Release Notes

• Changelogic
• Release Notes

Contents

Release 2.7 (April 2008)

Major features:

• Possibility to order notifications about being added as a notifiable person for a task (default: ON)
• Redesigned role list on project details page for better overview and usability
• Updated/added/deleted files are displayed when refreshing Subversion-based working directory
• VCS list can now be accessed only by users with related privilege
• . NET-compatible web services for handling task elapsed time
• Review templates manageable by reviewer

Release 2.6 (November 2007)

Major features:

• Get Nightly Versions service finds somewhat more interesting versions than previously
• Selections of Notifiable persons can be filtered for better usability
• Task Search page is much faster
• Tags in history now link to search

Release 2.5 (August 2007)

Notes:

• Please check your notification subscriptions – they have been reset to defaults as the system was thoroughly redesigned.

Major features:

• Redesigned notification subscription system. Since it is very different from the old one, please check your settings – they have been reset to defaults.
• Environments now may have notifiable persons to indicate who would be interested in notifications about the environment
• Simplified task list in addition to the complex search page
• Many properties of a task can be edited directly in the list
• Checkpoints can now be marked to be deployed into test/production environments
• Current checkpoint number is stored in change.properties
• Adding/removing public tags is shown in task history
• Tags can be added to multiple tasks at once
• Diff is faster on CVS and does not re-create removed directories each time

Release 2.4.11 (April 2007)

As 2.5 release is still being stabilized, we planned some new cool features back to 2.4 and made release 2.4.11.

Major features:

• You can now track your release progress with burndown charts – we have charts based on task count and time estimates
• Another new report shows you test coverage – which test cases have been run during release cycles

2.4.11 also contains numerous small bugfixes and optimizations.

Release 2.4 (March 2007)

Major features:

• One global search box instead of multiple separate ones for tasks, changes, etc.
• Changelogic now supports customizations
• Task resolution “later” has been removed (existing tasks with such resolution were marked as “won't implement”, state “awaiting postcheck”)
• Tracking dependencies in web (requires Maven 2.x or Ivy)
• Comma may be used in all text filters (meaning “or”)
• Bugfixes for Subversion and Eclipse plugin

Release 2.3 (January 2007)

Major features:

• File annotations in Eclipse client (requires Eclipse 3.2 or newer)
• In web, wherever you have to enter an ID, you may enter a few phrases from short description and selection of matching IDs along with short description will be offered
• Unread tasks appear darker in list than read ones
• Review templates can be edited even when already in use
• Saved task list filter now also remembers sort order
• Notifiable persons are copied when marking a task duplicate
• Topic progress shows estimates summary
• Estimated time can be entered when adding task via long form
• Checkpoint details page shows checkout tags for modules
• Eclipse client tries harder to bring forward console showing its messages
• Higher-than-normal task priorities are color-coded
• Topics can be closed
• RSS feed title includes name of the project, if applicable
• Web pages now remember which sections you had open/closed last time

Release 2.2 (December 2006)

Notes:

• Subversion 1.4 client is now supported and preferred for SVN connectivity

Major features:

• Eclipse client menu is reorganized and offers all the acitivities that are supported by command-line client
• Tasks can be tagged and searched by tag
• Relations between tasks and test cases verifying them
• Requirements can now be tracked
• Adding runs for several test cases at once
• Text can be pasted as attachment on task details page

Release 2.1.13 (October 2006)

Notes:

• PHP5 is supported starting from this release. PHP4 compatibility also remains.

Major features:

• User history – edits made to user identification or authorization information are now recorded
• Confirmation before manually creating release cycles
• Comment areas now automatically resize themselves to acommodate their contents
• Drafts for long text fields (e.g. comments) are auto-saved and restored if needed
• Option to make tasks of a project open for public browsing without logging in
• “Task precheck” is now named “task approval”, “Task postcheck” became “task verification”
• Task list: search and display resolver of a task
• Task list: filters can be defined so they take into account the default project selected in menu

Release 2.1.12 (August 2006)

Major features:

• Command line client now asks whether you want to continue running an unfinished command
• Diffs can now link to Subversion repository

Release 2.1.10 (August 2006)

Notes:

• Ant version 1.6.3 or newer is required for command line client

Major features:

• Eclipse plug-in (download and follow instructions under Supporting Files)
• Statistics about average task throughput rates by release cycles: Release > Cycle stats
• Contents of “My changes” and “My tasks” under “My interests” are now configurable
• Name of integration directory now contains number of release cycle
• Tool-assisted set-up of new Changelogic instances and projects
• A user can now change his/her login name
• Changelogic can use SMTP with or without authentication for sending e-mails
• «cmd.exe /D» is used when running CVS commands to disable running Auto Run? commands
• Some smaller enhancements/bugfixes

Release 2.1 (June 2006)

Notes:

• Users are forced to upgrade build script
• All web services (except Receive_task) moved to SOAP platform (including those used by autobuilders, so you have to upgrade them if you use any)

Migration Guide

Please note that this is the most radical update to Changelogic since the first release and it's a bit more complex than usual. We're migrating to all new client here and also to standardized protocol in web services so please be patient and excuse the non-descriptive messages here.

• Step 0. You try to do whatever you were doing before
• Step 1. First error: “Unknown event: Get_editable_changes” means that you must upgrade build script (ant devweb_upgrade)
• Step 2. Next error: “Please download changelogic-build.xml from web interface under supporting files” means you must download changelogic-build.xml from web interface (click on your name in the upper right corner and then “Supporting files”)
• Step 3. Next error: «Please remove c:\ant-1.6.5/lib/changelogic-ant.jar – It is in the way» means that you have to delete file changelogic-ant.jar from your %ANT_HOME%/lib catalogue
• Step 4. Please add changelogic-build.xml to CVS when you have a change open for editing (cvs add changelogic-build.xml)
• Step 4. You might have to repeat migration for a few times as long as you get older client script from your “latest”.
  • The old script might ask you to reinstall changelogic-ant.jar by message: «Changelogic tasks library changelogic-ant.jar is not installed or too old; you can download latest changelogic-ant.jar from web interface under supporting files and put it in your ANT_HOME/lib». Ignore the advice in message and do ant devweb_upgrade instead.

Major features:

This is the first release of our all-Java based client, no build scripts' XML and Javascript any more. Why it is good?

• It supports Subversion as an alternative to CVS
• It has extendable architecure so we can make it support other version control systems quite quickly
• It uses journaling concepts to manage client-side state and carry out CVS operations
• It has improved logging so it is a lot easier to debug
• It uses SOAP to communicate with server

Release 1.35 (June 2006)

Major features:

• A user can now select preferred filter via settings – the task list then opens with the selected filter applied
• Task list column selection is now a section in filter

Release 1.34 (May 2006)

Notes:

• Starting from this release, My SQL? is required to be version 4.1 or newer

Major features:

• Much better support for international characters – internal charset is now UTF-8 instead of 8-bit ISO-8859–13
• Section “edited” in task list filter allows to search by time and/or event

Release 1.33 (April 2006)

Notes:

• Users are not forced to upgrade build scripts as no changes to it occurred.
• There are no changes to web services used by autobuilders.
• There were only few instances that ever saw the 1.32 release, so 1.32 release notes are included in here too.

Major features:

• The menu choice “Versions” is now called “Releases” and the default list in that section does not display every integrated version in whole history, but only latest versions that were released to environments. This simplifies a lot getting to see what changes went up with last release – the list also includes the version that is currently deployed, that was deployed before and direct link to version differences between those two versions.
• It is also much easier to see, if the implementation of some task is already accessible in any of the test or production environments – there is a link called “Deployed in environments” on every task's detail form right beside the “Implemented in version” label. These features should pretty much clear up the mess in the following two situations:
  • What tasks went up with last update?
  • Has the implementation of this task reached test/production environment?
• It is now possible to change some parameters of tasks for multiple tasks at once, making mass replanning, reassign, prioritizing, etc much easier.
• There is now long awaited back button on detail form of tasks and changes that lets you navigate back to last list with the same filter applied. You can also navigate through the list with “Next” and “Previous” buttons submitting updates to every entity you are going through.
• You can now mark tasks that are somehow of extra importance to you with a “star” – you see it before every item on task list and on task's detail form too. There is also predefined filter [starred] to filter out your starred tasks. The meaning of star it left up to user. This feature was also available in 1.32 release.

This release turns a new page in Changelogic development – we try to be more user-focused and roll out releases at least every month, but probably even faster.

Release 1.31 (February 2006)

Notes:

• Users are forced to upgrade build scripts as changes to it occurred.
• There are no changes to web services used by autobuilders.

Major features:

• The biggest new feature is the possibility to create advanced filters for tasks and to save them. You can also choose the columns in tasks list, these are also saved with your filters.
• Changelogic now supports logging adjustments to software development environments that cannot be put under version control.
• New targets for updating your working directory to needed change or version are provided for reviewers and release managers. These are most useful when project is composed from modules, as it is annoying to update every module separately.
• Changelogic now support delivering notifications via RSS feeds if one finds deleting or filtering emails bothering.
• Changelogic now supports registering new users, this feature was mostly driven by such need in open source framework Aranea.

Minor changes:

• Components are now called topics and they don't have description field any more as it was useless.
• Installation is made simpler as Changelogic now creates it's database objects automatically.
• Multiple CVSROOT-s in ViewVC are now supported.
• All abandonings now need user confirmation.
• One can modify change reasons after creation.
• A lot of minor bugfixes, translations and usability improvements.

Release 1.30 (December 2005)

Notes:

• Users are not forced to upgrade build scripts; upgrading is strongly advised in projects where both module system and microchanges are used.
• No changes to web services were made.

Major features:

• The whole staging process has been refactored. Instead of numerous states we now only have 3 phases – development, test, production, the parameter that shows wheter any version is suitable for production, is separated from states. Now you can put one version into multiple testing and production environments simultaneously, but the replanning only happens on phase transition.
• You can change project of a task – it is useful if you have project where users enter a lot of low quality feedback that must be sorted for duplicates, analysed and negotiated with client. So you can keep all this feedback in separate project and not distract your project team until realisation.
• You can reopen abandoned changes – concrete problem which has caused probably more support cases than any other.
• You can see changed files with version differences. You'd best take a look at this list before release, you can also filter patterns in filenames, for example “interface”
• You can reply to emails sent by Changelogic, incoming mails are periodically imported as comments every minute. This feature is still beta – we just don't have enough resources to test every possible mail client. Tested clients include MS Outlook, MozillaMail, Thunderbird, Pine, SquirrelMail, GMail, Horde IMP. This feature is know not to work with Hotmail and Hot.ee mailing systems.
• Changelogic now offers statistics on the most important criteria by our experience including:
  • Integrations' effectivity (total integrations divided by failed integrations)
  • Reviews' effectivity (total reviews divided by failed reviews)
  • Postchecks' effectivity (total postchecks divided by failed postchecks)
  • Testcases' effectivity (total testcases run divided by failed failed testcase runs)
  • Acceptances' effectivity (total acceptances divided by failed acceptances)
  • Support ratio (all releases divided by number of releases that are not first release from production release cycle)
  • Parallelism (number of all integrated changes divided by number of changes integrated to more than one branch)
  • Average tasks per change (says it all)
• User are being redirected to desired page after (re)login.

Minor changes:

• There are numerous enhancements to change planning page including staging events in tooltips, link to versions etc.
• Changes to editable module list are being logged
• Change form now contains planning and syncronization information
• All histories now highlight changes to text fields

Release 1.29 (September 2005)

Finally Arendusweb is going to production with new face and new name – Changelogic. So if your browser displays something weird do shift+refresh.

Build script users will be forced to upgrade. You can do that automatically with your build script, type “ant -p” and find your target for build script update, by default it's named “devweb_upgrade”.

Important changes:

• Changelogic now supports dividing your projects into smaller modules thus that build script operations are a bit faster, when you're not working with full repository. The first project to migrate into new system will be Elion. We will help project teams with that.
• Changelogic now supports semi-automatic synchronization with parallelly developed mainline, this feature is at the moment meaningful only for EMT team.
• New user interface design and better usability
  • Changed fields history is hidden by default as useless information in 90% of the cases – you can see it by clicking on the link. You can change defaults from your settings page.
  • History order is reversed by default, newest comment is first because usually you only need to read the newest comment. You can change the default in your settings.
  • Detailed data is divided into closable sections to keep detailed forms more compact
  • Menu points are in logical order rather than in order of implementation
  • Help is accessible from every page and has contents now, although it needs some update:)
• And also lots of bugfixes

You can send your comments from the feedback form or contact if you have critical problems.

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All release notes prior to these were in Estonian only.