activeCollab 0.7 RC1

Its time for upgrade: RC1 is here and it is officially recommended version

Its been two and a half months since activeCollab 0.6 was released. Its been a successful release because it solved some pretty nasty problems that activeCollab alpha had and provided pretty much stable platform for whole two months.

Now is time to move on and introduce activeCollab 0.7. For start it's just a release candidate, but it will be replaced with full 0.7 during next week if everything goes as planned (nothing major should change in the meantime so simple file rewrite will be enough to upgrade).

0.7 is really important release and it includes some pretty exciting new features, enhancements of existing features based on user feedback and a ton of bug fixes. Highlighted features:

  • Document section is replaced with Files section that features file versioning, comments, folders, thumbnails for images and more.
  • RSS and iCalendar support is added.
  • Administration is much richer now with some pretty handy tools such as mass mailer and configuration panel. Permission management is also improved.
  • A lot of improvements under the hood including better upload handling, improved mailing and date time management, error handling and a lot of other minor or major improvements.

This is pretty short list of new features. You can find more details on What's new page and if you are interested you can see the list of closed bugs in 0.7 milestone on our development site (~70 tickets).

Important links:

Download:

If you find any problems don't forget to report them on activeCollab forum.

Posted on: 2006-09-27 5:11

Comments

avatar ckozus 2006-09-27 5:30 #1
The “Upgrade instructions” link takes me to the “What’s new” page.
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-27 5:36 #2
Fixed, thanks.
avatar Mike Manh 2006-09-27 8:11 #3
Congrats, Ilija.

Does anyone here talk to dreamhost directly? How long before an upgrade script is out before they offer the upgrade as a one click option on the goodies page?

The main reason I care is that I am 1.extremely lazy, and 2. I know that if I upgrade via their method, then, the one click install system keeps track of my current version, and when a new one comes out, it offers me to upgrade.

Though I guess for activecollab it doesn’t matter so much because I check here every 5 minutes for changes.

I bet that they wait til it’s out of beta before they push it, however.
avatar paul 2006-09-27 9:26 #4
new install, new database, no old install on server, when trying to install, i get sent in a loop. everything checks out fine for prelim checks, but nothing gets written to config.php (permissions okay) and nothing gets written to the database (connection made okay).
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-28 4:56 #5
@Mike: I’ll contact them and see what their plans are. There has been some nice upgrades to installer and upgrade script (second one is new) that should let people make one click installer easily (activeCollab does all the dirty work), but I need to enable console access to that scripts and write a simple tutorials (tickets #128 and #131). When I’m done with that and we remove RC1 from the version number I’ll contact them and provide details explanation how they could use new features if they are interested (they can still do it the old, harder way ;) ).

@Paul: Can you tell me what version of MySQL you are using?
avatar Chrysalis 2006-09-28 5:57 #6
I’ve been testing (both upgrading from 0.6 and from 0.7beta) and works great!

I also love all the new features, but I miss the one I was waiting for since I read this topic in the forum. I need to attach files to tasks when they’re completed in order to justify completion.

Is attaching files to tasks and milestons considered to be added in next versions? That would do a lot for me…

Thank you anyway for the great work you’re doing!! :)
avatar Eric Batte 2006-09-28 8:56 #7
After I upgrade to 0.7RC1 it still reports that I need to upgrade to 0.7RC1. I’m not certain if that’s a bug or not.

Thanks,
Eric
avatar Eric Batte 2006-09-28 8:56 #8
It also still says 0.6 in the lower left of page.
avatar Francesco 2006-09-28 9:02 #9
Hi there, it all went ok here, btw i suggest to not rely on short_open_tags being on for the upgrade script; I always have it set to off on my servers and i had to temporarily turn it on to use the upgrade script (add to this that not everyone has granted access to server configuration and it could be tedious to replace Thanks for this good app, anyway :)
avatar Francesco 2006-09-28 9:06 #10
Oopps, sorry, my comment got truncated… i was saying “it could be tedious to replace ”< ? =”in every script)”.

P.S.: the ”< ? =” wasn’t “translated” to plain text when i submitted my first comment, maybe you could have security issues here, beware :)
avatar samBiotic 2006-09-28 9:42 #11
The upgrade link on this page is fine butthe link on: http://www.activecollab.com/download/

links to: http://www.activecollab.com/pages/10/releases/activecollab-0.7/whats-new/
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-28 9:47 #12
@Eric: Hm. Upgrade script should update that value. I’ll check.

For now, just open config/config.php and add:

define('PRODUCT_VERSION', '0.7');

@Francesco: I use short open tags for all the templates (why write 10 characters when you can write 3). There is a nice little script (build.php) in /scripts that will remove all development files and leave the clean installation ready for deployment. It also replaces all short open tags with full echo statements, but I forgot to add upgrade to the list of folders that need to be checked and modified.

@samBiotic: Updated…

Thanks everybody!
avatar Sven 2006-09-28 11:19 #13
Installes 0.6 yesterday and today 0.7 rc1 is out, wow. I can’t login no more, though, I followed the instructions and used the “forgot password” function but unfortunately it seems that aC is not sending any mails. I’ve read about a known issue with STMP server settings but the link to the ticket doesn’t work. So I’m locked out. Is it possible to change the password via phpMyAdmin? And if so – how?
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-28 11:48 #14
@Sven: Open users table and find your username. Update that row:

token: 0a92df346e3a833cae214d65af35e69b3cf4e5ab
salt: 6d093346fa02f
twister: 4982716305

That will set password to ‘123’. Login and update you password. Make sure that mailing is working (you can use Test mailing configuration tool in administration).

Thanks for pointing this out. I’ve updated Upgrade instructions page with this information.
avatar Thom 2006-09-28 12:42 #15
I’m really excited to try the new upgrade, but I just have a quick request. Would you mind putting the version number in the archives you post? (i.e. activeCollab-0.7rc1.tar.gz) It makes it a lot easier for me (and I’m sure others) to keep tabs on what versions they have.

But thanks for this, and keep up the great work!
avatar Hugo 2006-09-28 1:16 #16
Great work!!!
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-28 2:28 #17
Thanks ;)
avatar mlac 2006-09-28 3:34 #18
Seamless installation!

However, all my accented letters (é, à, è, etc.) were all converted to question marks (?).

That was a bit of a downer, but otherwise everything went well. Can’t wait to see the new features at work!
avatar Sven 2006-09-28 7:35 #19
Ilja, thanks for your quick help!

@mlac: same here with the umlauts.

avatar orca 2006-09-28 7:52 #20
Great!

Just upgraded aC. The upgrade script is easy.

I’ve read the upgrade guide. But why let users fail to login?. Why not reset all password to ‘123’?.

This will make upgrade process easier. Instead of going back to phpmyadmin

Thanks
Orca
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-28 9:26 #21
People don’t need to go to phpMyAdmin – that option is last resort. Use “Forgot password” form and everything should be finished in 2 minutes. ‘123’ is available if from some reason Forgot password fails (badly configured mailing on server or whatever).

This problem with special characters is transition problem – activeCollab 0.6 did not enforce UTF for text column (activeCollab 0.7 does) so there are some installations that have latin1 collation instead of utf8. Sooner or later this transition had to be made and I still need to find a way how to upgrade old data.
avatar orca 2006-09-28 11:00 #22
:) I forgot there’s a forget password’ facility.
Thanks Ilija. Great jobs as always.

I still can’t believe that all this work is finally upgraded, by you. I’ll create themes as soon as I have spare time.
avatar Eric Bobrow 2006-09-29 1:54 #23
PHP problem:

I have been reading with interest about activeCollab for the past couple of months, and now that you are at 0.7 I feel ready to try it out. I have been using Basecamp a little for the past several months, and would love to switch to activeCollab.

I unzipped the installer, and uploaded the files, but when I tried to run the installer from our website:
http://www.bobrow.com/activeCollab/activecollab/public/install/

I got the following error message:
Installation error: in order to run activeCollab you need PHP5. Your current PHP version is: 4.4.4

When I checked with my web host using a little script they provide to check PHP settings, it looks like it has PHP Version 5.1.6.

I don’t know much at all about PHP, so I’m at a loss. If any of you have any suggestions for why the installer does not “see” the PHP5 version, let me know.

You can read the full PHP configuration on my site here:
http://www.bobrow.com/check_info.php5

Thanks in advance for your help. I look forward to trying out activeCollab.

By the way, Eric Batte – are you the expert Archicad user I know? If so, hello!
avatar Rolando Brown 2006-09-29 2:12 #24
Great work!

Anyone have a moment to inform me as to how I change my MySQl to support InnoDB storage engine.

I can’t wait for them any longer?

Thanks.

avatar Eric Bobrow 2006-09-29 2:20 #25
Solved my PHP5 problem – I needed to create an .htaccess file that told Apache to use PHP5 instead of PHP4 for files with the .PHP ending. I placed the following line into the .htaccess file:
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php

Now I’m stuck because I don’t know how to name or create a Database in “Step 3: System settings”. It says “Failed to connect to database with data you provided”.

Do I need to type in a specific name, or create a database file ahead of time (with what??); I’m also not sure whether to leave the Host name to be “localhost” as is the default.

Please help!

avatar Eric Bobrow 2006-09-29 2:42 #26
I noticed the system requirements include MySQL with InnoDB support. How do I check whether I have InnoDB? Perhaps this might have something to do with my problem with naming/creating a Database?

If the InnoDB support is not the problem, then can someone tell me what to fill in for Step 3 under:

Host name: localhost [should I change this default?]
Username: [Can I create my preferred name here?]
Password: [Can I set my own password]
Database name: [Can I create a database by typing in a name here, or does it have to exist already?]
Table prefix: ac_ [is the default OK?]

If it helps you to troubleshoot or give advice, my website is www.bobrow.com and the installation folder currently is:
http://www.bobrow.com/activeCollab/activecollab/public/install/

Any help is greatly appreciated!
avatar Eric Bobrow 2006-09-29 2:59 #27
I was able to solve my second problem regarding how to proceed with Step 3 of the installation, which had gotten stuck because I didn’t know what info to put into the fields describing the database access. I didn’t realize that I had to create a MySQL database first.

I nosed around in the web host’s help files and figured out how to create a MySQL database. Then I copied the settings for host, username, password, and database name into the fields in Step 3, and the installation proceeded very quickly. Now I’m up and running!

I suggest you put some basic instructions regarding the necessity of creating a blank database first before running the install.
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-29 5:27 #28
@Rolando: to check if MySQL have InnoDB check out this FAQ entry.

@Eric: In cases where an unexperienced user is installing a script it is highly recommended that he (or she) contacts the technical support. Information regarding database setup may very from host to host (for instance, most use localhost for but some use different value, like Dreamhost for instance; somewhere you have DB created when your account is created, but in some places you need to create a fresh database etc). Don’t hesitate to contact tech support, your paying them to answer that kind of questions.
avatar UrbanMike 2006-09-29 8:18 #29
Very nice work,

I posted a review, introduction to aC here:

http://urbanworkbench.com/move_over_basecamp

Hope it helps get the word out about your great product!
I had no troubles installing and am ready to set up some projects and collaborate.
avatar Eric Batte 2006-09-29 9:30 #30
thanks Ilija, that fixed the version display in the lower left corner, but it still warns me that I need to upgrade (red bar at top of page). What value should I change to fix that?

avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-29 10:02 #31
@Mike: Thanks for the writeup. Spreading the work really helps!

@Eric: You should go to Update page in administration. activeCollab is intentionally “stupid” – if will check for new version only once a day and when it register that there is a new version it will remember the value and stop checking. Only way to make him recheck is to visit Update page. This kind of behavior is there to keep the load minimal…
avatar Eric Bobrow 2006-09-30 12:25 #32
I have a Basecamp account and would like to import my data into activeCollab. Eric Batte told me about an XML import utility by Firebox that will do this, however when I tracked it down it seems it is only compatible with 0.6 at the moment.

Would you suggest installing 0.6, running the XML utility, then upgrading to 0.7? Or is there going to be support for 0.7 import from Basecamp soon?
avatar Eric Bobrow 2006-09-30 3:00 #33
I am an impatient type and set up activeCollab 0.6 successfully, then imported data from my Basecamp XML file successfully using the Firebox tools. Hooray!

However, when I tried to follow the instructions for upgrading from 0.6 to 0.7, it bombed out with an SQL syntax error, and the database got trashed. Not a big problem, I’ll just have to be patient and wait for Firebox to update their importer directly into 0.7. I don’t know what I did wrong, but perhaps it doesn’t matter, since my data is still in Basecamp and can be imported later.

I do have one other question for Ilija – why do you restrict file upload to 8 mb for the Files section? My company works with architectural CAD files (Archicad to be precise) that can easily be 50 or more mb. My web host gives me multi-gigabytes, so I have the space. Why not allow file uploads of any size?

Another wish-list question: when do you expect to be able to do time-tracking? That is one feature from Basecamp that I need, and will have to find a work-around until you are able to add it. No pressure here, just wondering how long we’ll have to wait for that one.

Thanks for your inspiring and very dedicated work on this!
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-09-30 3:55 #34
Hi Eric,

Saying what SQL error it returned would be helpful. That way I can tell you what went wrong and what you need to do to get everything running.

activeCollab does not limit file upload – limit is enforced by your environment (web server, PHP or MySQL). There are two PHP directives that limit the max file size:

* upload_max_filesize
* post_max_size

aC will check them and display the lesser value.

If you are using MySQL as a storage engine than you should also check out max_allowed_packet setting.

Time tracking? Pretty soon.

Btw, I accidentally deleted one user comment (it was marked as SPAM because of lot of HTML and I forgot to uncheck it before hitting trash button :( ). Sorry. Please contact me on ilija.studen@gmail.com so we can restore the comment.
avatar Rob 2006-10-01 10:56 #35
You rock! I installed this for the administrator team on my website a week ago. I’m so glad I chose it (after a lot of looking around), as it is clearly being actively developed!

Thank you.
avatar Chris 2006-10-02 10:42 #36
You need to change the link on the left side of the page to reflect the correct ‘upgrade instructions’ link. It currently links to the changelog instead.
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-10-02 11:41 #37
Updated, thanks!
avatar Jazo 2006-10-03 7:22 #38
Amazing.
This is SO helpful already. One of the things I would like to see the most are Project Templates, or To-Do Templates. I plan on using this for work, and most of my projects all have the same check lists. Having not to re-enter them again and again would be great! Thoughts?

Awesome job, can’t say enough.
avatar samBiotic 2006-10-05 9:36 #39
I can’t access the RSS feed using my username/password.

I would’ve posted this on the forums but they haven’t been working for the last 2-3 days.
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-10-05 10:02 #40
This is most probably Ticket #135. It will be fixed when we implemented #132.

Btw, forums are working just fine. There was no downtime in past few days as far as I know.
avatar EquiDave 2006-10-07 5:43 #41
Ilija,
Great work mate. ..and what a job it must have been!

We’re a small development team working on building a new kind of humanitarian & ecological aid organization. Our team is spread out all over this amazing planet and a webhosted project management/collaboration interface is KEY.

We’ve wasted months of development time on @Task and then been limping along with dotProject for the past half year. Sure we’ve been drooling over the elegance and simplicity of 37 Signals solutions, but Jason is unbudgeable about giving a volunteer driven nonprofit like ours any kind of a price break.

Imagine my delight as the first words on the webcast overview of your cool solution were about how you modeled your feature set upon the straight-forward look/feel of Basecamp, etc.

Feature features wish-list:
1. Ability to create SUB-PROJECTS (many project are too big to break out from “project title” directly/efficiently into “task list titles”).
2. Ability to subdivide companies into DIVISIONS and then possibly further into DEPARTMENTS.

But anyway: its already awesome.

Thanks, thanks… THANKS!

David M.
Managing Director, EquiLife International, NGO

PS: our team’s IT guy is Alex and he WILL be in touch with you with supportive feedback and any questions as he upgrades us.

avatar Lee Jae-Seo 2006-10-08 9:59 #42
Hi! Ilija..

i found a mistake word : )~ in mass mailer error message(Notifier has failed to contruct mailer object)
maybe “contruct” will be “construct”.

i need a migrator from 0.7 to 0.7 RC1 or senior versions.
there are some differences between these two versions as db schemas.

i always thank you for your devoted work.
see ya..
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-10-09 4:15 #43
Hi Lee,

There should be no differences on database level. Did you receive any kind of error?

Only thing that could change is content of configuration tables (do a fresh install and copy the content of 0.7RC1 configuration over the existing data).
avatar Mads 2007-01-25 9:53 #44
#38

I concur. Options for loading ‘general’ todo templates for recurring workloads that are similar would be a huge timesaver. As of right now I have to reenter the same checklists over and over for each project – any plans?

Cheers!!
avatar Ilija Studen 2007-01-25 11:08 #45
Project templates (not just for task list) will be introduced in of the releases before 1.0.

Comments are locked

If you have something important to say about the issues discussed in this post please write at hi@a51dev.com.

News and AnnouncementsSubscribe

Developer BlogSubscribe

Company Blog Subscribe

activeCollab Blog ArchiveSubscribe