Tasktop Blog

Today marks the start of a major extension of Eclipse and Mylyn’s reach into Agile project management. We’re very pleased to announce a partnership with VersionOne to develop an Eclipse Mylyn connector for VersionOne’s Agile planning and project management platform. The Tasktop Certified VersionOne Connector will be included in Tasktop Pro and available as a plugin for any Eclipse-based IDE or as a standalone desktop application for product owners.

One of the features we will be leveraging in VersionOne is their open and extensible platform approach to project management. VersionOne’s Team and Enterprise products provide comprehensive core of agile project planning and management tools. These tools are extended with a REST web service API as well as open source SDKs for both Java and .NET to facilitate integration with the rest of an organization’s unique tool stack. This open approach has led to an impressive ecosystem of integrations with defect trackers, version control system, build systems and more.

With the upcoming Mylyn and Tasktop Pro integration, VersionOne’s interoperability will take another giant leap forward in two key ways. First, VersionOne is joining the ecosystem of 42 interoperable Mylyn connectors. This will allow development teams in complex environments to seamlessly access VersionOne alongside artifacts from other supported systems as well as move and link artifacts across systems, all from within the IDE. Second, integration with Tasktop Pro will enable VersionOne artifacts to be linked with web pages, local documents, and applications such as Microsoft Outlook.

Of course, the Connector will also allow VersionOne teams to take full advantage of Mylyn’s task-focused productivity technology to focus the interface on only the code, documents and web pages that are relevant for a given VersionOne story, defect or task.

Feature Highlights

		Access VersionOne from any Eclipse-based IDE
		Standalone desktop application with offline access to VersionOne artifacts
		Link VersionOne stories with artifacts in other Tasktop Certified repositories
		Automatic time tracking and reporting
		Task-focused interface productivity technology
		Easy installation from the Mylyn Connector Discovery listing in the Eclipse IDE

We’ve received fifty requests for VersionOne integration and look forward to releasing the connector in March, 2010. Sign up on the VersionOne Connector page to be notified of future announcements.

Today’s Tasktop Pro 1.6.1 release includes a new Mylyn connector for the Mingle 3.0 project management software from ThoughtWorks Studios, the products division of the global Agile consultancy, ThoughtWorks. The connector takes Mingle’s emphasis on team collaboration to a new level by making it effortless for team members to access and communicate around Mingle cards without leaving the IDE.

What makes our collaboration with ThoughtWorks so exciting is that it has yielded the first social network extension to the task-focused interface. Starting on a cool task? Just murmur it much as you would send a tweet. The integration with the task editor is seamless. Stuck on something? Attach your task context, murmur for help, and colleagues on the project will have instant access to the code you’re squinting at.

	Watch the Mingle Connector Video

What’s a murmur?

Mingle’s Murmurs™ support casual conversations much like Twitter or IM chats. But instead of being lost in Twitter or IM, the communication is captured on artifacts in Mingle for easy reference. With the Mingle Connector, Murmurs can be sent directly from the IDE and it’s easy to view all murmurs relevant to a particular development task or card.

 
Focus on your cards

The Mingle Mylyn Connector fully supports task-focused programming productivity. Mingle cards in the task list can be activated to automatically track and show only the most relevant source code, web pages and documents for a given card. For example, when working on a million line code base, the task-focused interface might show only the 2 files and 12 lines of code that are relevant for the bug fix in progress. When returning to the same bug after an interruption, or after lunch, a single click instantly restores the workspace to its previous state, including open editors. This means far less time is spent repeatedly searching and scrolling to find the relevant code and other information. For more on task-focused programming, watch the Tasktop for Carbide screencast which demonstrates the concepts using the Eclipse-based Carbide IDE.

 
Automate time tracking

Because Tasktop users activate their tasks or cards to benefit from the task-focused interface, the time spent on each card is already available. Each Mingle card includes a time tracking section that provides a summary of how much time was spent during a given period. Time spent can be adjusted as needed to account for meetings, design time at the whiteboard etc. before uploading the data directly to Mingle.

 
What about Twist and Cruise?

Mingle is a part of ThoughtWorks Studios’ Adaptive ALM product suite that includes Twist test automation and Cruise release management products. Further Tasktop Pro integration with Twist and Cruise will be available in March 2010. Sign up to be notified about further integration on the ThoughtWorks Studios Connector page.

 
Try it

The Mingle Mylyn Connector is now included in Tasktop Pro. Download a free trial

If using an IDE based on Eclipse 3.5 or later with Mylyn installed, Tasktop Pro can also be installed via the Connector Discovery wizard by clicking “New Task” in the Task List toolbar and then clicking the “More Connectors…” button.

Need Mingle? Download a free Mingle trial

Open discourse brings conflicts out from behind closed doors. A while back I was involved with an open source conflict that degraded technical discussions to power struggles. I looked to Bjorn Freeman-Benson and Mike Milinkovich the help resolve that conflict. This week, countless eyes were peeled on Planet Eclipse as a very public conflict arose between the two of them.

Open source passions often transcend organizational and professional boundaries. That’s what makes someone bored with their day job contribute to Eclipse on evenings and weekends. It’s what makes someone like Bjorn continue to be invested in the success of Eclipse long after he has moved on from his job as the Director of the Committer Community.

Mike, Mik and Bjorn at EclipseCon 2008