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We have renewed the MindPlan build that is available in the download area of the MindPlan website. The new build version is MindPlan 3.21 build 201004031431. It contains stability fixes and two new features. The option "Resources automatically have edit rights on their activities" is only visible, when the database version that you use is 3.2.1 or higher. We did this because we had to modify the design of the database to add a new author field to the nodes, which is used in activity nodes to give edit rights to the activity resource. This new option makes working with the access control system a lot easier. Until now, you had to manually give edit rights to a worker to let him document his activity progress in the MindPlan node. If the option is activated, this step is not required anymore, access rights are granted automatically. Please note that activity resources are allowed to change all the activity properties, as long as the activity status is "In design". After it has left this phase, e.g. to "In Implementation", the user can only edit the lower part of the activity properties. Hint: The access control system does only work properly if the users have author access in the database's ACL. If a user has editor rights or more, he is allowed to edit all MindPlan data and the access control system is deactivated. Karsten Lehmann | April 11th, 2010 23:25:50 | Comments (0) | Permanent Link We're currently working in a customer project, implementing some new requirements for MindPlan. The requirement was to have the welcome tab images configurable. Well, and of course we tested our new feature... So, after more than five years of MindPlan development, the product has actually become sexy. :-) How you can customize your welcome screen Well, first of all, you need to have a MindPlan 3.2 build version that is equal or greater than 201003172155. That means the download that is officially available today will not work. Now that's a good reason to update when it is available. :-) After upgrading to the new 3.2 build, you can define a few Notes.ini variables to set your own tab layout. Here is the format: $wMPCustomHomeTab_ < nr > = For < ORIENTATION > you have the choice between CENTER, EAST, NORTH, NORTHEAST, NORTHWEST, SOUTH, SOUTHEAST, SOUTHWEST, WEST and TILE. < STRETCHING > tells MindPlan how the image should be scaled: NO_STRETCH, STRETCH, STRETCH_KEEP_RATIO, STRETCH_X and STRETCH_Y. The < Z-INDEX > is the paint order, which is starting with 0 and the < IMAGEURL > can either be a relative URL (e.g. to use our internal standard images) or an absolute one, both file:// and http:// protocol do work. < nr > is an index starting with 1. So here is an example that just displays the standard tab images: $wMPCustomHomeTab_1= The concept is more powerful/geeky than you might think, because we also added @formula support: $wMPCustomHomeTab_3= A calculated image line is ignored if the formula just returns "-". So by using formulas, you can even calculate the images dynamically and have a surprise each time you start MindPlan. :-) It's a bit difficult to test the tab image definitions right now. The easiest way to recreate the welcome tab is to go into "File/Preferences", deselect the "show welcome-tab" option, hit "Apply" and then select it again. Karsten Lehmann | March 18th, 2010 16:30:52 | Comments (0) | Permanent Link The standalone version of MindPlan 3.2 for the Mac is now available in the official download area of the MindPlan website. The Standalone and Composite Application versions of MindPlan 3.2 are now available in the download area of the MindPlan website! Yesterday evening, the final release candidate of the MindPlan 3.2 standalone and Composite Application was published to a group of testers. Karsten Lehmann | February 26th, 2010 10:25:18 | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkThere is a last minute feature that found it's way in MindPlan version 3.2: critical path method (CPM) analysis in the Gantt view! In red, the critical path is highlighted. Those are activities that are critical for the final deadline of the project (as final deadline we take the latest milestone or activity). The green and yellow bars indicate the earliest and latest possible date for an activity, based on their predecessor/successor position in the project to not extend the final deadline. That sample MindPlan is actually more complex than it might look like. It's more obvious when you take a look at the map view :-) This feature is brought to you by "Mr. Critical Path" Tammo Riedinger. :-) Karsten Lehmann | February 26th, 2010 10:06:00 | Comments (0) | Permanent Link As already adumbrated elsewhere on the web, something was going on in MindPlan land this summer.
It also does not interfere with an installed normal MindPlan application or Lotus Notes client. All the data is kept in separate directories. Real team work Although you don't see the Lotus Notes user interface, we still provide nearly the full range of features of the normal MindPlan edition:
For this very first release of the MindPlan DOLS edition, we had to limit one feature, which is caused by the lack of a graphical Lotus Notes user interface: We can only offer the richtext of a MindPlan node in read-only mode, because we do not have a proper editor in Java that produces round-trippable Notes richtext (to be able to heavily exchange Richtext contents between DOLS and Standard users without data loss). But you have full support for file attachments and you can of course use the title/description of a MindPlan node to enter your text. In a future MindPlan version, we will provide our own graphical text editor that can be used as an alternative to Notes richtext and that stores its data in parallel to the Richtext in the node (e.g. in HTML or RTF format). Interested in a beta version? The first MindPlan partners received an alpha code drop of this new MindPlan edition in August 2009. We have already reached the beta stage by now. So if you don't want to wait until January 2010 (hmm... I think there is an IBM conference in January; might be a coincidence ;-) ), just send us an email at support @ mindplan.de with a subject like "I want that MindPlan DOLS version now!" to participate in the beta program. :-) Please also add some information about your system (this is Windows only, so tell us about the Windows version you use and the basic hardware setup). P.S.: The normal MindPlan 3.2 editions and the first officially available MindPlan Mac version will also be released at the end of January 2010. P.P.S: Well, now it's finally clear why we added the richtext preview panel and the replication support. :-) Karsten Lehmann | November 6th, 2009 15:53:22 | Comments (0) | Permanent Link As mentioned in an ealier posting in this blog, the MindPlan 3.1 standalone edition for the Mac had some troubles with the new Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) operating system. We´re currently testing the MindPlan Mac beta in the Snow Leopard operating system that came out on 28th of August 2009. And another new feature from the MindPlan labs, also brought to you by "Mr. C and JNI" Tammo Riedinger :-) : When you click on that new menu entry, you will see a server selection dialog. The dialog contains all the servers that you used in previous replications (it gets them from the database's replication history). The last replication server is preselected: We then replicate the database with the selected Domino server. The replication can be aborted and you can see a replication progress bar. Support for abortion and the progress bar is something that you cannot achieve using the normal Notes Java API. But with a little help from the C API, it works like a charm. :-) Karsten Lehmann | June 25th, 2009 13:09:09 | Comments (0) | Permanent Link |
