We are in the middle of Iteration #5.1. The main goal is drag and drop functionality improvements and some must have features from TP 1.7. Here are user stories that we are going to complete till Friday (well, some of them already completed).

User Stories Drag And Drop Prioritization
8 points
The most interesting and high demanding feature - ability to change user story priority by dragging it higher in the list.

Simple Search
2 points
Just simple search without highlights and so on.

Programs Area
8 points
Migration of Programs into TP 2.0, but simplified for now.

Latest Activities Control
2 points
Dashboard component: list of added entities.

Release Planning With User Stories
3 points
Currrently, only features may be assigned on release. It is required to assign user stories as well.

Planning and TimeTracking Tuning
5 points
It should be possible to tune Planning and TimeTracking practice.

Drag&Drop Performance Tuning
8 points
Drag&Drop Performance on large lists is quite slow. We are going to make it more client side and improve speed greatly.

Today we have released first preview of TP 2.0 (still Minima :) login/pwd: admin/admin). (TP 2.0 is the next generation of our agile project management software TargetProcess). We want to get some positive and negative feedback before moving forward, since in its current state TP provides most base functionality and look & feel.

What we want to stress in this release? Several things. First of all, drag and drop iteration planning. Now it is possible to assign user stories and bugs on iterations as well as assign user stories, tasks and bugs on developers.

Second feature that will appear in TP 2.0 is development process customization. In current release it is possible to create, let's say, "Simplified" process and turn on/off Time Tracking, Bug Tracking and Requirement practices for it. In this case project with Simplified process will have very simple UI. No bugs, no features, no time records, only releases, iterations, user stories and tasks. True agility :)

The third considerable feature is customizable dashboard. Now user can customize personal workspace and see exactly what she want.

Here is how development going thus far.

------------------------------------------------------------------
TP 2.0 (build: 1.1.0.0) Code Name "Minima" - Public Preview #1
------------------------------------------------------------------

// Features:

Global:
* Simple Process/Practices management (ability to turn on/off practices for project)
* Customizable Dahsboard 

QA
* Bugs assignments on iteration via drag & drop

Planning
* Progress calculation added for all assignable entities
* Daily progress added
* Effort calculation model in assignables changed


------------------------------------------------------------------
TP 2.0 (build: 1.0.0.1) Code Name "Minima"
------------------------------------------------------------------

// Features:

Global:
* Links from entity names added into all lists

QA
* Very Simple Bug Tracking added

Requirements
* Features area added

Planning
* Release planning Drag and Drop 

------------------------------------------------------------------
TP 2.0 (build: 1.0.0.0) Code Name "Minima"
------------------------------------------------------------------

// Features:

Planning
* Release, User Stories, Iterations, Tasks support
* XP planning
* Drag and Drop Iteration planning
* Drag and Drop developers assignment
* ToDo list
* User dashboard
* Time tracking
* Release burn down chart
* Iterations velocity progress chart

General
* Role-based permissions
* Customizable workflow for user stories and tasks
* Attachments and Comments for all entities
* Customizable lists (visible columns, page size, filters)
* Context help

Today we've found great control for tabs functionality in TargetProcess 2.0. It is very easy to use and consists only of one atlas/javascript file and some CSS code.

All you need to use it is:

1. Register TabSet.js javascript on page
2. Modify CSS to get required look and feel
3. Put tabs on page

Here is how tabs code looks:

<div id="tabs">
<ul>
    <li>General</li>
    <li>Projects</li>
    <li>Assignments</li>
</ul>
<div id="tab1" class="pane">
    <div style="width: 80%; margin-top: 20px">
        <tp:AttachmentControl ID="attach" runat="server" GeneralID='<%# Eval("UserID") %>' />
    </div>
<div id="tab2" class="pane">
       <tp:ProjectsInnerList ID="projects" runat="server" ParentID='<%# Eval("UserID") %>'/>
 </div>
 <div id="tab3" class="pane">
       <tp:ToDoInnerList ID="toDo" runat="server" ParentID='<%# Eval("UserID") %>' />
 </div>
</div>

...

<script type="text/xml-script">
   <page xmlns:script="http://schemas.microsoft.com/xml-script/2005" xmlns:dice="dice">
      <components>
          <dice:tabset id="tabs" selectedTabStyle="selected"/>
      </components>
   </page>
</script>

Usually customer begins acquaintance with new program by installing it. The first impression is very important therefore program installation must be smooth and easy. Most ASP.NET applications do not have installers, but we want to have one. I would like to share our experience with installation developing in this article.

First thing we should do is writing of installation scenario for our program. For first version of TP 2.0 it is quiet short and simple:

• Show ‘Hello’ page
• Ask to select virtual directory name and installation folder
• Ask about database connection string (user name, password etc)
• Copy working files to destination folder
• Create Virtual Directory
• Create Database
• Show ‘Installation complete’ page
• Open installed application in web browser

Uninstall option required as well (all except database).

To make such installation we decided to use NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System). The reasons were following:

1. It is free (powerful installers cost about $1k per one title)
2. It is script-based and allows changing installation scenario freely (while standard Microsoft solution is Data Driven and do not allow many things)
3. There are lot plug-ins and examples for NSIS

Full source code of installation script for TP2.0 is here. Code completely covers scenario described above. Developing of this code (including research) took about 3 working days.

The following links were useful: Forum: http://forums.winamp.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=65 XML Plugin: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/XML_plug-in Create Virtual directory: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Setting_up_a_virtual_directory

What next?

There are many things should be improved in installer. First is improvement of virtual folder creation. User should have possibility to choose between different virtual servers. Also correct default installation directory should be suggested (now it hardcoded as “C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\TargetProcess2”). Installer should detect if .Net 2.0 is installed and help to download and install it. Installer should upgrade old version of TargetProcess to new.