Overview

This is an open source version of the now-defunct time tracker named Maesure, that used to live at https://maesure.com.

It was a side-prodject of mine for two years, until I moved on to other things and could no longer put time, effort, and money into keeping it running.

If anyone else would like to set up Maesure, go for it.

Project overview

Maesure consists of the following components, all located in /src:

• TaposcopeWindows: the main server (the folder is misnamed for historical reasons). The server is written in C#, with ASP.NET Core 3.1. It's been written to run on Google Cloud Platform, specifically on the App Engine, though 99% of the code isn't tied to the platform.
• db: schema for the postgres database. I tried to keep it up-to-date, though there's a chance that it's missing something.
• dashboard: web front-end, written with React, Typescript, and Webpack.
• client-desktop: Windows desktop app, written using Electron, React, and Typescript.
• shared: Typescript code that's common to dashboard and client-desktop
• e2e-tests: End-to-end tests that check the functionality of the server, DB, and web front-end.
• infra: Minor GCP setup - very incomplete.

Deploying

Maesure was built to run on Google Cloud Platform at a cost of around $150/month. Though 99% of the code is generic enough that a capable full-stack developer should be able to get it running on any other platform.

When it was running, Maesure was depoloyed as follows:

• Server: Google App Engine. It was the main entry point at https://maesure.com/.
• Front-end: GCP storage bucket served through GCP load balancer at https://static.maesure.com/dashboard/. The storage bucket needs to be configured to act as a website, and must have CORS configuration (see /src/infra).
• Authentication is managed by Auth0, via OAuth2. Free tier was enogh for me.
• The server sends first-party analytics to Google BigQuery
• Server logs and error reporting go to Stackdriver
• The server uses GCP IAM configuration to access various GCP services.
• The desktop app installer was hosted in a separate GCP storage bucket, and was served at https://static.maesure.com/downloads/.
• For monetization, I was going to use Paddle, and you'll see some of it mentioned in the code. It tested end-to-end successfully, but I didn't end up using it. The server can run well without Paddle.

Various fine details and gotchas

I won't mention every detail of the system (you'll need to read the code), but I will mention some points that you need to be aware of if you'll try to get Maesure to run.

Dev environment setup

Download and set up GCP CLI utils locally, including gsutil (it comes separately).

When doing development, I'd usually have the following open:

• src/TaposcopeWindows (the server) opened in Visual Studio
• src opened in VS Code. The individual sub-folders of src aren't really designed to be opened successfully in VS Code - the main typescript and Jest config live at the top level of src.
• That said, to run e.g. dashboard, you'd need to cd into dashboard, run npm install and npm start. You won't be able to run anything successfully in NPM from top-level src folder.

Server

• The server uses ASP.NET Core Data Protection to encode some things, like contents of the cookies. It's a surprisingly capable system, and Google also has docs on how to adapt it to GCP.
• The secrets aren't managed very well. Search for "=====" throughout the code to see where various secrets go. Do a better job at managing them than me. ASP.NET has some features built in to help with that.

Desktop client

• Desktop client is built to log into the server using Auth0. If you try to set that up, you'll need to create a separate Auth0 app of type "Native".
• It has a two-stage release process: Preview and Stable. Preview is for testing the app in production-line conditions, and Stable is deployed to all users. The script src/client-desktop/publish.ps1 publishes the preview installer, as well as preps the stable installer for release by publishing it to a hidden storage bucket directory. src/client-desktop/push_preveiw_client_to_stable.ps1 pushes the prepped stable installer to the GCP storage bucket location where it's available to all users.
• Desktop client silently auto-updates in the background using Electron auto-updater, which under the hood uses Squirrel.Windows.
• Windows will show a scary warning every time someone tries to install Maesure unless you sign the installer with an EV Code Signing Certificate. It takes effort, time, and money to get one.