Set Ticket "Watchers"
I'm not sure if this has been requested or if maybe it already exists, but I would find it really useful to have the ability to set which members watch tickets. For instance, I often create and complete my own tickets, but I want to let everyone know what I am up to, in case they have suggestions or problems with what I am doing.
In other words, if I create and assign a ticket to myself, I would like to be able to set "Collaborator X" as a member watching that ticket; that way they'll get email notifications about that new ticket. Currently I use a hack by creating a ticket, assigning it to "Collaborator X", then immediately re-assigning it to myself.
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1 Posted by Kiere El-Shafie on 27 Jun, 2008 02:22 AM
I am not saying this is a bad request, but maybe it isn't a high priority feature for an "Issue tracker". What I mean is, maybe you are looking for a better way to communicate what you are doing. Or maybe "Collaborator X" doesn't really want an email every time you create a ticket.
Off the top of my head, after reading your post, I immediately thought of the Journal in Backpack. It lets you set a status, and post what you are working on. It also shows a list of things each person has worked on in the sidebar (a history). It may be something to look into in the meantime. It may give your team a whole new perspective on the issue. Then, "Collaborator X" can see exactly what you have been working on. AND, other team members might notice something as well.
Just a suggestion... Hope it helps...
2 Posted by Christian Naths on 28 Jun, 2008 02:10 PM
Well, I guess it just struck me as odd that it didn't already exist. It's not that I want everyone else to get emails every time I create a new ticket, rather to have an option to select certain people to get them upon ticket creation. I find it more tedious than it needs to be when I'm creating a ticket for a sensitive issue that may or may not require more than just my input to have to email another person just to say "I created a ticket for this, please review."
Perhaps we are using Lighthouse in a slightly different way than it is intended. We are using it for project management to develop our applications, creating new tickets for developing various aspects of our application, and having our developers knock down those tickets, grouping tickets into milestones for deployment, etc. On top of that we do our issue tracking as well through Lighthouse. I guess I can see your point if all Lighthouse is intended for is issue tracking, then this feature might not be very widely used. We just find that Lighthouse is the [nearly] perfect, lightweight answer for our project management needs (our dev team is very small).
Perhaps it is time to shift to a more robust project management system.
3 Posted by Kiere El-Shafie on 28 Jun, 2008 06:01 PM
No, I completely hear what you are saying. I switched from Basecamp completely to Lighthouse now. The only thing I think it really needs for it to be a complete replacement for software developers is message notifications. So, I understand what you are asking for, I was just giving you another suggestion to possibly help with your process.
In fact, when I was using JIRA, I would create a new ticket for myself, then assign it to the first person I wanted to review the ticket. They would comment on it, then I would get it assigned back to me. Then I would assign it to the next person. Unfortunately, that solution never really worked for me. They would just forget to comment and that would hold me up assigning it to the next person. It would be easier to check 2 or 3 people and let them log in and comment on it in their own time. But, assigning it to them and having it show up in their list may keep it 'in their face' so they remember to comment.
Anyway, like a said, not at all a bad request, but if you find another solution to help you in the meantime, so much the better. ;)
4 Posted by Christian Naths on 28 Jun, 2008 08:53 PM
Kiere, I would be interested to hear about some of the differences between Basecamp and Lighthouse; especially to know about your decision to switch. Basecamp is our next-in-line alternative to Lighthouse and it would be nice to hear a 'horses mouth' comparison between the two, before going through the trouble to switch our team over for a trial run.
Basecamp seems to be where it's at for project management, but we find it really nice to have our issue tracking right here along side it.
I do appreciate your suggestions, Backpack might be something we'll have to look into.
5 Posted by Kiere El-Shafie on 29 Jun, 2008 05:22 AM
Well, you asked for it... and it is long. :) (Short version... stick with Lighthouse...)
First, don't get me wrong, I love 37Signals' products. I have (had) a paid account for every one of their subscription apps. Currently, Backpack is my absolute favorite. Since they opened it up to be multi-user, it is the perfect Intranet for a company. However, I have always found Basecamp to be a little lacking for software projects. The ToDo list feature isn't great for tracking that kind of work. I am used to Issue Tracking systems like FogBugz, TestTrack Pro, JIRA, etc. I like to record everything I can regarding each ticket (bug, feature, whatever it is). Lighthouse has all the features you need for tracking a software development project, in a much more affordable package (compared to JIRA, Testrack Pro and FogBugz). I like FogBugz a lot, but it can get expensive if you are developing on a team. Lighthouse is just right... affordable, feature rich, nice to look at and easy to use.
Compared to Basecamp, they both have a Dashboard, Overview pages for each project, Messages, Attachments and Milestones. Obviously, the point at which they really diverge is task management.
Tickets vs. Todos
Lighthouse is Ticket-centric as you know. You can track comments (history) with each ticket. Tickets also track any state changes (like adding new tags, changing the ticket status, etc). Basecamp's focus is equally distributed between all their objects. Team collaboration is the main (published) focus behind Basecamp. Basecamp's Todos are just 'one-liner' tasks that you can re-order and drag between lists. There are no unique IDs (ticket #18), comments, notes or history.
Pages vs. Writeboards
Basecamp has Writeboards, however, they aren't tightly integrated since it redirects you out of the application to use them (but having the links is better than nothing). Lighthouse has Pages, which are nice because they are right there in the project (no redirection). Both Writeboards and Pages are like the Wikis of other systems (FogBugz)... a great place to write documentation. I think Lighthouse does a little better job here, from the software development perspective. The thing that bothers me about the redirection of Basecamp's Writeboards is the loss of the navigation. You have to click 'Back to Project' then you can continue navigating. It just seems unnecessary to me (but I understand why). Both Pages and Writeboards are Textile-based but Writeboards do track your versions as you make edits to the documents. Lighthouse doesn't, but I know it could since Rick literally wrote the plugin. ;) I wouldn't mind seeing Pages get their own sub-nav button beside Milestones (Overview >> Tickets >> Messages >> Milestones >> Pages).
File Management/Attachments
I think Basecamp gets the file management part right. You can attach files to Messages or upload them directly to the Files page and you can search and browse them. They have a way to browse the image previews, etc. Lighthouse can attach to messages, tickets and comments, but the images aren't displayed inline which I think would be a nice feature. I sometimes don't realize the attachments are there because they get lost in the sidebar. In Lighthouse, when you do click an image, it links directly to it. I think it would be nice to have two links. One to view it within the context of the page (using something like FancyZoom) and the other could continue to take you to a direct link to the image. Or maybe you just hover over the link for a semi-large preview and clicking it remains the same. But, once you get used to the existing setup, it works fine.
RSS vs. Notifications
The thing I need to remember about Lighthouse is that it is more RSS-focused. Instead of notifications for things you create, they give you the RSS feeds. Since I jumped into RSS later than most, that doesn't always occur to me right away. But, now that I have subscribed to the feed, I can see what is going on just fine. With Apple Mail, you can subscribe to an RSS feed and have it show up in your Inbox with your email (and Outlook 2007 too, I think). So, it is essentially the same feature as direct notifications (just not targeted to specific users).
Chat
Basecamp has Chat integration, but it is really just a link to a particular Campfire room in the previously setup Campfire account. So, it isn't necessarily a 'feature'. See below under "Lighthouse Enhancements" for more on this.
Something cool I have setup is a 'webclip' of the Project list (from the Dashboard) and the History (also from the Dashboard). (I also did this for my GitHub repository list.) So, I can just press F12 on my Mac and see what is new on the site OR click a link right to a project or item. It works great. (But I got that idea from a blog post about doing the same thing with the Backpack Journal.) :)
Lastly, I have always been into UI. Justin has done a fantastic job with v2 of Lighthouse. I love the fonts, the colors, the arrangement of positive/negative space... I think it is absolutely fantastic on a Mac in Safari (or any combo, but that is my favorite). Plus, when you couple Engine Yard hosting with Safari rendering speed, font smoothing on a Mac, and Justin's artistic ability, it is just a great user experience. I find it to be an excellent, well-designed tool. (The design of Basecamp is very nice too, clean and easy to use, but I like Lighthouse v2 better.)
If I was you, I would stick with Lighthouse as your project management tool. Basecamp is great for project management, but it is better for generic projects.
Lighthouse Enhancements
Some feature requests for Lighthouse that would really tighten it up as a Software Development Project Management tool would be EITHER Message Notifications OR better explanation of the use of RSS to accomplish the same result. I don't think it is readily apparent. To most it would seem that Messages in Lighthouse just aren't as mature as Messages in Basecamp. Second, it would be nice to have customizable 'Quick Links' in the sidebar or somewhere. This would simply be a label field and a URL field (Target a new window, though). That way, you could add links to other commonly used tools like Github, Campfire, Backpack, etc. You could define them globally or on a per-project basis. They would all show up in the Project sidebar, but the global links would appear in every project. Finally, inline display of image attachments. Little previews right beside the comments would be very nice. I can recommend a great plugin called attachment_fu for just such a job (ha!).
6 Posted by Kiere El-Shafie on 29 Jun, 2008 02:09 PM
UPDATE: You can implement the Quick Links idea on a per-project basis by editing the Project details and using HTML link tags in the project's Description field. The target attribute of the link tag gets stripped off though, so you can't make it open in a new window. This blub of text does show up on every page of the project. But something more structured still might be nice one day (especially if it allows the link to open in a new window).
7 Posted by Christian Naths on 29 Jun, 2008 07:53 PM
Kiere, thank you so much for the run down. You've definitely got me more excited about Lighthouse than I was before reading this. I think the RSS feeds are really the answer to my problems, and probably even a better implementation to the email notifications. What would be great is if in the email notifications they had a link to a blurb or a tut for setting up the RSS feeds. I think that is such a great feature that is definitely not widely promoted.
Yeah, the ToDo lists in Basecamp always struck me as being much too basic for issue tracking, I think it would be much more of a deal breaker than the [perceived] lack of notifications in Lighthouse.
GREAT tip about the links, I implemented them into one of my projects. Very nice.
Thanks again,
Christian