SourceCast 2.0.0 Release Notes

Table of Contents

Overview
New Features
Bug Fixes
Known Issues

Overview

CollabNet will deliver a major release, SourceCast 2.0.0, in June, 2002.

Previous Releases

The current release, 2.0.0, is a major SourceCast release that succeeds the SourceCast 1.0.0 and subsequent releases. This release includes the features and changes included in previous versions of SourceCast. This document should be used in with conjunction with the release notes for the following releases:

Please contact your CollabNet Sales Representative for further details about upgrading your site.

The following features were released in previous versions of SourceCast:

Release Feature
1.1.0

Availability and Performance Improvements

CollabNet has significantly improved performance and availability of the SourceCast hosted service. SourceCast 1.1.0 is now deployed on an enhanced network file storage system that provides improvements in file sharing, caching and data access. With this new server-side configuration CollabNet delivers significant improvements in availability and performance of the SourceCast hosted service by:

  • Clustering data shared amongst a set of load balanced systems
  • Providing complete failover capabilities
  • Keeping data synchronized at all times
  • Simplifying backups
  • Providing access to authorized private networks

CVS version update

SourceCast Release 1.1.0 uses the most current version of CVS (version 1.11p1) as a base for SourceCast. All code enhancements from the previous CVS version (1.11) have been included with this new version upgrade.

1.2.0

System enhancements

  • Low bandwidth connection - client support for 56K modems
  • New caching mechanism
  • JVM clustering
  • Cert/ACL Safety net

Issue Tracking rebuild system

  • Performance testing
  • New API testing
  • Data migration testing

Simplified administrative tasks

  • Single page project add
  • Ability to rename bug mailing list to issues for IssueZilla
  • Projects can now belong to more than one category
  • Clone roles from existing roles
  • Capability for mass user-deletes and member additions
  • Improved Custom Role administration
  • License Administration
  • Project-scoped roles/resources
  • Email sent to new users selectable
  • Delete several users at the same time

Project enhancements

  • Add projects to start page (Watch projects)
  • Nested projects, groups, categories

User Interface Overhaul

  • New help documentation layout
  • Revision, cleanup of all HTML
  • Project documents- move document files to another folder (windows like paradigm)
    • Combine downloads and documentation into a single tool
    • Collapsible folders within 2 panes
  • Project news
  • Custom role view
  • Login moved to upper right
  • Nested functions on left navigation bar
  • My projects list; improved tab interface.
1.3i.0 SourceCast 1.3i.0 was an interim release for Internationalization. The new features included in the 1.3i.0 release are listed in the New Features section of this document

SourceCast Version Numbers

CollabNet uses the following convention for SourceCast version numbers to indicate major, minor or maintenance releases. A release number is made up of three sets of digits, for e.g., SourceCast 1.3.2. If the release number is 'SourceCast x.y.z' then x, y and z represent

The current release,2.0.0, is a major SourceCast release that succeeds all releases in the 1.x.x line.

Supported Client Tools

Supported Browsers
SourceCast is designed to be usable with almost any browser or configuration, but the visual formatting will be most sophisticated in browsers with quality support for the W3C's Cascading Style Sheets technology (CSS-1, 1996). These browsers include:
  • All derivatives of the Mozilla project, including Mozilla 1.0, Netscape Communicator versions 6.0 and above, Galeon, and others
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.0 and above
  • Konqueror versions 2.1 and above
  • Opera 5.0 and above

Note: The Netscape 4.x series of browsers has poor support for CSS, and receives only a simplified version of the style sheet apparent in the browsers above. As a result, SourceCast's visual formatting in Netscape 4.x is simpler than elsewhere. Note also that Netscape 4.x's CSS support is dependent upon Javascript being enabled, so the formatting will be especially plain if the user disables Javascript (or style sheets) support.

Also, note that some browsers with incomplete or developmental support for CSS will have difficulties presenting SourceCast unless the user disables CSS. At this time, these browsers include:

  • iCab
  • OmniWeb
Supported CVS GUI Environment Clients
SourceCast 1.3.0i supports the following CVS GUI environment clients:
Windows Platforms

GNU WinCVS 1.2

Macintosh GNU MacCVS 3.1
Supported CVS GUI Environment Clients
SourceCast 1.3.0i supports the following CVS GUI environment clients:
  • GNU WinCVS 1.2
  • GNU MacCVS 3.1

New Features

The following features have been added to SourceCast 2.0.0:

Functionality Benefits
*Internationalization Full internationalization of SourceCast to support localization for multibyte character sets. All SourceCast tools are internationalized to allow the use of the local language for collaboration. For general interoperability the following items have not been internationalized:
  • project names
  • user names

Searching does not support multibyte characters in the 2.0.0 release. This shall be addressed in a later release.

ViewCVS, for viewing source code trees, does not support multibyte file names.

Regular expressions are not supported with multibyte characters.

Java components run using native threads

This offers a significant performance improvement.

*Tomcat servlet engine Increases the ease of use of third party tools within the SourceCast environment.
*Replace CVSWeb with ViewCVS Greater functionality is offered by ViewCVS (such as annotation of commits).
New Tool - Discussion Forums Threaded discussions allow project members to hold discussions on topics that are easy to follow. Discussions are automatically archived and easily searched by topic, writers, date, and text within the discussion.

New discussion items on My Start Page. Notifications of new discussion items created in discussions that the user is subscribed to are displayed on the user's Start Page.

Lookup window for user assignments in IssueZilla IssueZilla can be configured to use a separate lookup window for locating users when assigning issues. This is used for user assignments in such fields as "assigned to", "cc:", and "QA contact".
IssueZilla contacts can be read-only IssueZilla can be configured so that the QA contact cannot be changed by the user. In this configuration the QA contact is set based on the component that the issue is assigned to.
New version numbers span components When a new version number, for reporting where a defect is found, is entered into the configuration it is available for all components. It is no longer necessary to configure the version numbers for each component separately.
*Copy IZ issues between projects An issue may be copied once from one project to another. Previously, this function needed to be performed manually by creating a new issue in the target project and entering all of the necessary data. This can be used to move an issue by copying the issue and then closing the "old" issue.
*Per project limits on email announcements

On a per project basis IssueZilla can be configured to send only summary information and the URL of the issue when change notifications are sent. This feature takes advantage of email, an unsecure delivery method, for security conscious sites.

*Configurable IssueZilla operating parameters The configurable operating parameters for IssueZilla can now be set through the administration UI. This allows project owners a very high level of flexibility in the way they manage issues for their project.
*Customizable My Issues query in IssueZilla

Users can now easily customize the query that is performed when they click on the "My Issues" link in IssueZilla.

New reporting Interface The reporting interface (that didn't work) has been replaced with a new one that can be used to produce simple reports on issues. It includes the ability to construct a table of issue counts or issue numbers with rows and columns selected by the user. Filtering on text fields allows for refinement of the results. From the results query lists, issues can be navigated to directly.
Failed query returns to query page When there are no results from a query the user is returned to the query page that they used to define the query and informed that there were no results. This allows users to modify their query immediately to be able to find the information that they were really looking for.
Order of description/comments can be specified by the user When viewing an issue the user may specify whether the description/comments for the issue are displayed in newest to oldest (with the latest comment at the top of the display) or oldest to newest order (with the original description at the top of the display).
Contextual navigation links Contextual navigation links are used to indicate the project/sub-project and tool that the user is currently using. These links can be used to navigate easily between sub-projects and their parents. This feature is sometimes referred to as project paths or breadcrumbs.
Better project organization On the projects page, projects and sub projects can be seen together. Sub projects are listed with their parents so that the full "path" to a project can be seen, making them easier to navigate.
Project approval logging The approving and dis-approving of projects is logged and visible by the administrator.
Document locking Documents in the file sharing area can be locked by the owner so that other users can not make changes. Project Owners have editing rights to all documents.
Document copying Documents may be copied either within the same folder or to a different folder in the same project.
UI cleanup Continuing the work to make all of the tools in SourceCast offer a consistent user interface, to make it even easier to learn how to use SourceCast efficiently.
Email archive message deletion Trivial , unrelated, and spam messages sent to the email list can now be removed from the archive.
Custom 404 error page Administrators can create project specific error pages to provide specific instructions to users.
Paginated search results Results of a search are presented in pages to make it easier to browse them.

* These features were originally released with SourceCast 1.3i.0

Changes and Fixes in SourceCast 2.0.0

The following issues have been addressed for SourceCast 2.0.0.

CVS module

Discussion Forums

File Sharing

Issue Tracking

Mailing Lists

Project News

Projects

System

User Interface

Known Issues with SourceCast 2.0.0

The following are known issues that may be encountered by users of SourceCast Release 2.0.0.

CVS Module

Project Mailing Lists

Project File Sharing

System

User Interface