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When we started work on activeCollab 1.0 one of the top priority tasks was to improve messages. They were one of the most important elements in the system. You used them for discussion, document writing, note taking, and who knows what else... Based on your feedback and our brainstorming we wanted to cover following things:

  1. The new system should support a collaborative writing process
  2. Users should be able to organize content and discussions even on large projects
  3. Make tracking of content production and discussions easy

We also realized that all this couldn't be accomplished with a single tool. We decided to draw the line between discussions and content production. The old messages module was split into two more focused modules.

Small Screenshot of Discussions Module

If you ever used a forum / bulletin board online, you'll know how to use discussions. Every project has a section where people can create new topics or reply to existing ones. Recently created and updated discussions are listed on the main screen. You can browse the archive by time of last activity or by category.

You can subscribe to topics, as well as receive an email notification every time someone posts a new reply. Notification emails contain the full text of the comment so you can track the discussion from your favorite email client.

Pages are a new concept in activeCollab 1.0 . Designed to replace old messages module, they provide some additional content production oriented features. A page is a document with a title and body that people write and discuss. There are three important new features that the old messages module didn't support

  1. activeCollab 1.0 tracks revisions so you can see how the document evolved through time.
  2. Every page can have unlimited sub pages. These sub pages can have their own sub ages and so on. Organize your pages like you would organize chapters in a book and work on them one step at a time. This makes work on complex documents like product documentation or even a book easy to manage.
  3. Tasks can be attached to a page.

People can subscribe to pages and get email notification every time somebody posts a new revision or comment. The new content or comment on the given page is included in the notification. This is great because you can keep an eye on a specific page from your favorite email client and log into activeCollab only if you have something to comment or add.

 

Posted on: 2007-10-01 11:09

Comments:

#1 avatar

Paramnesia

2007-10-01 2:49

Sounds good.
is there a way to have a general purpose discussion area independant of any projects?
#2 avatar

technophobe

2007-10-01 3:35

install phpBB…
#3 avatar

Ilija Studen

2007-10-01 3:43

@Paramnesia: Discussions are per project only. Global discussions could be added as a plugin if you really need such a thing.
#4 avatar

Alex.

2007-10-01 4:20

So, are blog posts merely pages, and the public discussion forum merely a plugin into your discussions section of your project(s)?
#5 avatar

Rodrigo Paiva

2007-10-01 4:59

How activeCollab will archive the communication between my company and our clients? Because include our clients in the content build process will be a great feature.

Other important thing is about localization of this application. Will be great if we have some language file to translate AC to our native language (Portuguese in my case).

What you say about it Ilija?
#6 avatar

Valery Romanchev

2007-10-01 8:03

Are pages like wiki? (is it possible to see revisions of the page and restore old versions?)

Localization: is activeCollab in utf-8 with all localization possibilities ?
#7 avatar

Ilija Studen

2007-10-02 8:31

@Alex: I haven’t understood the question :’(

@Rodrigo: There are many ways to communicate with your clients – discussions module, comments can be posted on files, tickets, pages, all with email notifications support, files and pages support revisions etc. If that is not enough there is full plugin support so you can extend the system to fit your needs.

activeCollab uses Unicode for everything. Foundation for localization is built into activeCollab 1.0, but it is not completed… We’ll finalize it for one of upcoming releases.

@Valery: Pages share some features with Wikis (like revisions for instance), but they are not built as a Wiki replacement. They are… Pages :)
#8 avatar

Matt

2007-10-02 3:20

how soon do you expect to release activeCollab 1.0?
#9 avatar

Joe Aston

2007-10-02 6:38

@Matt

activeCollab goes up for sale on October 5th!

No word on the demo though : (
#10 avatar

AJ Jones

2007-10-03 12:23

Ilija, it’s looking better and better all the time and the new pricing is great! Thanks!
#11 avatar

figure8

2007-10-03 8:40

No demo indeed or screenshots.
#12 avatar

laurentsj

2007-10-03 1:55

Messages and discussions are indeed extremely important, and even more important is TIME saving shortcuts, likes NOT having to log in every time into AC when we need to read and reply to a message/task/discussion, whatever.

So working from our regular mail client is what i’m praying we’ll eventually get (sorry Ilija for repeating myself)

We need to receive a mail from a client, and being able to reply to him AND also cc a particular project and milestone inside AC.

I don’t want to receive an alert message giving me the title of a task/message i have to go to my browser, log in and read, but instead, i want to receive an alert message with the Title AND Summary of the task/message, and hit the reply button if i wanted to.

AC shouldn’t be our main web based text editor or Instant Messaging app, but THE Communication and Project Management HQ; our checkpoint Information Center we gather to for reference.

For all those who use their smart phones increasingly this would mean freedomm and AC a Killer App!
#13 avatar

flashlackey

2007-10-04 12:34

laurentsj makes a good point. and i know for a fact that functionality has been done. ive worked with a company that built a proprietary management tool that very thing where all you have to do is include an id number in the email subject and it places the message in the right place in the management tool. but, it seems like it would be a pretty involved feature to both develop and then also to install for the end user. it seems like you would have to set it up to intercept all company emails, check for an id, etc. Not something you can do easily with a typical hosting package.
#14 avatar

timmo26

2007-10-04 5:00

This looks great and the product looks fantastic…but I thought that 1.0 would have a reply from email feature for everything (messages, pages, comments etc etc). I can’t see moving from ProjectPier and purchasing activeCollab 1.0 until this is implemented. That by itself is worth purchasing the product, even without all the fantastic work you have done for 1.0!!
#15 avatar

kthomas

2007-10-04 5:16

Can we also attach discussion/comments to the new tasks functionality?

Ditto on the email, though I ynderstand that could take some time…

Thanks! Looks great!
#16 avatar

Ilija Studen

2007-10-04 6:39

We are considering to add Reply by email to one of the upcoming releases, but this one is not simple and it could take some time to be developed and properly tested. It would be a killer feature, but I can’t promise you anything.
#17 avatar

laurentsj

2007-10-04 9:05

Ben from Cp is promising the “Straight Via Email” feature in their next release. I hope Ilija can win this race.
#18 avatar

Joe Aston

2007-10-04 9:18

Trial? Demo? Money-back guarantee?

Looking forward to trying/buying – features like the above will be very helpful!
#19 avatar

Ilija Studen

2007-10-04 9:25

Software development is not a race. If we are adding a feature to activeCollab it is because we think it will be helpful to activeCollab users, not because it is “industry standard” or because some other product has it.

I am not saying that Reply through email is a bad feature or anything like that, just explaining how we look at software development. This is not a race…
#20 avatar

Photek

2007-10-07 6:18

Reply from email should be maximum priority, if you get that feature it will be way easier for people to implement this on their business as people would use it way more.
#21 avatar

Photek

2007-10-07 6:20

As example, email parsers that helpdesks use are the way it should be.
#22 avatar

Matt

2007-10-09 3:27

I have seen on several places in the forum that this would be available for download to run on our own servers. Where can the download be obtained from? Has it not been releassed yet?
#23 avatar

kebmo19

2007-10-09 5:48

echo @Matt, the download link in the forums doesn’t work.

~K
#24 avatar

Roque Solis

2007-10-09 7:14

Is upgrading from 0.7.1 to 1.0 feasible? I have about 20 projects with multiple tasks/messages/users, etc. and i don’t want to loose that but i would like to use the new functionality, especially with the task lists.

Thanks,

Roque
#25 avatar

Andrew

2007-10-15 11:54

Why the silence? Where’s post-launch news? Migration info? What’s up?
#26 avatar

kthomas

2007-10-24 7:14


We’re all probably busily working with our installs and fine the migration tool is here… check its thread for link to download.
#27 avatar

Roque

2007-10-25 4:33

Will the migration (0.7.1—> 1.0) tool be free with the purchase of Activecollab 1.0? And will it be available this month?

Thanks,

Roque
#28 avatar

kthomas

2007-10-25 7:05

It is already available and free.
#29 avatar

Ilija Studen

2007-10-26 7:50

Hi Roque,

activeCollab importer is free. Development version (release candidate) and migration instructions can be found here. Final version will be released soon, but I cannot give you an exact date.
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