Stuffle's Software

This is intended to be the last major PRepS update. From here on, I intend on only making bug fixes to this version. I may use the same database for other related projects, but those projects will not involve the GTK+ based interface. I am too busy with personal stuff and other projects that I want to work on to continue doing more than just bug fixes.

New in this version:
Simplified project administration
A redesigned, smaller problem report dialog
Some redesign in the database schema
A due date on the problem reports
The ability to add user defined data (called "Extra Data") to problem reports

The most exciting addition (IMHO) is the "Extra Data". This will allow you to attach extra attributes to your problem reports. This feature can be used to customize the data collected per your needs. If you want to play with this feature, add new extra data fields via "Administration | Extra Problem Report Data..." Then open a problem report and click on the "Extra Data" tab to see how it all works.

The big change for this version was to add the ability for users to define extra data for problem reports. The idea is that some users may want to store data that is irrelevant to other users. This change makes it possible for users to define their own data to a certain degree. This change is not complete, but it is usable.

Other than the extra data changes, I just rolled in the visual cue changes that were part of the stable v2.0.5 and v2.0.6 releases.

The minimum GTK+ version was rolled back to v2.2 (I had rolled it up to v2.4 for the previous release). Other than the minimum required GTK+ version, this version is functionally the same as v2.0.5.

Version 2.0.5 adds visual cues to indicate which problem reports have been assigned to the user but have not yet been looked at by the user. The user who requested this also requested that it be done without database modifications. Thus the visual cues are based solely on whether or not the problem report was listed in the current problem report list the last time the list was refreshed. Future versions in the v2.1.x tree will provide these queues based on the actual modification time of the problem report, which requires database modifications.

Problem reports that are new to a list are shown in a bold font. In addition, the number of such problem reports are shown in the title bar of the window. If the main window is refreshed and new problem reports are in the list, the application's icon in the Gnome panel will flash (only if PRepS is built with GTK+-2.8 or above).

This is a development release, and thus should not be used with production database. Use this for testing new features only. The changes in this version are outlined below.

The schema has been redesigned to better utilize features of the database engine. This should be completely invisible to the end user.

The problem report dialog has been re-designed to take up less space on the screen. This was required in order to support some of the additions that have been requested by users, which will be included in future releases in this series.

A due date has been added to the problem report screen.

Project administration has been greatly simplified. Rather than having "submitters" and "project members", there are now just "project members". The ability to have multiple users set up as project administrators has also been added. Prior to this release, only PRepS administrators or the project leader could administer a project.

If you download this version and have any problems, please let me know.

In the previous couple of versions, pressing Apply and then OK right away with a new problem report, PRepS would create the problem report twice. I added code to prevent this from happening. I also updated the user documentation.

I fixed a bug in the previous version where the "Assigned To:" combo in the problem report dialog. The combo box would always initialize as , even if the problem report was acutally assigned to someone. The initialization has been fixed.k

This version of PRepS combines the problem report entry and update dialogs into a single dialog. This allows the user to enter more information when first creating a problem report. This also means that there is only one problem report dialog for users to have to learn how to use.

This is a very minor update. One of the triggers on the problem report was causing a problem where you would not be able to open a problem repor if it was assigned to a person who is no longer a member of a project. To apply this fix, build and install PRepSTools, and then run an update operation against your database.

As always, be sure to backup your database before running the update.

This version or PRepS adds an archive dialog that can be used by administrators and project leaders to archive problem reports. A tab has also be added to the preferences dialog that allows users to specify the sort order of attributes and projects when they appear in combo boxes.

The v2.0.0 version of PRepSTools had a couple of issues. Performing a database update, it would fail trying to drop rules on PostgreSQL v7.4.x. Also, it was not rebuilding dropped rules. Of course, unless you were running PostgreSQL v7.3.x, you never would have gotten far enough to discover that. Anyone who downloaded version 2.0.0 should upgrade to this version before attempting to update their schemas.

I have finally released version 2.0 of PRepS. This is the Gnome 2 port that I was working towards with the version 1.9.x development series. The main portion of the version 1.9.x development series has been pretty stable from quite some time now. Therefore, if you are upgrading from the 1.9.x development series, you will not notice too much of a change. If you are upgrading from version 1.8.x, the change will be bigger. I am not going to list all of the changes here. Rather, see the ChangeLog file

One of the largest changes is in the package that used to be called libPRepS. This package is now called PRepSTools. This package needs to be installed on the database server (just like libPRepS did). The big change, however, is that the create_prepsdb and update_prepsdb scripts have been replaced with a Gnome Druid application called prepsdb_tool. The prepsdb_tool will walk you though the creation new databases and the upgrade of existing databases.