Merge Files and Documents - Design Wireframes Posted
Shane Pearlman from the Redmine UX team has created some wireframes for his proposed changes to Redmine's File and Document modules. The Redmine teams are thinking about merging the two modules together into a single Media Library module. The UX team is still looking for more feedback on the designs. If you are a heavy user of these modules or want to help contribute to Redmine's direction, please reply on the forum thread.
Community Update #6
There's been a lot of activity in the Redmine community over the past few months. Here are some highlights from November 2009:
Code changes
Close versions
Versions can now be given a status which will close a version, preventing assigning new issues to it (#1245). This is great if you want to prevent adding additional features to a version, like during a release process. The three version statuses are:
- open: no restriction
- locked: can not assign new issues to the version
- closed: can not assign new issues and can not reopen assigned issues
Url to fetch changesets for a repository
In #2925 a new action was added to allow fetching the changesets for a repository to be triggered by a url. This means that when:
http://your-redmine.com/sys/fetch_changesets is called Redmine will fetch all of the changesets for all projects.
You can also specific only one project to fetch with http://your-redmine.com/sys/fetch_changesets?id=my-project-id.
Update trackers from the issue form
Feature #2405 changed the issue form so the Tracker Type can be changed as part of an issue update. This means that if a Feature was entered incorrectly as a Bug, it can be updated directly. Doing this used to require Moving the issue first.
Add or remove columns from the issue list
Feature #4272 adds a new set of options to the Issues list filters. Now you can add, remove, and reorder columns on the fly. I've found this useful for running reports on the issues like: "What are the target versions of issues that have an estimate, are due this week, and are assigned to someone?".
Tree based menus
Redmine will now support Tree based menus. This means any of the menus (the project menu, the top menu, the administration menu) can now have submenus and submenus. The Redmine core isn't taking advantage of this change yet, but some plugins have created additional menus and I suspect this will be used more in the near future.
The feature request shows an example of how the menus are structured as well as how to use the new API.
Allow custom fields for Versions
#4219 added support for defining custom fields on Versions.
Copy and Move
A 'Copy' check box was added to the Issue Move form. This will make it easy to copy multiple issues to another area of Redmine (e.g. different project, different Tracker). Added for Feature #1847.
Managers able to create subprojects
#2963 fixed a bug so users with the "Add Project" permission can now create sub projects. Before, they could only create top level projects.
"View Issues" user permission
#3187 adds a new permission "View Issues". This permission has always been "on" for users but now it is possible to turn it off if you don't want someone to see the issues list at all.
Allow [#id] as subject to reply by email
When the Email Receiving option is Redmine is configured, sending an email with the subject line of:
Subject: [#101]
would not find issue #101 correctly. Bug #3653 corrects this.
child_pages wiki macro on with ?version in URL
#4152 added the ability to specify a specific page version when using the child_pages wiki macro.
Community Events
6 new themes from Rajesh Krishnan
Rajesh Krishnan has released 6 new themes for Redmine. Each one has a different color scheme with some minor variations. If you're looking for a new theme for your Redmine, check them out.
Screenshot pasting plugin
Jean-Philippe Lang posted a quick plugin for Redmine that shows how a screenshot can be pasted directly into the issue form using a Java applet.
Redmine Harvest plugin
Jim Mulholland created a plugin to integrate Harvest time tracking into Redmine. He includes a short screencast of how it works on his blog post.
Scrum PM plugin
Marcin Jędras is working on a Scrum plugin for Redmine. It current supports some drag and drop planning but he's planning to add more features in the next releases.
iRedmine - iPhone app
Thomas Stägemann has released an iPhone app for Redmine called iRedmine. It's released under the GPL and the code is available on Github. I've tried it out and it's a great start. There are still some bugs but I've already found it useful, especially while traveling.
Community Update #3
It's time for another update on what's been happening in the Redmine community. This installment covers from May 18th through July 12th.
Code Changes
Anonymous issue creation via email
Redmine's mail handler is a very powerful component, allowing users to send email to create new issues or update existing ones. r2789 added some additional options, including the ability to accept email from unknown users and automatically create accounts for them. This makes it easy to publish an email address for anyone to send new requests directly to Redmine.
Enhancement to about script
The about script, commonly called script/about, is used to let someone know what version of Redmine and Ruby on Rails you are running. #3387 enhanced the script to also include information about the installed Redmine plugins and their version. I know this will help me support my plugins by understanding what versions people encounter bugs on.
Administration panel breadcrumbs
A few sections of the Administration panel now has breadcrumb links to help navigate up a level. Personally, I'd like to redo the entire navigation of the Administration panel, but that will have to wait. r2810 added breadcrumbs for:
- Custom Fields
- Enumerations
- Issue statuses
- Roles
- Trackers
- Users
Fix for Bazaar merge tags
When branches are merged in Bazaar, a merge commit is performed. Redmine wasn't able to parse these merge commits which causing some commits to be missing from Redmine's database. Scott Aubrey supplied a patch for parsing the merge commits correctly, which was committed in r2780.
Enumerations storage change
r2777 included a major internal change to how Enumerations are stored. Enumerations include time entry activities, document categories, and issue priorities. To the user or administrator of Redmine, this change has no real impact. But plugin developers can take advantage of this change by being able to define their own custom Enumerations. If you are a plugin developer and need to store data that is similar to the existing Enumerations, I'd recommend you try to take advantage of this change.
Plugin hooks
A few plugin hooks were added for plugin developers.
:view_versions_show_contextual- r2771:view_account_left_bottom- r2772:view_account_right_bottom- r2772:model_changeset_scan_commit_for_issue_ids_pre_issue_update- r2773:controller_messages_new_after_save- r2774:controller_messages_reply_after_save- r2774:controller_wiki_edit_after_save- r2774:controller_timelog_edit_before_saver2775
User Groups under development
I also noticed that Jean-Philippe Lang has started development on user groups in a separate groups branch. User groups is one of the major features scheduled for 0.9 and I know several organizations that are looking forward to this feature, especially the time savings it'll have. There's no time estimate when this will hit trunk but I suspect it will be over the next few weeks.
Community Events
There was a huge number of plugins developed over the past months. I'm so happy that the community is really innovating with plugins.
Campfire notification plugin
Edouard Brière created a Redmine plugin that will send issue notifications to a Campfire room. This would be useful to get real time notification of Redmine updates into your company chatroom. I wonder if someone will create one of these for IRC.
Code review plugin - 0.1.8.6
Haru Iida has released a new version of the Code Review plugin. This is a minor release that includes some bug fixes from the last release.
Developer Rates plugin
Shaun Gilroy has released a plugin called Developer Rates. From what I've heard, this plugin will let you attach an hourly rate to each time entry in Redmine. It's worth a look if you want to track any hourly costs in Redmine.
HoptoadServer plugin
Jan Schulz-Hofen has released the HoptoadServer plugin. Hoptoad is a service that will collect and manage errors from a Ruby on Rails application. The service provides a free plugin that you use to report to the Hoptoad servers. The HoptoadServer plugin allows Redmine to act as a Hoptoad server, replacing the need for the Hoptoad service. I'm already using this plugin with a few applications I'm hosting and I've been very happy getting all the errors sent directly to Redmine.
Hudson plugin
Toshiyuki Ando has released a plugin to integrate the Hudson continuous integration system into Redmine. The Hudson plugin has been under active development, with several releases in the past month. I don't run Hudson, but the integration this plugin provides is making me consider a switch to Hudson.
Issue import script
Joe Chin Hi Rene posted an example script that can be used to import issues from a CSV file into Redmine. If you're looking for a quick way to get a bunch of issues created, this script might be a good starting point.
Laconi.ca plugin
Ciaran Jessup has released a Laconi.ca plugin for Redmine that will integrate Redmine notifications into Laconi.ca, Twitter, or Identi.ca. Once configured, this plugin will send notifications to the service making it easier to other people to follow what's happening in Redmine. This continues the recent trend of having Redmine send it's notifications out to external services.
Squeejee theme - 0.2.0
Mischa The Evil has uploaded a new version of the Squeejee theme for Redmine. This is a darker theme than the default Redmine theme and includes a wide variety of graphics. Mischa has done a terrific job of documenting which versions of Redmine, browsers, and plugins are compatible with it. If you're looking for a high quality theme with great support, I'd recommend trying anything Mischa packages.
Redmine Collapse plugin - 0.2.2
Mischa The Evil also released a few updates to his Redmine Collapse plugin. This plugin modifies the default layout of Redmine so the entire sidebar can be hidden away from view. This is useful if you work with a lot of data or need more monitor space. Once again, Mischa has some great documentation on it's compatibility on the plugin page.
Watersky theme
Konstantin Zaitsev has posted a new theme for Redmine, titled watersky. This is a nice blue theme for Redmine, using images instead of text links on the menus.
Wiki Extensions plugin
Haru Iida released another plugin which adds a few new wiki macros to Redmine, titled Wiki Extensions. If you're using the wiki in Redmine a lot, you will want to take a look at the demo page he put up to see if there's anything you could use.
If you hear about something in the Redmine community that you think is useful, please let me know about it and I'll try to spread the word.
Eric