to simplify testing setup.

0.2.16.4

  • Fix: Fixed alembic revision.

0.2.16.3

  • New: ProjectUser now also holds a new field called rate. The default value is equal to the ProjectUser.user.rate. It is a way to hold the rate of a user on a specific project.
  • New: Added the Invoice class.
  • New: Added the Payment class.
  • New: Added two simple mixins AmountMixin and UnitMixin.
  • Update: Good class is now mixed in with the new UnitMixin class.
  • Update: BudgetEntry class is now mixed in with the new AmountMixin and UnitMixin classes.

0.2.16.2

  • New: Group permissions can now be set on __init__() with the permissions argument.

0.2.16.1

  • Fix: As usual after a new release that changes database schema, fixed the corresponding Alembic revision (92257ba439e1).

0.2.16

  • New: Budget instances are now statusable.
  • Update: Updated documentation to include database migration instructions with Alembic.

0.2.15.2

  • Fix: Fixed a typo in the error message in User._validate_email_format() method.
  • Fix: Fixed a query-invoked auto-flush problem in Task.update_parent_statuses() method.

0.2.15.1

  • Fix: Fixed alembic revision (f2005d1fbadc), it will now drop any existing constraints before re-creating them. And the downgrade function will not remove the constraints.

0.2.15

  • New: db.setup() now checks for alembic_version before setting up a connection to the database and raises a ValueError if the database alembic version is not matching the current implementation of Stalker.
  • Fix: db.init() sets the created_by and updated_by attributes to admin user if there is one while creating entity statuses.
  • New: Created create_sdist.cmd and upload_to_pypi.cmd for Windows.
  • New: Project to Client relation is now a many-to-many relation, thus it is possible to set multiple Clients for each project with each client having their own roles in a specific project.
  • Update: ScheduleMixin.schedule_timing attribute is now Nullable.
  • Update: ScheduleMixin.schedule_unit attribute is now Nullable.

0.2.14

  • Fix: Fixed Task.path to always return a path with forward slashes.
  • New: Introducing EntityGroups that lets one to group a bunch of
``SimpleEntity``s together, it can be used in grouping tasks even if they are in different places on the project task hierarchy or even in different projects.
  • Update: Task.percent_complete is now correctly calculated for a Duration based task by using the Task.start and Task.end attribute values.
  • Fix: Fixed stalker.models.task.update_time_log_task_parents_for_end() event to work with SQLAlchemy v1.0.
  • New: Added an option called __dag_cascade__ to the DAGMixin to control cascades on mixed in class. The default value is “all, delete”. Change it to “save-update, merge” if you don’t want the children also be deleted when the parent is deleted.
  • Fix: Fixed a bug in Version class that occurs when a version instance that is a parent of other version instances is deleted, the child versions are also deleted (fixed through DAGMixin class).

0.2.13.3

  • Fix: Fixed a bug in Review.finalize_review_set() for tasks that are sent to review and still have some extra time were not clamped to their total logged seconds when the review set is all approved.

0.2.13.2

  • New: Removed msrp, cost and unit arguments from BudgetEntry.__init__() and added a new good argument to get all of the data from the related Good instance. But the msrp, cost and unit attributes of BudgetEntry class are still there to store the values that may not correlate with the related Good in future.

0.2.13.1

  • Fix: Fixed a bug in Review.finalize_review_set() which causes Task instances to not to get any status update if the revised task is a second degree dependee to that particular task.

0.2.13

  • New: Project instances can now have multiple repositories. Thus the repository attribute is renamed to repositories. And the order of the items in the repositories attribute is restored correctly.

  • New: stalker.db.init() now automatically creates environment variables for each repository in the database.

  • New: Added a new after_insert which listens Repository instance ``insert``s to automatically add environment variables for the newly inserted repositories.

  • Update: Repository.make_relative() now handles paths with environment variables.

  • Fix: Fixed TaskJugglerScheduler to correctly generate task absolute paths for PostgreSQL DB.

  • New: Repository.path is now writable and sets the correct path (linux_path, windows_path, or osx_path) according to the current system.

  • New: Setting either of the Repository.path, Repository.linux_path, Repository.windows_path, Repository.osx_path attributes will update the related environment variable if the system and attribute are matching to each other, setting the linux_path on Linux or setting the windows_path on Windows or setting the osx_path on OSX will update the environment variable.

  • New: Added Task.good attribute to easily connect tasks to ``Good``s.

  • New: Added new methods to Repository to help managing paths:

    • Repository.find_repo() to find a repo from a given path. This is a class method so it can be directly used with the Repository class.

    • Repository.to_os_independent_path() to convert the given path to a OS independent path which uses environment variables. Again this is a class method too so it can be directly used with the Repository class.

    • Repository.env_var a new property that returns the related environment variable name of a repo instance. This is an instance property:

      # with default settings
      

      repo = Repository(…) repo.env_var # should print something like “REPO131” which will be used

      # in paths as “$REPO131”

  • Fix: Fixed User.company_role attribute which is a relationship to the ClienUser to cascade all, delete-orphan to prevent AssertionErrors when a Client instance is removed from the User.companies collection.

0.2.12.1

  • Update: Version class is now mixed with the DAGMixin, so all the parent/child relation is coming from the DAGMixin.
  • Update: DAGMixin.walk_hierarchy() is updated to walk the hierarchy in Depth First mode by default (method=0) instead of Breadth First mode (method=1).
  • Fix: Fixed alembic_revision on database initialization.

0.2.12

  • Fix: Fixed importing of ProjectUser directly from stalker namespace.
  • Fix: Fixed importing of ClientUser directly from stalker namespace.
  • New: Added two new columns to the BudgetEntry class to allow more detailed info to be hold.
  • New: Added a new Mixin called DAGMixin to create parent/child relation between mixed in class.
  • Update: The Task class is now mixed with the DAGMixin, so all the parent/child relation is coming from the DAGMixin.
  • New: Added a new class called Good to hold details about the commercial items/services sold in the Studio.
  • New: Added a new class called PriceList to create price lists from Goods.

0.2.11

  • New: User instances now have a new attribute called rate to track their cost as a resource.
  • New: Added two new classes called Budget and BudgetEntry to record Project budgets in a simple way.
  • New: Added a new class called Role to manage user roles in different Departments, Clients and Projects.
  • New: User and Department relation is updated to include the role of the user in that department in a more flexible way by using the newly introduced Role class and some association proxy tricks.
  • New: Also updated the User to Project relation to include the role of the user in that Project by using an associated Role class.
  • Update: Department.members attribute is renamed to users (and removed the synonym property).
  • Update: Removed Project.lead attribute use Role instead.
  • Update: Removed Department.lead attribute use Role instead.
  • Update: Because the Project.lead attribute is removed, it is now possible to have tasks with no responsible.
  • Update: Client to User relation is updated to use an association proxy which makes it possible to set a Role for each User for each Client it is assigned to.
  • Update: Renamed User.company to User.companies as the relation is now able to handle more than one Client instances for the User company.
  • Update: Task Status Workflow has been updated to convert the status of a DREV task to HREV instead of WIP when the dependent tasks has been set to CMPL. Also the timing of the task is expanded by the value of stalker.defaults.timing_resolution if it doesn’t have any effort left (generally true for CMPL tasks) to allow the resource to review and decide if he/she needs more time to do any update on the task and also give a chance of setting the Task status to WIP by creating a time log.
  • New: It is now possible to schedule only a desired set of projects by passing a projects argument to the TaskJugglerScheduler.
  • New: Task.request_review() and Review.finalize() will not cap the timing of the task until it is approved and also Review.finalize() will extend the timing of the task if the total timing of the given revisions are not fitting in to the left timing.

0.2.10.5

  • Update: TaskJuggler output is now written to debug output once per line.

0.2.10.4

  • New: ‘@’ character is now allowed in Entity nice name.

0.2.10.3

  • New: ‘@’ character is now allowed in Version take names.

0.2.10.2

  • Fix: Fixed a bug in stalker.models.schedulers.TaskJugglerScheduler._create_tjp_file_content() caused by non-ascii task names.
  • Fix: Removed the residual RootFactory class reference from documentation.
  • New: Added to new functions called utc_to_local and local_to_utc for UTC to Local time and vice versa conversion.

0.2.10.1

  • Fix: Fixed a bug where for a WIP Task with no time logs (apparently something went wrong) and no dependencies using Task.update_status_with_dependent_statuses() will convert the status to RTS.

0.2.10

  • New: It is now possible to track the Edit information per Shot using the newly introduced source_in, source_out and record_in along with existent cut_in and cut_out attributes.

0.2.9.2

  • Fix: Fixed MySQL initialization problem in stalker.db.init().

0.2.9.1

  • New: As usual, after a new release, fixed a bug in stalker.db.create_entity_statuses() caused by the behavioral change of the map built-in function in Python 3.

0.2.9

  • New: Added a new class called Daily which will help managing Version outputs (Link instances including Versions itself) as a group.
  • New: Added a new status list for Daily class which contains two statuses called “Open” and “Closed”.
  • Update: Setting the Version.take_name to a value other than a string will now raise a TypeError.

0.2.8.4

  • Fix: Fixed SimpleEntity._validate_name() method for unicode strings.

0.2.8.3

  • Fix: Fixed str/unicode errors due to the code written for Python3 compatibility.
  • Update: Removed Task.is_complete attribute. Use the status “CMPL” instead of this attribute.

0.2.8.2

  • Fix: Fixed stalker.db.create_alembic_table() again to prevent extra row insertion.

0.2.8.1.1

  • Fix: Fixed stalker.db.create_alembic_table() function to handle the situation where the table is already created.

0.2.8.1

  • Fix: Fixed stalker.db.create_alembic_table() function, it is not using the alembic library anymore to create the alembic_version table, which was the proper way of doing it but it created a lot of problems when Stalker is installed as a package.

0.2.8

  • Update: Stalker is now Python3 compatible.
  • New: Added a new class called Client which can be used to track down information about the clients of Projects. Also added Project.client and User.company attributes which are referencing a Client instance allowing to add clients as normal users.
  • New: db.init() now creates alembic_version table and stamps the most recent version number to that table allowing newly initialized databases to be considered in head revision.
  • Fix: Fixed Version._format_take_name() method. It is now possible to use multiple underscore characters in Version.take_name attribute.

0.2.7.6

  • Update: Removed TimeLog._expand_task_schedule_timing() method which was automatically adjusting the schedule_timing and schedule_unit of a Task to total duration of the TimeLogs of that particular task, thus increasing the schedule info with the entered time logs.

    But it was setting the schedule_timing to 0 in some certain cases and it was unnecessary because the main purpose of this method was to prevent TaskJuggler to raise any errors related to the inconsistencies between the schedule values and the duration of TimeLogs and TaskJuggler has never given a real error about that situation.

0.2.7.5

  • Fix: Fixed Task parent/child relationship, previously setting the parent of a task to None was cascading a delete operation due to the “all, delete-orphan” setting of the Task parent/child relationship, this is updated to be “all, delete” and it is now safe to set the parent to None without causing the task to be deleted.

0.2.7.4

  • Fix: Fixed the following columns column type from String to Text:

    • Permissions.class_name
    • SimpleEntities.description
    • Links.full_path
    • Structures.custom_template
    • FilenameTemplates.path
    • FilenameTemplates.filename
    • Tickets.summary
    • Wiki.title
    • Wiki.content

    and specified a size for the following columns:

    • SimpleEntities.html_class -> String(32)
    • SimpleEntities.html_style -> String(32)
    • FilenameTemplates.target_entity_type -> String(32)

    to be compatible with MySQL.

  • Update: It is now possible to create TimeLog instances for a Task with PREV status.

0.2.7.3

  • Fix: Fixed Task.update_status_with_dependent_statuses() method for a Task where there is no dependency but the status is DREV. Now calling Task.update_status_with_dependent_statuses() will set the status to RTS if there is no TimeLog for that task and will set the status to WIP if the task has time logs.

0.2.7.2

  • Update: TaskJugglerScheduler is now 466x faster when dumping all the data to TJP file. So with this new update it is taking only 1.5 seconds to dump ~20k tasks to a valid TJP file where it was around ~10 minutes in previous implementation. The speed enhancements is available only to PostgreSQL dialect for now.

0.2.7.1

  • Fix: Fixed TimeLog output in one line per task in Task.to_tjp().
  • New: Added TaskJugglerScheduler now accepts a new argument called compute_resources which when set to True will also consider Task.alternative_resources attribute and will fill Task.computed_resources attribute for each Task. With TaskJugglerScheduler when the total number of Task is around 15k it will take around 7 minutes to generate this data, so by default it is set to False.

0.2.7

  • New: Added efficiency attribute to User class. See User documentation for more info.

0.2.6.14

  • Fix: Fixed an autoflush problem in Studio.schedule() method.

0.2.6.13

  • New: Added Repository.make_relative() method, which makes the given path to relative to the repository root. It considers that the path is already in the repository. So for now, be careful about not to pass a path outside of the repository.

0.2.6.12

  • Update: TaskJugglerScheduler.schedule() method now uses the Studio.start and Studio.end values for the scheduling range instead of the hardcoded dates.

0.2.6.11

  • Update: Task.create_time_log() method now returns the created TimeLog instance.

0.2.6.10

  • Fix: Fixed an autoflush issue in Task.update_status_with_children_statuses() method.

0.2.6.9

  • Update: Studio.is_scheduling and Studio.is_scheduling_by attributes will not be updated or checked at the beginning of the Studio.schedule() method. It is the duty of the user to check those attributes before calling Studio.schedule(). This is done in this way because without being able to do a db commit inside Studio.schedule() method (which is the case with transaction managers which may be used in web applications like Stalker Pyramid) it is not possible to persist and thus use those variables. So, to be able to use those attributes meaningfully the user should set them. Those variables will be set to False and None accordingly by the Studio.schedule() method after the scheduling is done.

0.2.6.8

  • Fix: Fixed a deadlock in TaskJugglerScheduler.schedule() method related with the Popen.stderr.readlines() blocking the TaskJuggler process without being able to read the output buffer.

0.2.6.7

  • Update: TaskJugglerScheduler.schedule() is now using bulk inserts and updates which is way faster than doing it with pure Python. Use parsing_method (0: SQL, 1: Python) to choose between SQL or Pure Python implementation. Also updated Studio.schedule() to take in a parsing_method parameter.

0.2.6.6

  • Update: The cut_in, cut_out and cut_duration attribute behaviour and the attribute order is updated in Shot class. So, if three of the values are given, then the cut_duration attribute value will be calculated from cut_in and cut_out attribute values. In any case cut_out precedes cut_duration, and if none of them given cut_in and cut_duration values will default to 1 and cut_out will be calculated by using cut_in and cut_duration.

0.2.6.5

  • New: Entity to Note relation is now Many-to-Many. So one Note can now be assigned more than one Entity.
  • New: Added alembic revision for Entity_Notes table creation and data migration from Notes table to Entity_Notes table. So all notes are preserved.
  • Fix: Fixed Shot.cut_duration attribute initialization on Shot instances restored from database.
  • Fix: Fixed Studios.is_scheduling_by relationship configuration, which was wrongly referencing the Studios.last_scheduled_by_id column instead of Studios.is_scheduled_by_id column.

0.2.6.4

  • New: Added a Task.review_set(review_number) method to get the desired set of reviews. It will return the latest set of reviews if review_number is skipped or it is None.
  • Update: Removed Task.approve() it was making things complex than it should be.

0.2.6.3

  • Fix: Added Page to class_names in db.init().
  • Fix: Fixed TimeLog tjp representation to use bot the start and end date values instead of the start and duration. This is much better because it is independent from the timing resolution settings.

0.2.6.2

  • Fix: Fixed stalker.models.studio.schedule() method, and prevented it to call DBSession.commit() which causes errors if there is a transaction manager.
  • Fix: Fixed stalker.models._parse_csv_file() method for empty computed resources list.

0.2.6.1

  • New: stalker.models.task.TimeLog instances are now checking if the dependency relation between the task that receives the time log and the tasks that the task depends to will be violated in terms of the start and end dates and raises a DependencyViolationError if it is the case.

0.2.6

  • New: Added stalker.models.wiki.Page class, for holding a per Project wiki.

0.2.5.5

  • Fix: Review.task attribute now accepts None but this is mainly done to allow its relation to the Task instance can be broken when it needs to be deleted without issuing a database commit.

0.2.5.4

  • Update: The following column names are updated:

    • Tasks._review_number to Tasks.review_number
    • Tasks._schedule_seconds to Tasks.schedule_seconds
    • Tasks._total_logged_seconds to Tasks.total_logged_seconds
    • Reviews._review_number to Reviews.review_number
    • Shots._cut_in to Shots.cut_in
    • Shots._cut_out to Shots.cut_out

    Also updated alembic migration to create columns with those names.

  • Update: Updated Alembic revision 433d9caaafab (the one related with stalker 2.5 update) to also include following updates:

    • Create StatusLists for Tasks, Asset, Shot and Sequences and add all the Statuses in the Task Status Workflow.
    • Remove NEW from all of the status lists of Task, Asset, Shot and Sequence.
    • Update all the PREV tasks to WIP to let them use the new Review Workflow.
    • Update the Tasks.review_number to 0 for all tasks.
    • Create StatusLists and Statuses (NEW, RREV, APP) for Reviews.
    • Remove any other status then defined in the Task Status Workflow from Task, Asset, Shot and Sequence status list.

0.2.5.3

  • Fix: Fixed a bug in Task class where trying to remove the dependencies will raise an AttributeError caused by the Task._previously_removed_dependent_tasks attribute.

0.2.5.2

  • New: Task instances now have two new properties called path and absolute_path. As in Version instances, these are the rendered version of the related FilenameTemplate object in the related Project. The path attribute is Repository root relative and absolute_path is the absolute path including the OS dependent Repository path.
  • Update: Updated alembic revision with revision number “433d9caaafab” to also create Statuses introduced with Stalker v0.2.5.

0.2.5.1

  • Update: Version.__repr__ results with a more readable string.
  • New: Added a generalized generator called stalker.models.walk_hierarchy() that walks and yields the entities over the given attribute in DFS or BFS fashion.
  • New: Added Task.walk_hierarchy() which iterates over the hierarchy of the task. It walks in a breadth first fashion. Use method=0 to walk in depth first.
  • New: Added Task.walk_dependencies() which iterates over the dependencies of the task. It walks in a breadth first fashion. Use method=0 to walk in depth first.
  • New: Added Version.walk_hierarchy() which iterates over the hierarchy of the version. It walks in a depth first fashion. Use method=1 to walk in breadth first.
  • New: Added Version.walk_inputs() which iterates over the inputs of the version. It walks in a depth first fashion. Use method=1 to walk in breath first.
  • Update: stalker.models.check_circular_dependency() function is now using stalker.models.walk_hierarchy() instead of recursion over itself, which makes it more robust in deep hierarchies.
  • Fix: db.init() now updates the statuses of already created status lists for Task, Asset, Shot and Sequence classes.

0.2.5

  • Update: Revision class is renamed to Review and introduced a couple of new attributes.

  • New: Added a new workflow called “Task Review Workflow”. Please see the documentation about the new workflow.

  • Update: Task.responsible attribute is now a list which allows multiple responsible to be set for a Task.

  • New: Because of the new “Task Review Workflow” task statuses which are normally created in Stalker Pyramid are now automatically created in Stalker database initialization. The new statuses are Waiting For Dependency (WFD), Ready To Start (RTS), Work In Progress (WIP), Pending Review (PREV), Has Revision (HREV), On Hold (OH), Stopped (STOP) and Completed (CMPL) are all used in Task, Asset, Shot and Sequence status lists by default.

  • New: Because of the new “Task Review Workflow” also a status list for Review class is created by default. It contains the statuses of New (NEW), Requested Revision (RREV) and Approved (APP).

  • Fix: Users.login column is now unique.

  • Update: Ticket workflow in config is now using the proper status names instead of the lower case names of the statuses.

  • New: Added a new exception called StatusError which states the entity status is not suitable for the action it is applied to.

  • New: Studio instance now stores the scheduling state to the database to prevent two scheduling process to override each other. It also stores the last schedule message and the last schedule date and the id of the user who has done the scheduling.

  • New: The Task Dependency relation is now using an Association Object instead of just a Secondary Table. The Task.depends and Task.dependent_of attributes are now association_proxies.

    Also added extra parameters like dependency_target, gap_timing, gap_unit and gap_model to the dependency relation. So all of the dependency relations are now able to hold those extra information.

    Updated the task_tjp_template to reflect the details of the dependencies that a task has.

  • New: ScheduleMixin class now has some default class attributes that will allow customizations in inherited classes. This is mainly done for TaskDependency class and for the gap_timing, gap_unit, gap_model attributes which are in fact synonyms of schedule_timing, schedule_unit and schedule_model attributes coming from the ScheduleMixin class. So by using the __default_schedule_attr_name__ Stalker is able to display error messages complaining about gap_timing attribute instead of schedule_timing etc.

  • New: Updating a task by calling Task.request_revision() will now set the TaskDependency.dependency_target to ‘onstart’ for tasks those are depending to the revised task and updated to have a status of DREV, OH or STOP. Thus, TaskJuggler will be able to continue scheduling these tasks even if the tasks are now working together.

  • Update: Updated the TaskJuggler templates to make the tjp output a little bit more readable.

  • New: ScheduleMixin now creates more localized (to the mixed in class) column and enum type names in the mixed in classes.

    For example, it creates the TaskScheduleModel enum type for Task class and for TaskDependency it creates TaskDependencyGapModel with the same setup following the {{class_name}}{{attr_name}}Model template.

    Also it creates schedule_model column for Task, and gap_model for TaskDependency class.

  • Update: Renamed the TaskScheduleUnit enum type name to TimeUnit in ScheduleMixin.

0.2.4

  • New: Added new class called Revision to hold info about Task revisions.

  • Update: Renamed ScheduleMixin to DateRangeMixin.

  • New: Added a new mixin called ScheduleMixin (replacing the old one) which adds attributes like schedule_timing, schedule_unit, schedule_model and schedule_constraint.

  • New: Added Task.tickets and Task.open_tickets properties.

  • Update: Removed unnecessary arguments (project_lead, tasks, watching, last_login) from User class.

  • Update: The timing_resolution attribute is moved from the DateRangeMixin to Studio class. So instances of classes like Project or Task will not have their own timing resolution anymore.

  • New: The Studio instance now overrides the values on stalker.defaults on creation and on load, and also the db.setup() function lets the first Studio instance that it finds to update the defaults. So it is now possible to use stalker.defaults all the time without worrying about the Studio settings.

  • Update: The Studio.yearly_working_days value is now always an integer.

  • New: Added a new method ScheduleMixin.least_meaningful_time_unit() to calculate the most appropriate timing unit and the value of the given seconds which represents an interval of time.

    So it will convert 3600 seconds to 1 hours, and 8424000 seconds to 1 years if it represents working time (as_working_time=True) or 2340 hours if it is representing the calendar time.

  • New: Added a new method to ScheduleMixin called to_seconds(). The to_seconds() method converts the given schedule info values (schedule_timing, schedule_unit, schedule_model) to seconds considering if the given schedule_model is work time based (‘effort’ or ‘length’) or calendar time based (‘duration’).

  • New: Added a new method to ScheduleMixin called schedule_seconds which you may recognise from Task class. What it does is pretty much the same as in the Task class, it converts the given schedule info values to seconds.

  • Update: In DateRangeMixin, when the start, end or duration arguments given so that the duration is smaller then the defaults.timing_resolution the defaults.timing_resolution will be used as the duration and the end will be recalculated by anchoring the start value.

  • New: Adding a TimeLog to a Task and extending its schedule info values now will always use the least meaningful timing unit. So expanding a task from 16 hours to 18 hours will result a task with 2 days of schedule (considering the daily_working_hours = 9).

  • Update: Moved the daily_working_hours attribute from Studio class to WorkingHours class as it was much related to this one then Studio class. Left a property with the same name in the Studio class, so it will still function as it was before but there will be no column in the database for that attribute anymore.

0.2.3.5

  • Fix: Fixed a bug in stalker.models.auth.LocalSession where stalker was complaining about “copy_reg” module, it seems that it is related to this bug.

0.2.3.4

  • Update: Fixed a little bug in Link.extension property setter.
  • New: Moved the stalker.models.env.EnvironmentBase class to “Anima Tools” python module.
  • Fix: Fixed a bug in stalker.models.task.Task._responsible_getter() where it was always returning the greatest parents responsible as the responsible for the child task when the responsible is set to None for the child.
  • New: Added stalker.models.version.Version.naming_parents which returns a list of parents starting from the closest parent Asset, Shot or Sequence.
  • New: stalker.models.version.Version.nice_name now generates a name starting from the closest Asset, Shot or Sequence parent.

0.2.3.3

  • New: Ticket action methods (resolve, accept, reassign, reopen) now return the created TicketLog instance.

0.2.3.2

  • Update: Added tests for negative or zero fps value in Project class.
  • Fix: Minor fix to schedule_timing argument in Task class, where IDEs where assuming that the value passed to the schedule_timing should be integer where as it accepts floats also.
  • Update: Removed bg_color and fg_color attributes (and columns) from Status class. Use SimpleEntity.html_class and SimpleEntity.html_style attributes instead.
  • New: Added Project.open_tickets property.

0.2.3.1

  • Fix: Fixed an inconvenience in SimpleEntity.__init__() when a date_created argument with a value is later than datetime.datetime.now() is supplied and the date_updated argument is skipped or given as None, then the date_updated attribute value was generated from datetime.datetime.now() this was causing an unnecessary ValueError. This is fixed by directly copying the date_created value to date_updated value when it is skipped or None.

0.2.3

  • New: SimpleEntity now have two new attributes called html_style and html_class which can be used in storing cosmetic html values.

0.2.2.3

  • Update: Note.content attribute is now a synonym of the Note.description attribute.

0.2.2.2

  • Update: Studio.schedule() now returns information about how much did it take to schedule the tasks.
  • Update: Studio.to_tjp() now returns information about how much did it take to complete the conversion.

0.2.2.1

  • Fix: Task.percent_complete() now calculates the percent complete correctly.

0.2.2

  • Update: Added cascade attributes to all necessary relations for all the classes.
  • Update: The Version class is not mixed with the StatusMixin anymore. So the versions are not going to be statusable anymore. Also created alembic revision (a6598cde6b) for that update.

0.2.1.2

  • Update: TaskJugglerScheduler and the Studio classes are now returning the stderr message out of their schedule() methods.

0.2.1.1

  • Fix: Disabled some deep debug messages on TaskJugglerScheduler._parse_csv_file().
  • Fix: Fixed a flush issue related to the Task.parent attribute which is lazily loaded in Task._schedule_seconds_setter().

0.2.1

  • Fix: As usual distutil thinks 0.2.0 is a lower version number than 0.2.0.rc5 (I should have read the documentation again and used 0.2.0.c5 instead of 0.2.0.rc5) so this is a dummy update to just to fix the version number.

0.2.0

  • Update: Vacation tjp template now includes the time values of the start and end dates of the Vacation instance.

0.2.0.rc5

  • Update: For a container task, Task.total_logged_seconds and Task.schedule_seconds attributes are now using the info of the child tasks. Also these attributes are cached to database, so instead of querying the child tasks all the time, the calculated data is cached and whenever a TimeLog is created or updated for a child task (which changes the total_logged_seconds for the child task) or the schedule_timing or schedule_unit attributes are updated, the cached values are updated on the parents. Allowing Stalker to display percent_complete info of a container task without loading any of its children.
  • New: Added Task.percent_complete attribute, which calculates the percent of completeness of the task based on the Task.total_logged_seconds and Task.schedule_seconds attributes.
  • Fix: Added TimeLog.__eq__() operator to more robustly check if the time logs are overlapping.
  • New: Added Project.percent_complete, Percent.total_logged_seconds and Project.schedule_seconds attributes.
  • Update: ScheduleMixin._validate_dates() does not set the date values anymore, it just return the calculated and validated start, end and duration values.
  • Update: Vacation now can be created without a User instance, effectively making the Vacation a Studio wide vacation, which applies to all users.
  • Update: Vacation.__strictly_typed__ is updated to False, so there is no need to create a Type instance to be able to create a Vacation.
  • New: Studio.vacations property now returns the Vacation instances which has no user.
  • Update: Task.start and Task.end values are no more read from children Tasks for a container task over and over again but calculated whenever the start and end values of a child task are changed or a new child is appended or removed.
  • Update: SimpleEntity.description validation routine doesn’t convert the input to string anymore, but checks the given description value against being a string or unicode instance.
  • New: Added Ticket.summary field.
  • Fix: Fixed Link.extension, it is now accepting unicode.

0.2.0.rc4

  • New: Added a new attribute to Version class called latest_version which holds the latest version in the version queue.

  • New: To optimize the database connection times, stalker.db.setup() will not try to initialize the database every time it is called anymore. This leads a ~4x speed up in database connection setup. To initialize a newly created database please use:

    # for a newly created database
    from stalker import db
    db.setup() # connects to database
    db.init()  # fills some default values to be used with Stalker
    
    # for any subsequent access just use (don't need to call db.init())
    db.setup()
    
  • Update: Removed all __init_on_load() methods from all of the classes. It was causing SQLAlchemy to eagerly load relations, thus slowing down queries in certain cases (especially in Task.parent -> Task.children relation).

  • Fix: Fixed Vacation class tj3 format.

  • Fix: Studio.now attribute was not properly working when the Studio instance has been restored from database.

0.2.0.rc3

  • New: Added a new attribute to Task class called responsible.
  • Update: Removed Sequence.lead_id use Task.reponsible instead.
  • Update: Updated documentation to include documentation about Configuring Stalker with config.py.
  • Update: The duration argument in Task class is removed. It is somehow against the idea of having schedule_model and schedule_timing arguments (schedule_model='duration' is kind of the same).
  • Update: Updated Task class documentation.

0.2.0.rc2

  • New: Added Version.created_with attribute to track the environment or host program name that a particular Version instance is created with.

0.2.0.rc1

  • Update: Moved the Pyramid part of the system to another package called stalker_pyramid.
  • Fix: Fixed setup.py where importing stalker to get the __version__ variable causing problems.

0.2.0.b9

  • New: Added Version.latest_published_version and Version.is_latest_published_version().
  • Fix: Fixed Version.__eq__(), now Stalker correctly distinguishes different Version instances.
  • New: Added Repository.to_linux_path(), Repository.to_windows_path(), Repository.to_osx_path() and Repository.to_native_path() to the Repository class.
  • New: Added Repository.is_in_repo(path) which checks if the given path is in this repo.

0.2.0.b8

  • Update: Renamed Version.version_of attribute to Version.task.
  • Fix: Fixed Version.version_number where it was not possible to have a version number bigger than 2.
  • Fix: In db.setup() Ticket statuses are only created if there aren’t any.
  • Fix: Added Vacation class to the registered class list in stalker.db.

0.2.0.b7

  • Update: Task.schedule_constraint is now reflected to the tjp file correctly.
  • Fix: check_circular_dependency() now checks if the entity and the other_entity are the same.
  • Fix: Task.to_tjp() now correctly add the dependent tasks of a container task.
  • Fix: Task.__eq__() now correctly considers the parent, depends, resources, start and end dates.
  • Update: Task.priority is now reflected in tjp file if it is different than the default value (500).
  • New:: Added a new class called Vacation to hold user vacations.
  • Update: Removed dependencies to pyramid.security.Allow and pyramid.security.Deny in couple of packages.
  • Update: Changed the way the stalker.defaults is created.
  • Fix: EnvironmentBase.get_version_from_full_path(), EnvironmentBase.get_versions_from_path(), EnvironmentBase.trim_repo_path(), EnvironmentBase.find_repo methods are now working properly.
  • Update: Added Version.absolute_full_path property which renders the absolute full path which also includes the repository path.
  • Update: Added Version.absolute_path property which renders the absolute path which also includes the repository path.

0.2.0.b6

  • Fix: Fixed LocalSession._write_data(), previously it was not creating the local session folder.
  • New: Added a new method called LocalSession.delete() to remove the local session file.
  • Update: Link.full_path can now be set to an empty string. This is updated in this way for Version class.
  • Update: Updated the formatting of SimpleEntity.nice_name, it is now possible to have uppercase letters and camel case format will be preserved.
  • Update: Version.take_name formatting is enhanced.
  • New: Task class is now mixed in with ReferenceMixin making it unnecessary to have Asset, Shot and Sequence classes all mixed in individually. Thus removed the ReferenceMixin from Asset, Shot and Sequence classes.
  • Update: Added Task.schedule_model validation and its tests.
  • New: Added ScheduleMixin.total_seconds and ScheduleMixin.computed_total_seconds.

0.2.0.b5

  • New: Version class now has two new attributes called parent and children which will be used in tracking of the history of Version instances and track which Versions are derived from which Version.
  • New: Versions instances are now derived from Link class and not Entity.
  • Update: Added new revisions to alembic to reflect the change in Versions table.
  • Update: Links.path is renamed to Links.full_path and added three new attributes called path, filename and extension.
  • Update: Added new revisions to alembic to reflect the change in Links table.
  • New: Added a new class called LocalSession to store session data in users local filesystem. It is going to be replaced with some other system like Beaker.
  • Fix: Database part of Stalker can now be imported without depending to Pyramid.
  • Fix: Fixed documentation errors that Sphinx complained about.

0.2.0.b4

  • No changes in SOM.

0.2.0.b3

  • Update: FilenameTemplate’s are not strictly typed anymore.
  • Update: Removed the FilenameTemplate type initialization, FilenameTemplates do not depend on Types anymore.
  • Update: Added back the plural_class_name (previously plural_name) property to the ORMClass class, so all the classes in SOM now have this new property.
  • Update: Added accepts_references attribute to the EntityType class.
  • New: The Link class has a new attribute called original_filename to store the original file names of link files.
  • New: Added alembic to the project requirements.
  • New: Added alembic migrations which adds the accepts_references column to EntityTypes table and original_name to the Links table.

0.2.0.b2

  • Stalker is now compatible with Python 2.6.
  • Task:
    • Update: Tasks now have a new attribute called watchers which holds a list of User instances watching the particular Task.
    • Update: Users now have a new attribute called watching which is a list of Task instances that this user is watching.
  • TimeLog:
    • Update: TimeLog instances will expand Task.schedule_timing value automatically if the total amount of logged time is more than the schedule_timing value.
    • Update: TimeLogs are now considered while scheduling the task.
    • Fix: TimeLogs raises OverBookedError when appending the same TimeLog instance to the same resource.
  • Auth:
    • Fix: The default ACLs for determining the permissions are now working properly.

0.2.0.b1

  • WorkingHours.is_working_hour() is working now.
  • WorkingHours class is moved from stalker.models.project to stalker.models.studio module.
  • daily_working_hours attribute is moved from stalker.models.project.Project to stalker.models.studio.Studio class.
  • Repository path variables now ends with a forward slash even if it is not given.
  • Updated Project classes validation messages to correlate with Stalker standard.
  • Implementation of the Studio class is finished. The scheduling works like a charm.
  • It is now possible to use any characters in SimpleEntity.name and the derived classes.
  • Booking class is renamed to TimeLog.

0.2.0.a10

  • Added new attribute to WorkingHours class called weekly_working_hours, which calculates the weekly working hours based on the working hours defined in the instance.

  • Task class now has a new attribute called schedule_timing which is replacing the effort, length and duration attributes. Together with the schedule_model attribute it will be used in scheduling the Task.

  • Updated the config system to the one used in oyProjectManager (based on Sphinx config system). Now to reach the defaults:

    # instead of doing the following
    from stalker.conf import defaults # not valid anymore
    
    # use this
    from stalker import defaults
    

    If the above idiom is used, the old defaults module behaviour is retained, so no code change is required other than the new lower case config variable names.

0.2.0.a9

  • A new property called to_tjp added to the SimpleEntity class which needs to be implemented in the child and is going to be used in TaskJuggler integration.
  • A new attribute called is_scheduled added to Task class and it is going to be used in Gantt charts. Where it will lock the class and will not try to snap it to anywhere if it is scheduled.
  • Changed the resolution attribute name to timing_resolution to comply with TaskJuggler.
  • ScheduleMixin:
    • Updated ScheduleMixin class documentation.
    • There are two new read-only attributes called computed_start and computed_end. These attributes will be used in storing of the values calculated by TaskJuggler, and will be used in Gantt Charts if available.
    • Added computed_duration.
  • Task:
    • Arranged the TaskJuggler workflow.
    • The task will use the effort > length > duration attributes in to_tjp property.
  • Changed the license of Stalker from BSD-2 to LGPL 2.1. Any version previous to 0.2.0.a9 will be still BSD-2 and any version from and including 0.2.0.a9 will be distributed under LGPL 2.1 license.
  • Added new types of classes called Schedulers which are going to be used in scheduling the tasks.
  • Added TaskJugglerScheduler, it uses the given project and schedules its tasks.

0.2.0.a8

  • TagSelect now can be filled by setting its value attribute (Ex: TagSelect.set(‘value’, data))
  • Added a new method called is_root to Task class. It is true for tasks where there are no parents.
  • Added a new attribute called users to the Department class which is a synonym for the members attribute.
  • Task:
    • Task class is now preventing one of the dependents to be set as the parent of a task.
    • Task class is now preventing one of the parents to be set as the one of the dependents of a task.
    • Fixed autoflush bugs in Task class.
  • Fixed admin users department initialization.
  • Added thumbnail attribute to the SimpleEntity class which is a reference to a Link instance, showing the path of the thumbnail.
  • Fixed Circular Dependency bug in Task class, where a parent of a newly created task is depending to another task which is set as the dependee for this newly created task (T1 -> T3 -> T2 -> T1 (parent relation) -> T3 -> T2 etc.).

0.2.0.a7

  • Changed these default setting value names to corresponding new names:

    • DEFAULT_TASK_DURATION -> TASK_DURATION
    • DEFAULT_TASK_PRIORITY -> TASK_PRIORITY
    • DEFAULT_VERSION_TAKE_NAME -> VERSION_TAKE_NAME
    • DEFAULT_TICKET_LABEL -> TICKET_LABEL
    • DEFAULT_ACTIONS -> ACTIONS
    • DEFAULT_BG_COLOR -> BG_COLOR
    • DEFAULT_FG_COLOR -> FG_COLOR
  • stalker.conf.defaults:

    • Added default settings for project working hours (WORKING_HOURS, DAY_ORDER, DAILY_WORKING_HOURS)
    • Added a new variable for setting the task time resolution called TIME_RESOLUTION.
  • stalker.models.project.Project:

    • Removed Project.project_tasks attribute, use Project.tasks directly to get all the Tasks in that project. For root task you can do a quick query:

      Task.query.filter(Task.project==proj_id).filter(Task.parent==None).all()
      

      This will also return the Assets, Sequences and Shots in that project, which are also Tasks.

    • Users are now assigned to Projects by appending them to the Project.users list. This is done in this way to allow a reduced list of resources to be shown in the Task creation dialogs.

    • Added a new helper class for Project working hour management, called WorkingHours.

    • Added a new attribute to Project class called working_hours which holds stalker.models.project.WorkingHours instances to manage the Project working hours. It will directly be passed to TaskJuggler.

  • stalker.models.task.Task:

    • Removed the Task.task_of attribute, use Task.parent to get the owner of this Task.
    • Task now has two new attributes called Task.parent and Task.children which allow more complex Task-to-Task relation.
    • Secondary table name for holding Task to Task dependency relation is renamed from Task_Tasks to Task_Dependencies.
    • check_circular_dependency function is now accepting a third argument which is the name of the attribute to be investigated for circular relationship. It is done in that way to be able to use the same function in searching for circular relations both in parent/child and depender/dependee relations.
  • ScheduleMixin:

    • Added a new attribute to ScheduleMixin for time resolution adjustment. Default value is 1 hour and can be set with stalker.conf.defaults.TIME_RESOLUTION. Any finer time than the resolution is rounded to the closest multiply of the resolution. It is possible to set it from microseconds to years. Although 1 hour is a very reasonable resolution which is also the default resolution for TaskJuggler.
    • ScheduleMixin now uses datetime.datetime for the start and end attributes.
    • Renamed the start_date attribute to start.
    • Renamed the end_date attribute to end
  • Removed the TaskableEntity.

  • Asset, Sequence and Shot classes are now derived from Task class allowing more complex Task relation combined with the new parent/child relation of Tasks. Use Asset.children or Asset.tasks to reach the child tasks of that asset (same with Sequence and Shot classes).

  • stalker.models.shot.Shot:

    • Removed the sequence and introduced sequences attribute in Shot class. Now one shot can be in more than one Sequence. Allowing more complex Shot/Sequence relations..
    • Shots can now be created without a Sequence instance. The sequence attribute is just used to group the Shots.
    • Shots now have a new attribute called scenes, holding Scene instances. It is created to group same shots occurring in the same scenes.
  • In tests all the Warnings are now properly handled as Warnings.

  • stalker.models.ticket.Ticket:

    • Ticket instances are now tied to Projects and it is now possible to create Tickets without supplying a Version. They are free now.
    • It is now possible to link any SimpleEntity to a Ticket.
    • The Ticket Workflow is now fully customizable. Use stalker.conf.defaults.TICKET_WORKFLOW dictionary to define the workflow and stalker.conf.defaults.TICKET_STATUS_ORDER for the order of the ticket statuses.
  • Added a new class called Scene to manage Shots with another property.

  • Removed the output_path attribute in FilenameTemplate class.

  • Grouped the templates for each entity under a directory with the entity name.

0.2.0.a6

  • Users now can have more than one Department.
  • User instances now have two new properties for getting the user tickets (User.tickets) and the open tickets (User.open_tickets).
  • New shortcut Task.project returns the Task.task_of.project value.
  • Shot and Asset creation dialogs now automatically updated with the given Project instance info.
  • User overview page is now reflection the new design.

0.2.0.a5

  • The code attribute of the SimpleEntity is now introduced as a separate mixin. To let it be used by the classes it is really needed.

  • The query method is now converted to a property so it is now possible to use it like a property as in the SQLAlchemy.orm.Session as shown below:

    from stalker import Project
    Project.query.all() # instead of Project.query().all()
    
  • ScheduleMixin.due_date is renamed to ScheduleMixin.end_date.

  • Added a new class attribute to SimpleEntity called __auto_name__ which controls the naming of the instances and instances derived from SimpleEntity. If __auto_name__ is set to True the name attribute of the instance will be automatically generated and it will have the following format:

    {{ClassName}}_{{UUID4}}
    

    Here are a couple of naming examples:

    Ticket_74bb46b0-29de-4f3e-b4e6-8bcf6aed352d
    Version_2fa5749e-8cdb-4887-aef2-6d8cec6a4faa
    
  • Fixed an autoflush issue with SQLAlchemy in StatusList class. Now the status column is again not nullable in StatusMixin.

0.2.0.a4

  • Added a new class called EntityType to hold all the available class names and capabilities.

  • Version class now has a new attribute called inputs to hold the inputs of the current Version instance. It is a list of Link instances.

  • FilenameTemplate classes path and filename attributes are no more converted to string, so given a non string value will raise TypeError.

  • Structure.custom_template now only accepts strings and None, setting it to anything else will raise a TypeError.

  • Two Type’s for FilenameTemplate’s are created by default when initializing the database, first is called “Version” and it is used to define FilenameTemplates which are used for placing Version source files. The second one is called “Reference” and it is used when injecting references to a given class. Along with the FilenameTemplate.target_entity_type this will allow one to create two different FilenameTemplates for one class:

    # first get the Types
    vers_type = Type.query()\
                .filter_by(target_entity_type="FilenameTemplate")\
                .filter_by(type="Version")\
                .first()
    
    ref_type = Type.query()\
               .filter_by(target_entity_type="FilenameTemplate")\
               .filter_by(type="Reference")\
               .first()
    
    # lets create a FilenameTemplate for placing Asset Version files.
    f_ver = FilenameTemplate(
        target_entity_type="Asset",
        type=vers_type,
        path="Assets/{{asset.type.code}}/{{asset.code}}/{{task.type.code}}",
        filename="{{asset.code}}_{{version.take_name}}_{{task.type.code}}_v{{'%03d'|version.version_number}}{{link.extension}}"
        output_path="{{version.path}}/Outputs/{{version.take_name}}"
    )
    
    # and now define a FilenameTemplate for placing Asset Reference files.
    # no need to have an output_path here...
    f_ref = FilenameTemplate(
        target_entity_type="Asset",
        type=ref_type,
        path="Assets/{{asset.type.code}}/{{asset.code}}/References",
        filename="{{link.type.code}}/{{link.id}}{{link.extension}}"
    )
    
  • stalker.db.register() now accepts only real classes instead of class names. This way it can store more information about classes.

  • Status.bg_color and Status.fg_color attributes are now simple integers. And the Color class is removed.

  • StatusMixin.status is now a ForeignKey to a the Statuses table, thus it is a real Status instance instead of an integer showing the index of the Status in the related StatusList. This way the Status of the object will not change if the content of the StatusList is changed.

  • Added new attribute Project.project_tasks which holds all the direct or indirect Tasks created for that project.

  • User.login_name is renamed to User.login.

  • Removed the first_name, last_name and initials attributes from User class. Now the name and code attributes are going to be used, thus the name attribute is no more the equivalent of login and the code attribute is doing what was initials doing previously.

0.2.0.a3

  • Status class now has two new attributes bg_color and fg_color to hold the UI colors of the Status instance. The colors are Color instances.

0.2.0.a2

  • SimpleEntity now has an attribute called generic_data which can hold any kind of SOM object inside and it is a list.

  • Changed the formatting rules for the name in SimpleEntity class, now it can start with a number, and it is not allowed to have multiple whitespace characters following each other.

  • The source attribute in Version is renamed to source_file.

  • The version attribute in Version is renamed to version_number.

  • The take attribute in Version is renamed to take_name.

  • The version_number in Version is now generated automatically if it is skipped or given as None or it is too low where there is already a version number for the same Version series (means attached to the same Task and has the same take_name.

  • Moved the User class to stalker.models.auth module.

  • Removed the stalker.ext.auth module because it is not necessary anymore. Thus the User now handles all the password conversions by itself.

  • PermissionGroup is renamed back to Group again to match with the general naming of the authorization concept.

  • Created two new classes for the Authorization system, first one is called Permission and the second one is a Mixin which is called ACLMixin which adds ACLs to the mixed in class. For now, only the User and Group classes are mixed with this mixin by default.

  • The declarative Base class of SQLAlchemy is now created by binding it to a ORMClass (a random name) which lets all the derived class to have a method called query which will bypass the need of calling DBSession.query(class_) but instead just call class_.query():

    from stalker.models.auth import User
    user_1 = User.query().filter_by(name='a user name').first()
    

0.2.0.a1

  • Changed the db.setup arguments. It is now accepting a dictionary instead of just a string to comply with the SQLAlchemy scaffold and this dictionary should contain keys for the SQLAlchemy engine setup. There is another utility that comes with Pyramid to setup the database under the scripts folder, it is also working without any problem with stalker.db.

  • The session variable is renamed to DBSession and is now a scopped session, so there is no need to use DBSession.commit it will be handled by the system it self.

  • Even though the DBSession is using the Zope Transaction Manager extension normally, in the database tests no extension is used because the transaction manager was swallowing all errors and it was a little weird to try to catch this errors out of the with block.

  • Refactored the code, all the models are now in separate python files, but can be directly imported from the main stalker module as shown:

    from stalker import User, Department, Task
    

    By using this kind of organization, both development and usage will be eased out.

  • task_of now only accepts TaskableEntity instances.

  • Updated the examples. It is now showing how to extend SOM correctly.

  • Updated the references to the SOM classes in docstrings and rst files.

  • Removed the Review class. And introduced the much handier Ticket class. Now reviewing a data is the process of creating Ticket’s to that data.

  • The database is now initialized with a StatusList and a couple of Statuses appropriate for Ticket instances.

  • The database is now initialized with two Type instances (‘Enhancement’ and ‘Defect’) suitable for Ticket instances.

  • StatusMixin now stores the status attribute as an Integer showing the index of the Status in the status_list attribute but when asked for the value of StatusMixin.status attribute it will return a proper Status instance and the attribute can be set with an integer or with a proper Status instance.

Summary

stalker.db Database module of Stalker.
stalker.db.setup Utility function that helps to connect the system to the given database.
stalker.exceptions Errors for the system.
stalker.exceptions.CircularDependencyError Raised when there is circular dependencies within Tasks
stalker.exceptions.DBError
stalker.exceptions.LoginError Raised when the login information is not correct or not correlate with the data in the database.
stalker.exceptions.OverBookedError Raised when a resource is booked more than once for the same time period
stalker.exceptions.StatusError Raised when the status of an entity is not suitable for the desired action
stalker.models
stalker.models.asset.Asset The Asset class is the whole idea behind Stalker.
stalker.models.auth.AuthenticationLog Keeps track of login/logout dates and the action (login or logout).
stalker.models.auth.Group Creates groups for users to be used in authorization system.
stalker.models.auth.LocalSession A simple temporary session object which simple stores session data.
stalker.models.auth.Role Defines a User role.
stalker.models.auth.Permission A class to hold permissions.
stalker.models.auth.User The user class is designed to hold data about a User in the system.
stalker.models.budget.Budget Manages project budgets
stalker.models.budget.BudgetEntry Manages entries in a Budget.
stalker.models.budget.Good Manages commercial items that is served by the Studio.
stalker.models.budget.Invoice Holds information about invoices
stalker.models.budget.Payment Holds information about the payments.
stalker.models.budget.PriceList Contains CommercialItems to create a list of items that is sold by the Studio.
stalker.models.department.Department The departments that forms the studio itself.
stalker.models.department.DepartmentUser The association object used in Department-to-User relation
stalker.models.client.Client The Client (e.g.
stalker.models.client.ClientUser The association object used in Client-to-User relation
stalker.models.entity.Entity Another base data class that adds tags and notes to the attributes list.
stalker.models.entity.EntityGroup Groups a wide variety of objects together to let one easily reach them.
stalker.models.entity.SimpleEntity The base class of all the others
stalker.models.format.ImageFormat Common image formats for the Projects.
stalker.models.link.Link Holds data about external links.
stalker.models.message.Message The base of the messaging system in Stalker
stalker.models.mixins.ACLMixin A Mixin for adding ACLs to mixed in class.
stalker.models.mixins.CodeMixin Adds code info to the mixed in class.
stalker.models.mixins.DateRangeMixin Adds date range info to the mixed in class.
stalker.models.mixins.ProjectMixin Allows connecting a Project to the mixed in object.
stalker.models.mixins.ReferenceMixin Adds reference capabilities to the mixed in class.
stalker.models.mixins.ScheduleMixin Adds schedule info to the mixed in class.
stalker.models.mixins.StatusMixin Makes the mixed in object statusable.
stalker.models.mixins.TargetEntityTypeMixin Adds target_entity_type attribute to mixed in class.
stalker.models.mixins.WorkingHoursMixin Sets working hours for the mixed in class.
stalker.models.note.Note Notes for any of the SOM objects.
stalker.models.project.Project All the information about a Project in Stalker is hold in this class.
stalker.models.project.ProjectClient The association object used in Client-to-Project relation
stalker.models.project.ProjectRepository The association object for Project to Repository instances
stalker.models.project.ProjectUser The association object used in User-to-Project relation
stalker.models.repository.Repository Manages fileserver/repository related data.
stalker.models.review.Review Manages the Task Review Workflow.
stalker.models.review.Daily Manages data related to Dailies.
stalker.models.review.DailyLink The association object used in Daily-to-Link relation
stalker.models.scene.Scene Stores data about Scenes.
stalker.models.schedulers.SchedulerBase This is the base class for schedulers.
stalker.models.schedulers.TaskJugglerScheduler This is the main scheduler for Stalker right now.
stalker.models.sequence.Sequence Stores data about Sequences.
stalker.models.shot.Shot Manages Shot related data.
stalker.models.status.Status Defines object statutes.
stalker.models.status.StatusList Type specific list of Status instances.
stalker.models.structure.Structure Defines folder structures for Projects.
stalker.models.studio.Studio Manage all the studio information at once.
stalker.models.studio.WorkingHours A helper class to manage Studio working hours.
stalker.models.tag.Tag Use it to create tags for any object available in SOM.
stalker.models.task.Task Manages Task related data.
stalker.models.task.TaskDependency The association object used in Task-to-Task dependency relation
stalker.models.task.TimeLog Holds information about the uninterrupted time spent on a specific Task by a specific User.
stalker.models.template.FilenameTemplate Holds templates for filename and path conventions.
stalker.models.ticket.Ticket Tickets are the way of reporting errors or asking for changes.
stalker.models.ticket.TicketLog Holds Ticket.Ticket.status change operations.
stalker.models.type.EntityType A simple class just to hold the registered class names in Stalker
stalker.models.type.Type Everything can have a type.
stalker.models.version.Version Holds information about the created versions (files) for a class:.Task
stalker.models.wiki.Page A simple Wiki page implementation.

Indices and tables