Table of contents
A software project profile is a high priority as it could help attract programmers to our project. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forge_(software)
As an example, let's look at the Open Moko project, which uses several applications to manage its community.
- MediaWiki for the main site
- Not one but two instances of Trac for bug tracking, and more (they migrated from Bugzilla)
- Planet for RSS aggregation
- Gforge for project management
- Mailman for the mailing lists/forums
They appear to have used the "best of breed" strategy when picking applications. However, now, it must be quite a challenge to integrate these various applications. Pretty much all this functionality could have been handled by a single all-in-one application like Tiki or with a framework/CMS with additional modules (like Drupal, Joomla!, Plone, Xoops, etc).
The following profile is to meet this use case. Open Moko is a fairly large project though so let's keep in mind that most projects are much smaller.
In using Tiki instead of the above combination:
The "bad"
- not everything is done exactly the same.
- Tiki forums are not the same as mailman mailing lists, and Open Moko wiki cleverly notes that "Apparently, there are two groups of people: one group does not like Web forums; the other group prefers Web forums" so we should set-up the Forum and List Synchronization
- Project management would be the Tiki way and not the gforge way.
- not all features are necessarily as advanced.
- Some feature are just missing.
The "good"
- Tiki does have features that they may want.
- For example, blogs and news articles. It would be even worse if they installed a WordPress blog on top of what they have.
- Surveys
- Etc.
- Tiki would offer
- Single Sign On (single user system, groups & permissions)
- Global search engine
- Consistent look & feel
- Tighter integration permits better internal linking
In this profile, we need
- Wiki
- Forums
- Improve the Bug_Tracker profile
- RSS aggregator
- Categories
- Source browser
- Code review
- etc
Things we should improve to make Tiki an even more compelling software collaboration tool:
Related: Support_Mozilla_com
We'll start below
Table of contents
Features & settings
YAML
preferences: feature_articles: y feature_file_galleries: y feature_forums: y feature_trackers: y feature_categories: y feature_search: y feature_minichat: y feature_wiki: y feature_wiki_print: y feature_wiki_attachments: y feature_wiki_comments: y feature_backlinks: y feature_useGroupHome: y allowRegister: y forgotPass: y feature_userPreferences: y wiki_edit_plugin: y sitetitle: Our software project sitesubtitle: Release early, release often feature_mytiki: y feature_tasks: y wikiplugin_proposal: y
Creating a menu
Top bar menu
YAML
preferences: feature_sitemenu : y feature_topbar_id_menu: $profileobject:Software_Project_menu$
Menu items
YAML
objects: - type: menu ref: Software_Project_menu data: name: Top menu description: A menu containing the base navigation of the site collapse: none items: - name: Home url: ((HomePage)) groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] - name: About url: ((About)) groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] items: - name: History url: ((History)) groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] - name: Team url: ((Team)) groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] - name: Documentation url: ((Documentation)) groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] - name: Forums url: tiki-forums.php groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] - name: Bugs url: ((Bug_Tracker)) groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] - name: Download url: tiki-list_file_gallery.php groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] - name: Contact url: ((Contact us)) groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] - name: Admin menu url: tiki-admin_menu_options.php?menuId=43 permissions: [ edit_menu_option ]
Modules
YAML
objects: - type: module ref: module_minichat data: name: minichat groups: [ Anonymous, Registered ] position: right order: 2
Permissions
Uses: Community_Permissionsdependencies:
- $profiles.tiki.org:Community_Permissions:Community_Permissions
- $profiles.tiki.org:Bug_Tracker:bug_tracker
- $profiles.tiki.org:General_File_Gallery:General_File_Gallery
- $profiles.tiki.org:General_Forum:General_Forum
- $profiles.tiki.org:Sample_Articles_include:Sample_Articles_include
- $profiles.tiki.org:Test_All_Themes:Test_All_Themes
- $profiles.tiki.org:powered_by:powered_by # powered_by
Dashboard
YAML
preferences: wikiplugin_list: y rating_advanced: y rating_recalculation: indexing feature_wiki_argvariable: y objects: - type: wiki_page ref: page_home data: name: HomePage content: wikicontent:Software_Project_HomePage - type: category ref: category_rejected data: name: Rejected - type: rating_config ref: adv_score data: name: Score formula: (add (attribute (object type object-id) (property tiki.proposal.accept) (default 0)) (mul -1 (attribute (object type object-id) (property tiki.proposal.reject) (default 0)))) - type: rating_config ref: adv_negative data: name: Negative formula: (min 1 (max 0 (add (mul -1 (attribute (object type object-id) (property tiki.proposal.accept) (default 0))) (attribute (object type object-id) (property tiki.proposal.reject) (default 0)))))
Software_Project_HomePage
Hooks for version control
YAML
permissions: Repository: description: Group allowed to trigger the data channels to create content based on commits from Subversion or other version control tools. Quality Team: description: Opinions that matter. Admins: objects: - type: wiki_page id: $channel_category allow: [ view, edit ] objects: - type: category ref: channel_category data: name: Data Channels items: - [ wiki_page, $page_init ] - [ wiki_page, $page_delete ] - [ wiki_page, $page_content ] - [ wiki_page, $page_bug ] - [ wiki_page, $template_header ] - [ wiki_page, $template_delete ] - [ wiki_page, $template_content ] - [ wiki_page, $template_bug ] - type: wiki_page ref: page_init data: name: RevisionInit content: wikidirect:Software_Project_RevisionInit - type: wiki_page ref: template_header data: name: Template_RevisionHeader content: wikidirect:Software_Project_Template_RevisionHeader - type: wiki_page ref: page_delete data: name: RevisionFileDelete content: wikidirect:Software_Project_RevisionFileDelete - type: wiki_page ref: template_delete data: name: Template_RevisionFileDelete content: wikidirect:Software_Project_Template_RevisionFileDelete - type: wiki_page ref: page_content data: name: RevisionFileContent content: wikidirect:Software_Project_RevisionFileContent - type: wiki_page ref: template_content data: name: Template_RevisionFileContent content: wikidirect:Software_Project_Template_RevisionFileContent - type: wiki_page ref: page_bug data: name: RevisionBugMention content: wikidirect:Software_Project_RevisionBugMention - type: wiki_page ref: template_bug data: name: Template_RevisionBugMention content: wikidirect:Software_Project_Template_RevisionBugMention - type: datachannel data: name: init_revision profile: $page_init groups: [ Repository ] - type: datachannel data: name: file_remove profile: $page_delete groups: [ Repository ] - type: datachannel data: name: file_content profile: $page_content groups: [ Repository ] - type: datachannel data: name: bug_mention profile: $page_bug groups: [ Repository ]
Setting up data channels for:
- Software_Project_RevisionInit
- Software_Project_RevisionFileDelete
- Software_Project_RevisionFileContent
- Software_Project_RevisionBugMention
And related files:
- Software_Project_Template_RevisionHeader
- Software_Project_Template_RevisionFileDelete
- Software_Project_Template_RevisionFileContent
- Software_Project_Template_RevisionBugMention
Connecting with Subversion
This profile prepares a few data channels to connect with version control tools. For the connection to be complete, a few steps need to be performed. Tiki provides scripts that can be used to pull revisions from subversion and push them to Tiki.
Requirements:
- PHP >= 5.2 with CLI
- PHP's Subversion extension (tested with stable 1.0.0)
- Cron to perform the check periodically
This can run on a server independent from both Tiki and Subversion.
Steps:
- Create a user in Tiki and add it to the group Repository (created by this profile).
- Check-out version-control-bridge from the Tiki repository into a directory which is not web-accessible.
check out files to current directorysvn co https://tikiwiki.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/tikiwiki/version-control-bridge/ . - Create a configuration file (sample in svnpull.php)
- Run `php svnpull.php | php tikipush.php`
- In a first step, svnpull will extract revisions from the repository with some progress displayed
- In a second step (sequential), tikipush will call the data channels and create pages in the wiki. Pages will contain the commit information such as the message, bugs referenced in it (such as fix 1234 or #233) and the content of any file modified.
- After a successful test, add the command to a cron job
Supporting other version control tools:
At this time, only Subversion is supported. To support other tools, svnpull.php must be replaced with a different script providing a similar JSON output. tikipush.php can still be used to call the data channels.
Todo
- Make an instruction page