ProjectDistributor - features in the next release
ProjectDistributor has been "open source" for a couple of weeks now and, in that time I've received a few e-mails highlighting bugs and also mentioning new features which should get added. I've rolled all of those requests into the code base so, you'll see that stuff in the next release.
There's also some pretty major new functionality which will appear in the next release:
- Application Roles
- Announcements
- Enhanced Rss feeds
Application Roles
In the current release there is no notion of roles. The next application will provide functionality for adding users to roles at the application level. This was required so that I can open up a whole slew of management API's via the web services layer such as creating users and adding them to Groups.
Announcements
Announcements are notes which can be added to either a project, or, to the application. This allows the site administrator to send out "notifications" advising subscribers about important application-specific information and allows Group members to send out "notifications" advising their subscribers about important things specific to an individual project.
This is cool because, imagine that you have a tool which you have uploaded and haven't worked on it for a while. Suddenly you see a window of opportunity to spend some time working on the tool. What you can do with announcements is to send out an announcement letting your subscribers know that you have time to spend on the tool and that you'd like some feedback about features that your users would like to see.
Enhanced Rss Feeds
Currently the Rss feeds are pretty cruddy as they only display information relating to new Projects which get added to the application.
The new Rss feeds will display items relating to:
- Group changes - such as name changes or members added
- Project changes - new projects, alterations to project details
- Release changes - such as new Releases against a Project or, Release detail changes
- Announcements - new announcements at group and application level.