After quite extensive 0.8 testing the community found quite a few bugs in the initial preview release of 0.8. Thanks for your efforts!
The features are great, and the interface clean, and there is so much more you can do with the tool.
Sure there might be a few bugs but here are some exciting features already in BugNET 0.8.
- The level of customization (of statuses etc) available on each project means you can really change the way BugNET uses information.
In the preview release you have to build your project from scratch. However the ability to choose from a standard "library" of projects is being investigated.
- The query designer allows you to design reports, save them and finally export to excel or RSS. This builds further on the ability to customize projects.
- The notifications plugins are very promising!
- Per project subversion integration!
- Ability to store attachments in the database. This helps in hosted environments when filesystem access (for backups) is limited.
- Calendar views of Issue Due dates. Move views can be added easily.
- Nice slider bar to adjust the percentage of completion. This will really help with project management!
- Sub Issues: The ability to make other issues become dependant on the current issue.
- Much better time tracking interface. You can add comments to the tracing record.
- The admin can add default users who wish to be receive notifications on all the issues in a project.
- Users can manage their own project notifications.
In terms of when the final version of 0.8 will be released its still unclear. Davin has his focus elsewhere at the moment but promises soon to be availble for development. There are a number of new features introduced in 0.8, and some of these are shaky and need tightening up.
With the user base growing each day, more and more talented people are being exposed to BugNET. Many users have contributed bugfixes and improvements to BugNET. There are some really easy bugs in BugNET (listed at http://support.bugnetptoject.com) and can be handled by most ASP.NET developers. Grab a copy of BugNET 0.8 source and tinker around with it. You will really help Davin to focus on some of the more complex aspects of BugNET.
If you develop classes but have no experience with ASP.NET then try your hand at writing a Notification Plugin. (new to 0.8 and there is only email at present)
Or create a discussion topic on the forum to flesh an idea on a known issue in the design of BugNET. These discussions generate new ideas and can only improve BugNET. It helps Davin focus on the coding aspects of the idea.
Here is a discussion about potential ways to navigate the projects in BugNET 0.8, as an example: http://www.bugnetproject.com/Forums/tabid/54/forumid/-1/threadid/1957/scope/posts/Default.aspx
Pulling together like this will mean we will get to use a final release of BugNET 0.8 much sooner than we expect!