About the IssueTrackerProduct
Introduction & History
The IssueTrackerProduct was initially developed by Peter Bengtsson under the name SiteTracker in 2001. The reason for calling it SiteTracker is that it was supposed to be a plugin for any website that needed to quickly collect feedback about the site from the site's visitors.
The name IssueTrackerProduct comes from a description of what is actually is: tracking issues. Hopefully to get squeeze in between "bug tracker program" and "help desk application". The last part "Product" comes from the Zope lingo, where plugins/extensions are referred to as "products"; hence the name IssueTrackerProduct.
What makes the IssueTrackerProduct different to its likes is that this program is built with usability focus as the first priority. Less is more, Keep It Simple Stupid, etc. Only features that are genuinely desired are introduced. No features are added just because they might become useful so some geek who likes having levers and buttons for everything and when a new feature is introduced it is be default disabled unless the maintainer knows about the feature and decides to switch it on.
The IssueTrackerProduct is released as Open Source under the ZPL license which is like the LGPL but more flexible. This means that you can download the source, change it and even redistribute it as long as you preserve the proper credits. People have done this and been able to shape and mold the technical development of the product ever since it started. If you have ideas or feedback and you want to contribute please use the mailing list.
For the more technically minded... The SiteTracker was originally built as a Zope ZClass with DTML Method for most things and very little Python code. This was later replaced with Page Templates but still as a ZClass. This was later converted to a full scale Zope Python product and around the same time, renamed to IssueTrackerProduct.
"What can I do to help?"
The IssueTrackerProduct is free and Open Source and perhaps you feel like you want to give something back to show your gratitude, then what can you do to help? Lots!
- Share your testimonials! If you are a user, please enter your User Story which will be used to promote the IssueTrackerProduct further.
- Blog about it! If you have a blog, please write a little something on your blog about how and why you use the IssueTrackerProduct. This will increase the spread which will help to attract more users who in turn can help improve the development.
- Participate in the development! Join the discussions on the mailing list or just develop new stuff and send them to the author. You don't have to be a coder to participate, the documentation and design needs your attention too. Please note that the mailing list is not just for development. It is also used for announcements and general feature discussions.
- Enter bug reports, patches, feature requests and other feedback! Use the Real Issue Tracker a lot and even for minor things such as things that confuse you or inconveniences in the setup.
- Spread the word! Let people know that you are using the IssueTrackerProduct and that they should do so too. You don't have to spam people about it but let more people know that it exists as an option.
- Send us your screenshots! As you might have noticed, on the Screenshots page there are screenshots for various browsers and operating systems. The more screenshots we have the more it will be obvious that it works in any browser on any platform.
Mailing list
Yes there is a mailing list but currently not much traffic. This is hosted by SourceForge.net and anybody can join the list discuss the fate of the IssueTrackerProduct. Even though the mailing list is named "issuetracker-development" is open for all kinds of questions; not just about development of the IssueTrackerProduct.
Future
There are no promised deadlines or roadmaps but the following features is currently high on the todo list. (note, no order implied)
- "IssueKnowledge" - Combining in a knowledge base tool in the IssueTrackerProduct
- I18N - Internationalizationing the interface
- SVN/Darcs/CVS integration - for those developers who use the IssueTrackerProduct
- Ability to reply to issues via email (not just adding new ones)
- Weblog interface - a "skin" that makes an issuetracker instance look like a weblog
About this website
This website was created and is maintained by Peter Bengtsson (www.peterbe.com, mail~AT~peterbe dot com)
and is hosted by Fry-IT Ltd which
is his company. Fry-IT specialises in web development, Internet
consultancy and mobile services.
The design was taken from the Worldpress design skin called Kubrik by
Michael Heilemann.
If you haven't noticed there is a RSS News feed here:
http://www.issuetrackerproduct.com/news.xml
It sums up all new releases and any other news that is related to this
project. Enjoy!
