Diary

Share diary and document between different Macs

Problem: You have a Mac at home and one at work. You would like to synchronize your TrailRunner diary with these two computers.
Solution: TrailRunner supports Dropbox. You can put the TrailRunner documents into your Dropbox and the data gets synchronized between all linked computers.

As you might already know, TrailRunner stores all vital information within your home directories Application Support folder

To move your TrailRunner data to Dropbox, follow these steps:

- Download and install Dropbox.
- By default, Dropbox creates a new folder in your home directory called Dropbox.
- Open this folder and make sure that a folder named Documents exists within. If this is not the case, create one with the exact spelling.
- Now go to: [yourhome]/Library/Application Support/
- Within, find the folder named TrailRunner and move this into the aforementioned Documents folder.

Next time you start up TrailRunner, the application will check on if your home directory contains the following folder:
[yourhome]/Dropbox/Apps/TrailRunner/Application Support

If that's the case, TrailRunner will access this location instead of the default Library/Application Support location.

If the default folder does not suit you, these alternatives are also looked into:
[yourhome]/Documents/Dropbox/Apps/TrailRunner/Application Support [yourhome]/Dropbox/Apps/TrailRunner/Application Support [yourhome]/Dropbox/Documents/TrailRunner
[yourhome]/Shared/Library/Application Support/TrailRunner

As this folder now is located within your dropbox, it is automatically being backed up and synchronized between all computers being linked to your dropbox.



How can I filter the diary entries for activities with common attributes?

Problem: The diary windows left pane has preconfigured filter modes for date, equipment and workout types. But you would like to see all entries of an arbitrary common property, month or year.
Solution: in the diary window search field, you can for entries that match common attributes. The following examples may give you a picture of what that is capable of.
Examples:
- Search for fragments in the comment field. For example 'evening run' would find all entries that contain this text fragment in their comment field.
- This enables you to use tagging. For example you could make yourself up a tag like 'x-withDog' 'x-fromWorkToHome', enter these tags into any activities comment and then search for those.
- You can also search for parts of the date. Enter '2011-' to find all entries of that year or '2011-03' to find all entries of that month. or -'03-' to find all entries of in March of every year. (for your interest, the full date format is yyy-mm-dd)



How can I export my diary

Problem: While TrailRunner already has some statistical graphs built in, you sometimes still want to create your own graphs like e.g "calories burnt per kilometer".
Solution: Select the diary entries in TrailRunner and use Edit > Copy to paste the data into an external spreadsheet application like Numbers or Excel. To select all entries in TrailRunner, use Command-A.
Tip: If you import your data into Excel, make sure that the column separator is set to "tab separated".



How can I display a statistic to analyze my performance over time?

Problem: After using TrailRunner for a while you want to see how your performance has improved. You therefore would like to see a chart displaying your average milage, speed or fitness per over time.

Solution:
In the diary, select the weeks tab. You see a chart that displays values over time.
- Right click the chart to hide/show rows like duration, distance, speed, etc.
- Select a range within the chart to analyze values within the selected period of time
- Select one or more entries within the bottom table of activities to see where they are located in the chart.

Tip: To build classes of workouts that you can compare to each other, categorize your workouts by:
- creating separate diaries for each type of activity (like biking and running).
- using tags for equipment or workout-type.

More: TrailRunner Help > Diary

Bildschirmfoto 2013-01-06 um 11.45.00


How can I backup my files

Problem: It's not really obvious to me where TrailRunner stores the main document containing routes and the database containing my diary activities. How can I backup these files?

Solution
: TrailRunner stores files in the following folders. Backup these folders/files and your personal data is safe.
__yourhome__/Library/Application Support/TrailRunner
__yourhome__/Library/Preferences
__yourhome__/Library/Caches/com.berbie.trailrunner

> Read More about what files TrailRunner writes to your harddrive…

Hint: Another alternative to backing up your files is to place them in Dropbox. This also enables you to synchronize with other computers you own:
> Read More about how to synchronize your diary with other computers…

Hint: on Mac OS X Lion the __yourhome__/Library folder is invisible by default. But just hold down the option key while pulling down the Finder's "Go" menu to get there. Or you can make it permanently visible using the following terminal command:
chflags nohidden ~/Library/
or you can open it by typing the following into the Finder menu item Go > Go to Folder box:
~/Library



Share weblog entries to twitter

Problem: diary entries in TrailRunner can only be published as a website. But I'd like to (also) tweet about my activities.
Solution: Services like http://twitterfeed.com can publish RSS Feeds to your twitter account. TrailRunner also published an RSS feed along with your weblog. You'll find the feed here: http://web.me.com//trailrunner/weblog.xml

How can I manually publish my weblog

Problem: TrailRunner can publish your weblog to either a .Mac or FTP account. Both options might not work for you.
Solution: To manually copy your weblog to another server, follow these steps:
- Press the Preview Button in the Publish pane.
Safari will open and will show you the preview.
- Remove the /weblog.html part of the url displayed in the address bar.
- Press the return key while the cursor is still in the address bar.
Finder will open a new window with the exported files.
- Manually copy these to your server.

Diary: Display speed over distance instead of pace over distance

Problem: Is it possible to display the average speed in km/h or mph instead of pace?
Solution: An activity is always assigned to a diary. And a diary can be of a sport type like running, biking, etc.
If you change your default diary to the sport type biking, it would affect the display for all entries within this diary.

TrailRunner > Preferences > Personal > Diaries: Select the diary and then change the type in the table Popup.

Mobileme Publishing is not working for me

Problem: TrailRunner asks your keychain for a Mobileme authentication. The keychain itself uses your Mobileme system preferences information. If your keychain is not set up properly, TrailRunner is not able to access your .Mac account. This might be due to a problem with your keychain.
Solution: Read the following support article on how to fix any keychain problems:
> Using keychains with .Mac, troubleshooting keychain issues

Problem: You published your weblog to Mobileme, but the changes are not visible.
Solution: It might take a while until Apple has copied your new website content from your iDisk onto your webspace. Please wait a couple of minutes and then reload your webpage.