ICE-RS notes for the cycle ending 2007-04-19

Summary

In the previous cycle we hired 2 new staff members on a casual basis and will start work next cycle. On the application side we added functionality to automate page references in books where a document bookmark has been used. We also began investigating saving problems with Books containing MathType. This cycle will be focused on training new staff members, and resolving the Books saving problems. We are also going to start piloting the ICE APA template as well as release ICE 1.2 final with the python render ahead of schedule, (previously we were going to release it with ICE 2.0).

Predicted work units: 50 (8 day cycle)

Overview of completed tasks

Components

Administration

• Setup ICE-RS pilot users as required (including setting up an area for the USQ FoB research clusters, Community of Practice and BOM research cluster).

• Update Installation instructions for Windows and OSX for ICE 1.2

Application

• Python render improvements from testing as required

• MathType 'stress' testing

Templates

• Modify and create ICE styles required for the APA template

• Setup the ICE APA styles menu for the APA template

Overview of outstanding tasks

Application

• Re-rendering issue (svn 1.4 property update issue)

• Start work on a read only version of ICE for running on a server

Overview of new tasks

Components

Administration

• Setup additional pilot users/groups as required

• New staff orientation and training

• Release ICE 1.2 final with Python render

Application

• Start work on a read only version of ICE for running on a server

• Investigate issues with MathType and Books

Templates

• Pilot the ICE APA Template

About the cycle notes

The cycle notes are used to summarize the outcomes of the completed cycle and provide stakeholders with an overview of the tasks for the next cycle. They are also used to raise any issues for discussion and provide other information for those who are unable to attend the meetings. Specific information on tasks to be completed are available in the ticketing system, see below.

More information

http://ice.usq.edu.au/trac/roadmap

View archived cycle notes

ICE 1.2 beta released

ICE 1.2 beta now available

2007-03-23 ICE 1.2 beta released for OSX on Mac Pro (Intel)
2007-03-16 ICE 1.2 beta released (Windows and Power PC only)

Source code is available from http://ice.usq.edu.au/svn/ice/trunk/ (Revision 6529)
The binaries are available from http://ice.usq.edu.au/trac/browser/ice/downloads/latest/binaries

Main new features and improvements

1. Functionality added to self update on demand

2. Functionality added to rollback the ICE application on demand

3. Config editor made simpler:

   • repository configuration can be done using a URL for example:

     Start ICE then click on a configuration URL such as ICE sample content config

     http://localhost:8000/edit-config?
url=http://ice-sandbox.googlecode.com/svn/sample-content
&name=ice-sample

   • help added to the editor

   • ICE detects version of OpenOffice.org to use for the given operating system

   • ~ (tilda) can be used to set the users home directory

   • no need to restart ICE after saving changes

more infomation

ICE-RS cycle notes 2007-03-22

Summary

In the previous cycle we were mainly focused on improvements to the installation process. This involved much more effort than originally estimated The changes are almost complete for ICE 1.2, which we have unofficially released an alpha version for windows. Work has started on updating the Word template toolbar and we almost have an APA Word template.

There we are few issues that prevented the majority of tasks being completed this cycle.

• Tasks preventing the re-rendering bug being resolved:

  • Unable to get pysvn 1.5 to load on the Mac. (Daniel is in contact with Barry Scott who is the developer that looks after pysvn)

  • The amount of re-factoring required to implement unit tests for this was/is greater than expected.

• Support for USQ staff was greater then expected with the start of Semester 1

• Work for ICE-RS pilots has been minimal due to the start of semester 1 at USQ

• The requirements to improve the installation process by making the config editor 'smarter' was greater than expected.

• USQ EPS staff have not been able to do much testing this cycle due to courseware work loads.

This cycle we will be finishing of changes for the installation process and release an ICE 1.2 alpha version. We will be finishing off a test version of the APA Word template as well as continue with the ICE template toolbar changes. Since USQ EPS staff are rather busy we are going to use the python render for all changes to the ICE website, including the user guide as part of the testing.

Predicted work units: 60

Overview of completed tasks

Administration

• Setup 2 additional pilot users

Application

• Improvements to ICE configuration area

• Update the default ICE site file to be more multi-purpose

Templates

• Begin work on the Word template usability improvements (see specification)

• Establish the additional styles required for the APA template

Additional tasks

• Unofficial release of ICE 1.2 alpha for windows where the user can update the program manually using Subversion via the windows program menu.

Outstanding tasks

Administration

• Scope requirements to integrate with RAMP

• Setup ICE sever to authenticate with the RUBRIC LDAP (this is instead of using OpenID)

• Investigate issues en-counted with using native word processor drawings

Application

• Re-rendering issue (svn 1.4 property update issue)

• Implement basic file/directory annotations

• Python render improvements from USQ EPS testing

Templates

• Modify and create ICE styles required for the APA template

• Create a working/test version of the ICE APA Word template

Overview of new tasks

Components

Administration

• Scope requirements to integrate with RAMP

• Setup ICE sever to authenticate with the RUBRIC LDAP (this is instead of using OpenID)

• Investigate issues en-counted with using native word processor drawings

• Setup ICE-RS pilot users as required (including setting up an area for the USQ FoB research clusters, Community of Practice and BOM research cluster).

Application

• Implement the requirements to automate OOo 2.1 on the Mac without using OOo 2.0

• Re-rendering issue (svn 1.4 property update issue)

• Python render improvements from testing

• Official release of ICE 1.2 alpha

  • Release notes

  • Windows build

  • OSX builds

  • Installation instruction updates

Templates

• Modify and create ICE styles required for the APA template

About the cycle notes

The cycle notes are used to summarize the outcomes of the completed cycle and provide stakeholders with an overview of the tasks for the next cycle. They are also used to raise any issues for discussion and provide other information for those who are unable to attend the meetings. Specific information on tasks to be completed are available in the ticketing system, see below.

More information

http://ice.usq.edu.au/trac/roadmap

View archived cycle notes

Modified: Mar 8, 2007

ICE-RS cycle notes 2007-03-08

ICE-RS cycle 2007-03-08

• Summary
• Overview of completed tasks
  • Additional tasks
  • Outstanding tasks
• Overview of new tasks
  • Components
  • Feedback items
• About the cycle notes
  • More information

Summary

In the previous cycle an additional ICE-RS pilot user was setup and 2 more have been scheduled for this cycle. Work started on annotations however it did not reach testing due to additional support required by Ron, and the discovery of an issue with Subversion (SVN) properties, resulting in documents being rendered unnecessarily. This current cycle will be focused on the SVN problem, changes for the Python render, annotations, word processor templates, setup improvements and requirements for pilot users.

Predicted work units: 60

Overview of completed tasks

• Start work on annotations

• Update python render from EPS feedback

• setup additional pilot users

  One setup, 2 scheduled

Additional tasks

• spec'd out changes for the word processor template toolbar

• developers blog setup

• Required APA styles mapped onto ICE styles

Outstanding tasks

• implement code documentation generator

• Setup ICE server to use OpenID

  Modules installed but the sever is not configured. It also doesn't appear to work with Subversion.

Overview of new tasks

Components

Administration

• Scope requirements to integrate with RAMP

• Setup 2 additional pilot users

• Setup ICE sever to authenticate with the RUBRIC LDAP (this is instead of using OpenID)

• Investigate issues en-counted with using native word processor drawings

Application

• Re-rendering issue (svn 1.4 property update issue)

• Implement basic file/directory annotations

• Python render improvements from USQ EPS testing

• Improvements to ICE configuration area

• Update the default ICE site file to be more multi-purpose

Templates

• Begin work on the Word template usability improvements (see specification)

• Establish the additional styles required for the APA template

• Modify and create ICE styles required for the APA template

Feedback items

The following items have resulted from feedback provided over the previous cycle, tickets are to be written and scheduled.

• The ICE config area is to be modified to improve usability

  • update terms used

  • quick setup – only requires the path to the subversion repository

• ICE user guide – Check if it's still applicable as the feedback was provided while the user guide was being updated.

• Modify the ICE file manager so that it:

  • Open files it knows using the operating systems default editor

  • Open the directory if it doesn't know the file type

About the cycle notes

The cycle notes are used to summarize the outcomes of the completed cycle and provide stakeholders with an overview of the tasks for the next cycle. They are also used to raise any issues for discussion and provide other information for those who are unable to attend the meetings. Specific information on tasks to be completed are available in the ticketing system, see below.

More information

http://ice.usq.edu.au/trac/roadmap

View archived cycle notes

Modified: Feb 26, 2007

Have your ICE repository hosted using Google Project hosting

I'll start by introducing myself, my name is Daniel de Byl I have been the project officer for ICE at the University of Southern Queensland for the past 1 ½ years. It should be obvious if you are reading this that I have just setup a blog for the ICE developers using Googles blogger. However, my first post is not going to be about the blog but rather that you can use the recently released Google code project hosting as an ICE repository.

Thanks to Peter, as he mentioned the release of Google Project Hosting late on Friday afternoon, after a few clicks and a little brain strain about what to call the project we setup ice-sandbox. At the time we couldn't browse or checkout the content but that was either because we were using a proxy as it worked from home or there was another problem going by the discussion forum.

There's only the small issue of storage space as it is 100mb (which is odd considering email storage is Gbs), and your content is publicly accessible. The storage space is a little concerning as you can't technically delete content from a subversion repository, so what happens when you exceed it.

Setup an ICE repository on Google

So how do you setup a Google project repository for use with ICE? Here are a few steps.

Step 1: Setup a Google project

• log into Google and goto http://code.google.com/hosting/ (if you need a gmail account let me know)

• create a project

• checkout out your project using Subversion (Mac users use svn 1.3), for example

  svn co https://your-project.googlecode.com/svn/ your-project

Step 2: Add ICE site files

In your project directory add the .site, .skin and templates folders from the ICE sample content folder by:

cd your-project svn export http://ice-sandbox.googlecode.com/svn/sample-content content

Step 3: Configure ICE

• Start ICE and goto http://localhost:8000/edit-config

• Click add and enter the following:

  Name: Your-Project

  Path: (directory location of your-project)

  URL: https://your-project.googlecode.com/svn/content

• click save and restart the ICE server

• then goto http://localhost:8000 (switch repositories if you have multiple)

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This page was generated using the Integrated Content Environment (ICE)