Tasktop Blog

Last week I stumbled on a tweet that questioned whether Tasktop was an “Obsession with integration or new paradigm of working?” The answer is both. The tricky part in bringing about a fundamental simplification in the way that we work is providing an incremental transition to the new paradigm. For the past year, our focus at Tasktop has been on expanding the ecosystem of Mylyn ALM integrations needed to get the benefits of the task-focused interface into the hands of the majority of developers using Eclipse. With this release, over 50 integrations exist and the majority of ALM solutions used by Eclipse developers are Tasktop Certified, including 70% of those covered in Forrester’s Agile Wave.

Tasktop’s developers and farm of interop testing servers are working tirelessly for one reason. To bring about the migration away from file, folder and search-based navigation, which does not scale to the volumes of information that we deal with today, to the focus and control that comes from the task-focused collaboration paradigm. While a few key connectors are still in the works, with Tasktop 1.7 we have crossed a threshold in the reach of integrations building on Mylyn. We have measured that more than half of enterprise developers’ time is wasted on constant interruption recovery and context switching. By integrating all of your tasks into a single Task List, anchoring of your collaboration around those tasks, be it file, comment, email or Twitter based, and then automatically focusing and restoring the context of your source code, files and web navigation, Tasktop eliminates all of that waste.

Bringing about this fundamental change in the way we work is impossible to do in isolation. During the past year of the Eclipse Helios release train, we have worked closely with both Agile and ALM partners such as Rally, VersionOne, ThoughtWorks and CollabNet, as well as leading application development vendors such as SpringSource/VMware, to ensure smooth integration between application development, deployment and lifecycle management tools. In the features listed below, you will also notice the results of projects that we undertook in order to make Eclipse be a better platform for this next level of ALM integration that we are driving. We worked with IBM to define OSLC-CM 1.0 spec for REST-based interoperability of change management tools and brought that implementation into Mylyn. We worked with Microsoft to enable Eclipse to leverage new features in Windows 7, the results of which you will see in our contributions to the Eclipse Platform’s New & Noteworthy and the Tasktop RCP screenshot below. Not wanting to neglect our users on Mac OS X, we also resolved one of the biggest performance problems in the Cocoa port. For the Eclipse Foundation, we created the Eclipse Marketplace Client, which uses the simple install technology that we moved into the Eclipse P2 project earlier this year. Finally, we restructured the Mylyn project to bring in new contributors bringing about the next phase of ALM integrations ranging from continuous integration support to code review tools.

It has been a busy 12 months since the Galileo release, and Tasktop 1.7 marks the third major Tasktop release in the past twelve months. For the full details on this release see the New & Noteworthy documents, and for some key highlights see below.

Twitter integration for the task editor

Tasktop 1.7 introduces Twitter integration for all Mylyn connectors. Developers can now view all tweets related to a task and quickly broadcast the currently active task. This is useful for promoting social collaboration and awareness in community-driven development, such as open source projects. While Twitter provides public social communication, integration with tools such as ThoughtWorks Studios’ Murmurs provides project-specific social communication.

Task Editor with Twitter section for social collaboration

IBM Rational Team Concert Connector

Tasktop’s new Rational Team Concert (RTC) Mylyn Connector provides the task-focused interface and Agile task management capabilities to developers using RTC. Developers are now able to instantly resume their coding session when switching work items, automatically track and update time estimates on user stories, and link between RTC and more than 50 ALM integrations provided by the Mylyn ecosystem. The RTC Connector is included with Tasktop Enterprise and available now through Tasktop’s Early Access program. Contact us to evaluate the RTC Connector in your environment.

IBM Rational Team Concert Mylyn Connector

Updated connectors

Tasktop includes the leading Mylyn connectors, and Tasktop 1.7 includes key enhancements to connectors such as IBM Rational Team Concert and ClearQuest, ThoughtWorks Studios Mingle, VersionOne, Perforce, Rally, JIRA and Bugzilla.

Eclipse updates for Microsoft Windows 7

The Eclipse 3.6 Helios release includes enhancements for Windows 7 developed by Tasktop in collaboration with Microsoft. These improvements benefit all Eclipse users on Windows 7 including developers using the IDE and end users who run Eclipse RCP applications. One of the notable enhancements is the ability to display task repository synchronization progress in the task bar, and create and activate tasks from the task bar in both the Eclipse-based and standalone Tasktop application.

Windows 7 task bar with synchronization progress indicator and Tasktop actions

Managed Connector Install

Connector install, update, and compatibility are all managed by the Tasktop application. Regardless of what commercial or open source integrations you have installed, Tasktop Certified tools are guaranteed to interoperate with each other and with your vendor-supported server install. This provides seamless interoperability no matter how diverse your ALM stack is, and ensures that you always have the latest and most compatible version of Tasktop, Mylyn and relevant connectors installed.

Managed Connector Installation Dashboard

New task list presentation

A key new feature in Mylyn 3.4 is the redesigned scheduled presentation, which now serves the purpose of showing what’s most important when working with a large Task List. Important tasks appear near the top based on when they are scheduled and whether they have unread changes made by colleagues or outgoing changes such as draft comments. Be sure to try the presentation with the Focus on Workweek button enabled if you are using scheduling, as an additional benefit is that it does not duplicate tasks, since tasks that show in a container will not reappear in a container below it.

New task list presentation reduces overload

		Read the Tasktop 1.7 press release
		See more new features and enhancements
		Download Tasktop 1.7

We’ve seen a steady stream of requests for Perforce integration and we’re pleased to join Perforce in announcing P4Mylyn, a Tasktop Certified Mylyn connector for the award-winning Perforce Fast Software Configuration Management System.

P4Mylyn is both a full-featured SCM connector and a task repository connector for “Jobs”, Perforce’s built-in defect tracking system. With the connector, Perforce teams can now take advantage of Mylyn’s SCM capabilities such as organizing commits by task, auto-generating comments, and navigating from code to the relevant task. Furthermore, thanks to the connector, Perforce can now be seamlessly integrated with the growing ecosystem of more than 45 compatible defect trackers and project management systems.

Perforce Jobs in the task list and modified files grouped by task

in the Synchronize view

Key Features

		Automatically track the context of Perforce-managed assets related to each task. This makes it easy to commit to Perforce (or revert) only the relevant changes when working on multiple tasks.
		Generate commit comments with links to the active task, creating seamless code-to-task navigation and traceability.
		Integrate Perforce with defect tracking and project management tools that have Mylyn connectors, such as Atlassian JIRA, Bugzilla, CollabNet TeamForge and ScrumWorks, IBM Rational ClearQuest and ClearCase, Rally, ThoughtWorks Studios Mingle and VersionOne.
		Access ‘Jobs’, Perforce’s built-in defect tracking system, using Mylyn’s task-focused interface. This gives developers complete visibility into the tasks their team members are working on and automatically links their own pending work to the Perforce job being fixed.
		Display only the changes relevant to a given task when using graphical differencing tools.

Perforce participation in the Mylyn project

Perforce has actively engaged with the Mylyn project and taken a key role in driving innovation in the Mylyn SCM APIs. This is great news for the entire Mylyn and Tasktop community as developers using any of the various Mylyn SCM connectors will benefit from the API upgrades, which make the SCM experience better integrated and more robust for everyone.

Get the P4Mylyn connector

P4Mylyn is included in the Perforce Plug-in for Eclipse. View installation instructions or install from within Eclipse using the Mylyn Connector Discovery via New Task > Install More Connectors…

Need Perforce? Download and evaluate Perforce free from the Perforce website.

Mik Kersten, Tasktop CEO and creator of the Eclipse Mylyn project, will be presenting at JAX 2010 in Mainz, Germany this week. Mik’s talks will cover new features in the latest Mylyn release and discuss the impact of Twitter and other forms of social collaboration on software development. Steffen Pingel, Senior Software Developer at Tasktop and Mylyn Committer, will deliver a talk on his experiences with bringing a Firefox-style install experience to the Eclipse platform. Here is the complete list of Tasktop and Mylyn related sessions.

		From Tasks to Tweets: Social Collaboration for Software Developers Mik Kersten, Wednesday, 4:15pm Developers are increasingly relying on social technologies to get work done. Some worry that constant real-time communication will bring productivity to a halt. But new technologies and practices are forming in order to help organizations harness social collaboration as part of an Agile process and integrated tool set. This talk will demonstrate how we can use the latest social tools alongside established ALM technologies to promote productivity instead of procrastination.
		Mylyn 3.4: from Stack Trace to Scrum Mik Kersten, Wednesday, 10:15am The rapid adoption of Mylyn has made next big evolution of the IDE clear. Stories and tasks are more central than sourcecode, focus is more important than features, and integration with the Agile workflow is the biggest productivity boost since code completion. This talk will review how new features in the latest Mylyn release and new integrations can make the entire Agile team more productive.
		Bringing easy Extension Install to your RCP Applications Steffen Pingel, Tuesday, 4:45pm Eclipse P2 is a powerful tool for managing plug-ins but lacks a UI that matches the ease of use of the Firefox extension installer which has helped to perpetuate the browsers success. To bring the Firefox install experience to RCP applications and Eclipse-based tools the Mylyn project has developed a reusable component on top of P2 that provides a simplified installer.

If you’d like to meet with a member of the Tasktop team at JAX 2010, contact us and we’ll arrange a convenient time.

“For many years, ColdFusion’s highest requested feature was an IDE” (Fusion Authority). With the recent release of ColdFusion Builder Adobe has met this need head on. Because ColdFusion Builder is built upon Eclipse developers can leverage many standard Eclipse plugins, and we have recently seen an explosion of interest in Tasktop Pro and Mylyn amongst the ColdFusion community. For ColdFusion developers this recent interest results in newly recorded webinars, blog posts, videos, and articles to help get started with this powerful toolset. Here’s a collection of some of our favorites.

Do you have news for the task-focused community? Send news to news@tasktop.com

What’s also real is a chance to win $50 in Starbucks coffee. Just register to attend and complete a short survey on the development tools used in your organization, then click the “Giveaway” button as shown in the screenshot below.

Tasktop Booth

We’re excited about the show because Tasktop is now playing an even more important role in tying together CollabNet’s products for Eclipse developers. With the recent acquisition of Danube, CollabNet now offers ScrumWorks Pro for Agile project management in addition to it’s flagship project management product, TeamForge. With the ScrumWorks Pro Connector and TeamForge integration, Tasktop provides a seamless way to access both CollabNet products through integrated access in the Eclipse IDE or from a standalone desktop application for project managers.

To learn more about Tasktop’s solutions for CollabNet and chat with the Tasktop team, register for the conference.

Virtual Conference Main Hall - Register

Mylyn fully supports task-focused programming for a growing number of languages and frameworks such as Java, C/C++, and Spring. Support for PHP development with Mylyn is now available as well. In the upcoming webinar Code at the Speed of Thought with Task-Focused Programming Mik Kersten, creator and lead of the Eclipse Mylyn project, and Roy Ganor, Zend Studios and Eclipse PDT project lead, will team up to demonstrate task-focused programming tools and techniques for PHP developers.

Mik and Roy will demo using the state of the art IDE platform for PHP development: Zend Studio with Tasktop Pro. The webinar will cover the basics of accessing bug and project tracking systems from inside the IDE and focusing the interface on only the PHP code relevant to the current task. While the webinar is aimed at developers who are new to Mylyn, it will also include a taste of more advanced programming productivity features such as task-focused version control and automated time tracking. Learn More

The new 2.0 release of the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse provides the latest and most complete access to Atlassian’s development and collaboration tools from within the Eclipse IDE. This provides developers with an integrated platform for managing issues, source code, builds, and code reviews. Combining the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse with Tasktop Pro delivers a further productivity boost by integrating more of a developer’s workflow including time tracking, email, calendars, and web browsing. To illustrate the benefits of this tooling I’ll walk you through a day in the life of a developer using the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse and Tasktop Pro.

8:00 am
	Organize the Day - When Developer Dave arrives at work his first order of business is to organize his workday. First he reviews updates to his tasks (JIRA issues) using the Task List (pictured). The notification icons, blue arrows, give him an overview of which tasks have changed and detailed change information is just a click away. Next Dave selects tasks to work on today using the “Schedule for” action. These tasks then appear in blue at the top of his Task List. As he organizes his Task List Dave also checks Tasktop Pro’s agenda view, noticing that his first meeting isn’t until 10:30 am.
8:30 am
	Work! - Once Dave has organized the workday he activates the next task at the top of his Task List, reviews his notes on the task, and begins working. As he works Mylyn tracks which files he uses for his task. In addition, Tasktop Pro tracks the web pages he views, and when he returns to the task later all of his files and web pages are automatically opened (see 1:30 pm). While working his Task List remains visible so that he can quickly respond to time-sensitive tasks. The change notification icon on a critical task will prompt him to respond quickly. He will process updates to less critical tasks in a batch when it is convenient.
10:30 am
	Perform Code Review - As Dave is working Tasktop Pro’s calendar notifies him that his team’s code review starts soon. He remembers that he wanted to add one more comment to the file under review and so he activates the review task, which in turn opens the file he was previously reviewing. He uses the normal code editor to add a comment to the review (pictured) and then heads off to the team’s review.
11:00 am
	Triage Public Bugs - Dave is in charge of triaging public bugs for his project. As he processes new bugs he will often assign the bug to an upcoming sprint. However, because these bugs are public, he may choose to use the “Send To” action to create an internal bug to mirror the public bug, thus allowing an internal discussion among developers. Tasktop Pro’s Associations (pictured) allows him to link these bugs even though they are in different repositories. This Associations Feature significantly smooths the developer’s experience.
12:00 pm
	Eat Lunch - Dave takes a break to eat at his favorite lunch spot.
1:00 pm
	Put Out a Fire - Dave is also in charge of monitoring the health of his project’s build. The Atlassian Connector for Eclipse provides a Build View, which Dave always has visible as a Fast View, allowing him to monitor builds without leaving Eclipse. When the Build View decorator goes red (pictured), indiciating a failed build, he opens the Build View to investigate the problem. From within the Build View he can create a task from a failed build and, more importantly, assign this task to the person responsible for breaking the build.
1:30 pm
	Resume Work - After fire-fighting Dave is able to immediately recapture the flow of his earlier task. He reactivates the task and the relevant files are automatically opened, the Package Explorer shows only those relevant files (pictured), and his private notes on the task remind him of the next step. Features like focusing, or showing only the files and elements relevant to the active task, saves Dave from having to remember which few files out of thousands were relevant to his task. When using Tasktop Pro Dave has the added convenience of linking any folder on his computer, thus extending this focusing to all of his file system.
4:45 pm
	Triage Email - While most of his development tasks are tracked via a bug tracker, Dave must often interface with external contacts who do not have access to a shared JIRA instance. They often send him “tasks” via email. Fortunately, when using Tasktop Pro, Dave can tag email which will then appear in his Task List. In the screenshot he’s tagged the “[get] cruise icons” email as a task. Using this system, he hardly ever drops an email.
5:00 pm
	Leave the Office - The countless small savings of the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse and Tasktop Pro have added up, and while other developers are still catching up on change notifications or manually creating tasks from email Dave is finished. He uses Tasktop Pro’s Time Tracking Dashboard to review his activity for the day (pictured), submit his time to the repository, and then he leaves.

Re-energize Your Workday

The Atlassian development stack is a powerful approach for managing the software lifecycle. With the release of the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse developers can integrate this stack into their daily workflow. As we saw with Dave the developer, the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse and Tasktop Pro removes many daily friction points, allowing developers to focus on high-level problems. To re-energize your workday add the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse and Tasktop Pro to your IDE today!

In December we launched the connector for ThoughtWorks Studios’ Mingle agile project management system. Today, we’re pleased to announce availability of additional connectors for ThoughtWorks Studios’ Cruise release managment and Twist test automation products. With innovations such as Murmurs and the upcoming Google Wave integration, ThoughtWorks Studios has been innovating at a rapid pace and we’re excited to be extending the reach of the entire ThoughtWorks Studios Adaptive ALM product suite into the Eclipse IDE.

Cruise Connector

The Cruise Connector allows developers to access and manage their Cruise continuous integration servers from within the Eclipse IDE. Cruise servers are easily configured in Eclipse much like Mylyn or Tasktop task repositories. Once configured, the build view provides facilities to initiate builds and monitor build status. Integration with the Mingle Connector makes it easy to create and assign new tasks in Mingle to correct build failures.

Cruise Builds View in Eclipse

When developing in Eclipse, screen real estate is precious. This means that the Cruise Build view won’t always be visible. A best practice is to use a fast view as shown below to minimize the view while not in use. The fast view icon indicates the current build status and clicking the icon restores the full build view.

The Cruise fast view icon indicates build status without occupying screen space

Twist Connector

The Twist Connector bridges ThoughtWorks Studios’ Twist test automation tool with the Eclipse IDE and the Mingle and Cruise components of the Adaptive ALM product suite. This allows developers to manage Twist scenarios, Cruise builds and Mingle cards without leaving the development environment. The Connector leverages task-focused interface technology to focus the Scenarios view on only the scenarios that are relevant for the currently active Mingle card. When Twist tests fail, new cards reporting the corresponding defects can be added to Mingle from Eclipse with a few clicks.

Focused Scenarios view and enhanced Scenarios Editor

Integrated access to Mingle and Twist

Availability

The latest version of Tasktop, version 1.6.2, is available now and includes the connectors for ThoughtWorks Studios Mingle and Cruise. The Twist connector will be available next Wednesday March 31st when Twist 2.0 is released.

Learn more about the Mingle Connector

Download Tasktop Pro with ThoughtWorks Studios Connectors