Tracking Projects
Written on August 15, 2008 by Jay Datema
Though Basecamp is an excellent use of Ruby on Rails, its interesting design choices can make it difficult for tracking code at the issue level.
My brilliant new colleague, Mark Matienzo, pushed to hack something together. So in a lunch hour, we did.
Labs Code (for want of a better name) uses the Drupal project and project issue module to list projects, link back to Basecamp, and into our subversion repository.
The best part is, you can build this for yourself:
1. Install the latest version
2. Check out the modules we used to build it
3. I’m a big fan of the Blueprint CSS framework and the associated theme
The easiest way to put everything together is by using Drush, aka Drupal for the shell, along with Update Status.
Once you have that in place, go to your Drupal site root, and this command will take you the rest of the way:
drush pm install activitystream adminrole commentrss comment_upload commitlog diff drush drush_mm event invite nodetype pathauto poormanscron project project_issue recent_changes rsvp sitedoc smtp taxonomy_manager teleport token update_status versioncontrol versioncontrol_svn
Caveat: This works with Drupal 5, not 6.
Bonus: Activity Stream lets you post any feed, which we’ve used a easy method for associating saved searches to the Digital Gallery, etc.
Also: the Version Control API project lets you integrate commit logs and associate them with Drupal users.
As this is a work in progress, I’m curious what other libraries are using to track code and issue status? Anyone using something better?
Filed in: CSS, Code, Collaboration, Design, Development, Frameworks.
Where I work (design agency, not library), we’re using Trac with a fair amount of success. It’s open-source, so it can usually be integrated with your other software. (We used it with SVN, Basecamp, Campfire, and automated Rails builds). There seem to be a number of people fiddling with Drupal+Trac, although it would probably be an exclusive alternative to what you’ve put together already. Still, a good source of ideas.
Neat idea, Jay. Its still unclear to me how this hooks into Basecamp. Can you explain that more?