August 29, 2007
Tracker Status #1
I’ve received several encouraging e-mails about Tracker, but they've all come with questions as well. After some thought, I decided to start sharing regular status updates to address the questions and keep any interested parties in the loop.First and foremost, it’s far from finished. I’m planning and hoping to finish it by the end of the year, but given that it’s a free time project, that date just might slide a little. Or a lot. I’m not really sure at this point. Rest assured though, I’m building this for myself, and I want it yesterday, so it will continue to be a high priority for me.
At this point, I have almost all of the design and planning done and even have a significant amount of working code. I’m building it with Rails and MySQL, and don’t have any short-term plans to create a hosted version. That said, the idea hasn’t been entirely ruled out. Unfortunately, something like that requires a business, and I’m not quite ready for that step yet.
Upcoming
Of course, writing about it is only a small part of the picture. One of the tangential reasons I decided to design and build this was so that I could freely share my thoughts and process without being handcuffed by NDAs. In order to take full advantage of that, I’ll be sharing the details at Webmaster Jam Session and, if enough people deem it worthy and vote for it, at SXSW as well.
For the latter, I’ll be sharing the spotlight with Garrett Murray, the ever-so-talented-and-wonderfully-named creator of Simplelog, as we discuss all of the behind the scenes action of designing and developing interfaces. For both presentations, I plan on sharing much more information with many more juicy details such as sketches and the full evolutionary process of certain pages and elements.
A Recap
If you haven’t had a chance to look over the posts about it, I’ve pulled together all of the links for your perusing convenience.
- Bug & Issue Tracking
- The Tracker Status Bar
- Tracker Status & Comments
- Linking Issues in Tracker
- The Tracker Dashboard
- Tracker Issue Tab Counts
I’m planning on keeping these posts coming, and as I move from design back into development, I’ll share any development and coding insight I come across as well.
What’s next?
More of the same. As I mentioned, I’ll be presenting and sharing some more details about it at Webmaster Jam Session here next month, and then we’ll probably be looking at some radio silence so I can get back to developing. I’m pretty happy with the progress I’m making, and will continue to post these updates every couple of weeks or so.
Finally, comments are open if you have any unanswered questions or just like what you’ve seen and want to provide some encouragement. I’m not going to lie. Encouragement is appreciated. It’s nice to know that I’m not oversimplifying this and that other people are excited about getting their hands on it. To everybody that’s sent me e-mails and taken the time to provide feedback, I can’t thank you enough.
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Hi. I’m Garrett Dimon, a freelance designer/developer in Dallas, TX. This is my site about people, design, and technology. I also write a column about web design and development for Digital Web Magazine. Still have questions? Feel free to .
Comments
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Garrett: I’m not directly interested in a tracker tool myself (and if I were, I would certainly prefer a hosted version), but I did want to say that I’ve found your series of posts explaining your decisions and designs to be wonderful… entertaining, insigthful and very interesting. And, for what it’s worth, I think the screenshots you’ve shown so far look fantastic. I do look forward to seeing the finished product one day :)
Keep up the good work and the series of posts!
You'd make a killing
August 29, 2007 at 08:09 PM by Habla MierdaI sent links to your article to the guy that runs our QA department (on of the largest hosting companies in the world). Big mistake. I’ve been getting non-stop emails about when it’s going to be available for purchase. Now that I know coding is being worked on at least in part by Murray, I can’t wait to have a crack ay it.
Btw, off topic, but for some reason spelling correction doesn’t work in this textarea when using an iPhone. Kinda annoying
Great Idea
August 29, 2007 at 08:28 PM by JacobI’ve really enjoyed the series on your design dilemmas and decisions. It looks great so far, and it’s very helpful to get a glimpse into the process.
That said, I can’t say this is software that I could use day to day in my job, but I sure want to find an excuse to do so.
Keep up the good work, and keep the posts coming.
Encouragement
August 29, 2007 at 08:50 PM by Jared HansonConsider yourself encouraged. Ever since your first post about Tracker came through my RSS reader, I’ve been delighted. “Finally,” I thought, “someones going to make this simple.” Keep up the good work!
Rock On!
August 30, 2007 at 02:07 AM by Tim Van DammeNice write-up! If you need a beta-tester, you have my address ;-)
I’m really curious to see the end-product!
From the posts so far, the interface rocks. Can’t wait for it to be released.
Please, Keep Them Coming
August 30, 2007 at 03:45 AM by SamI’ve really enjoyed reading about the whole process so far Garrett. Each of the steps has given me something to take away and analyse in my own work.
Thanks for sharing your decisions in such detail. I only hope the more code-orientated posts won’t fly over my head!
Thanks for the update Garrett. I’m one of those who is excited about this project. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the series of design articles and look forward to seeing this app develop. Keep working hard.
About time!
August 30, 2007 at 07:24 AM by Javier JulioGarrett,
Great to see you have the comments area up and running! If its any motivation I’d offer any help I can with your development but it seems like you are having fun taking care of the design and development.
I was worried as you hadn’t posted for awhile but these series of entries have been great and I’m really happy you will be continuing them. I’m very excited about your bug tracker as its looking top notch. Something simple and much more intuitive compared to what I’ve seen.
I understand you are building this for yourself as I’ve thought of doing the same. I’ve been thinking about building a bug tracker and project management/time tracker together. It seems rather large but I thought it would be fun for me to develop on my free time. Are you going to be releasing your bug tracker as an open source project? I’ve learned a lot from your latest entries in regards to UI as I’m sure everyone else has. Keep up the great work!
If there’s any help I can offer please let me know.
Enjoying These Posts
August 30, 2007 at 09:02 AM by Josh WalshAs a UX designer I’m very interested in these posts. To me, the best way to improve customer experience is by watching people interact with an app. It’s much more uncommon to observe another expert sharing his knowledge as well.
These posts are extremely valuable to anyone in our industry.
I’ve been looking for a good bug tracking system for a long time, and they all feel way too complex. Your bug tracker looks like something I’d really want to use. Keep up the good work!
Sweet
August 30, 2007 at 12:42 PM by Eddie SowdenI just wanted to say how much I am looking forward to this projects release in to the wild. While there are loads of current tracker systems out there they all seem to be designed by programers. They don’t seem to take in to account the design in anywhere near the same depth as you have.
Good luck with the rest of the coding.
Looking good
August 31, 2007 at 06:35 AM by AdamI’ve been following your posts on Tracker and it’s looking very promising - a clearer, simplified version of trac that just lets you get on with stuff.
So keep up the good work :)