Bart 3 documentation

Bart is a one-way sync tool, which will synchronise a number of destination directories with source directories. After the first initial run, only changed files will be copied.

Bart can manage multiple source/destination directories - each is called a task, and has its own settings. Groups of tasks can be saved into their own .job file. Bart supports command line switches which automate its operation.

Main dialog

The main dialog contains a list of tasks, each of which details a source and destination, along with a number of options relating to that task. There are buttons to create, delete, edit and copy the tasks, and right-clicking will also display those options.

To the right of this are buttons to start, pause and stop the job, or to start just one of the tasks in the job.

As each task runs, the log area will show the actions taken. These details are also written to the detailed log file. Double-clicking any of the log lines will copy the text to the clipboard.

The progress bar works in one of two modes. The first is the one used when Bart does not know the total size of the files to be copied. In this mode, the bar will always be full, but the coloured parts will show the relative amount of unchanged/updated/new files. The second mode can only work when Bart has already scanned the source directories to get a total size, and then the bar will also grow from left to right as the source data is covered. In order to switch between the modes, change the "Count source size..." check box in Options.

Task dialog

In the Edit Task dialog, set the source and destination folders for data to be backed up, along with a name for the task, and whether it's enabled. Disabled tasks will not be executed when "Run All" is used, but can be individually set to run.

The colour chosen in this dialog is used as the background to the task in the main list.

"Check file can be opened..." can be useful when a task includes a PST file. With this option set, locked files will be skipped, and so no errors are added to the log.

"Safe mode" will only copy new files to, and update changed files in the destination.

Options

• Use compact view in job list - show a shorter summary of each task in the main display
  
• Count source size at every job start - this modifies the way in which the Progress bar works. With this option checked, as you execute a job, Bart will start a second thread to walk through all source directories, counting the files which will be copied. Note that while this is running, it slightly slow down the main synchronisation work which Bart is performing. Then once the thread has completed, the Progress bar will show progress through all the source locations.
  While this scan is taking place, the Progress bar will show the proportion of the source directories which have already been processed which were the same, changed or new.
  Clearing this check box will mean that the scan is not run, and the Progress bar will always show the proportion of files which are same, changed or new.
• Keep system awake -
• Enable debugging - the file debug.log is written to disk, and will contain a great deal of troubleshooting information, slowing the operation of Bart, and filling your disk! Only enable this if you're having trouble, and remember to turn it off again when you're done!

Variable drive

Sometimes the source or destination drive letter will vary. When running Bart with the source or destination as a USB drive, the letter can change from machine to machine. Bart caters for this by allowing a "wildcard" drive letter to be specified in the app, and then the drive letter can be supplied on the command line at run time.

To set a source or destination as the variable drive letter, use a question mark instead of the letter. So, to back up from the same location on your system disk to a USB drive, use the following:

Source: c:\data
Destination: ?:\data_backup

When Bart is executed, use the command line option -letter:x to set the variable letter. When Bart is running, the variable letter is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the dialog.

If a task path uses a variable letter, and the letter is not supplied on the command line, the task will not run.

If Bart is being run from a USB drive itself, and the drive letter changes, use the syntax -letter:. to use the drive letter from which Bart is being run as the variable letter. This permits "relative" paths to be used with the app.

Log files

Bart writes two log files during each job execution. summary.log contains one line per job, and contains the summary of the process. The columns in this file are:

• File name
• Task name (or "**all**" if all tasks were processed)
• Year of job run time
• Month of job run time
• Month day of job run time
• Hour of job run time
• Minute of job run time
• Second of job run time
• Count of files copied
• Count of files same
• Count of files deleted
• Count of files skipped
• Count of files added
• Count of files saved in destination
• Error count
• Byte count of new files
• Byte count of changed files
• Job time elapsed in seconds
• Count of files in source directories
• Byte count of source directories

The second log file is an HTML page named "log.html" describing what took place during the job execution. It will be overwritten for every job which Bart runs unless the command line parameter -datelog is used - then each file will have the date and time appended to the name.

Command line switches

• -runall - Bart will run all enabled jobs, show the balloon summary and quit
• -show - When used with -runall, the main dialog is displayed while the jobs are running
• -stay - Bart will stick around once it's finished running the jobs. Clicking any buttons in the interface if -show is specified will also cause it to remain
• -shutdown - the computer will be shut down once the jobs have been run, as long as there were no errors in any of the tasks
• -ignoreerrors - if -shutdown has been specified and errors were found, shut down anyway
• -datelog - save detailed logs to different files, named as the date on which the job was run
• -logexclusions - also write files which are skipped to the detailed log file
• -file <filename> - open the specified job file
• -noballoon - do not display a tray icon balloon when the job has completed
• -auto - run silently with no user interaction, or windows: use this for running Bart from a Scheduled Task
• -showdetlog - open the detailed log file when the job completes
• -letter:x - set 'x' as the variable drive

bart.ini

Bart stores settings in the registry by default. However, if you'd prefer for settings to be written to an ini file, you can change this behaviour by putting an empty file named bart.ini in the same directory as the exe. When Bart is next started, it will instead read and write setting to this file. This is useful for those who prefer to use Bart as a portable application, from a USB drive.

How I use Bart to backup

I appreciate that although this process works for me, your needs might be different, so this is just a suggestion!

I have a NAS device on my home network, and a drive mapped to it. My Bart job contains one task for each directory on my workstation which changes, including:

• Stickies data directory
• My Documents
• Desktop directory
• Google Earth push-pins directory
• Garmin Training Center workouts
• Birthday Reminder data directory
• Photos
• Chrome data (saved passwords, history etc)
• Picasa data (face recognition saved data)

Then at the end of each day I run a shortcut named "AutoBartOff" which is set like this:

bart.exe -runall -show -shutdown

This checks all of those directories in turn, copies any changed data to the NAS, and then shuts down the workstation. Then, once a week I plug one of four USB drives into my workstation and run another command line:

bart.exe -datelog -file weekly.job -letter:l

The USB drive is the l: drive, and the weekly.job file copies everything from t:\backup onto that drive. That device then is taken off-site (well, actually they go off-site every now and then!) to cater for complete loss at home.

At work I use Bart in a different way. From time to time I need to copy a large directory structure from one file server to another. The file name and directory depth might be longer than that which Explorer can handle or the permissions on some directories might prevent me from accessing them. By using Bart to perform the data copy, the process will continue in the event of errors, and any error is logged to file for resolving.