Issue Tracker and Wiki

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Xylander
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Issue Tracker and Wiki

Post by Xylander »

I think using a well designed issue tracker can help in planning releases and distributing work. It would help documenting what shall be done and what has been done, too. Because I'm familiar with it, I'd suggest using Atlassian Jira (http://www.atlassian.com/de/software/jira/overview).

To allow all contributors to share tips and documentation in a popular manner, a wiki would be nice, too. It would allow every registered user to publish game documentation, manual or concept documents. I'd suggest Atlassian Confluence (http://www.atlassian.com/de/software/co ... n-software).

Both of them are available as on-demand solutions (hosted by Atlassian for free) for qualified Open Source projects (see http://www.atlassian.com/software/views ... se-request).

These are the products we use at work - therefore I know them and like them. Giving more people an easy opportunity to contribute might help keeping the project active. Programmers could share their thoughts on how they implemented functions, too. It's even possible to create blogs inside confluence! There should be something new to read at least every other day to get people coming back!

So what do you think?
Don't repeat yourself. (DRY)
Keep it simple, stupid. (KISS)
You ain't gonna need it. (YAGNI)
http://www.clean-code-developer.de/
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Trilarion
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Re: Issue Tracker and Wiki

Post by Trilarion »

Good idea in principle. I remember evaluating different issue trackers / task boards / content systems and ruling out those which cost money relatively early and I might have put JIRA in the wrong category.

I had the wiki and issue tracker of Googlecode turned on initially but removed them later, because their functionality overlapped with other software we use and I wanted to focus on a few tools. After all managing these tools or explaining usage to others would require time and working time is extremely precious here.

As an example. First I had the design description in a wiki, but then some formatting issues (numbering of formulas for example) and creating a combined design document proofed difficult and I switched to an openoffice file in the repository. Later I saw that with a Google docs document you could even work simultaneously which together with the formatting has some advantages over a wiki. But with more participants we might want to go back to a wiki.

Another example: There is a support section in the forum and in a way I see the forum as the heart of the project because it is multi-purpose in a way: community building, task board, issues. Now the question would be where to put the issues: in the forum or in the issue tracker? Does the advantage of an issue tracker outweight possible double logins and different sites/layouts? Whatever we choose, it must be clear that there is only one place where you get support, or what do you think?

I would like most, if everybody had to use the minimum number of logins to access all the features of the site.

One issue I had with the task boards I evaluated was that either you have to register and otherwise cannot see what's going on or everybody in the world can edit which I don't want to risk. Read-only for everybody and Edit for registered - to my surprise there was no free solution offering this.

I would be most interested in a task board, so newcomers can see what free tasks there are and we can easily organize ourselves. However it must be read-only accessible for everyone for this purpose.

It would be great if we could concentrate on as few products as possible and integrate them as far as possible. If JIRA is useful for us and easy to use and free (didn't know of this) then we should think about how to best integrate it.
Xylander
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Re: Issue Tracker and Wiki

Post by Xylander »

I think multiple logins and tools will confuse many potential participants. They should have an easy and convinient way to communicate with others, including the developers. They'll always have the possibility to report bugs or make suggestions in the forums.

But there will be a small number of active contributors willing to invest their time. It's not a problem for them to have multiple logins (your browser can store them, it's not that kind of secret you want to keep as save as possible). An issue tracker like Jira is for planning purposes. Some people (at least one person) will do the community support. They'll have to copy things to the 'professional' software if needed.

And public writing access to the wiki is nothing I desire - at least not for all sections. With modern wiki software you can manage sections and access rights so that most people will only read and some registered contributors will write. I like a wiki more than shared documents, at least because you don't need a special software to view and edit it and get a history for free.

I totally agree that the forums should be the heart of the project! And I won't suggest using software we have to pay for (though I might be willing to invest money in the project when a need arises ...)
Don't repeat yourself. (DRY)
Keep it simple, stupid. (KISS)
You ain't gonna need it. (YAGNI)
http://www.clean-code-developer.de/
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Trilarion
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Post by Trilarion »

Yes, that sounds like it would work well. The forum support section is for support for the user and the issue tracker is for the development team and one person a "community manager" is responsible for connecting both worlds. Now I understand the logic.

I think that Google docs is competition to a wiki. (Professional variant would be Word with Sharepoint) Having a full-featured word processor and seeing changes of others instantaneous is quite comfortably. With Google docs you don't need a special software and you get a history. Exporting a wiki to a single document is sometimes cumbersome. For JIRA I found you'd have to pay for a plugin.

Please have a look at the design document and tell me if you think this would work well in a wiki. (In the beginning I had it in a wiki and found it less comfortable)

I agree that using software that is free is not a dogma but rather a good way to keep costs down. I am also willing to pay for the project, currently I pay for the webspace.

I would be most interested in a task/kanban board so far, because I think we really need it. You know JIRA. Can you recommend the task board functionality? Does it have public read-only access? If so, I would immediately switch to it.
Veneteaou
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Re: Issue Tracker and Wiki

Post by Veneteaou »

Would it be possible to set all of this up on a Google Site? I use one for hosting stuff, and I definitely have the ability to promote read-only guests into editors.
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Trilarion
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Post by Trilarion »

I checked the feature list again and this thing really seems powerful, much more powerful than any Google site. We would use their hosting capabilities because installing ourselves we would need a dedicated server. And since they grant licenses for open source projects... I would like to try it out.

Actually you have to try it out before you can apply for a free license. Since I am not much available before easter I would start the trying out process shortly after easter and let you know then how to join.
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