About this document

This page is a working document mapping out Thalia's plans for upcoming features and release dates. While it provides an outline, it is likely to change as priorities shift and new issues arise. If there's a feature or fix you urgently need, please contact us.

For further background information, please see:

RELEASES 

Current Release: Thalia 1.0

The current release is Thalia version 1.0. It represents the work done in Sprint 6b, and will be released on July 16th. It includes improved download, allowing downloaded items to be easily re-imported with all of their metadata, improved multiple item edit enabling deletion of in-common values on multiple items, direct links to individual items for re-use of images in other websites, and improved error messaging.

Upcoming Release Schedule

ICEFISH (Sprint 7)
Release to Production December 16th
QA Phase November 10th - December 16th

  • Support for Moira groups
  • Touchstone support
  • Unicode support: fix bugs that are related to incomplete unicode support
  • Administrative interface to create and manage metadata mapping
  • Bug fixes as necessary for product stability
  • Monitoring tools*
  • Turnkey installation process*
  • Simplify backup and restore*

* Required before we can take on any additional customers. Note that those features may occur independently of the release date, and we will make every effort to complete them before October.

STARFISH (Sprint 8)
Date TBD

  • Make project OpenSource
    • Switch to alfresco community release
    • Choose licensing model
    • Publish code on SourceForge
  • Start on ORCA, the next version of the UI which will be a non-flash version emphasizing skinnable modules for ease of integration and reuse
    • Key Attributes of ORCA
      • Modular pieces
      • AJAX, javascript, not flash
      • Use standard design patterns as much as possible
      • Highly skinnable: css/stylesheet oriented
      • Compatibile with moodle
      • All modules should be like embedding youtube video in a page, or google apis
    • First Steps:
      • Explore techology options - what toolkits, design patterns
      • Identify modules

OCTOPUS:
Operations changes and improvements, on a parallel track with Thalia development work.

  • SAN expected to arrive january


Past Releases

STINGRAY (Sprint 6b) Changes - released July 16th

Multi-item edit is greatly improved - shows common data so that you can delete common metadata and tags.
Improved error messaging, particularly in bulk upload. (Will give detailed error messaging when there is a problem with an import, with reference to which line of the metadata file failed, and why).
Direct links to items available
Keyboard support: improved tabbing between fields when entering/editing metadata
Filename, size, date modified and created are now also shown in the item info pane
Fixed problem with line breaks not being preserved when editing items.
Download improvements:

  • includes a file called results.txt which reports on any files that could not be downloaded
  • includes metadata for all downloaded files in two formats, xml and a tab-delimited text file format which can be used to reimport the images and their metadata
  • metadata files include custom metadata and tags in addition to Dublin core

JELLYFISH (Sprint 6a) Changes - released May 7, 2008

Bulk upload allows free-form tags to be specified in the metadata file in addition to the other metadata fields.
Shopping cart feature for PSB

Sprint 5 Changes - released April 2, 2008

Access to Thalia's help files has been made more prominent in more areas of the application.
Additional keyboard support: your keyboard's Delete key will now delete a selected item, Enter will accept the default input for a dialog, and the Escape key will cancel/close dialogs within the application, as you normally see in desktop applications.
Share saved searches
Ability to edit item's metadata from the search results window.
Thalia will now generate thumbnail preview images for PDF, AI and EPS files, as the system already does for standard image files.

Sprint 4 Changes - released 2/6/08

Implement new access control rules: Some changes to the access control system in Thalia should make it easier for you to share content with who you do want, and restrict access to others to meet your particular needs.
Improve custom metadata user interface
Other user interface improvements: loading libraries, albums, and slideshows, and the uploading of single and multiple files that should make these things faster and easier.
Downloadable slideshow: when you need to make a presentation someplace wit questionable internet access, you can download your slideshow ahead of time and run it directly off your laptop
XML schema research
Bulk download: download multiple files
Support for Safari on the macintosh
Reduce the bug list 

Sprint 3 - released 12/12/07

Major user interface redesign.
Wildcard search: for example, a search for "ca*" will return all your images titled "cat", "car", or "cannon".
Added free-form tags in addition to structured metadata
Faster application startup.
Bug fixes


About this Roadmap and Planning Releases

What is a project roadmap?

It's a rough plan of upcoming releases and what changes they'll contain.  Those changes may be new features, or bug fixes, or behind-the-scenes improvements.

How are Thalia versions planned? What determines which changes are in a release? 

We may want to add a new feature, especially one users have been asking for.  Sometimes a new feature requires other changes. We might make those changes in one release and add the new feature in a later one.

When planning each release, we include a set of bugs to fix.  We prioritize bugs based on its impact on the user; the worst bugs go to the head of the line.  If a bug is discovered during testing, it may take precedence and bump other planned work to a later release. Sometimes a bugfix is trivial, and a developer will do it in the course of other changes.

Thalia will be used by other MIT services, such as Stellar.  We implement some features based on the downstream service's needs and schedule.   

There are two programmers behind Thalia's wizardry, each with a specialty. It may seem like something less urgent is included in a release while something more urgent was deferred. This may be because the developer who would make the change is already fully scheduled for a release.

Finally, project plans may be affected by vendors. Thalia uses some third-party software to power storage. We may incorporate a vendor's  software updates in a release, or defer a feature until a later release of the vendor's software.

In short, the plan changes as development and testing takes place.  We base releases off of the plan, but adapt to respond as needs and circumstance arise.

The roadmap is not a commitment.  If there's a feature or fix you urgently need, please contact us.  We take customer needs into account as we plan, and we need to hear from you. 

What's a Sprint? 

When we plan a new version, we divide the work up into chunks.  A sprint is one chunk of work.  Each sprint lasts about six weeks. This allows us to release changes in small, controlled batches.  As a result, the releases are easier to test and more stable.  Customers can use new features as soon as they're done, instead of waiting until next semester.


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