PHProjekt 6 - Developers Blog

What's new in PHProjekt 6 since the Preview 3?

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:03:04 +0100

Some of the new stuff are:

    - Add General Configuration: There is a section for set general configurations, the only one now is "Company name", that set the name of the Root Project.
    - Drag and Drop on Calendar: The Week and Day view provide a drag and drop interface for an easy management of events.
    - Filters in the grid: On a simple click, a box appear, and you can manage filters for the current list. (The filters are saved!).
    - Add sub module script: As developer, you can easy add a sub-module, that allow to add sub-items to one item, for that there is a tiny grid and form, all into one tab.
    - Front Messages: New instant messages when another user login/logout or add/edit/remove an item, also when your event is near to start.
    - Highlight fields: If other user change something in the item that you are seeing, then you will get a front message, all the changed fields are highlighted and filled with the new values.

Continue reading "What's new in PHProjekt 6 since the Preview 3?"

Licence switch: from GPL to LGPL

nospam@example.com (Albrecht Günther) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:31:27 +0100

As already mentioned, PHProjekt 6 is the result of a complete rebuild, rewritten from scratch. We used this chance to look for another Open Soucen Licence and after several discussions, we decided to put PHProjekt 6 under the LGPL. The LGPL is often called 'library GPL' and is recommended for software libraries. So What are the reasons to put a complete project management suite under the LGPL?

First of all, we have chosen an original and widely used licence model, thus avoiding any 'propietary, home brewed' OS licence.
By choosing a commonly known, easy to understand and liberal OS licence, we want to attract open source developers and invite them to contribute to the PHProjekt project.

Furthermore, each developer or company (including Mayflower itself) can develop own modules and or additional software, link it to PHProjekt 6 and put the module under another (even propietary) licence. We think that this also will raise the interest to the new version of PHProjekt. However, modifications on the core of PHProjekt 6 have to be open again. We hope, that improvements and patches will make their way back into the repository and can be released with the next versions.

By choosing the LGPL, we commit us to the freedom of software, and we respect the freedom to link software to PHProjekt 6 with a propietary licence.

PHProjekt 6 Launch on March 18

nospam@example.com (Albrecht Günther) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:51:29 +0100

The PHProjekt development team is proud to announce, that the new version 6 will be launched on March 18. This will be exactly two years after the first announcement here in the blog
Of course our first plans were pretty different - originally our intention was to ship the new software by summer of last year, but changes in the architecture, and in the team led to this delay.
However, we think that the new edition is a good choice for everyone, who looks for a cool open source project management suite.

We opened up channels for faster communication on facebook and twitter and hope you will join us soon.

NEW WIKI DOCUMENTATION SITE AVAILABLE

nospam@example.com (Mariano La Penna) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:07:28 +0100

Hello community

http://docs.phprojekt.com is now offering the User help and the Developer help (external developers) for Phprojekt 6.

We offer it over MediaWiki, the popular free PHP based Wiki application.
We have divided the contents into lots of sections and sub-sections trying to be very clear in the structure and available texts.

Currently it has two main sections

The User help, which gives help about every section, page and situation a user can reach when browsing and working with Phprojekt 6 and also covers the Migration process that may be performed when initially installing the application.

The Developer help, that is intended for people who want to develop modules for P6 as extensions, but don't want to get involved into the application core.
This section will be completed with an 'Internal developers' big set of texts we have been working on, that are intended for the internal team and all those who want to improve the application core, original modules and original package structure.

Good luck
The PHProjekt developing team

SubModule API for the frontend

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:18:51 +0100

There is a new API for make sub-modules,
A sub module is a front implementation for save various items related to one record.

The current example is the Minutes module, where for one meeting,
you can save various topics, todo, dates, etc.

The idea is that the user clicks on the record (in the grid),
the form appears with all the data,
and there is one tab for the sub-module that contains:
- In the left, a grid with all sub-items related to the record.
- And in the right a form for add / edit and delete the items.
So the user can add many items to this record.

For make it easy, there is a SubModule folder in each module, that can contain many other folders,
(each folder is a new sub-module).
In that folder, called for example "NewSubModule", there is the basic module structure, that means:
Controllers, Models, Languages, Sql and Views.
So the implementation of the submodule is like all the others modules, but inside into the SubModule folder.

For the view, the form must be an extention of phpr.Default.SubModule.Form, the grid of phpr.Default.SubModule.Grid,
and the main of phpr.Default.SubModule.

The function for the grid and the form are the same as other modules,
so the customization is like always.
(For internal use or avoid some features, there are some functions already overwritten)
Continue reading "SubModule API for the frontend"

A new feature for Phprojekt 6: Frontend messages

nospam@example.com (Martin Ruprecht) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:32:30 +0100

Yet PHProjekt 6 (P6) is already enhanced with nice AJAX workflows and snappy user-experience, but we discussed a way to provide synchronous communication and direct information within the application.

Therefore we spent P6 a new feature called frontend messages. A frontend message is a generated message to the User that appears in a highlighted box at the right bottom. You can separate between two types: system generated and user generated ones. A system generated message or notification is e.g. a user has logged in. A user generated notification is similar to a small chatroom where a user can send a notification to any other user. In ather words, if User A creates a new todo and gives User B the mimimum right of read access, User B gets exactly at the moment after User A has hit the save button a message like, User A has created a new Todo 'write Email' in Project 'Testproject'“. In addition this message is a hyperlink to the new item to see the details.

This is the list of events that trigger a new frontend message:

Login/ Logout

a user of one of my projects logs in

a user of one of my projects logs out

Actions on data records

a new item will be created

an existing item will be updated

an existing item will be deleted

Calendar

Alert upcomming events

(an invitation will be acepted by the user) not implemented yet, because there is no invitation function in P6)

(a user receives an invitation to a meeting) see above

a meeting will be postponed

For those who won´t get any frontend messages exist a tab in the settings to turn off/on this type of notification.

Since the users love the handy system requirements (Apache server and Mysql) and the ease of installation it´s not possible to use a real comet architecture, because all the comet magic depends on a so called application server (e.g. Jetty, Perservere) and does not run on traditional web-servers.

We hope this feature will bring a realtime web feature into P6 and enhance the ease of use of the groupware.

PHProjekt Preview release #3

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:40:32 +0200

We would like to publish the last preview release of PHProjekt 6.
Since the last version, we have added some features, but the real focus was on performance and stability, so all reported bugs were fixed.

We have a new module, Minutes, but also old modules where improved like Timecard and Gantt.
A new layout is the "visible" change, we hope the usability improves,
but there are also a lot of general changes that make PHProjekt 6 a strong and fast application.

Also we improved the migration routine a lot for big and complicated PHProjekt 5 databases.
Migration routine supports now: Calendar, Projects, Notes, Todos, Timecard, Contacts, Helpdesk and Filemanager.

As always, the project is alive thanks to you, so it will be great if you give us all the feedback in our channels via:
- This blog
- Sf tracker (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=16724&atid=116724)
- Forums (http://www.phprojekt.com/index.php?name=forum)
- Mail (phprojekt-devel) phprojekt-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

PHProjekt 6 is hosted on sf, you can get the download version here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/phprojekt/.
Of course you can try out our demo at p6.phprojekt.com (username/password: admin/test, english/test and german/test)

all the best
The PHProjekt dev team

New Minutes Modules

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:21:22 +0200

We have now a new module to record the meetings.
There is a normal form to fill title, description, date, times, place, moderator and status. Also a tab for participants (invited, attending, excused).

After a normal meeting is created, then 2 more tabs appear:
  Item:
    To add, edit and remove topics, statements, to do's, decisions and dates into the meeting.
    All the items are shown in a nice tiny grid.
  Mail:
    Where can be selected some recipients (from the system or others) and send them an email with all the metting data.
    A PDF can be created with the data and send it attached to the email.

When the satus of the meeting is "Final", then it is read only, and anything can't be changed, except that the status changes again.

Normal forms stuff are still there like tags and access, notification and history tabs.

New changes on the layout

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:14:49 +0200

There are several changes on the layout since the Release of the Developer 2 version.
These changes will improve the user experience.

The more obvious changes are in the Grid, but also the form, and the navigations have cool stuff.
Here is the list of changes.
Continue reading "New changes on the layout"

PHProjekt Preview release #2

nospam@example.com (Albrecht Günther) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:53:04 +0200

In this week we would like to publish another (in fact: the last) preview release of PHProjekt 6. In the past months we were busy to add new features and to get more stability into the application. Since the first preview release, we added the following modules:
- New project modules: tickets, files, contacts
- Calendar: Serial events, week and month view. day view for several users
- Filemanager module: multiple upload of files
- Project statistics
- Setup and migration routine
- Help system

Furthermore we made some improvements also thanks to the feedback from the community:
- An html editor for textareas in all forms
- Direct URL for each request
- Allow back button (FF)

Before the final release of PHProjekt 6.0, which we hope that we can do in summer, we will to improve the timecard modul and add a minutes module.

PHProjekt 6 is now hosted on sf, you can get the download version here: http://sf.net/projects/phprojekt.
Of course you can try out our demo at p6.phprojekt.com (login english:test)

all the best
The PHProjekt dev team

Migration from p5 to p6

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:35:09 +0200

It is possible to migrate the database from PHProjekt 5.x to PHProjekt 6 providing the real path to the PHProjekt 5.x config.inc.php (e.g. /var/www/html/config.inc.php or C:\www\phprojekt\config.inc.php). The config.inc.php needs to be on the same server where you are installing PHProjekt 6.

The migration could take several minutes depending on the number of projects to be migrated.

Important: User passwords will not be migrated. All migrated users will have the same username and password.

Root user will not be migrated, because it is replaced by 'admin' user on PHProjekt6.

The modules to be migrated are: Calendar, Projects, Notes, Todos, Timeproj, Timecard, Helpdesk and Filemanager.

Customized module fields will not be migrated.

If Filemanager files does not work after migration please try moving manually the uploaded files (e.g. move the files on /phprojekt5.x/uploads to /phprojekt6/uploads).

Gantt

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:13:00 +0100

Phprojekt6 has an interactive gantt chart.
As every module, this one can be assigned to a project, the user will see the current project and all the subprojects.

The gantt chart allows the user to modify the dates, just dragging the project bar with the mouse.
There is a date picker too, to make more precise arrangements.

The user can move the end date, the start date or both.
If there is a conflict between the parent project and the subprojects, a dialog box appears asking the user what he wants to do:
- synchronize the parent project
- synchronize the children
- or just nothing.

After all the changes, click on save, and all the new date values are saved.

PHProjekt 6 Developer Preview edition

nospam@example.com (Albrecht Günther) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:12:23 +0100

Today the PHProjekt core team is glad to publish a first edition of PHProjekt 6, the 'developer preview release'! More than one year has passed since the first commit into the SVN. In our view, the most important feature of the new version is the state-of-the-art architecture, which makes a huge difference to all previous versions of PHProjekt.

With the choice of Zend framework in the backend and a complete integration of the dojo toolkit for the frontend, we think that the application is now ready for complex requirements and workflow processes. The MVC and active record pattern support scaffolding, thus allowing an effective and rapid development for new modules and features - in fact, new modules can be built with some mouse clicks.

Furthermore we tried to provide you a software, which makes fun to develop own code.
PHProjekt 6:
- is completely OOP, well structured
- follows php5 coding standards (actually zf coding style)
- has a pretty good code coverage with unit tests
- is completely documented in phpdoc
By following 'convention over configuration', many modules and services show an expected default behaviour. The API and protocol (JSON) between frontend and backend allows a change of single components of the application.

For other webmasters without coding skills, we tried to facilitate the application management with a WYSIWYG module designer.
Last but not least, we changed the licence from GPL to LGPL to give you more flexibility for the distribution of your own modules and extensions.

Lots of changes have been made over the past months by the developer team so we are really looking forward to get feedback from the community.
You can download the developer preview release here. We reopened the phprojekt repository on sourceforge, so you can checkout the source code from SVN there.
On phprojekt.com, we opened a new section for PHProjekt 6, which we will fill with content in the next weeks. You can leave general remarks as a comment on this blog entry. For questions and discussions, we installed an own developer mailing list, you can subscribe here. Anyone of you who want to inspect it directly, we have a setup a sandbox (login: english/test).
Please keep in mind, that it is only a preview, which means that something weird can frequently happen
Please post your opinion, report bugs or send patches, everyone is welcome. We need you, the people who use it, your testing and reports, and your patches.

We wish you merry christmas ... sorry: a lot of fun with the preview of PHProjekt 6!
the PHProjekt development team

Settings and Configurations

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:13:33 +0100

We provide an extended setting system per module.
The system use some settings for the user module, and each module can add their own settings.

The developer must add one file in the Model folder, where the settings fields are specified. He can set for every field:
- the way to get it
- the way to validate it
- and the way to save it

After that, the user will see a new tab for this module in the Settings section, and a form with the specified fields will appear.

These settings are per user, and is really easy to get them:

$setting = Phprojekt_Loader::getModel('Setting', 'Setting');
$setting->setModule('moduleName');
$settingValue = $setting->getSetting('settingName');

The configuration system is the exactly the same than the previous version, but it is for global settings, it means that the settings are the same for all the users.

Module Designer

nospam@example.com (Gustavo Solt) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:11:24 +0100

The new Phprojekt6 has, like the previous versions, the Module Designer, for the admin to add / modify / delete system modules.

The cool stuff in Phprojekt6 is that the admin creates and modifies the forms using a drag and drop system.
That means, one column in the left with all the possible type of fields, and many columns in the right (one per tab),
where the fields will be dropped. After each drop, a tiny form will appear on screen for customizing the new field with values like:

- Name in the table
- Length in the table
- Type of field in the table
- Label to show in phprojekt6
- Default value
- Whether the field is required
- ...and more

Continue reading "Module Designer"