This blog is primariy intended for our ASP Classic developers and is a journal of software development efforts regarding our ASPSuite product.
New website features are added to the appropriate knowledge base document as a news or KB Post document. This includes new features intended as general enhancements, member-only, moderator-only, staff-only, and admin-only features.
Today I cleaned up the various search options. The common search form used with the advanced search form for groups, message boards, blogs, and the knowledge base is wider when displayed on a screen larger than 1200 pixels. Also, the groups are now divided by group types.
I also cleaned up a lot of data and launched some new board topics and generally made the groups and boards and knowledge base integrate better.
Today I cleaned up the way Prestwood staff view and work with member data. Now when you search for members, the member listing has a bit less info but the popup display profile dialog has much better menu options.
Today I cleaned up the presenting of news and info on the appropriate "entry" pages. Now on the main message board page, the community home page, my blog, my knowledge base, job finder overview, employers overview, and member home pages "entry" pages, recent news and info on "those features" is displayed. Prior to this we had no real consistent way to update members about the features of the website.
To do this I created a new KB.ShowKBPosts method that is heavily overloaded.
Now the tickets view (MyTickets, MyWorkflow, etc) show the "correct" hours for baseline estimate, current estimate, and authorized hours for both PSDP tickets and tickets with child tickets. These hours are updated whenever you save a child ticket, task, or defect. So, if you see one of them that doesn't look correct, go to a child ticket, task, or defect and select save and double check. Let me know of any problems or errors you find.
I'm NOT done with the Billed Hours feature yet so ignore Billed Hours for another day or two.
Fixed topic bread crumbs in Knowledge base. Now when someone ends up on a knowledge base post from outside prestwood.com (usually from a search engine), the KB topic path will correctly display at the top. Something like...
This will allow new visitors to jump to an appropriate topic in our knowledge base.
Moved all prestwood.com files to a new much faster server.
Removed must be signed in validation to home pages. Now any visitor can visit a member's home page. They still can't contact them or anything but they can view their contributions and other content on their home page.
Today's changes include...
Changed blog save words from "Reader blog response saved" to more generic "Blog entry saved".
Fixed a defect in blogs where the wrong date was used for new blog entries. Now it correctly uses today's date.
I moved the app menu to above the project menu because when all PM options are selected, the combined side-by-side app and proj menus were too wide for a 1024x768 screen. Now it looks like this...
Other recent changes included...
Now listing of tickets and tasks within a project (a PSDP ticket) are much less cluttered. More of a listing than it was. I'll keep working on this until I get to JUST a listing of tickets, tasks, defects, etc.
SU_PrintMode - returns true if page is in print mode
SU_HidePrintLink - Suppresses the "Printable Version" link.
We use about 8 or so header/footer include files on prestwood.com and in each of them, they include a call to SU_ShowPrintLink. We use SU_PrintMode to test if the page is in print mode and then hide certain page content (If Not SU_PrintMode Then include this content type thing.) Also in each of the header files is an if statement that decides whether to show the header or show the generic print header.
This morning I spent some time refactoring our ticket system. You should notice many pages are now loading faster. I realize that our ticket system is at times too slow so I'll continue optimizing for speed in the coming days.
For those interested, here are the details:
1. I buffered many calls to the database in the browsers session. Especially calls in our Member, App, Project, and Ticket objects.
2. Fixed a defect where the generic single field database call in our data layer was not buffering data correctly. Specifically, I fixed DB_GetFieldByKey and DB_GetFieldByKeyBuffered in global DB data layer object.
I've been pretty sick the last few days and that has allowed me some time to code...what? yes, that's right code.
1. Tickets now have a really cool notes feature that replaced 4 or 5 memo fields. Adam moved over the data so don't worry all your notes are still around. We'll gradually enhance this notes object and add features such as a subscription feature. Today I also added notes to the Search PSDP Online search option so whatever notes you enter can be found easily.
2. I revamped the My Workflow pages so now the summaries work correctly. Your goal is to clear your My Workflow, Reminders, and Need Review each day. The Follow Up pages are for searching for work.
3. pics - I added them to tickets, tasks, defects, teams, and notes. This adds a bit of a personal touch.
4. Thanks to Char's input, I've been working on the user interface. After all, the best product in the world isn't good unless it's usable.
4a. Popup links are now surrounded by [] brackets.
4b. Employee only features are now a shaded yellow to gray.
4c. Admin only features are now shaded gray to green.
4d. Linked Items and Notes are now in tables "below" the main item such as a task, defect, detailed design item, etc. It was confusing to have links lead you away while editing.
If you have suggestions, let me know.
Today I started adding "[]" around links that popup. This addresses a user experience problem where users had trouble understanding which links took you to another page and which ones simply popped up a dialog.
Char Berta gets credit for this ASPSuite user interface suggestion. I added a generic version of this to our PCC User Interfaces Edition.
Recently Adam and I have made many changes including...
Improved Grouping of Features One thing that is confusing about prestwood.com, intranet, tickets, and our community is where and when do you go a page to do things. I cleaned this up as follows for employees, clients, and visitors:
MyPrestwood - participate and explore our community My Tickets - client and employee workflow management RequestDB - employee only quick links to the many options
Improved MyPrestwood Page My goal with these changes was to surface our many features in a way that makes sense and appeals to our visitors. The larger goal is to increase visitor participation and therefore sales.
The main thing to remember is that if you're working on a PSDP Online project, you must use the Builds feature for each build to manage change management.
Yesterday and this morning I cleaned up the interface to PSDP Online. Now you and clients can simply go to My Tickets in order to navigate through what we're doing for them.
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