link attribute / views

Submitted by michael.h on 2010-10-01

Hello,
Let me start by saying that I love WebIssues. You have done great work with it. We have been using it at my workplace for quite some time. We all really love it. I can't wait for the release of V1.0. I only have two requests.

I would like to be able to have an attribute that is a link (to a file or webpage).
Here's the idea. Assuming I have three attributes, assigned to (user), workflow(drop down list), document(link). I would like to be able to add an issue that says "create document XYZ". Whoever the issue is assigned to would create the document and put it on our network. Then they would put the link to the document as an attribute. As the document goes through our workflow (devleoper, tester, document reviewer, quality assurance, regulatory affairs, etc, etc), all the users would have to do is click the attribute to open the document. When they are done, they save it, close it, change the workflow attribute to move the document along.

Also I would like to be able to have issues for different users in different folders (like bugs, enhancements, documents, tasks, etc), but have it so the user would only have to look in one place to see all issues (across all the folders) that are assigned to them. I know with 1.0 you are working on the new "views" in place of the "dashboard". I'm hopeing this will be included or addressed.

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks,

Michael E. Hardimon

Hello,

What is the format of these links? WebIssues automatically recognizes a few types of links (emails, web addresses, FTP addresses) anywhere in the attributes and comments, so it's sufficient to use a normal text attribute.

The idea of the dashboard is going to be replaced, but version 1.0 still will not have the ability to display issues from different folders. The main difficulty is that issues of different types have a different set of attributes.

However if you think that it would be sufficient to display only the name, location and type (and potentially other system attributes like created or modified date), then such summary view for selected folders wouldn't be very difficult to implement. I can't promise that it will be included in version 1.0 though, because there's still a lot of work and I want to finish it in reasonable time.

Regards,
Michał

I know that WebIssues will create a link to another issue if you put #1234...But if I put a UNC path (\\server\share\document.doc) or a mapped drive path (X:\document.doc) it doesn't link. I tried file://X:\... and file://\\server\shar... (which both open in Windows explorer) but it didn't create a link. I haven't tried any web links (I'll have to set up a test instance so I don't disturb our production system). Is there a setting somewhere that I may or may not have set?

I think the idea of having only some data would be great for a summary view. The only thing that I think would be really helpful would be to have who the issue is assigned to. Currently, we have an attribute "Assigned To" (which is just a user drop down) for every issue type we have. It would be great if we could have all of our different issue types (like bugs, features, documents, etc) in different folders and have one view that shows everything that "Assigned To" is equal to me or a certain user (like the filters do inside each folder). Would this be something that we could easily implement here in code since we ALWAYS have an "Assigned To" attribute?

Thanks,

Michael E. Hardimon

I will add handling links using the file URI scheme and also UNC paths in the version 0.9.7 which will be released this week.

It will be possible to include in the summary view only issues which meet certain criteria, for example are active and assigned to a specific user. I made an initial design of this feature and the idea is that when you define alerts (which are equivalents of folder watches from the current version) you can choose to include some of them in the summary view. I'm not sure yet if all issues will be displayed as a flat list or if they will be grouped by folder/alert in a tree view. Also like I said this feature will most likely not be included in version 1.0 but in the next version.

Regards,
Michał

I just wanted to say thank you. I just grabbed the latest release version of the client and testing out the UNC paths and it's working GREAT! This is exactly what I wanted. I appreciate your quick response to my request.

Thanks,

Michael E. Hardimon

Hi mimec .. .. was this implemented in some version?. i'm using 1.0.4 version and i cant link a file by using UNC paths like "\\server\folder\file.filext"
Thanks in advance!
Marcos.

EDIT: i just see there is a new version.. 1.0.5 with this stuff fixed.
I want to comment a thing, the "Recent News" module on right, in main page still says 1.0.4 release, when i go to any other page, the "Recent News" change and shown the new 1.0.5 version...
I have seen this before..
Best Regards!!

Hi Michał,

I'd like to suggest another feature regarding links in comments, project descriptions a.s.f.

I use the project description as a kind of dashboard, from where you can start additional tools, websites etc. For example a link of kind

  • [file://\M:\ApmServer\rw\prog\webissues\com.vbs Start a script] works perfectly fine.

But if you give it a relative path like

  • [file://.\com.vbs Start a script] nothing happens (even if "M:\ApmServer\rw\prog\webissues\" is the current directory).

If know that this behaviour is according to the fact, that file urls are only defined for absolute paths.

Now here's my feature request
Since you you can have the webissues client installed portable, imo it would make much sense to extend the link functionality somehow to accept relative paths (and more), for example:

  • let it expand environment variables, before following the link.
  • recognize that the path is relative in [file://.\com.vbs Start a script] and have the current directory added as a prefix before following the link.
  • accept in links custom protocols. For example if have defined custom protocol "ooi" an the link would look like this: [ooi://protocol_specific_uri Follow the action of this protocol]. Currently web issues does not even display this as a link

Regards and thumbs up for a great application (which for me is working on windows as you might have noticed)

Michael