Hey Guys!
Its been an amazingly busy few weeks here and while things are not showing any signs of slowing down, I thought id catch 5 minutes (and my breath) to tell you what’s been going on and what’s coming up next.
2 Weekends ago! (25th July 2010)
We did a major UI update which included an upgrade from ExtJS 1.1 to ExtJS 3.2.1 and while we didn’t add any new features we got a whole lot for FREE. (I will talk about these in a minute).
1 Weekend ago! (1st August 2010)
We deployed a new version of the application which included a whole new Admin section, some nice updates to the Work Items section and some new sections in the Admin Area, with a sneaky “Coming Soon” tag! (Again I will talk about all this in a minute).
Next Weekend (8th Aug 2010)
We have been working on Granular SVN permissions for a really long time and have been really close for just as long. But as of today we are passing 100% of the required tests for this to work in production, so as of next weekend you will be able to set granular permissions to all your SVN repositories (if you choose to), you can do all the old favourites, Read, Read/Write, None…
A few weekends from now (TBD)
Git repositories! Yes your not seeing things! the old farts here at Code Spaces are finally going to support GIT! We think you will like the way we have implemented it, obviously we are not going for the same approach taken by people like GitHub (I love those guys!) as we are more focused on private repos and private projects, however If your a fan of Git (and who isn’t these days) you will be able to appreciate it at Code Spaces too real soon.
So whats new then?
So as i mentioned we have already deployed a whole load of new stuff, and many of you have already commented (Thanks Guys!) on a lot of it. Here is a brief overview of the changes:
Refined UI - The UI is generally tidier and easier on the eye (which is nice).
Grids - All the Grids (WorkItems, SourceCode, Admin, etc..) now support saving of state, so if you move columns around, hide/show columns or even resize columns you setting are now saved (automatically) so next time you visit that page, its as you left it.
Work Items – So many little things have changed in Work Items, the layout is slightly different with a new search window on the left which can be shown/hidden by toggling the Search button and pinned/unpinned using the window pin.
The new Work Item screen has more fields, more of the ones you need when creating a new work item funnily enough!
The edit work item screen now takes you right in to the edit mode, so you don’t need to scroll across to edit, and all the tabs (comments, documents, etc) are on the same screen, which makes a lot more sense.
We have added more columns to the grid, however not all of them are visible by default, have a play with the grid to set it just how you like it.
Email notifications are now working in a much more reliable way, Email is a technology that we really hate a Code Spaces but its a necessary evil given that so many of you like being notified about stuff… Well we have worked very hard to get this working better for you guys and i’m told (thanks again guys!) that we have nailed it this time (yes i know, about time too).
Admin - The admin section is so different its not really worth talking about the individual changes, but here are a few that you will like:
Layout is much better and fits with the rest of the application.
You can hide specific features from your users if your not using them (at project level), for instance, if you have a project that is just for PM and has no need for Source Code or Forums, you can switch those feature off in the project settings page.
Sneak Peak at GIT support, yeah we left in some signs of the work we are doing to support GIT in Code Spaces, we will let you all know when these areas become active, but I’ll give a Wonderful, once in a lifetime prize to the person who spots them first.
Dashboards – You can move the dashboard widgets around, and resize them as you like, this is automatically saved so you can get it looking just right for you. This also applies for the account dashboard. We will in the coming weeks be pushing out more widgets for these screens so you can get more information right where you want it.
Wiki – Wiki pages are now versioned, and you can select previous versions form the wiki page.
Well I think you have had enough for one post, but as you can see we are really working hard on Code Spaces and plan on doing so many great things in the coming weeks and months.
