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I'm having trouble with project management & am looking for a good tool that will be a good match for the way my brain works (very associatively). I'd like a bug-tracker but one that I can group tasks into topics and associate the topics to each other in a graph (see the Wikipedia entry on Topic Maps ) so that I can find & visualize easily the "big picture". I've tried using AbstractSpoon's ToDoList and it works well but it's hierarchical and after about 30 or 40 entries I get lost in a maze of things to do.
any suggestions?
edit: I've now tried Freemind, Conzilla, XMind, and VUE. Freemind and Conzilla were a little flaky. XMind seems to be the most polished of the four; they have a "pro" version which is non-free (pay by the month >:( which is weird) but an open-source base version which is free. You can't export the data directly from the program with the free version, but the storage format is just a .jar-style (ZIP file w/ extension .xmind) file that contains a "contents.xml" that is easily parsed if I needed to.
#codeslave:
but how important is the visual
representation any way
Visualization is everything! I've got information overload and I need to be able to navigate a mess of information. I don't want it to be super-Powerpoint-polished, but I need to be able to use the associations that I create to remind myself how to find what I'm looking for. In an ideal world you could just full-text search everything, but that only works if you can remember the search phrase. Often I'll file something under "algorithm" and when I go to look for it I look under "programming" instead, or vice-versa. Associativity solves that problem by allowing me to visually browse my "mental model" of the information I've stored.
You can always get an CVS export from your "favourite" tool and create Topic Maps maps you can view with the Omnigator or the xSiteable tool. I used to have a few XSLT files to do such a job dealing with JIRA data. If the interest is high enough, maybe a ressurection is needed?
I've developed a small utility that will import MindMaps into Project plans. Let me know if something like this is helpful and I will develop it further.
Right now I just use it one-way from MindMap -> Project file. I generally use this for brainstorming and scope management, then export to Project when we like the scope of what we are working with for more formal project management.
What about using good old FogBugz? You can associate cases together pretty easily. You don't get the pretty graph of the topic space/mind map (feature idea Joel) but how important is the visual representation any way.
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I have been playing with Graphite as application monitoring system but I'm wondering if there's something better out there for what I want.
Here are a few requirements I have in mind:
Dashboards (easy to create/change)
the items on the dashboard should be mostly charts but also colored "number boxes" (a la http://shopify.github.io/dashing/)
when a metrics goes below/beyond a certain value show some warnings on the screen (different frame/background) and potentially send an email
setting up a rule-to-warn (see above) should be simple to do and have many ways to specify a threshold (absolute value, +/- the min/max/avg over the past 30 days, percentile, etc...)
Clicking on one of the charts/boxes would redirect to a larger/more detailed chart or a "sub-dashboard"
I would prefer open-source but I'm open to commercial products especially cloud-based solutions.
Any suggestions?
Many thanks in advance.
I personally use the following combination:
Dashboard: Grafana. It is really good looking and makes easy to create and edit dashboards. Unfortunately it doesn't have colored "number boxes" but you can also look into using a wider-purpose one like Geckoboard or Ducksboard for this end.
Alerting system: Seyren. Lets you specify alerts when any metric trespasses a certain threshold and alerts via mail and dozen of other ways, readily integrated. However it doesn't ease in any way dealing with historical values, percentiles, etc. You have to do this manually via Graphite functions. Another popular option: Cabot. I use Seyren instead because it looks more active and is lighter to deploy.
Unfortunately there is not final "answer" to your question, only suggestions. You might find more appropriate forums for your question than Stackoverflow, like mailing lists or Reddit.
Hope it helps anyhow! :)
Your question states prefer open source, but if you’re really open to commercial option, I think the ZingChart JavaScript charting library meets your requirements.
1. Dashboards (easy to create/change): ZingChart uses a CSS-like syntax that is pretty easy to use and edit.
2. Dashboard items should be charts and number boxes: The library allows you to create widgets to display items like you've described. Here is a demo with number boxes -- http://www.zingchart.com/playground/presentation/51b21c1a3c8ae
3 . Warnings on screen: As you can see the in the demo above, rules have been set for the number boxes to display in green for increases and red for decreases. Similar rules can be set for a range of values. (Which addresses number 4).
You could even use multiple rules sets for a values that are close to reaching the threshold. http://zingchart.com/playground/run/5460f51991002 This example shows rules set to place a red marker on data points below the value of 200.
4 . Rule-to-warn: There are a variety of ways to use rules to replicate your desired warning. You can also combine rules with our API and create warnings as well as fire an event which can be used to trigger an email.
Its not mentioned in your question but if real time data is a consideration, ZingChart also provides the ability to transfer data via http or websocket protocols. I’m on the team at ZingChart so if you have any questions about the demo or the features described, please feel free to reach out.
If you have the right budget the best tool is splunk. It is not cloud based but it is the best when it comes to analyzing data and creating graphs and dashboards out of generated data by scripts and log files.
Splunk comes with a very flexible query language and the ability to create scheduled searches that can be used as a very robust monitoring solution. I still did not find any better product but the downside is the high price.
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I have this 100.000 files codebase that i need to tame and i need to very often search for the occurences of a specific function call or a function definition.
Currently with notepad++ it takes me more than 5 minutes to do the search.
Do you know of a programmer's editor that would make the job ?
Thank you for your help
Jerome Wagner
Maybe you should use a specific search tool for the search, rather than a text-editor...
Depending on your platform, there are various tools available such as GREP (command line), Windows Search Service (which creates indexes of the files in advance to make queries faster) or even Google desktop search.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=file%20search%20tool
(Tip: Add Windows / Linux etc to the search)
grep should be most forward implementation of what you are looking for.
I tested it on an older system with 11k source files and it took 20s.
Assuming avg file size of 1k you are dealing with 100MB of text. Assuming avg file size of 10k you are dealing with 1GB of text.
Searching that much data will take time.
If you expect to be much faster then 5 minutes you will need to build indexes.
There are specialized tools that will allow you to do that:
doxygen
cscope
sxt
For more visit wikipedia
Yes, Grep is good and popular to be integrated in many tool on many platform.One free for win:http://www.pspad.com/
The BEST one I ever used is built into
PSPad (www.pspad.com / freeware) it
displays a list and you can change
anything or all the strings, or search
and see where they appear. You can
also search specific directories only.
You can also be interested in ack, or cscope.
You can integrate ack inside vim with the following:
set grepprg=ack
nnoremap <f1> :grep<space>
nnoremap <f1> :grepapp<space>
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We are developing a desktop application.We are writing tutorials for users in a wiki.I was looking for some guidance ..good practices when writing such tutorials.
regards
I think some basic rules are ok
include as many screenshots as you can
don't use too much technical wording
structure your pages/documents that it is easy to navigate inside
don't make the user looks stupid, i.e. way of writing that would say the user is not capable of doing anything
Also it could be a good idea if you make your wiki and ask one typical user to review it with you. Getting the opinion of the user would probably show you million of things you have forgotten.
Have a FAQ
Tips and Tricks Section.
Have short videos about "How to..."
A few tips for technical documents:
1- Assume everyone reading the document is the dumbest person you've ever met who has never seen a computer in their entire life.
2- Don't skip a single step. Even if it's clicking a well-known button, etc. If your instruction doesn't start with "click" or "type", it's not granular enough.
3- There are never too many screenshots... unless you can't read the text between them, or fail to notice it entirely. Leave enough spaces between screenshots and text, and make the text one size larger if need be.
4- Do it yourself, multiple times. Make others follow your directions. Make your grandmother follow them. If she can, your manager probably can. Maybe.
Figure out the key features that users will use most often and provide a cheat sheat. Download any one refcards from dzone.com as an example.
I think the best tutorials are those that guide the students in an incremental, step-wise manner. Clearly describe prerequisites at the top and tell the readers 1, 2, 3 this is what you have to do.
Choose your tasks thoughtfully (and stick to them). Each tutorial should cover a single task and stay focused on the goal throughout, with only the briefest digressions to introduce new terms or concepts. Start with the very first step a user needs to take to do something useful with the software. With a well designed app, a sequence of introductory tutorials is likely to start with a very short, simple one ("Creating a New Project") and proceed through intermediate ("Importing INTERCAL-72 Files") to advanced topics ("Customizing the Compiler Toolchain") so that the tutorials become more involved as the user becomes more involved with the app.
Use numbered lists. Describe specific procedures that can be followed by anyone who can read.
Use consistent styles for program and interaction elements, like bold text for buttons and menu items and monospace fonts for user input. The specific styles you choose matter less than their consistent application. If we're talking Windows apps, the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications might come in handy.
Verify your procedures relentlessly. If a user needs a tutorial to figure out how to use the application, she's probably already frustrated. If she follows it to the letter and it doesn't work, everyone's a lot worse off, including you and your support rep.
Use screenshots as signposts. Include one screenshot of each window and dialog box referenced by the procedure. Don't label them or otherwise doll them up. They're there to provide visual reinforcement that the user is following the procedure correctly and getting to the right places.
Respect different learning styles. Keep in mind that most people are visual and/or auditory learners, so text isn't the best way to reach them. In practice, that means screenshot videos with voiceover. The written tutorial is the script.
make sure your app is intuitive first. then when your sure it is, make it more intuitive.
see :
http://www.discoapp.com/
http://www.utorrent.com/
http://handbrake.fr/
http://www.nethack.org/
dont see:
http://www.adobe.com/
Windows songsmith
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We have to convert EVERYTHING to images for archiving purpose. DOC, HTML, email, ZIP, PDF, TXT and any document you can read/view on computer. In addition, it must recursive convent on all embed attachment and files in zip.
I know ImgMaker only. Is it the best or I can have something better?
My boss ask me to search that are there any alternative other then ImgMaker.
Any open source or profit suggestion are welcome.
There is a whole industry built around this type of function and numerous service providers that charge a fee per document to do this type of conversion. You are better off buying than building it on your own.
The idea of converting Everything is fundamentally a fool's errand as you would need a single program that could render every file type ever created (in essence recreating every piece of software that ever wrote a data file AND recreating every version of each). Also, not every file format has a format that has a direct rendered form. For example, what do you do with a database file, a DLL,an XML file, a WAV file?
If you are looking for something that does a reasonable job for a large number of formats, there are two main players with OEM toolkits, but both are extremely expensive and neither supports the Java platform directly. I use the former if you have any additional questions.
Stellent (now Oracle) OutsideIn: http://www.oracle.com/technologies/embedded/outside-in.html
Autonomy KeyView: http://www.autonomy.com/content/Products/idol-modules-keyview-viewing/index.en.html
Another possible option is an image print driver like Black Ice, but it has several issues including the need for a copy of every software application on the machine the code is running on, and an operator to dismiss all the inevitable dialogs that will come up when you open the files in the native application. Also, for things like Excel spreadsheets, you usually need some manual tweaking of the spreadsheet to make the printout look right (else you get 900 pages added to your tiff with that one extra column that wouldn't fit)
I don't know if this will help, because it sounds like you want something totally automated, but there are many pseudo-printer drivers that can create TIFF images as output. For example:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Uh? How do you expect to convert a zip archive to an image? What should the pixels show? Should it be lossless, so you can convert back? If it's for archiving, I would guess that is a requirement, but it sounds weird.
What's going to happen to the tiff images afterwards? Assuming you want to manage them in some way, it seems to me you'd be better off looking for some complete documentation management product that can take these doc types as input and manage/archive the (presumably) large number of images that you'll have.
Otherwise you would seem to be re-inventing the wheel.
If you want open-source, something like Alfresco
Note the server based transformation feature below
Alfresco offers one integrated
repository to manage all formats of
content across image management,
document management, web content
management and email repositories. The
repository is a modern platform with:
One Repository for any Digital Asset
The industry’s most scalable, standards-based, JSR-170 content repository
Standards support for JSR-170, Web Services and REST
High-Availability, Fault Tolerance and Scalability – Auto failover and clustering
Secure Distributed Capture over Web Services, HTTP and HTTPS
Reuse of Alfresco Business Policy Rules
Server-based transformation between many formats including TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, MS-Office, PDF and FLASH
Metadata Extraction and Management
Automatic Classification Framework
find to do the recursion in combination with convert from imagemagick tookit would get you pretty far. I guess to support all what you want, you'll need to write a script that calls the right program.
The question as asked cannot be answered sensibly. One obvious solution is to simply rename each file by attaching .tiff. E.g. you could get ringtone.mp3.tiff. Insane as it is, there are not many better ways to convert an .mp3 to a .tiff.
Note that this is not an IT problem. The business is assuming everything is an image, and music is the trivial example of something that isn't.
( To clarify - this was assuming an automated setting, e.g. to archive incoming email for legal reasons. If that's required, you MUST archive incoming MP3's too. If you've got humans in the loop, this question would not belong on a programming forum. )
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I've seen different program managers write specs in different format. Almost every one has had his/her own style of writing a spec.
On one hand are those wordy documents which given to a programmer are likely to cause him/her missing a few things. I personally dread the word documents spec...I think its because of my reading style...I am always speed reading things which I think will cause me to miss out on key points.
On the other hand, I have seen this innovative specs written in Excel by one of our clients. The way he used to write the spec was kind of create a mock application in Excel and use some VBA to mock it. He would do things like on button click where should the form go or what action should it perform (in comments).
On data form, he would display a form in cells and on each data entry cell he would comment on what valid values are, what validation should it perform etc.
I think that using this technique, it was less likely to miss out on things that needed to be done. Also, it was much easier to unit test it for the developer. The tester too had a better understanding of the system as it 'performed' before actually being written.
Visio is another tool to do screen design but I still think Excel has a better edge over it considering its VBA support and its functions.
Do you think this should become a more popular way of writing spec? I know it involves a bit of extra work on part of project manager(or whoever is writing the spec) but the payoff is huge...I myself could see a lot of productivity gain from using it. And if there are any better formats of specs that would actually help programmer.
Joel on Software is particularly good at these and has some good articles about the subject...
A specific case: the write-up and the spec.
Two approaches have worked well for me.
One is the "working prototype" which you sort of described in your question. In my experience, the company contracted a user interface expert to create fully functional HTML mocks. The data on the page was static, but it allowed for developers and management to see and play with a "functional" version of the site. All that was left to do was replace the static data on the pages with dynamic content - this prototype was our spec for the initial version of our product. The designer even included detailed explanation of some subtle behavior in popup dialogs that would appear when hovering over mock links. It worked well for our team.
On a subsequent project, we didn't have the luxury of the UI expert, but we used similar approach. We used a wiki to mock a version of the site. We created links between the functional aspects of the system and documented each piece of functionality in detail. Each piece of functionality could, in turn, link to detailed design and architecture decisions. We also used to wiki to hold our to list feature list for each release (which became our release notes). These documents linked back to the detailed feature page. The wiki became a living document - describing our releases and evolution of our system in great detail. It was an invaluable resource.
I prefer the wiki to the working prototype because it's more easily extensible - growing and becoming more valuable as your system evolves.
I think you may have a look about Test-Driven Requirements, which is a technique to make executable specifications.
There are some great tools like FIT, Fitnesse, GreenPepper or Concordion for that purpose.
One of the Microsoft Press books has excellent examples of various documents, including an SRS (which I think is what you are talking about). It might be one of the requirements books by Weigert (I think that's his name, I'm blanking on it right now). I've seen US government organizations use that as a template, and from my three work experiences with the government, they like to make their own whereever they can, so if they are reusing it, it must be good.
Also - a spec should contain NO CODE, in my opinion. It should focus on what the system must do, should do, and can not do using text and diagrams.