Messages

976

Definitions / What is OpenGoo?

« on: June 24, 2008, 02:53:30 am »

After all this time (Wow, it's only been a year?!) when confronted with the simple question: "What is OpenGoo?" I still find it hard to give a simple, straightforward answer.

Why is that?

First, we started by calling it a 'Web Office'. I even contributed a lot to the definition of the term in Wikipedia, which was later moved to 'Online Office', clear sign that the moderator I argued with was right, it was, and still is, a neologism. But Online Office doesn't sound cool, right?

Then I came across the tags people used for OpenGoo at del.icio.us, and the tag cloud clearly shows that most people would rather call it 'Groupware'. Now, to me, 'Groupware' sounds old. It reminds me of eGroupWare (which I admire, but feel it a bit too Web 1.0), and Wikipedia redirects 'Groupware' to the 'Collaborative software'. Besides, OpenGoo is a great tool for individuals too, not just groups. For instance, it has many of the features of Apple's new 'mobile me.

So how would you define OpenGoo?

977

Announcements / OpenGoo 0.6.6 released

« on: June 24, 2008, 01:56:49 am »

OpenGoo 0.6.6 is out, with lots of goodies:

• Workspace Hierarchy. It is now possible to create workspaces inside workspaces! This allows for more flexibility to organize your work. For example, you could have in your Company a workspace for Development, which you can now subdivide into workspaces for Programming, Testing, Design, etc. When browsing the Development workspace you can see all of the items of all its child workspaces in a single, unified view.
• Better Search. Searching for you files, contacts or mail is much more user-friendly now. Look and feel, as well as the underlying mechanism, were enhanced to improve your searching experience.
• Better Usability. Adding and editing items is now easier. We put lots of thinking into the User Interface (UI), so we expect an improved overall experience. Feedback is not only welcome, but necessary.
• Small improvements and bug fixing. Many small improvements were made and many bugs were solved. OpenGoo is now compatible with PHP versions 5.0 and 5.1.
• Upgrading. Last but definitely not least, OpenGoo can now be easily upgraded while still keeping your information. Starting from version 0.6.4 you can upgrade OpenGoo by following the instructions on the readme.txt file, and you can enjoy all of the new functionality without any hassle to migrate your previous data.

Next Steps

We are still working on making OpenGoo a more stable product. There are several bugs to fix and things to improve, and there's a long list of new features to add. OpenGoo is currently beta quality software, so you are not advised to use it on a production environment. However, it is usable, and in fact we ourselves are using it internally. So one more time: use at your discretion.

Some features that will be available on the next (version 0.7, mid-July) release are:

• Sharing items between different workspaces
• Improved task management
• Overall usability issues
• More bugs fixed (less bugs)

Please help OpenGoo by reporting any bugs you find. You can do so at the SourceForge.net tracker for OpenGoo. Thank you!

978

Ideas / Re: 2008 - OpenGoo tickets (?)

« on: June 17, 2008, 05:03:04 pm »

Hi tgeorge. Great input!

I'll give you a quick feedback, as per current development and roadmap status...

1. Would be great. It is hard, and we are not ready yet. It could make for a perfect side-project for anyone willing to do it.

2. Again, great feature, but VERY hard. We have a team working on that at a University grade project. We will start seeing results closer to the end of the year.

3. Firefox is default right now. Release 0.7 (July) will fully support FFox and IExplorer. Next in line (August) will be Safari. Opera is still not on schedule. Code-volunteers very welcome!

4. My vote is for Jabber. Not enough coders to work on it, for the moment.

5. We have added many privacy config options on version 0.6.4, and will keep adding. This is an area we are working heavily on.

6. Yeap, cool feature to add. Maybe for version 0.9 (September).

979

Architecture / Re: Is OpenGoo completely developed in PHP or Java.

« on: June 16, 2008, 11:19:46 pm »

That statement is outdated and confusing indeed.

After some initial tests done in Java, we decided to go the PHP way.

Main reasons why we used PHP:

• Lighter on the server: you can run OpenGoo on the cheapest hosting servers (6 US$/month)
• Popular in the Open Source community: Most Open Source projects we admire are done in PHP, and many developers know PHP, and we want the community to contribute
• Many OpSource projects to hack into OGoo: the old ActiveCollab, FCKEditor, Trimspreadsheets (while it lasted),

There is a great -kind of Open Source- product done in Java: Zimbra. It has many of the features OpenGoo offers. Maybe that's the right product for you?

We estimate that, on the future, there might be some plug-ins that could need a JVM (we might use OpenOffice.org as a server for converting different document formats). But for now, we want to keep OpenGoo small, and agile.

980

Ideas / On Adam's second idea

« on: June 16, 2008, 09:08:02 pm »

I am with Ignacio here: I am not sure I get the idea.

Any references?

981

Ideas / Re: 2008 - Ideas for the future of OpenGoo

« on: June 16, 2008, 09:05:44 pm »

Hello Adam.

Thank you for your contribution!

On the Skype integration, maybe what Skype already provides could suit you needs? It installs a plugin in both Firefox and IExplorer that picks phone numbers and lets you call right away.

I think I once saw a way of taging a skype name that skype also picked up, but I can't remember the details (and I have a cold so I will not do the research today, and maybe somebody else did it recently...)

Maybe OpenGoo can tag skype names that way and display it on the contact info.

One bad news is that when I coincidentally intended to try this plugin on my Firefox (on Vista) last week, it didn't work. And IExplorer still has some issues with OpenGoo. ;-)

982

General Discussion / Vote for OpenGoo

« on: June 06, 2008, 12:21:02 pm »

Is OpenGoo your favorite project of all the world? Or just for a particular category? 

If you think OpenGoo is worthy of an award, you can vote for it at the SourceForge.net 2008 Community Choice Awards.

983

General Discussion / OpenGoo 0.6.4 released!

« on: June 06, 2008, 11:27:04 am »

This is an important milestone for the OpenGoo project. While still a RC of a beta, version 0.6.4 has undergone enough testing and bug-fixing as to make it 'usable' by potential - non-developer  - users.

There are still known bugs, plenty of usability issues, and some features we want add before calling it a finished, polished, first version.

We now encourage everyone interested in testing OpenGoo to install version 0.6.4, and give your feedback, either here or by the SourceForge bug tracking system.

Thanks everyone for helping grow OpenGoo as a community, and towards becoming the best Online Office (and Knowledge Management) suite!

984

General Discussion / Re: 0.6.2!!! New!! version!!!

« on: May 20, 2008, 12:37:36 pm »

Hi tgeorge. You beat us at posting about 0.6.2.

As Ignacio already noted, this is still a development version. Version 0.6.4, scheduled for June 2, should be much more robust (while still in beta, it should be useful in very controlled environments).

Thanks for your comments, and keep 'em coming.

985

General Discussion / Re: Task BUG

« on: May 12, 2008, 12:18:34 pm »

Matt,

There are a couple of issues on this post:

1. The "type" attribute for the task.
From my view, a good thing. Maybe we should implement a mechanism to vote for whether new functionality should be added to a standard installation, or be left as add-ins (and then, we should have an elegant way to make plug-ins).

2. Contributing code
Currently, core developers all know each other, so it is -fairly- easy to cooperate on the code. We constantly seek to grow the community so that OpenGoo could benefit from the real power of Open Source: its community.

We do not have much experience with other mainstream Open Source projects, so we are open to suggestions on how to policy and pursue contributions.

We wan OpenGoo to realize its full potential!

986

General Discussion / Re: Version 0.6.0 (RC1) is for developers only

« on: May 12, 2008, 11:11:51 am »

Hi Matt. How are you?

You can download the latest version (currently 0.6.0) from sourceforge, but this one is quite buggy. Depending on when you are planning to carry out the tests, you might want to wait until the end of this week for version 0.6.2, which will fix many of the detected bugs.

Also, at the end of the month, we will be releasing 0.6.4, which should be pretty robust (while still in beta).

Those plugins would be great! Lets discuss those ideas further if you will.

987

General Discussion / Version 0.6.0 (RC1) is for developers only

« on: May 03, 2008, 10:08:56 am »

OpenGoo version 0.6.0 (RC1) has been released. It is aimed at developers only, and for a simple reason: it has many bugs. So please, do not install this on a production server, as you would get very disappointed.

The goal of this release is to serve as a preview of what 0.6 will look like. On the coming days the development team will be releasing frequent versions (at least weekly), improving (debugging) 0.6 quality. If all goes as planned, OGoo 0.6 will reach a quite more stable phase by the end of the month.

Again, bear in mind that the team is still learning to work together, that this is our most ambitious release so far (you will notice that right away trying the preview), and that this is a preview release. With all that said, having you take a look and posting your feedback would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

The OpenGoo team.

988

Ideas / 2008 - Ideas for the future of OpenGoo

« on: March 12, 2008, 02:31:04 pm »

1.   Document templates – We Would like OpenGoo to include document templates. The functionality would be similar to the one you can find in most office suites (such as Microsoft Office and Open Office). It is our aim to include templates for text documents such as budgets letters, curriculums, memos, thesis, reports, etc. Moreover, we are also looking for templates for our S5 presentations (with different visual styles). This task implies developing template support from scratch and researching for a free source of compatible templates.  This task is suitable for developers with knowledge on PHP, MySQL and Html. Javascript, CSS and S5 are not required but could be a good complement.

2.   Data import and export – We would like to provide a feature that provides the ability to export all the data you have within a project in OpenGoo. This data will be easily imported into another OpenGoo installation. This would mean that you can change your OpenGoo provider very easily. This task is suitable for developers with PHP and MySql experience

3.   Mobile device compatibility – We would like mobile devices to have a special interface for OpenGoo. Mobile devices usually have special requirements regarding screen size, bandwidth and processor speed so lots of work is needed in order to adapt the current interface to make it suitable for cell phones and PDAs. We are open regarding which mobile platform we should start with. This task is suitable for mobile developers with PHP knowledge.

4.   Document import and export – Currently our text processor only supports Html format. It is within our roadmap to be able to read and write (import and export) the most important formats such as doc, odt, rtf and pdf (write only). This task is suitable for developers with experience in doc, odt, rtf or pdf formats.

5.   Microsoft Office Plug-in – A plug-in that is similar to the one Microsoft Office Live Workspaces provides must be developed. It will enable the possibility to open and save documents in OpenGoo within Microsoft Office’s applications. Microsoft Office plug-ins knowledge is required.

6.   Forum integration – OpenGoo should include a forum for users to exchange ideas within a company. The task would be to adapt a popular forum engine in order to make it part of the OpenGoo solution. Integration must be transparent, this means users database should be shared, and the look and feel should also be similar among other details. This task is suitable for PHP and MySQL developers. Work with forums and application integration would be valuable.

7.   Blog integration – OpenGoo should include a blog for users to post ideas within a company. The task would be to adapt a popular blog engine in order to make it part of the OpenGoo solution. Integration must be transparent, this means users database should be shared, and the look and feel should also be similar among other details. This task is suitable for PHP and MySQL developers. Work with blogs and application integration would be valuable.

8.   Wiki integration – OpenGoo should include a wiki for users to post ideas within a company. The task would be to adapt a popular wiki engine in order to make it part of the OpenGoo solution. Integration must be transparent, this means users database should be shared, and the look and feel should also be similar among other details. This task is suitable for PHP and MySQL developers. Work with wiki and application integration would be valuable.

9.   Webmail integration – We feel our Web office won’t be complete until we include an email client. Integration with an open source email client is another important milestone in which we would like the community to help us. As in previous tasks, our goal is to make the integration transparent, so user database must be shared, look and feel must be similar and mails that arrive must be available throughout the rest of the system. This task is suitable for PHP and MySQL developers. Work with mail clients and application integration would be valuable.

10.   Live communication – Once everyone in a company has access to OpenGoo, it seems like an excellent way to establish live communications between users. Chat is the first idea that comes into our minds, but we could mention audio, video and even other collaboration tools (such as whiteboards) could be very useful to complement this service. This task is suitable for PHP and MySQL developers. Work with different communication mechanisms (chat, audio, and video) and application integration would be valuable.

989

General Discussion / Re: creation folder

« on: March 08, 2008, 05:49:42 pm »

I am not sure I understand your question.

OpenGoo file management uses tags instead of folders. We believe using tags is more powerful than folders, because it allows for more dimensions for data classification.

Do you find the use of tags instead of folders confusing?

990

General Discussion / Thanks everyone! We are back

« on: January 23, 2008, 04:49:23 pm »

Thanks for all the nice messages we have received during our absence.

It is summer (vacations) time south of the equator, so we are just getting back to work after three very refreshing weeks of much needed rest.

Before starting to reply every individual message/post, let me give you a brief status report on the project.

Next Release: Bug fixes only. Why.
Ignacio and Marcos have to work on the project documentation for their University degree. For those of you that do not know it, the way we found to kickstart OpenGoo was to present it as a grade project for Ignacio and Marcos to receive their Engineering degree at UdelaR (Uruguay's National University). That's how we got them working on it. So they have to focus on that for the next month. What does this mean for development? It means release 0.5 will be for bug fixes only.

Future of resources
The fact that Marcos and Ignacio will end their grade work does not mean by any means that the work on the project will stop. On the contrary, they are committed - and so I am - to keep developing OpenGoo.

We are also presenting new projects at various Universities so that more grade students can work on the project. (Like Google's Summer of Code, but without the money  )

As soon as the project gets robust enough for Enterprise use, we plan on offer support and consulting services, so that we can keep on working and generate some income.

And, as we always say, we encourage everyone to get involved and help on the development. This is an ambitious project, we know, so we need a big, international community/team.

Roadmap
We are working on a Roadmap, but do not want to publish it without the certainty that we will meet the goals we set. Breaking promises is always bad marketing, and that applies to Open Source projects too. Right?

Personally, I would like to see many 'modules' added, rather than focus on on-line editing for the short future. The main modules I would add would e:

• e-mail integration
• Calendaring integration
• Advanced contact management
• Advanced tasks management

And the list will go on... But that's going to be a big topic itself.

Online demo
We are working on it. We encountered a couple of issues that makes us feel it is not a good idea to publish it yet. It will be available "soon" (also, no dates promised... again, no promises to risk breaking)