What's next?

Next is: transition, a lot of broken code and a few new features.
Broken...

Here is some info for all of you who are checking on the development process or living on the edge by using the code from the SVN repository. Next few weeks will be really bumpy and a lot of code in SVN will be broken. Planned changes and transitions:

  • Code will be changed to use extraction of activeCollab framework - Angie. Framework itself is far from being finished, but only way to actually see how everything is working is to use it in a real world application. Also, this is a great test to see what features are still missing and to add them (integration with a good JavaScript library, improvements on date and time handling etc).
  • New system resources will be introduced. This resources will make plugin development a whole lot easier, but they need to be tested first so they are introduced before plugin support.
  • There are some new features that will be added. Most notable are enhancements on Task section (that section was neglected in 0.6 and 0.7) and light-weight time tracking module.
  • Interface project will be launched in the next few days. Goal of that project is to get community involved in the development of new activeCollab interface. Details will be provided when we launch that side project.
There are no deadlines set for this release. You can always check the bugtracker to see the progress.
Posted on: 2006-11-26 2:21

Comments

avatar Doug Farnes 2006-11-27 3:49 #1
Great news!

I look forward to the interface project.
avatar number5 2006-11-27 11:03 #2
When will the angie svn available?

It asked me for username/passowrd when I :
svn co http://code.activecollab.com/svn/angie/trunk
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-11-28 4:43 #3
Your checkout URL is wrong. Try this one:

svn co http://code.activecollab.com/svn/ac/angie/trunk
avatar seventoes 2006-11-28 10:39 #4
Ilija, i strongly suggest jQuery as your javascript library, when you get to that point.

http://www.jquery.com/

It is the simplest, yet incredibly powerful, javascript library i have ever come across, and i think it would be perfect for aC.
avatar Ken Walker 2006-11-29 9:26 #5
Hi Ilija,

I saw that the current version of activeCollab supports themes. I’d be interested to see what kind of changes we could make and perhaps even get some simple AJAX in. Is there a tutorial for creating themes, or should I just go poke around in the code? :)

Thanks,
Ken
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-11-29 9:39 #6
Hi Ken,

Here are short instruction about themes and what can you do with them. Themes are just packages of CSS and image files. You can not change markup or behavior using themes so you can’t add XHR requests just by playing with them.
avatar urbanmike 2006-11-29 6:22 #7
Ajax reordering of tasks would be awesome.

The whole package is looking great, thanks heaps!
avatar moho 2006-11-30 2:39 #8
Regarding Angie it would be nice if you could make a short video/screencast about how to use it on the clasical 15 minutes weblog example .
It could totally imitate RoR video

IMHO having such a video for PHP would convince much more people to give Angie a try and help you improve it.

Thanks in advance,

M.
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-11-30 9:31 #9
Screencasts are good method to show people what can be done, but completely imitating RoR approach would be bad IMO.
avatar moho 2006-12-01 4:56 #10
but completely imitating RoR approach would be bad IMO
Generaly speaking, yes. But not in this particular case.
The mentioned video is knon by everyone and it was the No. 1 reason most people were convinced to give RoR a try.
If people see that they can do the same with PHP/Angie, they will give it a try.
avatar mike manh 2006-12-06 2:56 #11
So I’ve been waiting a bit, but i still don’t see an automatic upgrade button in the one click installs on dreamhost.
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-12-06 3:06 #12
Yeah, I’ve also checked today. Maybe I should contact them and see if they are interested in providing a new version?

Console installation and upgrade tools (added in 0.7) make it far more easier to deploy one click installs on any platform, not just DH.
avatar Jason 2006-12-07 1:39 #13
I just stumbled across this today. This is a very exciting project. Will keep checking in. :)
avatar Jason 2006-12-07 2:44 #14
Only PHP 5? Damn.
avatar Ben Green 2006-12-08 4:09 #15
Keep up the good work mate, would appreciate it if you worked on the timezone issue though, that’s the one thing that’s been causing issues for me.
avatar Bill 2006-12-08 6:40 #16
great job on aC – I have been using Basecamp and I am starting to use aC already!

enhancement idea/request for RSS:

For Comments – you have the word ‘Comment’ on the RSS heading – but for other things Milestones, Tasks, etc… there s nothing. Perhaps use one/two letter abbreviation like

* Comment – C
* Milestone – MS
* Task – T

and so on…
avatar Milan 2006-12-08 6:58 #17
In task lists, all tasks should go to Archive automatically after 14 days from completition – I need to delete the whole taskslist and create it again since there is over 200 completed tasks within a “neverending” tasklist.

Messages should be sorted by the last commented, not by creation time. This is standard on forums, and aC should follow that well known path. I need to create new messages, so that they appear on the top.

In message, comments aren’t getting “NEXT PAGE” navigation and I have some messages that contain over 250 comments and growing all the time. I recommend that if message has more than 50 comments , i.e. 130 – the user should see “Previous comments” which will show 1.-80. comment, and then continue as usual from 81.-130. If user posts new comment, then it should show 82. – 131., and the 81. should appear in archive.

One thing is common for prevoius three sugestions, that is aC weakness on long term messages and task lists (ie. client requests, banner changes, website errors… in my case).

Hope the suggestions will appear in the next incarnation.

avatar Bill 2006-12-09 5:21 #18
Enhancement request – It would be nice to be able to enter in an “Event” – like in a typical calendar app. Milestone is close to this, but lacks a date range. I guess a Milestone is a special instance of an Event… Messages and Tasks can be related to the Event.
After writing this – thinking about it – perhaps just add an option for start date and end date to Milestone – and that would cover it…

Keep up the good work…
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-12-09 10:29 #19
Why is start date so important? Can you explain on one real world example.
avatar seudoscientist 2006-12-09 12:36 #20
yeah i kind of agree with bill. i dont think of every event to do with a project as a milestone. such an event might just be for example any kind of a meeting. milestones, as bill says, are a special type of event. the new ical support in 0.7 actually makes this idea really clear. i’d like to be able to schedule events in a project, but not have all them be read as ‘milestones’. that would in turn make the .ics files more useful.
—
also, sorry to put two comments in one, i agree to some extent with moho re angie and ror.
angie sounds brilliant. i dont get on very well with ror. i find the whole rewrite thing a pain. but of course the speed of development, now who in their right minds wouldnt be all for that. so i’m watching angie eagerly. and ‘projects’, which may include various ‘applications’ . that just makes nothing but sense.
thanx
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-12-09 5:22 #21
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that screencast is essential and we’ll record one for sure, but it will not be made as a comparison with Rails or any other particular framework. Instead, it will be made to show strenghts of the framework and some nice little tricks.

Projects and applications

Concept where single project is made out of multiple applications is pretty simple and is nothing new (Django and Symphony are built that way for instance).

Here is an example. Imagine that you need to create a big news portal. Its a single project, but the whole thing is made out of different blocks:

* Backend – Used by staff to manage content through web browser.
* Frontend – Actual website that visitors see.
* Mobile version – Lightened down version of frontend optimized for mobile devices.
* API – Used by macros you developed so news authors can use their favorite text processor to publish content without the need to log in to backend. They just write in Word and hit “Send to editor” button.

All four blocks use the same model, but are basically different – handle different types of requests and send different types of responses, have different sets of layouts and templates, styling and images and so on. These distinct, top level blocks are applications.

Does it now makes sense? In my opinion this is whole lot better than one app approach that Rails uses.
avatar Eli- MENSK 2006-12-09 8:18 #22
so i’m wondering how difficult it would be or even if it is possable to make it so that your “clients” or other companies in your network can arrainge to start thier own projects through one active collab site, the way the admin in the main company does? i ask because i run an umbrella nonprofit that supports various artists and arts org’s. we are working on a central hub where alot of independents can gather to collaborate on many types… I’m just getting into active collab and love it!
Thanks to everyone for thier input and support, especial Ilija!!
avatar Vladimir Mincev 2006-12-09 8:38 #23
I see your heading is “Whats next?”

And I would ask: When is next? I am so thrilled with your application, and can’t wait for new version. Checking your site almost every day in hope that new version is there :)

Keep on with the good work man!
avatar jsaleiro 2006-12-12 10:29 #24
Yeah, i also can’t wait for the next version… :D :D :D Any news? Do you have any idea of when it will be released?
avatar seudoscientist 2006-12-12 10:40 #25
-> Does it now makes sense? In my opinion this is whole lot better than one app approach that Rails uses.

Yes it always did :) You must excuse my sentence construction. In english the “nothing but … ” is the same thing as saying “total” or “only” sense. It can be easily be misread as a negative but it’s the complete opposite. I don’t like the Rails approach at all. The angie approach makes “nothing but” sense, that is, makes complete sense. Take a site I’m building at the moment, which as a project pulls together a blog, a calendar, a gallery,... and of course, a backend, or even, backends, that get tied together in one UI. It makes much more sense to my brain to think of these apps as ‘modules’, or modular elements of the whole project.
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-12-12 5:10 #26
Sorry, I read your comment right but because I am not a native English speaker I didn’t know if I interpreted it correctly so I explained it just to be sure.
avatar Ken Walker 2006-12-12 10:01 #27
Ilija: I just wanted to add a +1 for jQuery integration. I’ve been doing some reading and coding with it and just included it in a major work project—it’s a very slick JavaScript library.
avatar drayen 2006-12-13 4:29 #28
I know you have your own framework (im not sure how far along it is) but you should also check out cakephp, its really good :) as it may fill your needs.
avatar Greg Brooks 2006-12-18 3:12 #29
Two comments and one question:

* Comment 1: I love this product – it’s come a long way and is really terrific.

* Comment 2: As you implement time tracking, give users the ability to simply enter a time unit on a given date (15 minutes, 1.5 hours, etc.) rather than start and stop times. This reflects the way lots of consultants track time.

* Question: If I, as a non-coder, wanted to boost the speed of ActiveCollab development, what can I do? Put another way: Can I just write Ilija a check and ask him to sit at his computer until all the features I want (which are all part of the planned feature set – nothing custom) are complete? :)

avatar jsaleiro 2006-12-18 7:14 #30
That’s a good question Greg. :) Ilija, do you have an idea of when the 0.7.5 version will be released? Would some contributions help you? :)
avatar Greg Brooks 2006-12-19 9:17 #31
As long as I’m making suggestions, here’s another one: Go look at Copper (www.copperproject.com). They’ve released their new Enterprise 2007 product and there’s a demo online – perhaps some good concepts there to adapt.

(I looooove their Gantt chart implementation!)
avatar Ilija Studen 2006-12-20 3:49 #32
@Greg Brooks:

1. Thank you!

2. Of course. Start and end data would clutter the interface with way too many controls. One field is more than enough. Unit will most probably be an hour (you will not be able to change that) so if you want to set 15 minutes you’d go with 0:15 or 0.25 and system would do the conversion to hours.

3. Depends on the features you request, but basically you can. For instance, 0.7.5 is sponsored version where sponsor asked for time tracking and bug tracking implementation. If they didn’t came I would most probably skip 0.7.5 and go for 0.8. You can contact me on ilija.studen@gmail.com for more details…

Is there any video where I can see some highlights of Cooper? I hate online demos – they are empty or full of bad data so they always leave a bad impression and in most cases don’t highlight important things.

@jsaleiro:

No dates, no pressure… Just the way I like it ;)
avatar Greg Brooks 2006-12-20 7:04 #33
Ilija, there’s a Copper video (the corporate, rather than enterprise, version) at http://www.copperproject.com/tour_1overview.php

Go take a peek and I’ll email you about sponsored features, etc.
avatar Ken Lyle 2007-01-08 6:15 #34
Are there any features for Notification on due tasks in the pipeline?

Thanks,
Ken
avatar Ilija Studen 2007-01-09 5:01 #35
Not for the next release.
avatar christro 2007-01-16 5:11 #36
hi! great work! did you plan to support uploading files larger than 2MB? uploading bigger files with a Real-time progress bar would be very useful!!

Thanks,
Roman
avatar Eduardo Mercovich 2007-02-13 10:05 #37
Hello everybody, hello Ilija.

A gantt view of each project could be a great addition. For many teams, big gantt paper printed graphics can be very helpful, since people pass, check, annotate and review the project estimates and it’s real advancement.

Just my 2 cents.

Congratulations for a very very good tool. :-)

Regards…

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