Windows installation process for a noob

Support
1

Hello !
I have tried the demo on the website version of Vikunja and I am really impressed !
Now, I would like to use the Windows version on my laptop. Since I don’t need to manage multiple accounts or devices, is it really required to also install the backend part? I am an absolute noob and I really don’t understand the backend installation process described in the documentation.
So, if the backend part is not essential in my case, what should I enter in the Sign in to your Vikunja account on field? A local folder path?
If the backend is absolutely necessary, is there someone patient enough to explain the backend installation process to me?
Thank you !

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Hi! :wave:

Pretty much all of Vikunja’s logic happens on the api side (=the backend) so you will need to connect to it. For your specific case, there’s three possible solutions:

  1. Use vikunja.cloud once it’s launched (should be ready in a few weeks). This would be the easiest variant.
  2. Install the windows api binary on your laptop and use it locally only. For that, it should be pretty much only getting the binary and running it somewhere. You will need to always start that if you want to use Vikunja and you’ll need to make sure to have good backups of the database file. I don’t really know anything about conveniently running services like these on windows, so I’m not sure how much I could help you there - would be a lot of trial and error.
  3. Get a raspberry pi and install Vikunja on it. Put it in your network and use it from there.
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I succeeded to launch Vikunja locally, as @kolaente proposed it, on windows. This seems to be the fastest/easiest way to use Vikunja for new users, but it has the inconvenient of not being accessible outside of your computer.

I’ll quickly post the guide here for future interested users :

  1. Go on this page and download the back-end binaries for windows (like vikunja-v0.17.0-windows-4.0-amd64.exe-full.
  2. Un-zip the binaries where you want.
  3. Launch a command prompt (cmd) in windows. Use the cd command to go into the folder where you have un-zipped the back-end binaries (where the file vikunja-v0.17.0-windows-4.0-amd64.exe is, for example). The command looks like cd path/to/the/folder. If the folder is in another drive than C:, you’ll have to type the letter of the drive before starting and press “enter” (like D:).
  4. Once the command prompt is in the folder with the back-end binary, type the name of the executable to run it.
  5. Once that the back-end binary is running in the command prompt, you can download the desktop app of Vikunja at this page.
  6. Launch the desktop app. It will ask you to input the address of the Vikunja back-end. You can go and find your local ip adress with the the command ipconfig in another cmd, or you can just write “localhost” in the field.
  7. Once you entered the right address to the desktop app, you’ll just have to create your account via the Register button, and you’ll be set ! You just have to let the back-end running in the command prompt. If you stop it, Vikunja will stop working.

If you do it this way, the database that Vikunja use will be created in folder where the back-end binary is. It’s useful to enjoy the app locally; but again the back-end has to be run all the time. Clearly, Vikunja isn’t made for that yet.

3 Likes
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That looks good! A few additions:

  • Vikunja will store everything in the vikunja.db file next to the binary. If you loose that you’ll loose all tasks/lists/etc. so make a backup of it.
  • While the local ip should work, you should be able to put localhost or 127.0.0.1 in the url field as well. I don’t know anything about windows firewall stuff so maybe they are blocking this, but theoretically it should work.
  • Have you tried double-clicking on the api binary?

I guess you could build some kind of launcher script which first start the api binary and then starts the desktop client. That way, you won’t need to manually start the api server every time you’d want to use VIkunja.

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Thank you both !
I have used @Klemet 's method to install Vikunja and I followed @kolaente 's advice about the launcher script. I made it with AutoHotKey.

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  • Running the api binary by double-clicking on it results in the following message :
This is a command line tool.

You need to open cmd.exe and run it from there.
  • Using “localhost” in the url field did work for me ! And indeed, it’s much quicker ! I’ll update my post to reflect that : ).

I’m glad if that could help, @UncleRems ! Enjoy Vikunja !

(Sorry if I made a double post; I had trouble receiving my activation mail for the forum at first, and did another account. I don’t know, but I was connected to this second account automatically.)