Print Page - Converting WedgeDesk

Public area => The Pub => Plugins => Topic started by: Arantor on September 6th, 2011, 12:02 PM

Title: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 6th, 2011, 12:02 PM

In advance, I'm sorry. Most people probably aren't that interested, but I need to just take a moment to clear my mind, and I find the best way to do that is to book-end what I've just done, so that I can close off one part and open another.

Although I've described WD as less of a port and more of a rewrite of SimpleDesk for Wedge, I did actually have a greater plan in mind from the start: to make SimpleDesk/WedgeDesk run on Wedge with as little fuss as possible, and slowly convert things over time to Wedge's style.

Now I've started that, I found out just how much fun this process is going to be :P Partly because I want it to work but also if I'm working on the plugin system that binds the two together, I want to be reasonably sure that I'm chasing down bugs in the plugin system rather than bugs in the plugin itself. Been there, done that, do not wish to repeat.

After several hours last night and 3 hours pretty much solid this morning, I've actually got it to the stage where it will install using the old package manager. It's still broken in a number of exciting ways (can't post as I haven't converted the richedit stuff, JS is broken because I haven't integrated the JS minifer or jQuery stuff, and most of the templates are still broken) but it is actually beginning to come together.

There are some... interesting behaviours that I need to fix though.

Notably, uninstall is broken due to caching and what looks like a bug in the remove hook routine, and the side menu implementation in the profile area conflicts in a fun way with the current sidebar code, namely that the sidebar thinks it's collapsed within the area of the left menu (even though it's aligned to the right of the left menu, and when you hover it goes even further into the middle of the screen!)

There's not a lot to share in the way of screenshots. It looks like Wedge running a very broken SimpleDesk, which is what it is. But progress is being made.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Nao on September 6th, 2011, 12:28 PM

I've always been wondering... Are you working on WedgeDesk because you can't get rid of it in your head, even though you stopped working on SimpleDesk to... focus on Wedge? :whistle:
Also, can you actually pronounce "WedgeDesk" 10 times without stuttering? I can't even do it twice. "WeDesk", maybe...? "weDesk"? "DeskWedge"?

My sympathies for your sidebar issues... :P

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 6th, 2011, 01:13 PM

Quote

I've always been wondering... Are you working on WedgeDesk because you can't get rid of it in your head, even though you stopped working on SimpleDesk to... focus on Wedge?

I'm working on it because I learned a very hard and very valuable lesson during SD's development. Namely that if I'm going to spend any time working on a plugin setup, I need a known working plugin first. It's like the chicken and the egg, and I spent an inordinate amount of time last summer, and earlier this year, chasing down bugs that were intermittent and apparently untraceable - because I was looking in the wrong places for things, like looking at the plugin manager when it was a plugin bug and vice versa.

This way, I can build it to not require any edits, and gradually convert it to make use of the newer add-on manager, whereupon I know it's working as it should be, without having to fix a bajillion things and not really knowing what's to blame and what's broken.

Plus it gives me a good way to apply my theory of how add-ons should work in a real and practical way; there aren't many plugins as big and complicated as SimpleDesk is, that integrate as tightly (but cleanly) as SD does to SMF, and believe me when I say it does an insane number of things, some of which I don't think have been done before or since.

For example, it actually modifies the language editor code, so that when you see the list of language files to edit, SD's are at the top and with 'nice' names for each file, not the mashup filename you normally get (and that happened because I was fed up dumping language files into the main languages folder and wanted to keep SD's language files to itself, in a very definite move that echoes how I want Wedge's add-ons to work)

As for the sidebar, I'm going to move all the SD profile sidebar items into the regular sidebar, and be done with it, so the problem goes away.

Posted: September 6th, 2011, 01:07 PM

Re the name, I'm honestly not sure. WedgeDesk seemed natural but I don't worry about saying it many times fast - SimpleDesk pretty much fails that test too.

Mind you, the repo name is wedesk so maybe I'll end up switching it to that... Don't know, not really bothered by it at this stage...

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 6th, 2011, 06:02 PM

Hmm, I think ticket layout is mostly done now. (Attachments... hmm, haven't done that, is going to be broken in a variety of fun ways.)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Dismal Shadow on September 6th, 2011, 08:53 PM

Man, you are fast...O_o

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 6th, 2011, 10:10 PM

And SD 2.0 made great use of hooks, so much so that it was far more compatible than 1.0 was (out of curiosity I tried it, heheheh)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: MultiformeIngegno on September 7th, 2011, 02:12 AM

Quote from ~DS~ on September 6th, 2011, 08:53 PM

Man, you are fast...O_o

Indeed! :o

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 7th, 2011, 02:55 AM

Well, the hooks part was pretty easy to change over, the DB stuff was almost entirely automated, I'm currently working through the templates to convert them to Wedge coding but that's a bit tedious, and I'm also rewriting a number of things as I go, like making use of weToggle instead of half-baked hacky versions of the same thing.

Getting it all to play nicely is why I wanted to do it this way, so I know when I start using the proper add-on manager, that I make absolutely sure I'm hunting down add-on manager bugs and not WedgeDesk ones.

Right now there is still a fair bit that's fragile, but it is coming together and the parts I have tweaked (like the screenshot, putting the relationships and notifications blocks into the sidebar) look the better for it. I'm debating dropping some of the existing layout and heading towards a bit like the normal topic display does, with the poster info on the right... but we'll see, that's not finalised yet.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 7th, 2011, 11:18 PM

Just thought I'd share this particular oddity. I have no idea why the sidebar is here.

(Nao: the sidebar appears slightly to the right of where it's supposed to be when the page loads - and it thinks it's in the collapsed position, so hovering on it pushes it out to here. This is the thing I already mentioned and I'm willing to bet it's caused by the abuse of template layers and divs to create that left menu.)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: tfs on September 7th, 2011, 11:47 PM

Can't wait to take it for a spin!

WedgeDesk
Wedge HelpDesk
Wedge Ticket System
Wedge Tickets
Wickets! :)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Nao on September 7th, 2011, 11:50 PM

Pete. Does it use custom CSS? Is the enclosing div called edge or edgehide?

Wickets?
Eh! Let's rename our plugin system to Wedgets :P

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: spoogs on September 7th, 2011, 11:57 PM

Quote from Nao on September 7th, 2011, 11:50 PM

......... Let's rename our plugin system to Wedgets :P

I actually like that

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 8th, 2011, 12:02 AM

Oh, it's definitely going to be WedgeDesk, I already bought the domain names for that. I event spent some time mulling over how I think that site should look and function, seeing that it'll be just me designing for it.

In other news, I already have a list of things that I'm considering for future versions, which includes bug fixes of things I've found. (It's currently at 43 items, though some of those are notes for me for things to fix in the conversion)

I'm not averse to suggestions but it will very firmly go at my pace since there's no-one 'encouraging' me to work on this, so right now I'm concentrating on getting it up to speed for Wedge so that I can begin properly on the add-on and permissions overhauls. After that, I'll be more open to suggestions and so on, but the grand plan is to actually run WD as the primary module on wedgedesk.com, to function as both support vehicle and bug tracker. I mean, if you're going to do it, you gotta go for it properly, right?[1]

But I really want to have it not only out there to be a good mod for Wedge, to showcase what it can do - but also it'll be another way of promoting Wedge, and of promoting what can be achieved with sufficient care and attention. It may even help push Wedge's adoption not only by demonstrating that big, powerful add-ons can exist, but that there isn't the same issue against paid add-ons.[2]

@ Nao: It does use custom CSS. The enclosing div is not called either edge or edgehide, but it IS done by wrapping template layers around the entire content. When I said it was abuse of template layers, I really meant it: two divs are created, shd_left_column and shd_right_column. Left contains the left menu, the right column is opened in the _above layer, contains the main subtemplate, then closes it in the _below, which means it ends up containing the entire sidebar in it as well.[3]

I like Wedgets too, I actually nearly suggested Wedgelets quite early on but then I remembered how Java took that concept and screwed it up[4] with applets and servlets.[5] But Wedgets beats Wedgelets. And either of those are better than what I semi-seriously suggested for SD at one point.[6]

1.	The plan always was to move to SD on sd.net, since there's nothing technical really preventing it from replacing PT, it's mostly semantic difference, but a lot of that gap I can actually mitigate in WD with some of what I have planned.
2.	Even if paid mods end up being powered through wedge.org in some fashion, I'm still going to be running wd.com simply because that's the single best way to showcase it.
3.	I did not write the markup, and it's done that way because the menu reacts also to the << sidebar stuff in SMF, specifically that if the menus are dropdown, SD profile menu is a sidebar menu, and if the menus are sidebar, there's a little horizontal navbar above the content.
4.	Like most things in Java, really.
5.	Yes, servlets is a real Java term.
6.	"Drawers". On the basis that SD was a desk and desks have drawers. It made sense in my head.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 8th, 2011, 04:42 PM

OK, so by now I've done most of the template conversions. (The old plugin manager isn't, but to be fair, it's obsolete once Wedge's is done, so I'm not that bothered about it...) And most of the other conversions are done, so really, most of what's left to do is bug fixing and tidying up, but before I got into that (as a prelude to converting it to being an add-on), I thought I'd overhaul the ticket UI.

Don't get me wrong, what Nas did was very nice, but we're 18 months on, and I'm a bit fed up of it now, so I thought I'd emulate Nao's work elsewhere.

It's only taken me 20 minutes of hacking to get this to work like this, but here's what I have thus far. (In case you're wondering, it's based on the main post view)

Yes, it's buggy (in multiple ways) but it does at least work, and it'll probably come to resemble Wedge's layout more in time, like removing the upper menu and switching it to a collapsible one like Wedge uses (leaving reply/quote as normally accessible, and everything else as menu items)

I have to say, I'm really liking where it's going, but that's just me.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Dr. Deejay on September 8th, 2011, 04:46 PM

It looks very nice Arantor :)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 8th, 2011, 04:47 PM

It'll look better when it isn't buggy :P

But there are some other interesting side effects to converting to Wedge, like being able to use weToggle, so the collapsible areas are now animated, which is cool, and the code is getting shorter where I can remove so much of the cruft where I don't have to try and support both Curve and Core based themes. So much time was spent just removing Core compatibility code that it's unreal, far more than converting to our meta code for styling purposes.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: PantsManUK on September 8th, 2011, 05:01 PM

I am, in all seriousness, looking forward to paying for this... Even with the shonkey screenies you're posting of it in pre-alpha state. :eheh:

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 8th, 2011, 05:16 PM

Well, you can have it now for free since all that I have so far is a reskinned and tweaked version of SD 2.0 which is freely available for SMF. But at some point I am going to be adding more features to it, stuff I want, stuff I think I'll find useful, that sort of gig.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Nao on September 8th, 2011, 06:45 PM

(I inspire people! I inspire people! :eheh:)

Hey Pete, don't forget to finish your Wedge homework first :niark:

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: MultiformeIngegno on September 8th, 2011, 06:54 PM

Wow. Compliments! :)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Marcus Forsberg on September 8th, 2011, 08:06 PM

I feel my UI being violated :(

That said I like where it's going. ;) As for "drawers" I actually kind like that, makes sense in my head as well.

Edit: Wait a minute, this is my first post?! I feel like such a silent stalker now.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: pgordemer on September 8th, 2011, 08:42 PM

mmmm... makes me rethink when my maintenance for IssueTrak comes up for renewal if WedgeDesk might be just the ticket.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 8th, 2011, 09:21 PM

As soon as I started running it in Wedge, it was broken since the existing cat_bar/title_bg/catbg/titebg stuff doesn't exist and had to be rewritten, and then I started clearing non-essential markup, and from there it was inevitable that I'd change it... I wanted to give it a fresh look, one that's consistent with Wedge.

I'm also planning on doing some more to things which relied on my altering the layout and markup anyway.

As far as my "homework", the restyle was mostly a quick experiment, I still have to do a bit more before starting on the next part of the add-on work, followed by permissions, I can't really do much to WD without fixing those anyway...

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: tfs on September 9th, 2011, 01:15 AM

Quote from cookiemonster on September 8th, 2011, 08:06 PM

I feel my UI being violated :(

A quick glance through a medical dictionary produced no memorable replies to that. :whistle:

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 9th, 2011, 01:23 AM

He does have a point, though, and it wasn't lightly that I decided to up-end it as viciously as it was, because it means a lot of code changes, but it makes way for other things, not just aesthetic consistency.

For example, I'm planning on taking the AJAX assignment tool and applying it to all the configurable options instead of having multiple types of UI in play, which does demand the side area be bigger. The old size was 215px, the current size is 16em which equates to about 250px.[1]

I tried making the ticket details area 250px wide and it just looked too wide - here, it's 250px plus about 15 pixels that makes up the effective right margin (where the rounded border is)

Right now though, I'm concentrating on bulking up Wedge to support it editlessly, which means upgrading certain internal features in the hooks, new hooks and even new *types* of hooks.

1.	Surprisingly, though, with the sidebar and the wider details area, it doesn't feel cramped. Partly because the default Wedge font is narrower and partly because there's fewer hard vertical lines that instil the sense of a barrier.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: tfs on September 9th, 2011, 04:28 AM

My primary UI feedback after using it in a live business environment for 7 days now is to scrap the whole paradigm of "Status" being automatically set by the system. Don't limit status to New, Awaiting User Response, Awaiting Staff Response, and Closed. Allow the status field to be user-editable, and to have other choices added to the pick list. Such as...

New
In Progress
Accountant Review
Customer Review
On Hold
Billed
Paid
Closed
Closed/Not Billed

Anyway, those are the statuses that are desired by our accountant. I'm currently using a custom field for it, but of course I'd like to have that column available in the main grids and sortable.

Combine the Awaiting User Response and Awaiting Staff Response grids into one grid, and if desired, display who's turn it is to respond in a column.

If you decide to keep them separate grids, at least put the assigned column in the Awaiting User Response grid.

Tie a column in the grid to the tally plugin.

...allright... I'd better stop. When you're looking for feedback, let me know. :)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 9th, 2011, 08:56 AM

Quote

scrap the whole paradigm of "Status" being automatically set by the system

Yeah, that wasn't one of my better ideas.

Quote

Allow the status field to be user-editable, and to have other choices added to the pick list.

*nods* What I had in mind was a little more complex, but yeah.

Quote

I'm currently using a custom field for it, but of course I'd like to have that column available in the main grids and sortable

Yeah, that wouldn't be a problem.

Quote

Combine the Awaiting User Response and Awaiting Staff Response grids into one grid, and if desired, display who's turn it is to respond in a column.

Interesting, that wasn't one of the things I was going to change, personally, though I did have other ideas for how things would be arranged. More configurable was in order, certainly.

Quote

If you decide to keep them separate grids, at least put the assigned column in the Awaiting User Response grid.

There isn't really the room which is why it isn't there already, but more configurable should fix that.

Quote

Tie a column in the grid to the tally plugin.

You mean, put the results of the tally plugin into the grid? Eeek, could get expensive, but I already have an idea for fixing that...

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 9th, 2011, 11:10 AM

I just discovered that WedgeDesk in its current form declares as many hooks as Wedge currently has. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or a good thing, and I wasn't even that thorough in declaring hooks in WedgeDesk.

Posted: September 9th, 2011, 11:04 AM

Of course, that's not so true now. A lot of the hooks SD had were because SMF *didn't have them* when I implemented them, and because I didn't want to break my own compatibility (as I was using my own plugins) I simply got their hook to call my function and then my hook, but now I just reuse the master hook in Wedge and be done with it.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Nao on September 9th, 2011, 01:53 PM

Feel free to add as many hooks as you'd like in places you want... If you feel other mods might make use of them :)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 9th, 2011, 02:09 PM

I've already added 3 hooks - one to load language files (and only language files) for Who's Online, one for extending IP tracking and one for extending SSI, though I think only the first one is likely to be used... Ultimately though I think pretty much every aspect of the system should have hooks, it just ends up being how the hooks need to work.

More will likely come as I figure out more places that hooks are actually needed, though I've removed several of WD's hook calls and replaced them with Wedge's.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Nao on September 9th, 2011, 02:33 PM

Should we be careful to namespace the hooks? (Yes of course but...)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 9th, 2011, 02:37 PM

Language hooks are, they're all prefixed with lang_ for that reason after I inadvertently created it with the same name as the determining-actions hook later in Who's Online during testing.

The others, the namespacing only needs to go as far as broad area though I haven't even done that with what I've added - we could have profile_, admin_ and similar prefixes. The more we add, the more important it is that we have namespaces.

Any add-on that adds its own probably should get into the habit of namespacing its own anyway (as WedgeDesk does)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Nao on September 9th, 2011, 02:41 PM

Yup.

We should also check for consistency in current hooks.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 9th, 2011, 02:43 PM

I already have a list of all the hooks currently in Wedge. They're consistent in as far as they have short, descriptive names.

Code: [Select]

<?php
function knownHooks()
{
	return array(
		'language' => array(
			'lang_who',
		),
		'function' => array(
			// Cornerstone items
			'pre_load',
			'determine_location',
			'detect_browser',
			'load_theme',
			'menu_items',
			'actions',
			'behavior',
			// Threads and posts display
			'display_prepare_post',
			'display_post_done',
			'messageindex_buttons',
			'display_buttons',
			'mod_buttons',
			// Admin
			'admin_areas',
			'admin_search',
			'modify_modifications',
			'core_features',
			'addon_settings',
			'output_error',
			// User related
			'login',
			'validate_login',
			'logout',
			'change_member_data',
			'verify_password',
			'reset_pass',
			'activate',
			'delete_member',
			'track_ip',
			// User permissions
			'load_permissions',
			'illegal_perms',
			'illegal_guest_perms',
			// Content creation
			'personal_message',
			'create_post_before',
			'create_post_after',
			'modify_post_before',
			'modify_post_after',
			// Process flow and execution
			'buffer',
			'redirect',
			'exit',
			'dynamic_rewrite',
			// Miscellaneous
			'css_color',
			'buddy',
			'bbc_buttons',
			'place_credit',
			'media_areas',
			'profile_areas',
			'ssi',
			'whos_online',
		),
	);
}

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: tfs on September 9th, 2011, 05:34 PM

Quote

Quote
If you decide to keep them separate grids, at least put the assigned column in the Awaiting User Response grid.
There isn't really the room which is why it isn't there already, but more configurable should fix that.

I'm looking at our Awaiting user response grid with 29 tickets, many of which have been replied to last by myself. But there's no way for me to know which ones belong to my boss, and which ones belong to a tech of ours whom I'd like to monitor.

And the ones which I've assigned to our accountant, which are waiting for her to close them, I can ignore those ones completely for now, but I can't really tell them apart from an important open ticket.

Quote

Quote
Tie a column in the grid to the tally plugin.
You mean, put the results of the tally plugin into the grid? Eeek, could get expensive, but I already have an idea for fixing that...

Yeah, that would cost a bundle in query time. Our accountant asked me if we could do it so that she could see which tickets were adding up big, and it seemed like a reasonable thing to want to know, though some filtering or reporting ability could do that also.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 9th, 2011, 05:38 PM

Quote

But there's no way for me to know which ones belong to my boss, and which ones belong to a tech of ours whom I'd like to monitor.

I'm not disputing that it's needed, simply explaining why it wasn't done before ;) The plan is to make it so the list of columns displayed, and their order, is configurable in each grid, from a set list. Of course, that's not going to happen for a bit but that's the general plan.

Quote

Our accountant asked me if we could do it so that she could see which tickets were adding up big, and it seemed like a reasonable thing to want to know, though some filtering or reporting ability could do that also.

Again, it's the sort of thing I can fully understand needing, and I have an idea how it could be done without too much fuss, but I'm thinking a general reporting facility would be more useful than trying to wedge that in, so to speak.

Right now, though, it's totally broken because I've removed the old install process and been converting it to Wedge's add-on format, which is no small job - in between writing the new installer ;)

There is a part of me that wants to go set up wedgedesk.com right now and start laying out all the plans I have for the future, but I'd rather wait until 1) WedgeDesk actually installs on Wedge cleanly (i.e. that Wedge can support it natively rather than how it's been done so far) and that 2) the permissions overhaul is complete so I have a single permissions area that everything's managed by.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: tfs on September 9th, 2011, 06:39 PM

Let me know when and where it's appropriate, and I'll fire up the ol' feeback-o-matic. :)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 9th, 2011, 07:24 PM

Can always PM me, I do already have a tracker set up for stuff to be done that I can add to, I just can't make that accessible to anyone else yet.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: tfs on September 9th, 2011, 08:50 PM

Will do... though PM can't attach a file. I wanted to jog your memory of something that we touched on re email from a ticket, and I have a visual aide. :)

Email from the ticket is extremely nice BTW. Has worked without a hitch. Ticket monitoring is beautiful also. My only complaint is that I can't ping messages back and forth with another staff member without also pinging the client. Last night I worked late, and commented on a ticket several times back and forth with another staff, but we wished we didn't need to fill the client's email inbox with the discussion. Which reminded me of this possible alternate email checklist.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 23rd, 2011, 03:00 AM

In other news, I couldn't get my brain in gear to do some of the add-on manager stuff (been ill the last few days) so instead I fired up WedgeDesk and started adding one of the new layouts that it'll contain. (There are plans for four layouts for tickets. This is the second one.)

Look familiar, much? :lol:

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Dismal Shadow on September 23rd, 2011, 05:16 AM

Changes are good. Me like. :)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Nao on September 23rd, 2011, 12:27 PM

Quote from Arantor on September 23rd, 2011, 03:00 AM

Look familiar, much? :lol:

Err... Not to me :^^;:

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 23rd, 2011, 12:32 PM

So it looks nothing at all like Mantis :whistle:

Maybe if I put the colouring in...

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: PantsManUK on September 23rd, 2011, 01:39 PM

I knew I'd seen that layout before... ;)

We use MantisBT at work (for the software we write), but I've been playing with RT recently for a personal project, so I couldn't be sure.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 23rd, 2011, 01:41 PM

RT is something I was made aware of but I really can't be arsed going through the steps to actually install it to play with, seeing how it uses Perl and I don't have Perl handy and don't really want to make yet another virtual machine to work on.

Mantis has a lot of things about it that I dislike and a few things I really like that may well migrate to WD in the future.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: PantsManUK on September 23rd, 2011, 01:45 PM

RT is lovely and all (very pretty interface, for instance) but for complex development projects I don't think it would work too well (where MantisBT shines).

Mantis has a few rough edges, but it's nothing we haven't been able to code around ourselves... Makes upgrading fun though :eheh:

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 23rd, 2011, 02:28 PM

Yeah, that's the message I was getting from RT is that it's pretty but it didn't look like it could cope with something more complex.

Meanwhile, WD occupies a fun place because when I go live with wedgedesk.com, I'm going to be using it for both helpdesk and project tracker, so I'm intentionally supporting both styles (which is why the Mantis-esque layout is being introduced, amongst other things)

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 23rd, 2011, 03:41 PM

In other news, looking ~~like Mantis~~ familiar yet? :P[1]

1.	And no, I very definitely did not steal the colours Nao came up with on tracker.wedge.org. Very definitely.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: PantsManUK on September 23rd, 2011, 03:55 PM

See, now that's (mostly) familiar. You can see our colour scheme in the screeny I posted (even though all my tickets are closed).

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on September 23rd, 2011, 03:59 PM

*nods*

There's a whole bunch of stuff I'm going to be picking up in WD, like differentiating between closed and resolved, and stuff like that - and making it a ton more flexible in other ways too, because I'm hardcore like that. (The notion of a unified helpdesk and project/bug tracker seems appealing to me, and if I can unify it into the system I normally use for authentication and so on, so much the better.)

Oh, you should see the plans I have for the future, not just WD but for the Wedge add-ons I plan to write (for the stuff that I think is desirable/useful but too big and expansive to be in core), it's going to be a glorious ride. :D

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Nao on September 28th, 2011, 10:32 AM

Yeah... Now it's definitely ringing a bell :P

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Dismal Shadow on November 15th, 2012, 02:05 PM

I am curious about this, will Wedgedesk able to assign roles instead of usernames. Last I tried, you can only assign tickets to usernames in Simpledesk. Sorry to resurrect this thread.

Title: Re: Converting WedgeDesk
Post by: Arantor on November 15th, 2012, 02:47 PM

That's still the case but the plan is to change it. To be honest, though, it needs much more work than what it's had so far. Like gutting and starting over.