[Planner] My first impressions of Planner 0.11 (MrProject)

["lincoln phipps openmutual net" <lincoln phipps openmutual net>]

I've used Microsoft Project a lot including using it in a
CMM Level 2 environment. Before you shoot me down for
mentioning any Microsoft product, MS project is a good general
purpose project planning tool. Not the best of breed with
its resource levelling but still very good. Pick up
a cheap copy of MS Project 98 to get an idea of the
features; its bloated and Project 2000/2003 goes even
further but I thought I'll try Planner (downloaded
from web and did a ./configure, make, make install which was
fine on Mandrake 9.2 and just had to add a few library
packages), and see how usable it is for a small project;
(My actual House cleanup prior to sale right now - so far
90 tasks with 4 resources and 10 summary, 5 milestones).

I thought I'd give you my first impressions whilst I read
your roadmap for 1.0 as it helps you confirm thoughts on
whats going into 1.0

1) Defining links through using the click-drag is handy
   but I'm also very used to selecting (ctrl-click) two tasks
   and then clicking a "Link" button. You have the Unlink
   button but not Link. The main issue is click-dragging
   over many pages or dates: if you zoom out to see the whole
   project then the task bar isn't big enough in the gantt
   chart to click this (it just re-sizes the task).

2) Adding resources to tasks takes a long time. If a whole pile
   of tasks could by selected (ctrl-click) and then right-mouse
   or a suitable menu option had "Set Resource..." This will
   also be very important with task levelling.

3) MPX file format import AND export. Microsoft Project 98
   was the last MS project to have this as an export. See
http://www.microsoft.com/office/project/prk/2000/Five/67ct_2.htm

  Many other apps rely on this MPX format and may not all have
  migrated to MPP or MPD. May be nice to help people interoperate
  with Planner easily. MPX is not an XML but its a fairly nice
  easy to read ASCII and should be easy to pre-process into the
  Planner/MrProject schema. The MPXJ project (LGPL) has a lot
  more of this, though it is Java. See, http://www.tapsterrock.com/mpxj/

4) Unable to easily view resource usage by day. Even when
   you have a levelling capability, when you run this in
   MS Project it could sometimes completely screw up your
   project shoving tasks out by years as it tried to resolve
   resource use and constraints.  Thus many people manually
   level projects. You use a view that has the Resources on the
   left and Dates on the top with usage (0->100 for OK
   and then >100 for not OK e.g. font in RED) in the intersect.
   Thus if levelling isn't trusted or not the expected
   algorithm then viewing what resources get used by date is
   a manual compromise.

5) Resource Initials - these are a handy extra field because
   names can clutter up gantt charts (especially when a couple of
   people are doing one task). If a user has initials defined then
   use this else use the resource name is the basic algorithm
   which I think MS Project uses.

6) Task completion: Incrementing in 1% at a time is too low !.
   The tumbler needs to increment in +/- 10% at a time but
   the field could be manually set to an exact percentage. MOst
   people say a task is say 50% or nearly (i.e. 90% complete).
    A joke:
   90% of a project takes 90% of the time. The remaining 10% takes
   the other half.
   Either way, no one refers to 51% complete unless for fun.

7) The program name of 'Planner' seems dangerously generic
   and I feel that it would end up being contested somewhere for
   its name. Maybe something like 'Gantto' and then pun its name
   by using a cat (gatto in Italian) with a gantt chart for
   stripes as a logo but IANAA (I Am Not An Artist). Plus it has
   a 'g' in the name for GNOME and gantto.com/net/org currently
   free I think (probably find its a swear word in some language !)
	ps: also the file name is was *.mrproject but can we
	use 3 char thus change to say *.gpo as I think thats free.

8) and finally - though by asking this question I'm probably
   showing my ignorance - how do I start to add code to Planner ?
   I'm starting back into programming work (and just restarted
   my degree in CS) so I can CVS the whole lot and can easily
   browse the source but has anyone tried using Anjuta and Glade
   with this project ? or is it all hand-coded C and I'm just
   spoiled from working with the likes of Eclipse and VC ?

9) Other things:
	Baselines: These are essential for any CMM metrics to
		show how actuals deviate from estimates. I use
		these a lot.
	Pert charts: never used them much but others do a lot.
	Sub projects: yes I do like these for big stuff but not
		when there was milestone constraints from within
		one sub-project and another. I do find it handy
		when doing e.g. software deployments that are
		global and thus sub-project each geographic region
		so you can have a global overview of progress
		by region. I'm thinking task that is a file/hyperlink
		to another Planner file and to parse that file
		and pick out ANY other task. I suspect that Planner
		could do this quite well given the nice XML structure
		to its own files.
	Shared resources (and shared calendars across projects:
		Tried this when we were doing CMM assessment and
		found it useful but back then using MS Project 98
		and so it wasn't very friendly.
	Collaboration: This would be real handy. If a structured
		email message could be sent and replied to and have
                the Planner pick out the answers in the mails and
		update itself. Really what things like listservers
		do with the registration and reply logic.	
	Split tasks: handy for when you just want to make a task
		drag on in background as  a low priority. Thus
		when you show the gantt to someone you can still
		say you're doing it but other tasks take priority.
		and can only spend a little time now and then on it ;)


Rgds.
Lincoln