[kplato] Comments about the User Interface and an Introduction

[James Preston]

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Hi people - just joined the list.

Sorry if I'm too "green".  I'm interested in a project management
tool.  It's the last peice of productivity software for KDE I need to
finally get my girlfriend to stop using Win98 ;-)

Experience:

    I know little about KDE (sorry), a bit about QT, a fair amount of
    experience with C++, CVS, some MS Project experience. I'm a Python
    person, but I don't know how applicable that skill is.

On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 11:11:41AM -0700, Robert Watkins wrote:
> I've listed a few things that might break and
> will either need to be addressed, or an alert
> sent to the user:
> *end dates cannot happen for a task or project
> due to prior tasks falling behind or scope
> change.

I think in general, bounds should be flexible, but it should complain:
vis. show red, optionally pop up notices, etc. Everything always
"slips" in the real world, and you at least need to temporarily get the
system into and out-of an inconsistant state (as far at the project is
concerned).

> *over-scheduled resources for a particular
> timeframe.

Over committing resources is a very common practice in my experience.
Upper-managers need to be shown reports showing that
person/room/machine X is at 230% before they'll agree to new resource
aquisition.  Again, by all means, moaning about said over-scheduling is
a good idea.

> *tie-breaking for resources/tasks if there are
> competing priorities.

Automatic?  That sounds a little dangerous if you are refering to
purely automated resolution.

> *alert when tasks are past-due

That sounds great.  There could be a general hook mechanism to a list
of semantic triggers: over-allocated, conflict, past-due,
days-since-last-review (or whatever), simple-cron. Scripting hook?
(That's my Python affiliation showing).

Any pointers for the best way to get up to speed with KDE
development? (RTFdeveloper.kde.org is a valid answer).

- -- 
James Preston                                    james@mds.rmit.edu.au
Multimedia Database Systems Group, RMIT            Tel +61 3 9925 4142
PGP keys                    http://www.mds.rmit.edu.au/~james/keys.asc

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