Monday, 23 August 2010
What happened in the past 2 weeks
- Bernd has finished porting the conference reports from the old Petra to OpenPetra!
- Matthias has continued work on the GL screen, you can now cancel journals and delete transactions if they have not been posted yet.
- Timotheus has added functionality to the GL screen to import GL batches from text file (CSV). This supports the format of the text files used for Petra 2.x
- GL Batches are only downloaded from the server depending on the current filter setting in the GL Batches screen. This should prevent the situation that all batches are downloaded over a slow connection.
- Timotheus has created a nant task called generateWebforms: with internationalisation, and validation. It currently supports Text boxes, date time picker, checkboxes and radio buttons, and group boxes. Sending data to the server is generated as well. This is no replacement (yet) for fully functional screens similar to the fat client, but should help with simple forms that can be used in the browser.
- The forms generator has been tidied up a bit while adding the webforms generator to the winforms generator.
- We have cleaned up the Finance dlls, both on server and client: eg Ict.Petra.Client.MFinance.Gui.dll has now been split into one assembly for each AP, Gift, GL, and Common.
- Effort on the translations has been ongoing. Welcome to Joachim who has volunteered to help with the Spanish translation!
- We are now using the continuous integration tool hudson for our build server, replacing the solution we had with CruiseControl.net. So far, hudson has worked quite nicely. see ci.openpetra.org.
What did not happen in that time
- The tutorial has not been finished yet, especially the Finance module is not documented at all yet.
What should happen in the next weeks
- See the TODO list from the last update. Most issues still apply.
- Bernd will work on more finance reports to be ported to OpenPetra.
- We also want to add more unit tests and integration tests, even for the client, probably using NUnitForms.
Monday, 09 August 2010
What happened in the past 2 weeks
- Bernd added more reports. He is working on the conference reports at the moment. At the moment this data cannot be tested yet with free demo data, and there is no conference module yet anyways. He is testing against an OM internal database. But Bernd hopes to finish implementing all reports by the end of October, which is great!
- Christian worked on improving the controls. For example the numeric-only textbox makes sure that only numbers or decimals are entered. Some of the maintenance screens are already using the controls.
- Johan was available to us for a couple of days, and he helped with one of the maintenance screens.
- Hans started to help with the maintenance screens as well, and did a couple of them already on his first day! He will be helping a couple of days each week during the summer.
- We are now using a proper algorithm (Longest Common Subsequence) for merging generated files. This means there are no “out-of-sync” problems anymore for manualcode sections, which happened quite often in the autogeneration of the instantiators with nant generateGlue, and has a stabilising effect on all generation of code.
- The caching of data is now generated with nant generateORMCachedTables. This allowed us to quickly add the cached tables for the Personnel module, since we needed the cached tables there for the maintenance screens. It took us too long to manually write the cached table functions, and it was repetitive work anyways.
- We are now using the PDFSharp library (http://www.pdfsharp.net/) for printing form letters directly to PDF files. This allows us to send email confirmations with attached PDF files, which will be needed for the “Online Application Form” tool that OM Germany have requested. This tool can be used for applications for conferences, but also for job applicants who will enter their own data and this saves our Personnel department from entering all the data manually.
- Timotheus has worked on some web interface for OpenPetra which works with any web browser. We want to use it for the application form tool. We are using the Ext.js AJAX framework (http://www.sencha.com/products/js/).
- Matthias from Erlangen worked on the GL Batch screen. You can now cancel batches, and filter for batches ready for posting, or batches that are already posted, or you can display all batches.
- Matthias from Mosbach is helping with the translation of OpenPetra into German. We still are not sure though how to adjust the screens so that the longer texts fit, since german texts usually take more space than the english words.
- We have added some documentation on the wiki about how to submit patches, using http://github.com. Have a look at Submitting patches and features
- Timotheus met with Matthias from Gießen, to discuss about joining the development team. Matthias will be a great help with establishing good IT development processes since he has a lot of experience with Configuration Management. Unit tests, and other tools and processes, would increase the quality of OpenPetra and save us and the users a lot of headaches…
What did not happen in that time
- The tutorial has not been finished yet, especially the Finance module is not documented at all yet.
What should happen in the next weeks
- Add more details to the tutorial. Provide a demo database with extensive sample data for quick user experience.
- Matthias and Timotheus will continue working on the accounting part of OpenPetra, especially to finish the GL screen and add functionality for extended posting, eg. with analysis attributes or multi-currency operations.
- We also need to improve the speed of the GL batch screen, using paged loading of the batches.
- Hans in Carlisle and Isabel in Germany will work on more maintenance screens, mainly for the personnel module.
- Bernd will add more conference reports.
- Timotheus will work on exporting of partners with all their data and import into another database, which will be needed for the “Online Application form”: We can have one OpenPetra system on the web server, and another one locally in the office.
- We might spend time on documenting and refactoring the Winforms generator, and also extend the GUI generator to also generate ext.js screens.
- Other members of the Petra/OpenPetra team will spend time at home with family and supporters, and therefore will not be available to OpenPetra for a number of weeks.
Monday, 26 July 2010
What happened in the past weeks
- The Forms Generator has seen many improvements. Quite a few of those improvements again show the power of the Generator to generate very complex screen layouts and the ability to even produce supporting code that is needed in complex screens which load data dynamically or which change dynamically at runtime (that happens on the Partner Edit screen).
- The Forms Generator now supports the rather easy creation of so-called ‘Maintain Table Screens’. Those screens maintain the values of the many lookup tables and some system setup tables. Such screens can now be done by people who have a somewhat technical mindset and good PC skills, but who are *not* programmers. This considerably widens the audience of people who can help us in doing many of the 105 screens.
- A volunteer, Isabel from Germany, added eleven simple ‘Maintain Table Screens’ to openPETRA in less than three days. She had no previous experience of openPETRA and doesn’t know the C# language!
- The Partner Edit screen has seen quite a few improvements. Most notably the ‘Partner Details’ Tab is now displaying different data according to the Partner’s Partner Class – and most of the program code for that is auto-generated. Several bugs were fixed as well.
- New Reports got added: nine for the Partner Module and sixteen for the Personnel Module.
- openPETRA now has its own logo (see top-left corner of the openpetra.org web site)! The application got changed to use the new logo. There are also 2 new flyers available on the website, inviting people and organisations to join the OpenPetra project.
- We have released the first Alpha version in the middle of June. This included the new generated Partner Edit screen, and also improved encryption with public/private keys.
- We presented OpenPetra in a remote session to participants of the ICCM conference in the US in the middle of June, and got good feedback.
- We have started working on a tutorial which should show people quickly how they can use OpenPetra. We are also working on generating demo data to be able to create realistic scenarios for testing and demonstration. We are already able to create a number of random partners with addresses.
- Timotheus has started his own company (http://www.solidcrp.com) which offers development services to OM and other organisations. Soon we want to offer hosting services as well. Matthias is the first employee of that company, and we are looking for more people to work for this company. This is good for OpenPetra, because people can either work voluntarily on OpenPetra, or they can join OM, or they can start working for Timotheus for a fair payment.
What did not happen in that time
- The tutorial has not been finished yet, especially the Finance module is not documented at all yet.
What should happen in the next weeks
- Add more details to the tutorial. Provide a demo database with extensive sample data for quick user experience.
- Matthias and Timotheus will focus on the accounting part of OpenPetra, especially to finish the GL screen and add functionality for extended posting, eg. with analysis attributes or multi-currency operations.
- Bernd will return to Germany and will be based in the same office as Timotheus for three months, which will be good. Bernd will use his remaining time with OM to continue to work on the reports for OpenPetra.
- Other members of the Petra/OpenPetra team will spend time at home with family and supporters, and therefore will not be available to OpenPetra for a number of weeks.
