A list of bugs and feature requests.

[SneWs]

Hello.

I have taken the time so summarize some of the bugs we have found in our Fortress install, it ranges from the install process to the actual usage of the client both in the VS.NET and in the FS client. I've also added some feature requests that we are in


1. During installation of Fortress on the server the following issues occur.
If we select anything else then the "Default Web Site" such as sc.sourcetech.local (one of our internal servers etc...) this website has a file path that's not in the "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot" but in another location, the installer ignores this and writes it's files to the "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot" anyway. This is not correct in my opinion.

2. A missing feature. When working inside VS.NET I have not found anyway to make a "Exclude file or folder" inside the project. This feature should work like the one found in different subversion client such as Tortoise or within Eclipse. Please note that this is not the same as "Exclude from project".

3. I'm not able to change server settings in VS.NET without manually hacking in the project files.

4. A feature request. I would like to be able to have the "History" window integrated as a tab in VS.NET instead of accessing it through a right click and the filling out information by clicking to get the history window.

5. A feature request. I would like to have the possibility to get a "Change log" generated from date X to Y on selected projects in fortress web, this should then be exported as a simple text document, a pdf or the like... (insert favorite format here).

6. A feature request. In fortress web, when first logging in, one is presented with all projects added, in my case and my company's case, this is not at all ideal, we have a lot of projects, and there's no easy way to go to the intended project. How about allowing users to select there "Favorite or most active" projects to display on the "Project at a glance" page.

7. When adding items and using the Tags field it's not possible to use tags with a space ( ' ' ) since this is the delimiter used for separating different tags, the separator should be changed to a , or a ; or the like since space is used in regular naming, at least in our case.



Some information about our environment(s):
Server where the Fortress install is in use:
Windows 2003 x64
SQL Server 2005
.NET 2.x, 3.0, 3.5

Clients:
VS.NET 2008 SP1
Windows Vista and Windows 7 all running x64 editions


I do hope that the feedback will be put in good use.
If you have any follow up questions regarding any of the listen bugs and features, please don't hesitate to ask questions about them.

Regards.

// Marcus

[lbauer]

Thanks for using Fortress!

1. During installation of Fortress on the server the following issues occur.
If we select anything else then the "Default Web Site" such as sc.sourcetech.local (one of our internal servers etc...) this website has a file path that's not in the "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot" but in another location, the installer ignores this and writes it's files to the "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot" anyway. This is not correct in my opinion.

The option to install the Vault server virtual directory to a different location comes earlier in the install, so it may have been overlooked. It's in the Server Setup screen, and you have the opportunity to browse to a different directory than the default.

2. A missing feature. When working inside VS.NET I have not found anyway to make a "Exclude file or folder" inside the project. This feature should work like the one found in different subversion client such as Tortoise or within Eclipse. Please note that this is not the same as "Exclude from project".

This is not currently available in the Enhanced Client, though it is in the Classic Client integration. We do have feature request 12874 logged for this. The workaround is to delete the item from Vault, so that it is no longer under source control.

3. I'm not able to change server settings in VS.NET without manually hacking in the project files.

What server settings are you referring to? The source control server? You should be able to do this with the FIle -> Vault Source Control -> Change Vault Bindings dialogue. Let me know if you're referring to something else.

4. A feature request. I would like to be able to have the "History" window integrated as a tab in VS.NET instead of accessing it through a right click and the filling out information by clicking to get the history window.

I can log a feature request for this. I could use more information about why the current implementation doesn't work for you.

5. A feature request. I would like to have the possibility to get a "Change log" generated from date X to Y on selected projects in fortress web, this should then be exported as a simple text document, a pdf or the like... (insert favorite format here).

What would you like to be in the change log? Would it be like the audit results on an item, but a list of changes in many items? Or would it be a list of bugs updated between certain dates?

6. A feature request. In fortress web, when first logging in, one is presented with all projects added, in my case and my company's case, this is not at all ideal, we have a lot of projects, and there's no easy way to go to the intended project. How about allowing users to select there "Favorite or most active" projects to display on the "Project at a glance" page.

I've added feature request 14366 for a way to show "Project Favorites."

7. When adding items and using the Tags field it's not possible to use tags with a space ( ' ' ) since this is the delimiter used for separating different tags, the separator should be changed to a , or a ; or the like since space is used in regular naming, at least in our case.

Good point. You can put quotes around two words, but it still creates a tag as one word in the tag list. I've logged feature request 14368 for this functionality.


Thanks for the suggestions. We love hearing from our customers. Many new features and enhancements are implemented based on feedback from Vault and Fortress users.

[SneWs]

Redarding #1 and #3.
Tanks, that did the trick. Just missed the obvious items.

Regarding #4, History windows.

Well, first of, the history view comes up in it's own window, the History Explorer) this should be in a tab integrated into VS.NET, second, when selecting a item from that window, another window pops up (Version details), and this window blocks the VS.NET window until closed, this should be in the same tab as the first window, it should most definitely not block my VS.NET window. I'm against separate windows as all when integrating into VS.NET.

For a, in my mind, good implementation, take a look at the Subversion integration in Eclipse and it's way of handling history, it's simple but yet very powerful.


Regarding #5, a change log.
The change log should be generated from some simple criteria such as from date X to Y for project A, B and C ... N. It should list the project name, the bug requests resolved for selected date span and who closed the item.
Please note that you can make a lot of improvements on this basic idea, maybe try to get some more feedback from more customers.


Regards.
/ Marcus

[lbauer]

Thanks for the details about the history functionality. I've logged feature request 14375 for4 this.

Regarding the change log -- can you get the information you want by creating this query in Fortress:

Click on Query Projects (left side of the screen). Then select a date range in the Date Filter. In Data Field Filter under Status, select "Verified" and check either "Resolver" or "Assignee," depending on the results you want.

[Marcel]

*) Please add my vote to feature request 14366 (item 6 of the original posting) for a way to show "Project Favorites."
*) Please add my vote to feature request 14368 (item 7 of the original posting) for allowing the user to define tags with spaces.

Thanks!

[jeremy_sg]

I'm still curious why you would want "green door" and greendoor to resolve to different tags? At the moment, you can use quotes to put spaces into a tag for readability, but our thinking was that when you're searching on a tag, you must be able to find all of the variants on a tag with one search. Here's a sample of the tags that are all equivalent:

GreenDoor
greendoor
"green door"
"gre endoor"

Can you give me more details of a use case where you want them to be different tags?

[Marcel]

My intention for using spaces is just for better readability. I am aware that this leads to different tags, but in my opinion there should be some kind of management tool to dam the growth of tags. I suggested this today in this topic (item 1): http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic ... 30&t=12108.
When this tool is used -actually it is the same as defining categories, although tags can be defined by any user and is not restricted to the project administrator-, spaces should not be a problem since one should 'never' create a tag which is intended to be the same as another one, but with more or less spaces.
I probably don't like the idea for a user typing in a keyword (with or without spelling errors), leading to a new subject in the tag cloud. This could lead to a great amount of tags, with several tags meaning almost the same, or hard to tell the real difference. When the user is not able to type in a word directly, he probably will first try to select it from a list. This should control the growth of tags. (We are not actually using tags right now, but I am thinking ahead of any problems we might experience when we would.)

[jeremy_sg]

I probably don't like the idea for a user typing in a keyword (with or without spelling errors), leading to a new subject in the tag cloud. This could lead to a great amount of tags, with several tags meaning almost the same, or hard to tell the real difference. When the user is not able to type in a word directly, he probably will first try to select it from a list. This should control the growth of tags. (We are not actually using tags right now, but I am thinking ahead of any problems we might experience when we would.)

We've addressed your concerns in two ways. Right now in 1.1, we've got a popup that will let you insert existing tags without typing. In 5.0, we will automatically suggest tags as you type. You can see this at the fortressbeta site (log in as guest1):

http://fortressbeta.sourcegear.com/Fort ... 0&itemid=4

For more on how we use tags here, look at:

http://vaultblog.sourcegear.com/article ... s-tag-list