SimpleDesk

Community => SimpleDesk Team Blog => Topic started by: Gruffen on April 01, 2011, 04:12:58 AM

Title: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 01, 2011, 04:12:58 AM
Well, as I mentioned elsewhere, there's been a fantastic amount of activity lately in the SVN with me hammering out code for SimpleDesk.

So much so that we're not going to have 1.1, we decided we'd call it SimpleDesk 2.0 instead, in line with the masses of changes under the hook, and thousands and thousands more lines of code.

Keeping it brief because I'm kinda busy :P
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Tah Zonemaster on April 01, 2011, 10:01:47 AM
Very nice to hear that guys! :D Good work! :D
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: ~DS~ on April 02, 2011, 12:31:04 PM
I need to get myself back on track because I am itched to find bugs because I am hungry. :P   
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 02, 2011, 12:36:37 PM
Quote from: Dismal Shadow on April 02, 2011, 12:31:04 PM
I need to get myself back on track because I am itched to find bugs because I am hungry. :P   

There's only one open bug at the moment, and even that's a matter of debate whether it's a bug, a change of functionality or to be left alone.

Most of what's left is features to add, but testing of what's been done is always welcome :)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: ~DS~ on April 02, 2011, 12:44:17 PM
One? I see a tons. Can you point to the issue number so I can get to the point and comment on it?
It's hard to track everything here since I've been gone.

RL is taking a troll, being a baskeball coach, work for a VRS company, setting up a event I host and so on. :(
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 02, 2011, 12:51:56 PM
Look at just the open tickets, there's a grand total of 24 on the tracker ;)

http://www.simpledesk.net/community/issue,534.0/ is the only open bug report at present, and as per the last couple of comments, even that's not really a bug.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on April 02, 2011, 01:12:00 PM
Yep pretty much all bugs have been squished. I haven't seen a new bug survive 48 hours in the past 2 weeks ;D
534 is definitely leaning towards a functionality change to specify by role who can create custom fields (might not even be a necessary change if no one else agrees).

I accidentally reported that as a bug after spending too much time online one morning instead of watching tv or something :P, got confused after switching between test accounts so many times.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 02, 2011, 01:20:05 PM
QuoteYep pretty much all bugs have been squished. I haven't seen a new bug survive 48 hours in the past 2 weeks

OM NOM NOM TASTY BUGS

Quote534 is definitely leaning towards a functionality change to specify by role who can create custom fields (might not even be a necessary change if no one else agrees).

Well, while we're here, might as well briefly discuss it. The idea is that you could allow different people to configure different things without necessarily being admins. Like in SMF, you can allow non admins to configure the news (though that has consequences in and of itself if you use raw HTML), you can allow non admins to configure membergroups and other things. With SD, I take the view that until there's enough functionality that's useful to delegate, it probably should be left alone - right now only custom fields is possible to delegate, and canned replies when it's done.

Quotegot confused after switching between test accounts so many times.

My secret for that is to use a different browser for each test account to avoid confusion; I use IE for the test user, Firefox for test staff and Chrome for the admin ;) ;D
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on April 02, 2011, 01:31:27 PM
I was using different browsers :) just not refreshing when I should :P

I think Custom fields could/should delegable to senior staff that need no other administrative rights. I can see me allowing them to create or edit but not delete.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: ~DS~ on April 02, 2011, 01:52:53 PM
Quote from: Spoogs on April 02, 2011, 01:12:00 PM
Yep pretty much all bugs have been squished. I haven't seen a new bug survive 48 hours in the past 2 weeks ;D
No, it's because there are few those who tested it and those who do not. Expect the unexpected bug once I get around to test it again. :P

Will do this tonight.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on April 02, 2011, 03:59:37 PM
By all bugs I meant all reported bugs, there isn't a single bug report that Gruff didn't get on pretty much right away.
Some new features introduced new bugs sure but they were still dealt with right away. I'm not saying we're bug free, but simply as they get reported they get dealt with.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 02, 2011, 04:15:04 PM
Some of them took a little while to nail down, mind ;) But yeah, that's part of the deal, ultimately: don't go running off at a pace and adding a boatload of new features in and only then try and fix them afterwards, it's usually a mess - so I've been fixing them as they pop up.

As far as testing goes, http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Testing-Done-Right.aspx is worth a read. Most importantly:
QuoteI say "good enough" because no matter how hard you try, a definitive answer is impossible. At best (i.e., with unlimited resources), you can be 99.999...% confident that there will be no defects in production.

It's possible that there are as-yet undiscovered bugs. There are bugs still creeping up in SMF 1.1, and that's nearly 5 years old.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: ~DS~ on April 05, 2011, 12:39:27 PM
I haven't seen any bugs but I really want to break them. :P

I have to say it's quite stable and might be out for 1.1 soon...
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 05, 2011, 12:42:50 PM
There's at least one more feature to be implemented for the next version, mentally there are two features and one enhancement to an existing feature that I'm "definitely" implementing and several others that might be squeezed in.

But the scale of changes, it would be unfair to call the next version 1.1, because it's far bigger and scarier than 1.1 was intended to be.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: ~DS~ on April 05, 2011, 12:47:09 PM
Let's call it 2.0 then. That's one major jump. :P
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on April 05, 2011, 12:48:48 PM
Though it seems quiet the past day or 2, I assure you I've been plugging away at all the features option permissions and coming up clean as well.
I'm just about at the end of my list which I haven't gotten to in the past 2 weeks since a certain someone keeps repairing things so quickly ;D

Quote from: Dismal Shadow on April 05, 2011, 12:47:09 PM
Let's call it 2.0 then. That's one major jump. :P
That's the plan ;) (http://www.simpledesk.net/community/topicseen,/simpledesk_team_blog/what_next_simpledesk_924.msg9093.html#msg9093)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: ~DS~ on April 05, 2011, 12:51:00 PM
QuoteThough it seems quiet the past day or 2
That's why I bumped. :P
I want to see this project going. ;)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 05, 2011, 12:53:32 PM
1.0 final had 10,380 lines of PHP (as per this post (http://www.simpledesk.net/community/simpledesk_team_blog/the_road_1.0_677.0.html)), already there are 17,329 lines in SVN with plenty more yet to be written. There's a little less Javascript in total due to refinements, a decent chunk less XML due to moving as much as possible to SMF hooks (which accounts for several hundred lines of PHP alone)

I don't particularly want to comment on what's been done or what's left to be added though.

As for me, yesterday left me drained from stuff going on elsewhere, today I've been a little ill which has made sitting for more than half an hour at a time at the computer difficult, but I'm still plotting these things ;)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on April 05, 2011, 12:59:08 PM
Get some rest man, the amount of time you've put in thus far is remarkable, dont push yourself to hard and get burnt out. (https://www.simpledesk.net/community/topicseen,/simpledesk_team_blog/what_next_simpledesk_924.msg9093.html#msg9093)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: ~DS~ on April 05, 2011, 01:00:34 PM
Quote from: Spoogs on April 05, 2011, 12:59:08 PM
Get some rest man, the amount of time you've put in thus far is remarkable, dont push yourself to hard and get burnt out. (https://www.simpledesk.net/community/topicseen,/simpledesk_team_blog/what_next_simpledesk_924.msg9093.html#msg9093)
+1
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 05, 2011, 01:07:30 PM
This illness is something I ate that has really disagreed with me... if anything it's just making me more determined to get back to what I do because I really hate feeling ill, even slightly.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on April 05, 2011, 01:11:49 PM
Ah in that case, maybe some ginger tea (https://www.simpledesk.net/community/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fskypeemoticons.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F01%2FSkype-emoticons-62-coffee.gif&hash=0bfb074ad52a048ff1ea1b6d6e173d7a6ab46702) ;)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 05, 2011, 01:16:15 PM
Nooooooooooo, that'll make it worse, most spices (including ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon) definitely disagree with me... which given where my surname comes from historically, is rather ironic.

English Blend tea FTW :P
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on April 05, 2011, 01:21:07 PM
:P Spicer cant handle Spice... come on ;D
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 05, 2011, 01:23:24 PM
Quote from: Spoogs on April 05, 2011, 01:21:07 PM
:P Spicer cant handle Spice... come on ;D

I find it deliciously ironic, yes.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: chilly on April 05, 2011, 03:30:12 PM
Quote from: Dismal Shadow on April 05, 2011, 12:47:09 PM
Let's call it 2.0 then. That's one major jump. :P
have had enough time to prepare for that jump ;)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 05, 2011, 06:14:14 PM
Wait till you see the other stuff that's going into 2.0, then it truly will deserve the title.

FWIW, of the two features, one of them is colossal and will likely generate many bugs that need finding and squishing. Hopefully I won't make too many of them in the first place, though, because it's going to be a butt-ache to track them down at that point...
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on April 10, 2011, 09:57:49 PM
So, 6 days later, there's another 900 lines of PHP not counting the stuff that got rewritten over time to make the changes, including a major rewrite of permission loading to accommodate the new stuff.

The major colossal feature for 2.0 has been about 60% implemented with several known bugs and missing-minifeatures-that-could-be-considered-bugs still to implement for it but all in all, that came together pretty smoothly.

When we're on the run through beta and release candidates, I'll make an announcement of what's in 2.0 and what all the changes were that we added to it to make it so f***ing awesome.

Believe me, 2.0 IS awesome. Hopefully, you'll feel as I do, that it was worth waiting for.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: tfs on April 11, 2011, 02:02:21 AM
I'm drooling!  :)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on May 15, 2011, 08:45:05 PM
OK, so an update on this.

We've internally set what 2.0 will contain, and only stuff on the tracker will be added now (which is the nearest we're going to get to feature lock, I guess!), of which there are 8 things on the tracker to be done for 2.0.

Because I feel like sharing, here's what's still to come on the tracker before we crunch into a hardcore testing phase:
* (bug) ticket to topic doesn't handle custom fields
* (bug) email notifications not always being logged properly
* (bug) cannot yet set a default value in the multi-select checkbox type custom field (it's still a feature enhancement in the tracker because it wasn't originally a bug that it was missing...)
* (minor feature) the bundled "front page" plugin, for a custom front page, needs retesting against departments code and a couple of minor enhancements to come
* (minor feature) auto closing tickets needs to be finished; there's some underlying code for it but more is needed
* (minor feature) the ability to send one-off emails and the ability to include yourself on notifications, without replying to the ticket, needs to be added
* (minor feature) the ability to use a radio/select field as a category filter on tickets needs to be added
* (feature) canned replies needs to be added

No doubt, several of those might spawn new bugs during their implementation, and no doubt we'll find more bugs as we go, because in any sufficiently complex system, there are likely to be things you just never encountered before, but the hardcore beta phase should dig those out with any luck :)

I should also add, this version adds a plugin system of sorts, and there are already a few plugins in the repository, some of those need more work before we can release them, but with any luck that can be done without too much pain in the coming days/weeks so you'll be able to use those too.


And on that note, I'm off to bed!
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: ~DS~ on May 15, 2011, 08:57:28 PM
You go, Gruffen. :)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: tfs on May 15, 2011, 10:28:35 PM
Quote from: Gruffen on May 15, 2011, 08:45:05 PM
...here's what's still to come on the tracker before we crunch into a hardcore testing phase:

Very exciting!
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: live627 on May 16, 2011, 02:15:29 AM
Canned replies? Using a can of soup? :P
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on May 16, 2011, 03:58:48 AM
And, haha I see a few more things on the tracker for me to fix, but they're things that directly came out of yesterday's development so I can't say I'm surprised. I hope to fix them today, though!
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on May 17, 2011, 10:09:46 AM
Just to give you some idea of how things are going, I mentioned that 1.0 had 10,380 lines of PHP, but that wasn't entirely accurate - that was 10,380 including comments. Right now, there are 20,503 lines of PHP in SVN, and DOESN'T include comments.

Just to refresh your memory of things, the 1.0 stats are here (http://www.simpledesk.net/community/simpledesk_team_blog/the_road_1.0_677.0.html).

So let's do a quick count up... for each entry, the main number represents the raw figure, the figure in brackets includes comments.
SD 1.0SD 2.0 (new rev 313)
PHP8,004 (10,380)20,503 (24,975)
XML (installer)959 (1000)722 (759)
JavaScript349 (380)449 (490)
CSS371 (403)692 (772)

That should give you some idea of the scale of change that SimpleDesk has seen in the last year, and it's still not done yet! The bulk of the work is done, what's left is mostly bug hunting rather than major features (though there is still a biggish feature to add yet)

That means in total, it's getting close to around 1/4 the size of SMF itself. There are larger mods, of course, but it's a pretty exclusive club (it's in single digits, by now it may even only be AeMe and some of the portals)

Oh, and this doesn't include the plugins, of which there are already multiple plugins to play with, in varying stages of completion and ruggedness...
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Rus on May 17, 2011, 04:06:09 PM
Very Cool!
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: live627 on May 18, 2011, 03:09:33 AM
Those are scary stats going on there O_o
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on May 18, 2011, 04:51:32 AM
SD 2.0 is one scary piece of software because of what it can now do ;)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on May 18, 2011, 11:50:18 AM
I just made it more scary, by making it possible to take certain types of custom field, and make them usable as category-like filters within a department, so you can create a department for a given project, then provide filters inside that, e.g. creating 'SimpleDesk' as a department, and types of issues inside it (like 'General', 'Security' etc) as a filter to select it.

I think... hopefully, I'm finally done with custom fields :)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on May 18, 2011, 01:16:17 PM
And I'm pleased to report that this scary feature has brought no bugs with it, effectively adding nothing else to the tracker thus far. This feature works great as described by Gruff.
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Gruffen on May 18, 2011, 01:35:10 PM
Well, one possible bug just occurred to me, which I need to test and fix if appropriate, with regards to fields that apply across multiple departments, or did at one time and do not any longer do so (note: this bug may not be confined to the category filtering)
Title: Re: What next for SimpleDesk?
Post by: Spoogs on May 18, 2011, 01:52:02 PM
Aah yes, i'm seeing that now
my first thought was that was intended behavior, but I am seeing now that after the ticket is edited and actually drops the category it remain on the listing.

for clarification my test went like this
create ticket with cat, disassociate cat from dept
- cat remained active on ticket until edited (makes sense to me)
- cat remained filterable on listing (makes sense as long as a ticket still hold the category)
  *now i see that the cat is still there on the listing after all tickets have been edited to drop the cat.

Edit... Though now that I have reviewed it a bit further, disassociating a cat from a dept should hide it all together, as that may have been the intention of the admin to