4. Project functions

4.1. Project Summary
4.2. Project Administration
4.3. Forums
4.4. Tracker
4.5. Mailing Lists
4.6. Task Manager
4.7. Document Manager
4.8. Surveys
4.9. News
4.10. CVS
4.11. File Releases

4.1. Project Summary

The project summary shows summarized information about the current project. The following information is displayed:

Project description and statistics

Description of the project and some statistics about it

Project administrators and members

List of the developers involved in the project

Latest file releases

Latest file releases published via the FRS.

Public areas

For each Tool of GForge, Summary Information is displayed; e.g. Public Forums (7 message in 2 forums), Bugs (4 open, 12 total).

News

Latest news of the project.

4.2. Project Administration

The Project Administration section allows you to administer the project.

4.2.1. The Project Admin Page

The Project Admin web page is where all the administration of the project is done from. To get there, log into GForge, and select the project from your personal page. This will bring you to the Project Summary page.

The Project admin page is available by clicking on the Admin tab.

Clicking here will present you with links to Admin, User Permissions, Edit Public Info, Project History, VHOSTS, Post Jobs, Edit Jobs, Edit MultiMedia Data, Database Admin and Stats. The Project Admin page is only accessible to members of the project who have been granted administrator privileges. By default, the person who registers the project is given admin privileges. Other members can be granted admin rights by the project administrator(s).

4.2.2. Admin

The Admin page presents the user with Misc. Project Information, Trove Categorization, Tool Admin and Group Members.

Misc Project Information

This shows the Short Description of the project and the location of the project homepage. There's also a link to Download Your Nightly CVS Tree Tarball, but this doesn't currently work.

Trove Categorization

In order for people to be able to find the project, it must be classified in the Trove Map. This is basically a set of categories in which like projects are grouped.

Clicking on Edit Trove Categorization presets a page which allows you to select the category(s) to which the project belongs (select as many as needed).

Clicking Submit All Category Changes will set the categorizations, and you will be returned to the Project Admin page. You can change the trove categorizations during the lifetime of the project by following the above steps, as the project moves through its life.

Tool Admin

This section shows the links to the tools describes the tools listed under the Tool Admin section on the Project Admin page.

Group Members

This displays the names of the members in the project, and allows you to add members or delete them. To add members simply enter their Unix Name into the box provided and press Add User. To remove them, click on the rubbish bin to the left of their name. The Edit Member Permissions functionality is described in the section User Permissions.

4.2.3. User Permissions

This allows the project admin to set the permissions of each member of the project. The page is self explanatory.

4.2.4. Edit Public Info

This page enables the project admin to select the information that is visible to the public and to the members of the project. It is possible to select the utilities that are used by the project, so that any that are not desired are not presented on the web page. Specifically it is possible to disable/enable:

  • Mailing Lists

  • Surveys

  • Forums

  • Project/Task Manager

  • CVS

  • pserver (CVS server with password authentication)

  • Anonymous access to CVS

  • News

  • Document Manager

  • FTP

  • Tracker

  • File Release System (FRS)

  • Statistics

It is also possible to change the home page (eg, it is possible to set up a web page on another machine, which has other information). In this case, the summary page will remain on GForge, pointing to the project, and the Home Page link will point to the pages specified in the Homepage Link field.

You can also change the descriptive group name and the short description. If desired you can add an email address to which all Bugs, Patches, Support Requests and Task Assignments will be sent. This could be a Mailing list or just an email address.

4.2.5. Project History

This page presents a history of the project, so you can see when major changes took place, eg members added/removed, Trove categories changed etc. There is nothing that you can do here.

4.2.6. VHosts

This section allows you to handle the different virtual hosts needed for your project. A small interface is presented where you can add, modify or delete virtualhosts.

Note

These virtualhosts are not created immediately, they are created by a backend script (be sure that the backend script is configured in your crontab).

4.2.7. Post Jobs

This allows you to post jobs for your project, so that when non-project members visit the site, they can offer to help with the development.

4.2.8. Edit Jobs

This allows you to edit the jobs that have been posted for your project.

4.2.9. Edit Multimedia data

This allows you to publish screenshots of your project.

4.2.10. Database Admin

This allows you to maintain projects' databases.

4.2.11. Stats

This section shows you information about your project:

Usage statistics

A graph shows you for the latest 30 days the number of views/dowloads for each day.

Lifetime statistics

This stat shows you, for the lifetime of the project, the number of visits/downloads, number of items inserted in the tracker, number of items in the PM/Task manager

4.3. Forums

Every project can have his own discussion forums. When a new project is created, 3 forums are automatically created:

Open Discussion

A place where to discuss about everything.

Help

A forum where to ask for help.

Developers

A place where developers discuss about developments.

4.3.1. Creating a new forum

New forums can be created using the Admin section of the forum. When a new forum is created, you must insert a name of the forum, the description of the forum, select if the forum is public or private and if anonymous posts are allowed on the forum.

Public forums are visible only to project members. If Anonymous posts are enabled, everybody can post messages to the forum, even users that are not logged in.

You can also insert an email address where all posts will be sent.

4.3.2. Using the forum

When you click on the name of the forum, you go to the detail of the forum.

You can select the following types of visualization for the forum lists:

Nested

Shows the messages ordered by thread. All data of the message, including the posted message itself will be visualized.

Flat

Similar to Nested, the messages will be showed in chronological order.

Threaded

Shows only title, author and date of each message. Shows the messages in threaded order. Clicking on the title of the message the entire message will be displayed.

Ultimate

Shows only the “topic started” messages. Topic starters are the messages that starts a new thread.

You can select the number of messages for every page: 25, 50, 75 or 100.

4.3.3. Available options

The forums have 2 very powerful options:

Save place

This function registers the number of messages already inserted in the forum and will highlight new messages the next time you return to the forum.

Monitor forum

You can select to monitor the forum by clicking on the Monitor Forum button.

If this option is enabled, every post to the forum will be sent to you by email.This allows you to be informed about new messages without being logged on to gforge. The name of the monitored forum will appear in the users homepage in the section Monitored Forums.

4.3.4. Forum admin

Clicking on the Forum Admin link presents you with links to Add Forum, Delete Message or Update Forum Info/Status.

4.3.4.1. Add Forum

This allows you to add a new discussion forum. You can select if it is public or private (only members of the project can see it).

4.3.4.2. Delete Message

This allows you to delete a message (and any followups) from a forum. You must know the message id of the message you wish to remove. This can be obtained by viewing the message in the forums web page and noting the message id of the message.

4.3.4.3. Update Forum Info/Status

This allows you to alter the properties of the forum such as the name and description, whether or not anonymous posts are allowed, if it's public and you can enter an address to which all messages are posted.

4.3.5. Searching

When using a forum, a voice Forum will appear in the search combo box. Selecting Forum and inserting a text in the search box allows you to search through the text data of the forum.

4.4. Tracker

4.4.1. What is the Tracker?

The Tracker is a generic system where you can store items like bugs, feature requests, patch submissions, etc.

In previous versions of the software, these items were handled in separate software modules. Bugs, Enhancement Requests, Support Requests and Patches handle the same type of data, so it was logical to create an unique software module that can handle these types of data. New types of trackers can be created when needed, e.g. Test Results, meeting minutes, etc.

You can use this system to track virtually any kind of data, with each tracker having separate user, group, category, and permission lists. You can also easily move items between trackers when needed.

Trackers are referred to as “Artifact Types” and individual pieces of data are “Artifacts”. “Bugs” might be an Artifact Type, while a bug report would be an Artifact. You can create as many Artifact Types as you want, but remember you need to set up categories, groups, and permission for each type, which can get time-consuming.

When a project is created, GForge creates automatically 4 trackers:

Bugs

Used for Bug tracking

Support Requests

Users can insert here support requests and receive support

Patches

Developers can upload here patches to the software

Feature Requests

Requests for enhancements of the software should be posted here

4.4.2. Using a Tracker

The following descriptions can be applied to any of the trackers. The functionalities between the different trackers are the same, we'll use the Bugs Tracker as example to describe the functionality of all trackers.

The Tracker provides the following functions:

  1. Submitting a new item

  2. Browsing of Items

  3. Reporting

  4. Administration

4.4.3. Submitting a new Bug

To submit a new bug, click on the Submit New link. A form will be displayed, where you can insert/select the following data:

Category

The Category is generally used to describe the function/module in which the bug appears. E.g for GForge, this might be the items “User Login”, “File releases”, “Forums”, “Tracker”, etc.

Group

The Category can be used to describe the version of the software or the gravity of the bug. E.g “3.0pre7”, “3.0pre8” in case of version or “Fatal error”, “Non-fatal error” in case of gravity.

Assigned To

You can assign the item to a user. Only users which are “Technicians” are listed here.

Priority

You can select the Priority of the item. In the Browse list, and the homepage of the users, priorities are displayed in different colors, and can be ordered by priority.

Summary

Give a short description of the bug, e.g. Logout function gives an SQL Error

Detailed Description

Insert the most detailed description possible.

File upload

You can also upload a file as an attachment to the bug. This can be used to attach a screenshot with the error and the log file of the application.

To upload the file, Check the checkbox, select a file using the Browse button and insert a file description.

Note

Attachments to tracker items can be no larger than 256KB.

4.4.4. Browse Bugs

The Browse page shows the list of bugs. You can select to filter the bugs by Assignee, Status, Category or Group.

You can sort the items by ID, Priority, Summary, Open Date, Close Date, Submittere, Assignee and the Ordering (Ascending, descending).

The different colors indicate the different priorities of the bug; a * near the open date indicates that the request is more than 30 days old. The overdue time (default 30 days) is configurable for each tracker.

When you click on the summary, you go to the detail/modify Bug page.

4.4.5. Modify Bugs

In the modify Bug page, you can modify the data you inserted, and also add the following information:

Data Type

This combo box lists the trackers of the project. If you select a different tracker and submit the changes, the item will be reassigned to the selected tracker.

Status

The status indicates the status of the item. When an item is inserted, it is created in the “Open” state. When you fix a bug, you should change the state to “Closed”. When a bug is duplicated or not valid, change it to “Deleted”.

Resolution

This indicates the resolution of the item.

Canned Responses

Canned responses are prefixed responses. You can create canned responses for your project in the admin section and select the responses in the combo box.

The Changelog on the bottom of the page shows in chronological order the changes applied to the item. Also all followups can be viewed.

4.4.6. Monitor Bugs

If you select the Monitor button on the top left of the Bug detail page, bug monitoring will be enabled.

When you are monitoring a bug, every change to the bug will be sent to you by email.

To disable bug monitoring, simply reselect the Monitor button.

4.4.7. Admin Tracker

If you are an Administrator of the tracker, you can add or change bug groups, categories, canned responses:

Add/Update Categories

You can add new categories or change the name of existing categories.

You can also select a user in the Auto-Assign To combo box; every bug with this category will be auto-assigned to the selected user. This feature can save you lots of time when administering the tracker.

Add/Update Groups

You can add new groups or change the name of existing groups.It is not recommended that you change the group name because other things are dependent upon it. When you change the group name, all related items will be changed to the new name.

Add Update Canned Responses

Canned responses are predefined responses. Creating useful generic messages can save you a lot of time when handling common requests.

Add Update Users and Permissions

You can add new users to the tracker or delete users from the tracker.

-

The user has no specific permission on the tracker; he cannot administer the tracker, no items can be assigned to the user.

Technician

Items can be assigned to the user.

Administrator and Technician

The user is both an Administrator and also a Technician.

Administrator

User can administer the tracker (add user, set permissions, create/update groups, categories, canned responses).

Update preferences

Here you can update the following information on the tracker:

Name

The name of the Tracker. This is the name displayed in the tracker list, e.g. Bug Submissions.

Description

The description of the Tracker. E.g. This is the tracker dedicated to the Bugs of the project

Publicly Available

By default, this checkbox is not enabled.

Allow non-logged-in postings

If this checkbox is enabled, also non logged-in users can post items to the tracker. If this checkbox is not enabled, only logged in users can post items.

By default, this checkbox is not enabled.

Display the “Resolution” box

By default, this checkbox is not enabled.

Send email on new submission to address

All new items will be sent to the address inserted in the text box.

Send email on all changes

If this checkbox is enabled, all changes on the items will be sent out via email. It is useful to check this radiobutton only if in the Send email address is inserted an email address.

Days still considered overdue

Days till pending tracker items time out

Free form text for the Submit new item page

This allows you to put a specific introduction on the submit new item page.

Free form text for the Browse items page

This allows you to put a specific introduction on the Browse items page.

4.4.8. Mass Update

If you are an Administrator of the tracker, you are also enabled for the Mass Update function.

This function is visible in the browse bug page and allows you to update the following information:

  1. Category

  2. Group

  3. Priority

  4. Resolution

  5. Assignee

  6. Status

  7. Canned Response

When this function is enabled, a checkbox will appear at the left side of each bug id. You can check one or more of the ids, select one or more of the values in the Mass Update combo boxes and click Mass Update.

All selected bugs will be modified with these new value(s). This function is very useful if you need to change the same information for more bugs; e.g. assigning 5 bugs to one developer or closing 10 bugs.

4.4.9. Reporting

The reporting functions allows to check the life-span of the Bug. The lifespan is the duration of the bug; it starts when the bug is inserted (opened) in the tracker and ends when the bug is closed.

Aging Report

The Aging report shows the turnaround time for closed bugs, the number of bugs inserted and the number of bugs still open.

Bugs by Technician

The Bugs by Technician report shows for every member of the project: the number of bugs assigned to the user, the number of closed bugs and the number of bugs still open.

Bugs by Category

The Bugs by Category report shows for every Category: the number of bugs inserted, the number of closed and the number of open bugs

Bugs by Group

The Bugs by Group report shows for every Group: the number of bugs inserted, the number of closed and the number of open bugs.

Bugs by Resolution

The Bugs by Resolution report shows for every type of Resolution (Fixed, invalid, later, etc): the number of bugs inserted, the number of closed and the number of open bugs.

4.4.10. Searching for bugs

When using a tracker, a voice with the name of the tracker will appear in the search combo box. The search will be done on the description, the summary, the username of the submitter and the username of the assignee.

4.5. Mailing Lists

This is where you will set up and administer the mailing lists associated with the project.

4.5.1. Main page

This page shows the list of available mailing lists.

Clicking on List Name Archives will allow you to browse the archives of the selected mailing list.

You can subscribe, unsubscribe or edit your preferences for a specific mailing list by clicking the appropriate link.

4.5.2. Admin

This brings you to the Mail Admin page, where the following options are available to you.

Add Mailing List

Clicking here will allow you to create a new mailing list. You can specify if it is to be made public (people who are not members of the project can see and/or join it) or not. You can also add a description of the list. You will receive an email with the administration password of the list.

Administrate/Update Lists

This allows you to change the description of the list, the state of the list, and by clicking on Administrate this list in GNU Mailman you can add members to the mailing list, set the properties of the list, posting policies and so forth.

4.6. Task Manager

The Task Manager is similar to the tracker, with the following differences:

  • you can insert the start date of the item

  • you can insert the end date of the item

  • you can insert the number of hours for the item

  • you can have multiple assignees for the item

  • you can handle dependencies between tasks

Tasks are organized in subprojects. Before inserting a new task, you must first create a subproject. You can use the Admin link to create new subprojects.

Tasks allows you to create and manage tasks, or blocks of work, similar to the way projects are broken down in eg MS Project.

4.6.1. Inserting a new Task

This allows you to add tasks to the sub projects - e.g. Write Design Doc, Review Doc, Update Doc, Write Code, Review Code, Update Code, Test, Log Test Results, etc. They can be assigned to members of the team, and start and end dates set up for them, dependencies on other tasks set, percentage completion etc.

You need to select first a subproject from the subproject list and then select the Add Task link.

A form appears, where you are requested to insert the following data:

Percent Complete

You can select here the Percentage of the completion of the work.

Priority

You can select here the priority of the task.

Task Summary

You should insert a brief description of the task.

Task Details

You should insert here the most detailed description possible of the task.

Start Date

You can insert here the start date.

End Date

You can insert here the end date of the task.

Assigned To

You can select one or more assignees of the task. Only users which are defined as “Technicians” are listed here.

Dependent on task

You can select here one ore more task upon which this task depends.

Hours

It is the estimated duration of this task in hours.

Only Administrators can add new items on the Task Manager; only Administrators can make changes to the task; only administrators can close the task.

4.6.2. My Tasks

It lists the tasks assigned to the user.

4.6.3. Browse Open Tasks

It lists all tasks in the open state.

4.6.4. Reporting

The Reporting is similar to the reporting section of the Tracker.

4.6.5. Task Admin

The Admin section allows you to:

Add a project

You can select if the subproject is public (visibile to everyone) or not (visibile only to project memebers).

This allows you to add a subproject to a project, such as modules, documentation, etc.

Required arguments are Project Name and description.

Update information

Here you can select if the project is public, private or deleted (visible to nobody) and update the name and description of the subproject.

4.7. Document Manager

The Document Manager provided with GForge gives you a simple way to publish documents on the site.

4.7.1. Submit new documentation

Here you can submit new documents for approving/publishing on the site. The form requires you to insert the following information:

Document Title

The document title refers to the relatively brief title of the document

Description

A brief description to be placed just under the title.

Upload File

Here you should select the file to be uploaded. You can upload text files (.html, .txt) or binary files (.zip, .doc, .pdf).

Language

You should select here the language of the document.

Group that document belongs in

You should select here the group of the document. This feature is used to categorize documents.

Fill in all the fields, select the group from the drop down list and click Submit Information. The document will then be placed in the Pending Submissions section of the DocManager Admin page, to be approved or rejected.

4.7.2. Viewing existing docs

The View Documentation page shows you a list of documents published and approved for viewing; grouped by Document groups. You can click on a document to view the entire content.

4.7.3. Admin

Clicking on this will present you with a page showing pending and active documents. In order to allow users to submit a document, you must first set up the document groups for the project.

The Admin section allows you to:

Approve/publish pending submissions

The Pending Submissions list shows the list of submissions that are waiting for your approval. Clicking on the document name, the Edit Document form will be displayed.

Edit Documents

The Edit Document links shows all states of the documents, and the documents in the state:

Active Documents

Active Documents are displayed in the View Documentation list.

Pending Documents

Pending Documents are waiting for your approval.

Hidden Documents

Hidden documents are not displayed.

Deleted Documents

Deleted Documents are old, outdated documents.

Private Documents

Private documents are displayed only for members of the project.

Edit Document Groups

Clicking on this will present you with a box and a button to add document groups, and it also shows the document groups associated with this project. Submit as many document categories as you wish - eg Howto, Release notes, FAQ, etc. These groups will be the categories the documents will fall into when users submit documents.

4.7.4. Edit Document

When you select a document from one of the lists, a form will be displayed. In this form you can change the Document Title, the Short Description, the Language, the Document Group and the State.

If the Document is a text file with .txt, .html or .htm extension, a textbox appears where you can edit the content of the document.

If the Document is a binary document, you can upload a new version of the document.

4.8. Surveys

4.8.1. Introduction

Surveys allow you to ask questions to your developer/users and view the results. Surveys are often very helpful if you need some feedback from the users, examples of surveys might be:

  1. User feedback: ask users if they like your project

  2. Developer feedback: ask developers on new features to be implemented

Of course, surveys are not limited to this list. Basically, you can ask everything you want with surveys.

4.8.2. Administering survey questions

Before you can add/modify existing surveys, you need to administer the questions for your surveys. Questions are global for all surveys.

Gforge surveys handle the following question types:

  1. Radio Buttons 1-5: This type of question shows 5 radio buttons where the user can select between 1 (low) and 5 (high).

    This is useful for indicating priorities or quality feedback (e.g.: the question might be: did you like the new xxx feature. The user can select (1 (not very much), 2,3,4, 5(really)

  2. Radio Buttons Yes/No. This type of question allows only two choices: Yes or No.

  3. Comment Only

  4. Text field: This type of question allows the user to insert some text in a text field.

  5. Text area: This type of question allows the user to insert some text in a textarea

When inserting new questions or modifying existing questions, take note of the ID of the question. You'll need them when creating/modifying surveys.

4.8.3. Creating a new survey

You can create a new survey by clicking on the Admin link and then Add a new survey.

You'll be asked to insert the following data:

Survey name

The name of the survey

Survey name

The name of the survey

Question list

Here you should insert the IDs of the questions in the order they should appear. If you wish to see question 4 first, then question 6, then question 1, you should insert here 4,6,1.

Warning

Don't insert spaces or any other character between the numbers.

Active

This flag indicates if the survey is active or not.

4.8.4. Modifying a survey

You can modify an existing survey, although this is not recommended if answers to the survey have already been given.

You should know that the results of a survey ar not consistent if you modify the survey and users have already inserted answers.

4.8.5. Viewing survey results

You can view the results of the surveys cliccking on the View Results tab.

4.9. News

The news section allows you to insert news relative to your project. News can be monitored similar to tracker items, forums. News will be displayed on the project homepage and also on the site homepage, if the site administrators approve the news.

News are generally used to announce software releases, milestones, or significant changes in the software.

4.9.1. Inserting a news item

You can insert a news item by clicking on the Submit link.

You can post news about your project if you are an admin on your project.

All posts for your project will appear instantly on your project summary page. Posts that are of special interest to the community will have to be approved by a member of the GForge news team before they will appear on the GForge home page.

You may include URLs, but not HTML in your submissions. URLs that start with http:// are made clickable.

The news item will go to the News Admin for approval for publication.

4.9.2. Modifying/Approving a news item

You can modify or/and approve a news by clicking on the Admin Link.

You can select the status of the news: Displayed or Deleted (the news will be deleted), you can insert the Subject (title) and the details.

4.10. CVS

The CVS button shows a page that contains information on how to access the CVS repository. Use this information to configure your client for CVS access.

This page also displays some statistics about the selected project's CVS tree.

The Browse CVS Repository link opens the viewcvs web interface, where you can view the CVS repository, view differences between revisions, download versions of a file.

Note

Only public projects will show the browse CVS repository link.

4.11. File Releases

4.11.1. Introduction

The File Releases System (FRS) is used to upload files to the GForge site and to make these files available to the users in an easy and efficient way.

Files can be divided in different packages, and every single package can be monitored by the users; these users will receive an email every time a new file has been added to the package.

4.11.2. Administration

The FRS system allows you to upload file to GForge and make this file available to the public.

You have to define a package before you can release a file. A package should have a descriptive name for the project, e.g. gforge3.

To add a new package, insert a package name in the textbox at the bottom of the page and click Create this Package.

Your package will appear in the Releases list at the bottom of the page.

Click Add release. The form has the following fields:

Package ID

You can select here the package.

Release Name

Insert here the name of your release. The name should be indicative for the version of your file, e.g. pre-8.

Release Date

The Release Date.

File Name

Click the browse button to select the file to upload. In some browsers you must select the file in the file-upload dialog and click OK. Double-clicking doesn't register the file.

Note

You can't upload file that exceed the UploadFile Limit in php.ini.

File Type

You can select here the file type (.zip, .html, .exe, .tar.gz, etc).

Processor Type

You can select here the processor required to run the application.

Release Notes

The release notes.

Changelog

The changelog.

Click the Release File button. Your file will now appear in the list of files in the File section.