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So how is 1.1 faring?

Started by Gruffen, May 29, 2010, 07:22:12 PM

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Gruffen

Well, it is happening :P

Just wanted to post a little about 1.1, how it's going and so on. I know for 1.0 we did pretty screenshots and stuff, but really there's not a lot I could screenshot right now for 1.1 since there's still a lot of things that need polish and, well, finishing.

Let's take a quick look back at the 1.1 release announcement and its pretty feature list - HERE is the link for you.

So where's it at?

Custom Fields in Tickets and Replies - I originally did some of the UI a few weeks ago, but I ripped that out a couple of days ago and started fresh with some better UI ideas for it to make it easier to use.

Email Notifications - There's some placeholders for bits, but mostly not started yet.

Ticket Relationships - Completed already.

Split/Merge Tickets - splitting a ticket is already done, merge is about 20% done.

Ticket action log - Not only did we add the action log to the ticket view, we also added a view to user profiles, so you can see all the events on a ticket, as well as all the things a person can do. We've also added much more control over what is logged - now, just about everything can be logged, even down to 'new ticket created', and even when a ticket/reply is made with attachments being added or removed.

Staff Permissions - I already actually blogged about this being complete - here, it's a big piece of work but it's done.

Ticket wikilinks - Done, twice in fact (since the first time was slightly broken :P)

Integrated Help - Not started yet. In reality this is probably the last thing we add to 1.1.

SSI.php functions - Done.

Integrated search into Support page - Not started yet, since the feature scope may expand slightly and we want to be sure we're doing the right parts first.


Helpdesk profiles - Something we didn't explicitly point out but one we've done anyway; additionally in the profile area now (as hinted by my last screenshot in the permissions blog post), we've added a new area specifically for helpdesk items, to include a Show Tickets type integration, as well as helpdesk permissions, user preferences and a little bit more.


That looks a bit all over the place, doesn't it? Well, I'll be honest, it is to a point - mostly because of one major factor: energy. In a project like SimpleDesk, where the team are volunteers, it means there's nothing but desire and a little sense of obligation, you sort of have to run with where the energy is. That's why I originally started the custom fields stuff a month ago, while on holiday, got kinda bored and went off doing other stuff, and finally came back to it in the last couple of days.

The other thing that's made 1.1 slower to develop than 1.0 is the nature of the changes. Most of 1.0 was fairly stock CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) patterning, the only things we really had to experiment with were the layout and attachments in general (though, to be fair, I did have to learn how the editor component worked, never actually used it before!)

You'll note that aside from the layout, there's not a huge deviation from how SMF does things - the posting interface and behaviour is pretty similar, though slightly more refined than SMF's, but not hugely. In some ways that sums up how I see 1.0: it was a foundation, nothing outrageous and massively new, but solid and reliable and functional - like SMF itself is.

1.1 is about breaking down some of the walls; like the permissions system, like the profile pages, like the proposed plugin system, these are all things that differ from SMF, and are the start of us really establishing our own identity as an application. And as a result that does mean it takes longer since it's a brave new world in most cases, as opposed to a vaguely unfamiliar one in places.


The long story short? It's still coming, but it will take longer per line of code than 1.0 did. I do hope to bring you screenshots of the new stuff (other than permissions :P) pretty soon, but there's still a lot to do before I can do that. But soon!

MultiformeIngegno

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