🎬 ProdTracker — Production Tracker for macOS

A native macOS app for managing video production projects. Built with Swift + WebKit, runs fully offline and locally — your data never leaves your machine.

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🚀 Getting Started

Launch the App

Double-click the app bundle in Finder:

ProductionTracker/Production Tracker.app

Or from the terminal:

open "/Users/admin/Documents/Plugins/ProductionTracker/Production Tracker.app"

First Launch

• On first launch you will be asked to grant Calendar access — this is required for deadline syncing with Apple Calendar. Click Allow.
• Your database is automatically created at:

  ~/Library/Application Support/ProductionTracker/data.json
  

• You can change this path anytime in Settings → Database Location.

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📐 App Structure

The sidebar has four main views:

View	Purpose
Dashboard	Overview stats + sortable project table with inline editing
Kanban Board	Drag-and-drop card view organised by production stage
Gantt Chart	Timeline view of all projects with draggable date bars
Settings	Database path, data export, accent colour

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📋 Dashboard

Stat Cards

Card	What it counts
Active Projects	All stages except Completed
In Production	Production, Post-Production, Review
Completed	Completed stage only

Project Table

All columns support inline editing without opening the editor:

• Stage — click the dropdown to change stage instantly
• Priority — click the dropdown to change (colour-coded)
• Deadline — click the date/time field to reschedule

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🗂️ Kanban Board

Default Stages (in order)

Concept → Pre-Production → Production → Post-Production → Review → Completed → On Hold

Card Features

• Version dropdown — bump from Rushes → V1 → V2 → ... → Final directly on the card
• Checklist — check/uncheck tasks directly on the card, saves instantly
• Drag & Drop — drag cards between columns to change their stage

Column Management

Each column header has three control buttons:

• < — move column left
• > — move column right
• × — delete column (projects are moved to the first available stage)
• Column names are click-to-edit — click the title, type a new name, press Enter

Add a Stage

Click + Add Stage at the top of the Kanban board.

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📅 Gantt Chart

• Displays all projects on a horizontal timeline from earliest start to latest deadline
• Bar colour = priority (Green = Low, Blue = Medium, Orange = High, Red = Urgent)
• Drag bars left/right to shift a project's dates — the database and Apple Calendar are updated automatically on release
• Click a bar (without dragging) to open the project editor

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✏️ Edit Project / New Project

Fields available in the project editor:

Field	Notes
Project Title	Required
Client	Required
Start Date & Time	Used for Gantt chart and Calendar events
Deadline	Required — used for Gantt and Calendar
Priority	Low / Medium / High / Urgent
Version	Rushes, V1–V15, Final
Current Stage	Pulls from your active Kanban stages
Participants	Comma-separated names
Editor Notes	Timecode-style notes e.g. 00:00–00:10 Cut out
Checklist	Add/remove free-text tasks, check/uncheck in editor or on Kanban cards

Export Call Sheet (PDF)

When editing an existing project, a button appears at the bottom left:

Export Call Sheet (PDF)

This generates a structured production brief as a .pdf and prompts you to choose a save location. The PDF includes all project fields, the full checklist, and editor notes.

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🗓️ Apple Calendar Sync

Every time you save or move a project, ProdTracker automatically creates or updates a single Calendar appointment with:

• Title: ProdTracker: [Project Title]
• Start: Project Start Date
• End: Project Deadline
• Notes: Client, Stage, Version, Priority, Participants, Editor Notes, Checklist

⚠️ Only one appointment per project is ever created. Moving dates or editing a project updates the existing appointment — no duplicates.

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⚙️ Settings

Option	Description
Change Location…	Move your data.json database to a custom path (e.g. iCloud Drive for cross-machine access)
Export Data…	Save a backup copy of your data.json anywhere
Accent Color	Change the app's primary highlight colour

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📁 File Structure

ProductionTracker/
├── Sources/
│   └── main.swift                      # Native Swift app shell (IPC, Calendar, PDF)
├── Frontend/
│   ├── index.html                      # App UI structure
│   ├── app.js                          # All frontend logic
│   └── styles.css                      # All styling
├── Assets/
│   └── AppIcon.icns                    # App icon
├── Docs/                               # Documentation and demo media
├── Backups/                            # Old backups and zips
├── build.sh                            # Script to compile the app bundle
├── .gitignore                          # Git ignore rules
└── README.md                           # This file

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🔧 Recompiling After Code Changes

To rebuild the Production Tracker.app bundle, simply run the included build script from the root directory:

./build.sh

During development, the Swift app reads your web files directly from the Frontend/ directory. This means changes to app.js, styles.css, or index.html take effect immediately on next app launch — no recompile needed.

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💡 Tips

• iCloud Sync: In Settings, set your database path to a folder inside ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/ to share your data across Macs.
• Quick version bump: Use the version dropdown directly on the Kanban card — no need to open the editor.
• Reschedule from Gantt: Drag bars left/right on the Gantt chart instead of opening the editor.
• Checklist progress: Completed checklist items appear struck-through on Kanban cards for a quick visual overview.

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Built for macOS Silicon (Apple M-series). Minimum macOS 10.15 Catalina.