SimpleDesk 1.0 RC2

Started by Gruffen, March 22, 2010, 08:37:20 PM

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Gruffen

Today we've released SimpleDesk 1.0 RC2 to our beta testers.

Almost 90 further SVN revisions were made since our first release candidate barely a week ago, addressing a variety of matters, multiple small bugs, tweaks of behaviour, and general improvements all round really.

We would have liked there to have been less changes between 1.0 RC1 and 1.0 RC2, but our beta tester team have done us proud and lived up to their name, finding all kinds of bugs we thought we'd gotten rid of. We've also added a lot of tweaks and improvements based on their feedback - it's all be quite iterative really how it's turned out.

We've also resubmitted the mod as RC2 to the SMF mod site, for them to consider - there were a lot of larger scale changes, most notably around how deleted tickets were handled, but ultimately I think the result was for the better.

Don't assume that this is it though, even since I published RC2 earlier today, a few new things have been brought up, tweaks and changes suggested, but this is as close to final as it'll be - nothing huge will be changing unless major bugs are found but realistically the differences between now and final will be either invisible or very small aesthetic ones.


There have been some visual changes since 1.0 RC1 that I do want to showcase for you, and in so doing I'm actually using Bloc's themes here (yes, I am a member of the ThemeClub for the premium themes), and it's nice to be able to showcase them slightly differently; whereas before I just ran through a very large list of pictures, here I'm doing a single picture for each item instead, just to be different, and because showing you the same screen multiple times is actually really really boring.

This is also pretty much a complete tour of SimpleDesk as it stands, usable and functional.


The main ticket listings



From left to right, the regular front page (Curve), the closed tickets (Helios), the recycle bin (Aqua)

The main change from previously is that we now have action buttons for various actions directly in the blocks, as opposed to just being on the recyclebin and closed tickets display.

(In case anyone's wondering what the icons are, on the frontpage they are 'assign this ticket', 'mark this one resolved', 'move this ticket to a forum topic', 'delete this ticket', on the closed tickets page it is the reopen button, on the recyclebin they are 'restore this ticket' and 'permadelete')

Also, since RC1, we added a 'go to ticket' box where you could enter a ticket's number and just go there.

Deleted tickets, deleted posts within tickets



From left to right, a deleted ticket (impulse2), a regular ticket with a deleted reply (Ganymedes) and the same ticket when not being viewed from the recycle bin (Minerva)

The idea is that generally when you're looking at a ticket, you just want the ticket itself, without any fuss or extra stuff - especially stuff you've deleted. When you do want to look at a deleted ticket, bring it up from the recycle bin, and you'll see all the replies in context with a clear visual indicator that they are deleted.

Admin panel

(I'm using the same theme for more than one page because these are the least exciting pages and I wanted to be a bit more fair to the themes here! :P)



Left to right, top to bottom: Admin home page (ModernDark32), Display Options (ModernDark48), Posting Options (ModernDark32), Administrative Options (WorkDesk2), Standalone Options (WorkDesk2), Action Log (ModernDark64), Support Request (ModernDark64)

The admin panel we have touched on before, but we've never really thoroughly shown it off - we've shown the action log and support pages, but never really gone into the configuration pages before.

Most of these options have been there for some time, too, but some we'd like to spotlight here - you can have it display badges/stars for users, or just a small icon for staff, and configure whether avatars are visible in the helpdesk; some sites will find it useful, others won't.

As for posting, we've actually set it up to be able to configure what bbcode is allowed within posts and what isn't - for example you may allow certain bbcode in your forum that you don't in your helpdesk and vice versa.

Note that we do fully intend to expand on some of these as time goes on, too, but that's where we're at.

So, like I said last time, very soon now - there's little bits left to do, clearing up bugs and whatnot, but that's what a release candidate is for :)

[FailSafe]

Oh man, it looks beautiful! I'm really loving all the shiny features that are in there, and I love the UI it has. Great job for the devs and for the Beta Testers that beat their hard work to biscuits. ;)

I'm counting the days till it's release!

Deezel


Sordell Media


Afro


MultiformeIngegno

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grafitus


Antes

The Evil One

james_0_0_7

Looks Cool, Fabulous and awesome

Ruediger


QuoteSorry my English not so good

One Questions:

I can not Download the Simple Desk .... can you give me a link ?

Achilles

Quote from: Ruediger on March 29, 2010, 07:32:52 AM

QuoteSorry my English not so good

One Questions:

I can not Download the Simple Desk .... can you give me a link ?

As far as I know, it is not out yet for public use. It is being tested by the Beta Testers and the QA's, but I believe SD already submitted it to SM.ORG for review. :)


MultiformeIngegno

Quote from: Achilles on March 29, 2010, 07:54:27 AM
As far as I know, it is not out yet for public use. It is being tested by the Beta Testers and the QA's, but I believe SD already submitted it to SM.ORG for review. :)
Yes.. :)
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Tutta la storia del rock, scritta da voi ...

...iscriviti al feed di RockCiclopedia dedicato alle ultime news del mondo della musica!

Gruffen

Quote from: Ruediger on March 29, 2010, 07:32:52 AM
I can not Download the Simple Desk .... can you give me a link ?

Just to confirm, we have released it to a limited trial because even only yesterday there were some slightly nasty bugs in it. There may STILL be bugs in it...

We submitted RC2 to the mod site the day of this announcement, but they haven't reviewed yet AFAIK, but I suspect 1.0 final will be out before they do.

hadesflames

Pfft...I wouldn't be surprised if 1.1 final is out before they finish reviewing it...
*will add something eventually*

Gruffen

Well, Norv transferred to Cust team and he is capable and knows his beans but I fear that it'll just be overlooked due to size and complexity.