Description: This project didn't really garner any response. I was hoping to look for at least one interested party. I know the majority of Linux users are definitely not farmers but to be fair it is one of the areas where open source software lacks.
As far as I know the version on the website should work just fine but there might be issues with urllib2.
Anyways, university started for me and visa issues meant I didn't get time to get up to a 1.0 release by the end of September. I spent a couple of hours on this today (25/11/2012) and re-factored some of the stuff as well as moving everything to a Kdev project.
The latest version I have lying around on my pc has quite a few improvements over the older versions but the software is still not feature complete nor comprehensive enough to be field useable.
At the moment, as far as I am concerned this project failed and I won't be developing on it further in the near future unless somebody shows a little interest in it in which case I'll jump back on it. I guess I tried to fill a niche which was just too small.
As a side note: I did manage to get 4 independent farms to trial the software and they quite liked the concept; however, they just preferred using a book to keep tabs on everything. New technology is just a little too tricky to get a grasp of when you don't have experience.
######################################
This is a program designed to be an open source livestock (as in animals) management software targeting intensive-style farmers. Its being written in python and requires pyqt4 and pykde. This code is still pre-alpha, So not for production use! My end intention is to bundle this with a custom OpenSuse build that is free, works on old hardware and will provide farmers with suitable, affordable and powerful tools to help them farm more successfully.
Wiki set-up and online.
I am hoping to put out something substantial and actually usable by the end of September 2012. I have a lot on my plate but I am making a concerted effort to get this going.
To run it:
sh start.sh
FEEDBACK INVITED
Coming soon:
Printable reports with matplotlib graphs Multiple database functionality Splash screen Branding (No clue how to be subtle but different) Reminder and Weather in Today page Networked database access Settings dialogLast changelog:
0.3
Stock functionality introduced and fully working Today Page added Started code for a weather interface Some code clean-up Speed increases Started code for a reminder system Dialog renovations for more consistent experience
0.2
Cleaned up the UI, new "textless" design UI scales correctly Icons included Print Functionality Added Beginnings of the "Stock" tab Code made OO Fixed bugs Stopped konsole spamming
kinda lame nobody got into this. i'm a bit of a micro-farmer myself. I really like the concept. didn't work too great for me obviously because it's a pre-alpha dropped project but i think it has potential. if i knew anything about programming i'd pick this up. have you heard of Open Source Ecology? they have a wiki with a whole section on software http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Category:Software.
I sent them the link to this program bc I hear they have a tech team that works on this kind of stuff. i know i'm something like 2yrs late on this but i just found it.
wait that came out wrong. it worked well as far as it's been developed (pre-alpha). I like the interface. couldn't get the wiki aspect working but i'll keep playing.
The wiki got taken down. It was actually designed to be able to download the wiki locally for offline access as well as toggle between online and local. It'll just give some weird errors now. The backend code is written but not fully present in this version.
I actually developed the app much further since the last submission but I've pretty much given up on it and won't be releasing further versions.
At the moment the "Today" page is fully functional with fully working weather, remainders etc. A proper settings dialog has been implemented so that you can customize some of the things like location for weather.
I've also added a report generator that provides a detailed report (in .pdf) on the animal such as plots of the animal's weight, medical records, family tree etc. I also cleaned up a number of bugs.
Stock management works very well and all the major problems and shortcomings have been resolved. You can even do some custom stuff now and it's now fairly feature rich.
The breeding interface now functions reasonably well. You can create family trees, monitor lineage to help avoid excessive inbreeding and/or bread for specific traits (has a little pseudo generational gene calculator). Its not very feature rich but then again I stopped development.
A place where there was a particular improvement is the management of the actual animals. More fields have been added. Custom fields are now possible. I had to clean up the "edit" box a bit and its actually really quite nice and feature rich. I'm particularly proud of the fact that you can now add a "Remainder" to the animal that will alert you on the "Today" page and/or make a pop up with customizable tone. Vaccinations also now work and the Today page will list animals awaiting vaccinations and remind you when new ones are due. The rules for this unfortunately are defined in an awkward but simple way with no GUI to configure as of yet.
Lastly it now has support for multiple "databases" as well as multiple configurations that you can load on demand. It's also properly packaged now and follows typical Linux and KDE conventions.
In all honesty its probably more like close to a v1.0 release now but I just can't be bothered anymore. Sorry, but I just don't have the time at the moment to put out a release and then support it (not like I really supported it before).
Thanks for your interest and I'm sorry it isn't in a better state. There was just so little interest originally that I felt abandoning it would be better than wasting my time further on it. Maybe in a year or so I'll get back to this when I've graduated and have some time.
Ratings & Comments
3 Comments
kinda lame nobody got into this. i'm a bit of a micro-farmer myself. I really like the concept. didn't work too great for me obviously because it's a pre-alpha dropped project but i think it has potential. if i knew anything about programming i'd pick this up. have you heard of Open Source Ecology? they have a wiki with a whole section on software http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Category:Software. I sent them the link to this program bc I hear they have a tech team that works on this kind of stuff. i know i'm something like 2yrs late on this but i just found it.
wait that came out wrong. it worked well as far as it's been developed (pre-alpha). I like the interface. couldn't get the wiki aspect working but i'll keep playing.
The wiki got taken down. It was actually designed to be able to download the wiki locally for offline access as well as toggle between online and local. It'll just give some weird errors now. The backend code is written but not fully present in this version. I actually developed the app much further since the last submission but I've pretty much given up on it and won't be releasing further versions. At the moment the "Today" page is fully functional with fully working weather, remainders etc. A proper settings dialog has been implemented so that you can customize some of the things like location for weather. I've also added a report generator that provides a detailed report (in .pdf) on the animal such as plots of the animal's weight, medical records, family tree etc. I also cleaned up a number of bugs. Stock management works very well and all the major problems and shortcomings have been resolved. You can even do some custom stuff now and it's now fairly feature rich. The breeding interface now functions reasonably well. You can create family trees, monitor lineage to help avoid excessive inbreeding and/or bread for specific traits (has a little pseudo generational gene calculator). Its not very feature rich but then again I stopped development. A place where there was a particular improvement is the management of the actual animals. More fields have been added. Custom fields are now possible. I had to clean up the "edit" box a bit and its actually really quite nice and feature rich. I'm particularly proud of the fact that you can now add a "Remainder" to the animal that will alert you on the "Today" page and/or make a pop up with customizable tone. Vaccinations also now work and the Today page will list animals awaiting vaccinations and remind you when new ones are due. The rules for this unfortunately are defined in an awkward but simple way with no GUI to configure as of yet. Lastly it now has support for multiple "databases" as well as multiple configurations that you can load on demand. It's also properly packaged now and follows typical Linux and KDE conventions. In all honesty its probably more like close to a v1.0 release now but I just can't be bothered anymore. Sorry, but I just don't have the time at the moment to put out a release and then support it (not like I really supported it before). Thanks for your interest and I'm sorry it isn't in a better state. There was just so little interest originally that I felt abandoning it would be better than wasting my time further on it. Maybe in a year or so I'll get back to this when I've graduated and have some time.