M Cubed Blog

Introduction to Lighthouse Keeper: Beyond 1.0

Posted by on 22/08 at 12:15 PM in Lighthouse Keeper

In previous posts we've seen some of the features that will make up Lighthouse Keeper 1.0. In this final post is focused on what is missing from 1.0, why it's missing and what the aims for the future of Lighthouse Keeper are. I feel it's important to let people know where something is going so they don't get any misconceptions about it.

So what features of Lighthouse are missing? Below is a list of things that haven't made it into 1.0 and roughly when you can expect them:

1. Milestones with no due date. This was brought to my attention during the beta. As I'm very strict with my versions I do not put any new features into a version after it has reached beta. The reason for this is simply that new features (even small ones) add bugs and in a beta you're meant to be removing bugs, not adding them. This will be coming in 1.0.1.

2. Creating/modifying/deleting projects. This is one of those things I simply didn't have time for. As it's a relatively rare occurrence I opted to leave it out. This will be making an appearance in 1.1.

3. Editing a ticket's body. Unfortunately the Lighthouse API doesn't support this at the moment. There are quite a few things in this category and I'll look into adding them as soon as the guys at Lighthouse manage to get them into the API.

4. Changesets. I'll be blunt, I've never used them. As such I first need to familiarise myself with them before I can start designing how they'll work within the app. Hopefully these will make an appearance in a later 1.x version.

5. Messages. These are in the same boat as changesets.

6. Editing user profile. The is another one of those things not in the API.

7. Modifying user permissions. And another.

8. Share a ticket bin with others. And another.

Obviously this isn't an exhaustive list of what I have planned. I'm wanting Lighthouse Keeper to go beyond what Lighthouse offers on its own and take full advantage of the fact that its a desktop app, but I will reveal these in due course.

So this concludes this series of blog posts introducing you to Lighthouse Keeper. Lighthouse Keeper 1.0 will be being released next Wednesday, the 27th of August so make sure you come back to download a free trial, which allows you to manage the first project in your account and only update your accounts manually. In the mean time, make sure you sign up for a Lighthouse account and get the benefits of the best issue tracker on the web right now.

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Introduction to Lighthouse Keeper: Searching

Posted by Pilky on 20/08 at 02:19 PM in Lighthouse Keeper

So far in this series I've shown you the power the desktop gives with offline viewing, a more responsive user interface and faster and easier access to tickets. In this post I will be covering another feature which is key to issue trackers, but is made better when combined with the power found on the desktop: searching.

The search field is ever present in the top right of the screen. From here you can search your tickets at any time. Lighthouse limits you to searching through tickets on a project by project basis, but Lighthouse Keeper allows you to search through all your tickets in all projects across all of your accounts. It does this via the filter bar, which appears every time you start typing in the search field. Depending on your selection in the source list it will also offer options for narrowing your search by the selected project or selected milestone/ticket bin.

One thing that is key to Lighthouse Keeper, is making as much of it function in the same way as Lighthouse itself. One requirement of this is the search syntax. Any query that you can use in Lighthouse you can also use in Lighthouse Keeper to give you the same results. For a full overview of the searching syntax visit the Lighthouse help page.

One feature that a surprising number of people don't seem to pick up on in Lighthouse are Ticket Bins. These are essentially saved searches, a bit like Smart Playlists in iTunes. Lighthouse Keeper offers support for ticket bins on an equal footing with milestones to help you take better advantage of them.

Over the past 3 posts I've talked about some of the features that will make it into Lighthouse Keeper 1.0. In the final post in this series I'll be describing what hasn't made it and why as well as what you can expect from the future.

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Introduction to Lighthouse Keeper: Tickets

Posted by Pilky on 13/08 at 12:23 PM in Lighthouse Keeper

In my last post I introduced you to parts of Lighthouse Keeper that help make issue tracking much easier and more hassle free. In this post I'll be going into more detail about the most vital unit of currency in any issue tracker: tickets. To be a good issue tracker you need to allow users to quickly and easily add, view and update tickets. Lighthouse Keeper takes this to a new level.

You will likely spend most of your time in the tickets list in the top right of your screen. This gives you an overview of the tickets in the selected project, milestone or ticket bin (or just all your tickets if you haven't anything selected in the source list). There are columns available for almost every bit of information about your tickets, and you can show or hide them by right clicking on the menu.

Now when you look over to the left of the tickets list you may have one of two reactions:

- "Ooo, purty colours!"
- "My eyes, they burn!"

This will depend on your affinity to the Lighthouse defaults for state colours. If you're finding these colours a bit bright you can edit them in Lighthouse in your "Edit Project" page (these are project specific). Unfortunately you can't change this from within Lighthouse Keeper yet, but I will be adding it in a future version.

Below the ticket list is the ticket details pane. This give you more detail about the ticket, including body and its history. Each comment and change is displayed in the bubbles below the body. Nothing much special here... yet.

So we've covered viewing, what about adding and updating tickets? Well as I said when I introduced Lighthouse Keeper, the metaphor I finally settled on for a ticket is that of email. As such the Add/Update ticket windows are pretty similar to what you would find in Mail. I'm not going to go into this in too much detail, a picture says a thousand words:

I will give a useful tip for when adding or updating a ticket though. As you would expect you can tab all the way through the fields on the window, but when you've reached the bottom you'll find that you're reaching for the mouse to click the submit button in the toolbar. You can instead use the Cmd-S short cut to submit the details of the front-most ticket window, allowing you to submit a ticket without removing your hands from the keyboard.

One of the very first requirements I had for Lighthouse Keeper was to be able to start adding a ticket quickly and easily from anywhere. There were many times I got a support email about a bug but never filed a ticket because I would have had to open Safari, log into Lighthouse, select the project and choose "Add New Ticket" before filling out the details. As such Lighthouse Keeper lets you set a global hotkey to start adding a new ticket.

Another useful feature is the ability to copy a ticket. Copying is essentially adding a new ticket with all the fields auto filled with those of a previous ticket. How is this useful? Well it helps if you have a ticket similar to one you want to file, but it also makes the task of moving a ticket to another project much easier, which is great for those with a public project for customer issue tracking and a private project for internal issue tracking.

All issue trackers make it easy to manage tickets, but Lighthouse Keeper is helping take that to an all new level of speed and usability. But adding, viewing and editing tickets are only part of the equation. These features aren't very useful if you can't find the ticket you want quickly and easily. Come back in a few days to see the 3rd post in this series: Searching.

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Introduction to Lighthouse Keeper: Offline Viewing and UI

Posted by on 06/08 at 04:21 PM in Lighthouse Keeper

Welcome to the first of 4 blog posts in which I'll be introducing you to some of the key features of Lighthouse Keeper in the run up to its launch. This week I'm going to highlight the offline viewing capabilities available and the UI.

In order to ensure faster loading, Lighthouse Keeper downloads all your projects, users, tickets, milestones and ticket bins on its first launch and stores them on your computer. Another consequence of this is that you also have access to your tickets from anywhere, with full viewing and searching capabilities whether you're connected to the internet or not.

Of course being offline does have some drawbacks. Your tickets may not be the most recent versions available. You will also not be able to add, modify or delete any items in Lighthouse Keeper while you are offline. In future versions I will be adding support for you to 'queue' changes to be performed when you get back online so that you can keep working, even when you're away from an internet connection.

This is just one of many features in LHK that is made possible through the power of the desktop. Another important aspect that many may not consider a feature is actually the most important part of the application: the user interface.

No, DeskTidy isn't a secret M Cubed app. It's just a test project.

By having all the data stored on your computer the user interface can be so much faster and succinct than a website. All your projects, ticket bins and milestones are readily accessible from the source list on the left of the screen, with the number of open tickets in each item displayed in badges.

All your tickets are available in the top right and moving between them just takes a key press, with the entire ticket history being displayed below. Searching is ever present and provides results instantly.

Lighthouse Keeper allows you to get to the information you need faster and more easily anywhere you can take your computer. These features help make issue tracking hassle free, which in turn means you are more likely to use it. Watch this space for the next post in this series, about the objects you will use every day: tickets.

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