Issue Tracking Systems

4.2Cube°n

Homepage: http://code.google.com/p/cubeon/

Supported IDE: NetBeans

Supported TS: JIRA, Trac

License: Open source

Development status: Production/Stable

Screen shot : Cube°n – Overview

Cube°n is a task-focused UI for NetBeans IDE. It is a quite new project started as part of Google’s “Summer of Code 2008”. Same like Mylyn, it connects to various issue tracking systems using connectors; however, as it does not have so long a history and a smaller group of developers; it only has Trac and JIRA connectors working so far.

[TSI-GUN2]

Installation

Cube°n can be installed easily just by checking the checkboxes within the “Tools – Plugins” window.

User Interface

Again, as shown in the image above (screen shot 56), the UI can be divided into couple components:

1. 
   Task Repositories
   

Task repositories are used for management of connections to repositories and also for creating and executing Task Queries.

Screen shot : Cube°n – Task Repositories & Queries

Task Queries can be either remote (e.g. in JIRA, one can use filters that have been defined) or can be local. It is also possible to combine both – a local query can be applied upon the results of a remote query.

Screen shot : Cube°n - Create a new query

2. 
   Task Query Result View
   

After selecting a query in the Task Repository window, the list of tasks is displayed.

Screen shot : Cube°n - Task Query Result View

From here, the user can open and start editing the task.

3. 
   Task Explorer
   

Task Explorer is another view for currently opened tasks. It provides the following features:

• 
  tasks can be categorized into “Folders;”
  
• 
  tasks can be filtered and sorted (by priority, status, etc.);
  
• 
  synchronization with repository queries; and
  
• 
  task icon budging (for example, priority).
  

Screen shot : Cube°n - Task Explorer

If Task is activated from Task Editor, it will automatically switch to Task Context View in Task Explorer. This is the view which would allow the user to:

• 
  add any source to a task (if it is on the open projects class path);
  
• 
  add and manage subtasks and related tasks; and
  
• 
  add to task stack traces (automatically).
  

Screen shot : Cube°n - Task Explorer in Task Context View mode

It seems to be a clumsy way of enabling IDE to display only relevant information on the currently processed task, if compared with Mylyn.

4. 
   Task Editor
   

Task editor consists of two tabs:

• 
  Details tab –shows information about the request ticket and allows the user to edit and manipulate it.
  
• 
  Comment tab –comments to the ticket are displayed and can be added.
  

Screen shot : Cube°n - Task Editor

Another quite clumsy factor is that all edits are first stored locally, and the user must push the ``Synchronize`` button to send it to the repository.

Conclusion

It is quite obvious where developers of Cube°n take their inspiration. Cube°n offers most of the functionality of Mylyn; however, it is still quite behind its “older brother” in usability. At the moment though, there is nothing better for NetBeans IDE and at least there is some kind of tool for these users.

4.3CodeBeamer ALM plug-in

Homepage: http://www.javaforge.com/wiki/41101 (NetBeans version)

https://codebeamer.com/cb/project/265 (Eclipse version)

Supported IDE: Eclipse, NetBeans

Supported TS: CodeBeamer

License: Open source

Development status: Production/Stable

Screen shot : CodeBeamer ALM plug-in for NetBeans

Intland Software offers to CodeBeamer also a plug-in, which brings their product features to both Eclipse and NetBeans IDE. With CodeBeamer ALM plug-in one can:

• 
  connect to a CodeBeamer 5.0 server and access projects with one`s IDE;
  
• 
  connect to one or more servers at the same time;
  
• 
  work with multiple projects on different servers;
  
• 
  display projects in an Explorer window;
  
• 
  access tracker, forums, build, reports, and documents in a project;
  
• 
  create a new tracker and forums;
  
• 
  create, edit, delete, modify tracker items and forum postings;
  
• 
  filter a tracker and forums with Groovy filter;
  
• 
  access all documents that are part of a project; and
  
• 
  automate project and process management using Groovy scripts that can control all project resources.
  

The difference between Mylyn/Cube°n and CodeBeamer ALM plug-in can be seen at first sight. The CodeBeamer ALM plug-in does not try to be universal, but focuses only one issue tracking system and tries to provide all its features.

[TSI-INT1] [TSI-INT3]

Installation

The CodeBeamer ALM plug-in is distributed as a package of modules, which need to be manually imported into the IDE plug-in repository. It is not as complicated as it may sound - everything is well-explained on the plug-ins home page.

[TSI-INT3]

User Interface

As usual UIs offer a few components; however, in this case configuration and usage of this plug-in is perhaps the easiest to understand so far. Usability designers have done a very good job.

1. 
   Project Explorer
   

From this window, all project items can be easily managed. The user just chooses from the tree what he or she finds interesting. There is no problem to have multiple projects opened at the same time, same as having opened connections to multiple CodeBeamer servers.

Screen shot : CodeBeamer ALM plug-in - Project Explorer

2. 
   Results View
   

As a query is selected in the Project Explorer or a search is conducted, it is here where the results are displayed as a list of items with which one can very easily work.

Screen shot : CodeBeamer ALM plug-in - Results View

3. 
   Editor
   

Within the editor, the user can view and edit all things managed by projects. Not only can one issue tickets in Tracker, but also discussion threads, reports, wiki pages, etc. All features are located in one place.

Screen shot : CodeBeamer ALM plug-in - Editor

Conclusion

The CodeBeamer ALM plug-in is a top product. It allows one to easily work with all what a CodeBeamer application can offer. A user interface is simple to use and very intuitive. Three main windows handle all the operations – that is the main benefit this plug-in brings. It is also very good since it is available for both Eclipse and NetBeans IDE environments.
One small minus is that sometimes the plug-in was quite slow – probably because it was loading too much of data at once from CodeBeamer (e.g. there was a query which should have returned about 200 results, and CodeBeamer tried to download all of them at once and the author had to wait until it finished before being able to do any further actions – the whole IDE stacked), but this can be and probably will be fixed in one of the upcoming versions.