Sunday, November 29, 2009

New release (1.0.1131) and x64 support for Linux

Note: I suggest everyone upgrade to this release if possible.

It finally happened. After attempting for as long as possible to have a single deb/tgz for 32 and 64-bit on Linux, I gave in and created a 64-bit package. The main reason for this was that Worklog Assistant now uses gnome-keyring to store passwords on Linux. As gnome-keyring is not part of the ia32-libs package, this meant a 64-bit package was needed.

If you install the PAM module, the keyring will be unlocked on login, otherwise the keyring software will prompt you to enter your keyring password when you launch Worklog Assistant.

So now, time tracking for JIRA just got a little bit better on Linux ;-)

There is also one bug fix due to the recent change to group worklogs by issue in the pending worklogs screen.

Thanks for your time and happy time tracking!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

New release (1.0.1128)

A new release is available. There are two major feature improvements in this release as well as official JIRA 4.0 support! The first being that pending worklogs are now grouped and summarized by issue. This should make it easier to see what you have worked on before submitting.

The next improvement is one of my favourites: on Mac, the dock icon now contains the total of all the pending worklogs as well as the current active task. See the screenshot below:

There are also some minor but useful improvements to the idle time detection. Previously, when you returned from idle, say to check email or the time, Worklog Assistant would pop up and ask you if you wanted to apply the away time to a task. This behaviour has not changed.

However, the dialog would previously assume that if you returned, you were back for good. Now, when you return, you can leave the dialog open and Worklog Assistant will continue to track your away time. When you finally return and accept, the correct away time will be used.

This is very useful for those cases where you are doing a software build, or a run of tests and just come back to check if they are done. From now on, you can just leave the notice open and your away time will continue to be tracked.

JIRA 4.0 support

Thanks to the awesome backward compatibility work by Atlassian, Worklog Assistant always maintained JIRA 4.0 support. However, I can finally say that JIRA 4.0 is now officially supported. This includes the server side plugin as well as the desktop client. As an aside, I have officially switched to using JIRA 4.0 internally and it is at least 100 times better than JIRA 4.0. My favourite "new" features:
  • Dashboard - Awesome!
  • Activity stream - What issue did I just change?
  • Greenhopper!
I used Greenhopper to manage this release and I must say I am never going back to the old way of bulk filter changes.

Last but not least, there is now a new "thin" installer for Linux. Basically, you untar+gunzip and you are ready to go. This should help on non-Ubuntu platforms.

I hope you find these new changes to be useful, I know I have. If you find any issues, please let me know.

Happy time tracking and have a good week!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

New beta available

It's been a while since a proper release but I'm coming around to it!

This beta has a bunch of minor improvements and one really cool new feature for Mac: a badge label for the Worklog Assistant application icon. Now, when you are tracking time and have pending worklogs to submit, the Worklog Assistant icon will show a label with the sum total of the elapsed time. Here is an example of what it looks like:

Pretty cool! Anyway, head on over to the beta site and give it a run, you'll be glad you did! Please let me know if you have any problems or suggestions.

About this blog

We strongly believe that tracking your time properly is the first step to deterministic software development. If you feel that you have been guessing or you can't be bothered to remember to log time, Worklog Assistant might be for you!

Give it a try!

Please download a free 30-day trial today by clicking on the link below: Download