wiki:SCS_MAIL_LIST_R4
Last modified 16 years ago Last modified on 05/09/09 15:05:04

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Analysis

Overview

SCS_MAIL_LIST keeps mailing lists healthy.

Task requirements

Send two e-mails:

  • Mail1 to the sophie2-devs list - contains last sprint summary (taken from SCS_PROJECT_BLOG_R4)
  • Mail2 to the sophie2-users list - contains information mentioned below
  • Define what will be sent to the sophie2-users mail list
    • Features
    • Latest release
    • Upcoming releases
    • Features expected in the next release
  • Collect this information about current iteration and send an e-mail containing it.

Task result

Two e-mails. One to the developer group and one to the user group.

Implementation idea

For the e-mail one, keep the structure of previous revisions of this task. Contact the release team to get the changelog. You may include feature from the feature schedule the release team is working on.

SCS_MAIL_LIST_R3
SCS_MAIL_LIST_R2
SCS_MAIL_LIST_R1
SCS_MAIL_LIST_R0

How to demo

Explain what is done.

Design

  • See the design of SCS_PROJECT_BLOG_R4
  • Using it create two mails for the different mail lists.
    • Sample content for the users' mail list 
      The last release of Sophie 2 is available for download from here (http://www.sophie2.org/users/downloads.html). Now all users can try it for themselves.
With the upcoming release of Sophie 2 first alpha, we brought to you full list of the features and functionalities that are implemented and introduced (notice that some of them are in prototype phase) in our previous releases:

Pre-alpha 2 Release – 2008/12/15
The initial Sophie 2.0 release is a proof of concept of Sophie's core. Included in this release will be:
    * Sophie running on Windows and Linux (Can be run on the Macintosh with configuration changes)
    * Basic Sophie UI
          o Flaps
          o Menus
          o Frames
    * Simple text support
    * Sophie Properties - While not visible, properties define Sophie objects and are key to the design.
    * Inspector - The inspector displays information about Sophie objects, including the properties
    * Prototypical dialog support
The Interim Sophie Community Server
    * Team Task List (using Trac)
    * Download page
    * Release documentation
    * Mail lists
    * Discussion forum
    * Developers wiki

Pre-alpha 3 Release – 2009/02/13
This release brings more core functionality to Sophie (in prototypical form), including:
    * Property thread safety
    * Undo manager
    * More menu support
    * Page Template core support
    * Page object alignment
    * Selecting multiple page objects
    * Frame bounding properties, for example margins
    * Audio and video support
    * Build Server
    * Initial plugin support
    * Halos and huds

Pre-alpha 4 Release – 2009/03/13
This release brings the following features to prototype status:
    * Links
    * Internal support for plugin configuration
    * Resource manipulation
    * Community Web Site
    * Sophie Server
          o Search
    * Book desktop
We will also start the process of tuning Author, looking for issues and correcting them.

Pre-alpha 5 Release – 2009/04/17
This release continues to improve existing features and brings additional features to prototype status, including:
    * Skinning
          o Default Skin
          o Alternative Skin
    * Application Help
    * Resource list filters
    * Resource change list
    * Internal definition of Sophie Book File Format
    * Page zooming
    * Page property editing
    * Frame rotation

Our next release is scheduled for 2009/05/15, we expect it to include improvements on the features that were introduced earlier and some new things like:
 * Timelines (prototype stage)
 * Printing
 * Page element grouping (prototype stage)
 * PDF export
Most features expected to ship in Sophie 2 are initially available in this release. Bugs are expected and some features will not be fully usable.

Best regards, Sophie Team.
    • Sample content for the devs' mail list 
      With the completion of our fourth iteration comes the summary of what we've accomplished. We launched our second release on schedule and with all of its planned functionalities. We also managed to catch up with our analyses from previous iterations, and have analyzed all tasks through iteration 04

The new functionalities in the 13 February release are:


   * Selecting multiple page objects
   * Page object alignment
   * Frame bounding properties; for example margins
   * Basic audio and video support
   * Undo manager:
         * Undo/Redo of the insert frame action now works without exceptions
         * Undo/Redo of the move frame action now works
         * Create book action is now no longer un-doable
         * Undo/Redo of page re-size action now works
         * A book does not re-size with its title change action anymore
         * Selecting the current frame is no longer considered as change

         * Undo/Redo text editing in text frames now works
         * The "Redo" item in the edit menu has been fixed to show "Can't redo" when the user cannot redo an action

   * Improved Halos and HUDs
   * Initial plug in support
   * Build Server

Additionally, many bugs were fixed. Other things worth mentioning are the branding discussions with Robert Abbot, leading to an upcoming update of the Website look.

The results of our most recent "postmortem", are separated in the three usual categories (What went well; What could be better; and, How to improve):

What went well:
   * Improved overall quality - for most of this iteration we focused on refactoring and improving the existing logic
   * Functionality - the release team managed to implement many new functionalities that covered all requirements for the current release
   * Analyses - we caught up on the analyses for the previous iterations as well as completing them for the next one
   * Discussions - we had many useful discussions concerning Sophie's design and overall ideas for the project, including marketing and Sophie adoption. Videos of these discussions are available here
   * HR and recruitment - we've refined the process for recruiting new team members
   * Improved Site - we refactored our old Website and we believe it is now more attractive and useful

What could be better:
   * Not all tasks in the iteration were completed.
   * Discipline and process - it is improving, but we are striving for even higher standards
   * Better documented discussions - we need to improve the documenting of our discussions; this will help members of our staff who are working remotely people to be even more productive

   * More tested tasks - not enough tasks were tested during this iteration

How to improve:
   * Spread global vision - our new team members need to better understand the fundamental concepts behind the project and to have an overall view of the global picture behind Sophie
   * Discuss - our staff members need to constantly ask themselves the questions: "Why?" and "How?"
   * Specification explanations – a more formal specification skeleton will improve consistency
   * Never accept code that is not 100% as it needs to be - we must fix less than perfect code, not to reproduce it


Best regards from the Sophie team!

Implementation

  • After the feedback from Nick and Ludmil, the content of the mail for the mail list is the following: 
    With the completion of our fourth iteration comes the summary of what we've accomplished. We launched our second release on schedule and with all of its planned functionalities. We also managed to catch up with our analyses from previous iterations, and have analyzed all tasks through iteration 04

The new functionalities in the 13 February release are:


   * Selecting multiple page objects
   * Page object alignment
   * Frame bounding properties; for example margins
   * Basic audio and video support
   * Undo manager:
         * Undo/Redo of the insert frame action now works without exceptions
         * Undo/Redo of the move frame action now works
         * Create book action is now no longer un-doable
         * Undo/Redo of page re-size action now works
         * A book does not re-size with its title change action anymore
         * Selecting the current frame is no longer considered as change

         * Undo/Redo text editing in text frames now works
         * The "Redo" item in the edit menu has been fixed to show "Can't redo" when the user cannot redo an action

   * Improved Halos and HUDs
   * Initial plug in support
   * Build Server

Additionally, many bugs were fixed. Other things worth mentioning are the branding discussions with Robert Abbot, leading to an upcoming update of the Website look.

The results of our most recent "postmortem", are separated in the three usual categories (What went well; What could be better; and, How to improve):

What went well:
   * Improved overall quality - for most of this iteration we focused on refactoring and improving the existing logic
   * Functionality - the release team managed to implement many new functionalities that covered all requirements for the current release
   * Analyses - we caught up on the analyses for the previous iterations as well as completing them for the next one
   * Discussions - we had many useful discussions concerning Sophie's design and overall ideas for the project, including marketing and Sophie adoption. Videos of these discussions are available here
   * HR and recruitment - we've refined the process for recruiting new team members
   * Improved Site - we refactored our old Website and we believe it is now more attractive and useful

What could be better:
   * Not all tasks in the iteration were completed.
   * Discipline and process - it is improving, but we are striving for even higher standards
   * Better documented discussions - we need to improve the documenting of our discussions; this will help members of our staff who are working remotely people to be even more productive

   * More tested tasks - not enough tasks were tested during this iteration

How to improve:
   * Spread global vision - our new team members need to better understand the fundamental concepts behind the project and to have an overall view of the global picture behind Sophie
   * Discuss - our staff members need to constantly ask themselves the questions: "Why?" and "How?"
   * Specification explanations – a more formal specification skeleton will improve consistency
   * Never accept code that is not 100% as it needs to be - we must fix less than perfect code, not to reproduce it


Best regards from the Sophie team!
  • The following mail was sent to users' mail group after discussing its content with release team member 
    The last release of Sophie 2 is available for download from here (http://www.sophie2.org/users/downloads.html). Now all users can try it for themselves.
With the upcoming release of Sophie 2 first alpha, we brought to you full list of the features and functionalities that are implemented and introduced (notice that some of them are in prototype phase) in our previous releases:

Pre-alpha 2 Release – 2008/12/15
The initial Sophie 2.0 release is a proof of concept of Sophie's core. Included in this release will be:
    * Sophie running on Windows and Linux (Can be run on the Macintosh with configuration changes)
    * Basic Sophie UI
           * Flaps
           * Menus
           * Frames
    * Simple text support
    * Sophie Properties - While not visible, properties define Sophie objects and are key to the design.
    * Inspector - The inspector displays information about Sophie objects, including the properties
    * Prototypical dialog support
The Interim Sophie Community Server
    * Team Task List (using Trac)
    * Download page
    * Release documentation
    * Mail lists
    * Discussion forum
    * Developers wiki

Pre-alpha 3 Release – 2009/02/13
This release brings more core functionality to Sophie (in prototypical form), including:
    * Property thread safety
    * More menu support
    * Page Template core support
    * Page object alignment
    * Selecting multiple page objects
    * Frame bounding properties, for example margins
    * Audio and video support
    * Build Server
    * Initial plugin support
    * Halos and huds

Pre-alpha 4 Release – 2009/03/13
This release brings the following features to prototype status:
    * Links
    * Internal support for plugin configuration
    * Resource manipulation
    * Community Web Site
    * Sophie Server
           * Search
    * Book desktop
We will also start the process of tuning Author, looking for issues and correcting them.

Pre-alpha 5 Release – 2009/04/17
This release continues to improve existing features and brings additional features to prototype status, including:
    * Skinning
           * Default Skin
           * Alternative Skin
    * Application Help
    * Resource list filters
    * Resource change list
    * Internal definition of Sophie Book File Format
    * Page zooming
    * Page property editing
    * Frame rotation

Our next release is scheduled for 2009/05/15, we expect it to include improvements on the features that were introduced earlier and some new things like:
 * Timelines (prototype stage)
 * Printing
 * Page element grouping (prototype stage)
 * PDF export
Most features expected to ship in Sophie 2 will be initially available in this release. Bugs are expected and some features will not be fully usable.

Best regards, Sophie Team.

Testing

(Place the testing results here.)

Comments

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