EmForge

Workflow and Reports in Liferay 6

2010-08-04T15:53:06Z

Liferay 6 has 2 very nice features, probably not well documented yet. It is support for Workflows and Reports. Here I want to discuss some major details about these features, since there are no too much info about them.

Support for Workflows

How it works from developer side:

Liferay has set of general interfaces, implemnted working with workflows (look at the package com.liferay.portal.kernel.workflow)
It is possible to deploy some implementation of these interfaces as separate plugin.
By default, Liferay 6.0.4 ships with kaleo-web - plugin implemented workflow functionality with using own developed workflow engine Kaleo;
But it is possible to deploy jbpm3 based implementation (available in svn: http://svn.liferay.com/repos/public/plugins/trunk/webs/jbpm-web)
As well as I've started development of jBPM4 based implementation (http://www.emforge.net/web/jbpm4-portlet), but, since there was no interest from community side, as well as no strong requirements in this implementation in my current project this implementation currently placed on-hold;
Then somebody (any portlet) calls core Workflow methods in Liferay - these calls routed into deployed implementation (with using internal Liferay's Message Bus).

How it works from Administrator Side:

After deploying some implementation, it is possible to manage workflows in the control panel (for example deploy workflow definitions);
Set of workflows is individual for each portal instance;
As well, for each group it is possible to define own Workflow Configuration: mapping of Assets with Workflows, responsible for their processing;

Important thing - in Liferay each process instance (workflow instance) are connected to some Asset. It is not possible to just "create a task", but, you can create/edit some asset and it will "flow" by some workflow (according to asset type and workflow linked with this type in Workflow Configuration).

How it works from User Side:

Actually, how to work with workflows from user side quite well described in Juan's blog-post. I can just add - fi you like to experiment with workflows - simple start default Liferay 6.0.4 bundle with 7cogz-hook deployed. It deploy's kaleo workflow engine, as well as defined users with required roles - you can play with editing web-content by "Editor" users, and approve changes by "Publisher" user. It is good enough to see how it works (and very fast to start).

Support for Reports

Supports for reports is very simular to support for Workflow:

Liferay core has some interfaces for working with reports (looks at ReportEngine class);
It is possible to deploy some implementation;
In Incubation SVN you can find JasperReport's based implementation: svn.liferay.com/repos/public/plugins/incubation/webs/reporting-jasper-web/
By save way - all calls to core ReportEngine are routed to implementation with using MessageBus;
After deploying some implementation, you can use reports in your portlets, but
You may deploy "Report Console" portlet from svn incubation: svn.liferay.com/repos/public/plugins/incubation/portlets/reports-console-portlet/
It will add Reports Tab into your Control Panel - to allow admin to deploy reports and manage them, manage data sources and some other settings, as well as place "View Report" portlet on any page

I think these two features are very good big steps forward to make Liferay more powerful and more "Enterprise". Just again - big "thank you" to Liferay team for great job!

First project migrated to 6.0.3

2010-07-17T20:15:00Z

I already have several projects based on Liferay 6 branch, some of them based on 6.0.1, some on 6.0.2. Few days ago first GA version of Liferay 6 was released so, it's time to move project forward.

Today was first - based on 6.0.1. Here is some notes for developers, to know what expect from such migration:

Database upgraded without any problems. Looks like error in upgrade-script between 6.0.1 and 6.0.2 is fixed and now everything works as expected. Simple place new Liferay instead old one and connect to same DB;
Dependencies - minor changes required (jstl.jar renamed to jstl-api.jar);
Source code - some minor changes required because of changed API (expectable);
JSP pages: here was major change I had to do: in my project jsp pages was located in /WEB-INF/jsp, and Liferay 6.0.3 is not allowed to load resources under WEB-INF (ok, I thin it is configurable - but I will prefer to stay with standard configuration as much as possible). So, I had to move jsp pages to /jsp (and of course change all source-code). Hopefully it is very easy change.

So, migration from 6.0.1 to 6.0.3 works almost without any problems. Good job Liferay Team!

Spring Security Step2 integration version 3.0.3 released

2010-07-13T10:34:33Z

Hi!

I've got new notebook, so, was able to test build with clean maven repo. Found some issues with repository configuration in the project, what was fixed.

Also, Spring Security 3.0.3 was just released, so, I've adopted this integration project to work with 3.0.3. Actually, no any changes was done - I simple changed versions in pom-files and recompiled with new dependencies.

Simple Vaadin Portlet in Liferay Plugins SDK

2010-07-12T08:49:44Z

Vaadin is a new word in Liferay world, it looks very promised, but, as always, not so much documentation and tutorials. Some of tutorials too complex, some not covered some (even simple) questions.

Here I want to explain for Liferay developers already used Plugins SDK (and have experience in Liferay Portlets development) how to write simple Vaadin portlet and access Portlet and Liferay infrastructure (handle render request, access ThemeDisplay object).

Actually, you can skip everything and simple get sources from SVN: svn.emforge.net/svnroot/akakunin-experiments/sample-vaadin-portlet - it is really very simple.

Prerequirements

I've used latest public version of Liferay (6.0.2) and it's plugins SDK. Also I'm using Eclipse (not using Liferay IDE yet, since had no time to switch into it) - but it is not required for this tutorial - it is based on Liferay SDK, so, used ant for build and may be used with any IDE

Create portlet

Switch to sdk/portlets and call

#  ./create.sh sample-vaadin

Then remove all renerated jsp-pages, css, images and so on - everything was generated for sample portlet

Configure web.xml for working with Vaadin

Create web.xml (in my case it wasn't created by plugins-sdk) with setting to enable using VAADIN in your portlet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd" version="2.4">

  <context-param>
      <description>Vaadin production mode</description>
      <param-name>productionMode</param-name>
      <param-value>false</param-value>
  </context-param>

  <servlet>
      <servlet-name>Vaadin_portlet Application</servlet-name>
      <servlet-class>
      com.vaadin.terminal.gwt.server.ApplicationServlet</servlet-class>
      <init-param>
          <description>
          Vaadin application class to start</description>
          <param-name>application</param-name>
          <param-value>com.example.vaadin_portlet.Vaadin_portletApplication</param-value>
      </init-param>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
      <servlet-name>Vaadin_portlet Application</servlet-name>
      <url-pattern>/Vaadin_portletApplicationServlet/*</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
  <servlet-mapping>
      <servlet-name>Vaadin_portlet Application</servlet-name>
      <url-pattern>/VAADIN/*</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

Add Vaadin into portlet dependencies

Liferay itself already has vaadin, you do not need to include it into your portlet lib. Simple add it into portal-dependency-jars in liferay-plugin-package.properties:

name=
module-group-id=liferay
module-incremental-version=1
tags=
short-description=
change-log=
page-url=http://www.liferay.com
author=Liferay, Inc.
licenses=LGPL

portal-dependency-jars=\
    vaadin.jar

Add portlet definition into portlet.xml & liferay-portlet.xml

Add into portlet.xml:

    <portlet>
        <portlet-name>sample-vaadin</portlet-name>
        <display-name>Sample Vaadin</display-name>
       
        <portlet-class>com.vaadin.terminal.gwt.server.ApplicationPortlet2</portlet-class>
        <init-param>
            <name>application</name>
            <value>sample.vaadin.SampleApplication</value>
        </init-param>
       
        <!--
          To enable displaying multiple Vaadin portlets on a page,
          they should all use the same widgetset. In that case, the
          widgetset can be configured on the portal level (parameter
          vaadin.widgetset) or here for each portlet.
        -->
        <!--
        <init-param>
            <name>widgetset</name>
            <value>com.vaadin.portal.gwt.PortalDefaultWidgetSet</value>
        </init-param>
        -->
       
        <!-- Supported portlet modes and content types. -->
        <supports>
            <mime-type>text/html</mime-type>
            <portlet-mode>view</portlet-mode>
            <!-- <portlet-mode>edit</portlet-mode> -->
            <!-- <portlet-mode>help</portlet-mode> -->
        </supports>
       
        <!-- Not always required but Liferay uses these. -->
        <portlet-info>
            <title>Sample Vaadin</title>
            <short-title>Sample Vaadin</short-title>
        </portlet-info>
    </portlet>

and liferay-portlet.xml:

    <portlet>
        <portlet-name>sample-vaadin</portlet-name>
        <ajaxable>false</ajaxable>
    </portlet>

Implement Application Class

You can get sources of class from svn: svn.emforge.net/svnroot/akakunin-experiments/sample-vaadin-portlet/docroot/WEB-INF/src/sample/vaadin/

Some important points in this class:

Get PortletApplicationContext2 and add PortletListener into it;
SamplePortletListener (PortletListener implementation) will allow you to access Portlet API (render, action, even, resource);
As result, you can use standard way to access (for example) ThemeDisplay object - and information about your current context.

What is all - take fun with Liferay and Vaadin!

Ubutu 10.04, mysql, Java, localhost = WTF?

2010-07-11T21:56:15Z

Today I killed 2 hours of my life for very studip problem.

I just got new notebook (IBM Thnkpad T400) with 4Gb, so, to be able to use whole memory, installed Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit. Then installed mysql-server, sun java, eclipse, some other staff and started to work. mysql nd sun java was installed via apt with standard settings.

Created DB, successfully connected via MySQL Admin and Query Browser, and, then, trying to connect from my app: failed

Exception in thread "main" com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.CommunicationsException: Communications link failure

Last packet sent to the server was 0 ms ago.
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)

Checking JDBC Url - everything is correct, checking username/password - same, I can connect to localhost DB with using this username/password with using standard mysql tools. But not from java via JDBC.

WTF???

After spending 2 hours, found this forum. After commenting bind-address in my.cnf and changing jdbc url to use my computer IP address (like 192.168.0.157) instead of localhost it finally started to connect.

Why? Why it is not working with localhost out-of-box? Why I should spent 2 hours for such stupid problems?

Problem resolved

Ok, today (after sleeping a little bit) I realized the source of problem. It is not ubuntu, java, or mysql. It is (of course) - I'm.

Yesterday I changed by /etc/hosts - so, localhost was defined incorrectly (by some reason). But, MySQL clients, in case localhost server used - not used TCP at all - then connected to mysql directly.

JDBC driver does not use it - it always (looks like) tried to use TCP and resolve hostname. It is why it connection worked in mysql tools, but did not worked in java.

Ubuntu == cool!

Java == cool!

I'm == dummy developer :)

First working version for Liferay 6.0.2

2010-06-07T15:51:18Z

Today I finally namaged to deploy jbpm4.3 portlet (jbpm4-web) and deploy first process definition into Liferay.

I think only 1% of required functionality is done - but, at least it started. If somebody interested in jbpm4 workflow engine in Liferay - please - feel free to join the project!

PetClinic GWT application in less then 30 minutes

2010-05-20T23:30:03Z

Yesterday I've read announce of new version of Spring-Roo 1.1.0M1 and found there at least 2 very interesting features: GWT & GAE support.

So, today I spent some time to play with it - and here is short instructions how to make PetClinic application in less then 30 minutes (depends from your connection speed).

Prepequirements

You will need to have JDK 1.6 and Apache Maven installed. I hope it is not a problem and sure 90% readers of this blog already have them

Download and Install Spring-Roo

Simple download it from SpringSource Site and unzip into some folder (lets say it <spring-roo-path>)

Get clinic.roo file

Download clinic.roo file. It is script for roo, almost same as default clinic.roo (you can find initial version in <spring-roo-path>/samples/clinic.roo) but adopted for using GWT:

Commented enums since Roo-GWT is not supported them; In entities enums replaced by string;
Boolean primitive looks like also not supported - so, changed to java.lang.Boolean;
Calendar is not supported changed to Date;
Commented out Spring-MVC specific commands
Added gwt setup to generate gwt UI.

Run Roo to generate sources

Lets generate sources with using this roo-file:

# ../bin/roo.sh
# roo> script -file clinic.roo
# roo> exit

It will took some time, but as result you will get maven-based project with all required sources.

Run it

Quite easy:

# mvn gwt:run

It may also take some time, since it will make a build and download all required artifacts from maven repositories. But it will long only for first time - after all requirements will be downloaded into local maven repo, next builds will go much faster.

Try it

Copy provided link into clipboard and open it in your browser (it will require to install GWT plugin)

So, now you can play with it. Not all forms working correctly - ok, GWT support in Spring-Roo is not in stable state, but at least it provide some ideas how it will be implemented.

What we have as result

As result, in less then 30 minutes we have great sample of:

Fast application generation with using Spring-Roo. Samples are very clear and you can use them as reference material for Roo features. Of course - if you interested - it make sense to read more Roo documentation
Sample of project used Spring Framework, GWT, Hibernate and many more;

If you just started with one of these technologies, these code-samples may be good reference.

Even you already using them for a long time - I'm pretty sure you can find many interesting things you probably did not know about Spring, Hibernate or GWT

Of course created application is not something you can show to end-users. But - it may be good "start-point" and safe your time for doing some standard things for project initialization again and again.

Magic options to monitor remote glassfish on ubuntu

2010-05-05T23:15:34Z

I've tried to setup JMX connection to my remote glassfish installed on ubuntu several times, and every time I've got 'cannot connect' error from my jconsole or VisualVM

I've checked many tutorials in internet, in most case it should work out of box. Some people reported (like I'm) what they cannot connect to remote glassfish - but, without any answer and proper solution.

Today I finally resolved 2 magic options enabled for me remote monitoring of Glassfish under Ubuntu (with using jconsole or VisualVM). They are:

-Djava.rmi.server.hostname=xxx (use domain name you are using to access this server);
-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true (in my cases by default Glassfish used IPv6 stack);

So, getting Glassfish with default settings (by default JMX conector is enabled), add this two JVM options via glassfish admin console and (of course if you have no firewall behind you and this server) after restarting glassfish it is possible to connect and monitor it with using both jconsole and VisualVM (as well as I hope any JMX client).

Securing Remote EJB on Glassfish 2

2010-05-04T12:51:27Z

Today I needed to write simplest remote EJB and command-line client for it and protect this EJB - request authentication. Glassfish2 was used as application server, but, I suppose same will work (except probably required libraries) by same way with Glassfish 3.

Write EJB

@Stateless
public class TestSecurityBean implements TestSecurityBeanRemote, TestSecurityBeanLocal {
    private static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(TestSecurityBean.class.getName());

    @Resource
    EJBContext ejbContext;
   
    public String sayRemoteHello() {
        log.info("EJBContext: " + ejbContext);
        Principal principal = ejbContext.getCallerPrincipal();
        log.info("Caller Principal: " + principal);
       
        return "Hello " + principal.getName() + "!";
    }
   
    // Add business logic below. (Right-click in editor and choose
    // "Insert Code > Add Business Method")
 
}

Say glassfish to request authentication for calling this EJB (in META-INF/sun-ejb-jar.xml):

<sun-ejb-jar>
    <enterprise-beans>
        <ejb>
            <ejb-name>TestSecurityBean</ejb-name>
            <ior-security-config>
                <transport-config>
                    <integrity>supported</integrity>
                    <confidentiality>supported</confidentiality>
                    <establish-trust-in-target>supported</establish-trust-in-target>
                    <establish-trust-in-client>supported</establish-trust-in-client>
                </transport-config>
                <as-context>
                    <auth-method>username_password</auth-method>
                    <realm>default</realm>
                    <required>true</required>
                </as-context>
                <sas-context>
                    <caller-propagation>supported</caller-propagation>
                </sas-context>
            </ior-security-config>

        </ejb>
    </enterprise-beans>
</sun-ejb-jar>

Write client:

public class Client {
    private static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(Client.class.getName());

    /**
     * @param args the command line arguments
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) throws NamingException {
        TestSecurityBeanRemote testSecurityService = getRemoteService();
        String result = testSecurityService.sayRemoteHello();

        log.info("Result:" + result);
    }

    public static TestSecurityBeanRemote getRemoteService() throws NamingException {
        TestSecurityBeanRemote testSecurityService = null;

        String host = "localhost";
        String port = "3700";
        Properties props = new Properties();
        props.setProperty("java.naming.factory.initial", "com.sun.enterprise.naming.SerialInitContextFactory");
        props.setProperty("java.naming.factory.url.pkgs", "com.sun.enterprise.naming");
        props.setProperty("java.naming.factory.state", "com.sun.corba.ee.impl.presentation.rmi.JNDIStateFactoryImpl");
        props.setProperty("org.omg.CORBA.ORBInitialHost", host);
        props.setProperty("org.omg.CORBA.ORBInitialPort", port);

        // standard way to put authentication info into remote ejb call
        // it is not working with Glassfish - own way for authentication should be used
        // props.setProperty(Context.SECURITY_PRINCIPAL, "user1");
        // props.setProperty(Context.SECURITY_CREDENTIALS, "password1");

        ProgrammaticLogin programmaticLogin = new ProgrammaticLogin();
        programmaticLogin.login("user1", "password1");


        Context amInitial = null;
        amInitial = new InitialContext(props);
        testSecurityService = (TestSecurityBeanRemote) amInitial.lookup(TestSecurityBeanRemote.class.getName());

        return testSecurityService;
    }

}

Write auth.conf

default { com.sun.enterprise.security.auth.login.ClientPasswordLoginModule required debug=false; };

Add required libraries from glassfish into project dependencies:

$GF_PATH/lib/appserv-rt.jar
$GF_PATH/lib/appserv-admin.jar
$GF_PATH/lib/javaee.jar

Run client with option to use this file with option -Djava.security.auth.login.config=./auth.conf

Add user1 into file realm:

#./asadmin create-file-user user1

Now you should be able to call your remote EJB with using specified user and password

Spring Security and Step2 Integration library released

2010-04-30T17:18:55Z

Spring-Security is a great framework closelly integrated into SpringFramework and added secirity services in many aspects. One of the aspects - is authenication, and Spring-Security supports many way for authentication, including OpenID.

Step2 - is a library developed by Google. It wrapps openid4java library (also used in Spring-Security) and added some addtional functionality.

Spring-Security-Step2 is a project to integrate these 2 nice solutions. From one side, it is totally compatible with native spring-security-openid library in terms of configuration. You can simple replace spring-security-openid by spring-security-step2 (with dependencies) and everything should continue as well. As result, additionally to standard spring-security-openid features you will get:

Support for Google Apps Domains
Support working in Google App Engine
Getting attributes by using SReg (additionally to Attribute Exchange used by default)
Handling success response from openId provider to (for example) automatic creation local account

Please looks our Wiki for more details.

First deployment into GAE

2010-04-20T17:22:40Z

Hi Friend!

You can see our app (even with some trivial ui) on the GAE: taskoncc.appspot.com

Also, I've made some changes in code for better GAE support (unfortunately behavior is not always same in SDK and production GAE).

Next steps:

I will start to work on emails processing
Marek on web-UI (first of all - task list/ task view/ task edit)
Andrey on FF plugin

Andrey joined the project

2010-04-19T16:53:17Z

I'm happy to announce Andrey joined into the project.

His first task he will work on - plugin for Firefox

Liefray Performance: Liferay и Хабраэффект

2010-04-16T12:26:49Z

Ну что - начнем заполнять проект контентом.

Несколько раз уже слышал вопрос: "А как у Liferay с производительностью". В принципе - я конечно проводил некоторое нагрузочное тестирование - результаты есть в этом блоге, но тест все-таки был немного синтетическим - так как виртуальные пользователи просто ходили по сайту ничего не меняя

Каким то показателем является то, что сам Liferay.com использует свою же (правда Enterprise) версию, а нагрузка у них я думаю нормальная идет.

Но вот появилась возможность провести еще одно нагрузочное тестирование. После выхода поста про EmForge Portal на главную страницу на Хабре мой сервер испытал ХабраЭффект - и, вышел из испытания с честью. Вот несколько цифр:

В качестве хостинга по прежнему используется минимальный instance Amazon EC2;
Liferay 5.2.3 ( с некоторыми моими фиксами), база MySQL
В качестве front-end сервера стоит apache2, который передает траффик tomcat-у через mod_jk
В течении 5-ти часов примерно 200 уникальных посетителей в час. В среднем 5 просмотров на пользователя
Из них примерно 40 (в час) создали свой аккаунт
Из них примерно 20 (в час) создали свой проект (community)

Нагрузка не бог весть какая - но все-таки хоть что-то, плюс пользователи все-таки активное изменяли данные на портале.

Загрузка системы только в пиковый момент (видимо когда пост только-только вышл на главную) подошла к отметке 60%, остальное время на превышала 30%

То есть данное количество пользователе не загрузила достаточно слабенькую виртуальную машину. Все-таки со скоростью у Liferay все в порядке.

Если у кого есть еще какие данные по производительности (реальной) liferay (какие системы какое количество пользователе держат) - буду крайне признателен

EmForge on Google Apps Marketplace

2010-05-13T14:05:13Z

In the beginning of March Google Launched it's Marketplace for applications, integrated with Google Apps. Via this Marketplace, Domain Administrator may now add new applications, integrated with Google Apps and extended functionality, available for Google Apps Users.

And today I'm happy to announce EmForge Portal on Google Apps Marketplace!

Integration for now very simple - we only implement Single-Sign-On with Google Apps and added special feature, allowed project admins to invite users into project with using their Google Contacts or Domain Users.

But many features we are planning to add very soon.

To add EmForge into your Google Apps Domain simple go into EmForge on Marketplace and click on "Add It Now" button.

Files tool to share binary releases

2010-03-23T07:33:27Z

Hi!

Last week we started to get responses from users via User Voice service, and today I'm happy to announce first request completed.

Now, each project hosted in EmForge has "Files" tooll. This tool (placed on separate page) allowed users to keep files (like ibnary releases of project) with description, organize them into folders.

There are many additional nice featues like:

WebDAV access;
Comments on files;
Ratings;
Powerful Permissions configuration.

Hope it will make EmForge Portal more comfortable for our users.

Happy EmForging!

EmForge and Liferay on SunTechDays 2010 Saint-Petersburg

2010-03-20T21:54:31Z

Sun (Oracle?) TechDays - is a global developers conference, organized by Sun Microsystems in several cities in the world and joined many developers to discuss about latest news in Java/Solaris (and other Sun technologies) world.

In Russia, usually this conference organized in Saint-Petersburg. More than 3500 visitors attended Sun Tech Days 2009 in St.Petersburg, I'm not sure about planned amount for this year, but, I can say it is biggest developers even in my city (probably in Russia???)

And I'm happy to announce 2 my presentations I will do on SunTechDays this year: one about EmForge and another about Liferay.

During first presentation I'm going to talk about problems, usually meet by Distributed teams, about important of communication and how EmForge help in this case.

Second will be about Liferay, how Liferay help us during developing EmForge Portal, as well as how it is possible to build site with many functionality (web-content, blogs, forums, social network) in 20 minutes. Actually, I'm going (during my short 20 minutes presentation) simple run Liferay from downloaded bundle and build sample site - I'm sure, any PowerPoint Presentation cannot replace this life-demonstration.

Will be happy to see you on SunTechDays 2010 Saint-Petersburg!

Integration with Gravatar

2010-03-17T08:20:59Z

EmForge designed to be not only Project Collaboration platform, but we have a plans to make it a Social Network for developers. We are not going to implement own new Social network, but want to integrate with many already existed Social Services widelly used by developers.

We already simplified login with using Google, Yahoo (and any OpenID in general) account. Now, we providing integration with Gravatar - service kept user avatars in one place.

Now, if you have avatar there - no need to define new in EmForge - EmForge will just reuse it. Of Course you can change it to some EmForge-Specific (if you want).

It is only first steps, many more social features planned in the nearest feature, first of all integration with Google Services, LinkedIn, Friends Connect.

New Release with Subversion Hosting, Admin Tool, Localization and Many More

2010-03-10T11:53:12Z

I'm very happy to announce new version of EmForge Portal with great imrpovements we did during February

Subversion Hosting

First of all - it is subversion hosting. Now, during creation of new project you may create subversion repository for it. Access to repository controlled from EmForge Portal:

only team members have rights to commit into repository;
for restricted and private project - only team members has access to repository even for read-only

Subversion hosting is free for open-source projects. During beta-stage - it is free for any project, IN future, we will provide free plan for small teams/repository, for bigger team plans will start from $5 per month.

We are going to continue improvement Version Control hosting on EmForge Portal. Next plans are:

Access Control for Folders and Roles;
Git Hosting;

With Subversion hosting we started provide full set of tools required for distributed software development teams

Admin Console

Admin Console added to allow project owner/manager to edit different project settings, team membership and role assignment.

Localization

Use EmForge Portal with your native language. We added support for Russian, Polish, Brazilian. We need contributors to add support for more languages. Please write into our Forum if you like to see EmForge in you language and may help us!

Tasks/Burndown/Filters improvement

We improved our main tool:

better and faster tasks managment,
Detailed bunrdown chart;
You may save your filters of tasks to use later;
and many more.

EmForge Portal team hoped with all these imrpovements EmForge Portal become more and more useful and comfortable for teams. But we are not going to stop - we have many plans and hope to continue add new features and make EmForge more and more comfortable.

Happy EmForging!

Improved BurnDown, Stored Filters and Simplified Google and Yahoo users login

2010-02-08T23:05:44Z

We released beta version a week ago. Of course this week was spent for different issues related to beta-release, but we did not stop to improve our EmForge Portal.

So, new version were deployed - during this week followed changes were implemented:

Improved Release BurnDown Chart - not it is possible to see 'detailed' version of Release BurnDown (in case some release is selected in tasks filter). Detailed BurnDown displayed chart separatelly for low, high and normal tasks, as well as allow to select date range, release and user;
Task Filters , selected by user in projects are stored between sessions. Now, then you back into some project task-list, you see same set of tasks as last time you visited this project;
Now it is much simpler to login with using your Google and Yahoo account. Simple click on Google or Yahoo button in login dialog;

I hope al of these changes will make working with EmForge more comfortable!

Kenai Users: Welcome to EmForge Portal!

2010-02-08T10:04:48Z

As you probably know, Oracle decided to do not support Kenai.com project, provided by Sun as project hosting service for open-source project.

I will be happy if Kenai users will found EmForge Portal useful for them and will be happy to help in migration process

Features provided for Open-Source projects

For open-source projects EmForge Portal provided:

Totally Free Services;
Own "workspace" for each project with own set of pages;
You can assign own domain-name to this workspace, own theme (Liferay themes used) and own logo - so, it will looks like your own site, provided wide range of tools for end-users;
Powerful, but simple to use Task-Management to plan your activities for project;
Time-Tracking tools and Burndown chart to check the progress of project;
Wiki to share information;
Blog to publish project related news;
Forum for communication with end-users, as well as discussing different issues inside the team;

Blog you currently reading is part of such workspace for EmForge Portal project.

It is very easy to Start New Project .

EmForge Portal - Open Source project

EmForge Portal itself - open-source project. We just started few months ago and already providing wide set of features. We hope to provide much more in the nearest months - and, if you like - you can join us and help to make best hosting service for projects!

Project itself hosted on EmForge: http://www.emforge.net/web/emforge-portal and you can use own forum to discuss any questions related to the project.

New features coming soon

During this month we are going to start Subversion Hosting. Actually - we already have it - but just some UI to control Subversion from EmForge Portal UI are missed. If you need it, or want migrate your repository from Kenai - please write to our forum - we will provide you tools.

Also - we are woring hard on many other improvements, including:

Closer integration with Google Services and Social Networks (Facebook, LinkedIn first of all);
Tasks Collection - to collect tasks from different places in your profile;

Many more features comes!