Update for the last 2 weeks until August 7th

What happened in the past 2 weeks

• Bernd added more reports. He is working on the conference reports at the moment. At the moment this data cannot be tested yet with free demo data, and there is no conference module yet anyways. He is testing against an OM internal database. But Bernd hopes to finish implementing all reports by the end of October, which is great!
• Christian worked on improving the controls. For example the numeric-only textbox makes sure that only numbers or decimals are entered. Some of the maintenance screens are already using the controls.
• Johan was available to us for a couple of days, and he helped with one of the maintenance screens.
• Hans started to help with the maintenance screens as well, and did a couple of them already on his first day! He will be helping a couple of days each week during the summer.
• We are now using a proper algorithm (Longest Common Subsequence) for merging generated files. This means there are no “out-of-sync” problems anymore for manualcode sections, which happened quite often in the autogeneration of the instantiators with nant generateGlue, and has a stabilising effect on all generation of code.
• The caching of data is now generated with nant generateORMCachedTables. This allowed us to quickly add the cached tables for the Personnel module, since we needed the cached tables there for the maintenance screens. It took us too long to manually write the cached table functions, and it was repetitive work anyways.
• We are now using the PDFSharp library (http://www.pdfsharp.net/) for printing form letters directly to PDF files. This allows us to send email confirmations with attached PDF files, which will be needed for the “Online Application Form” tool that OM Germany have requested. This tool can be used for applications for conferences, but also for job applicants who will enter their own data and this saves our Personnel department from entering all the data manually.
• Timotheus has worked on some web interface for OpenPetra which works with any web browser. We want to use it for the application form tool. We are using the Ext.js AJAX framework (http://www.sencha.com/products/js/).
• Matthias from Erlangen worked on the GL Batch screen. You can now cancel batches, and filter for batches ready for posting, or batches that are already posted, or you can display all batches.
• Matthias from Mosbach is helping with the translation of OpenPetra into German. We still are not sure though how to adjust the screens so that the longer texts fit, since german texts usually take more space than the english words.
• We have added some documentation on the wiki about how to submit patches, using http://github.com. Have a look at Submitting patches and features
• Timotheus met with Matthias from Gießen, to discuss about joining the development team. Matthias will be a great help with establishing good IT development processes since he has a lot of experience with Configuration Management. Unit tests, and other tools and processes, would increase the quality of OpenPetra and save us and the users a lot of headaches…

What did not happen in that time

• The tutorial has not been finished yet, especially the Finance module is not documented at all yet.

What should happen in the next weeks

• Add more details to the tutorial. Provide a demo database with extensive sample data for quick user experience.
• Matthias and Timotheus will continue working on the accounting part of OpenPetra, especially to finish the GL screen and add functionality for extended posting, eg. with analysis attributes or multi-currency operations.
• We also need to improve the speed of the GL batch screen, using paged loading of the batches.
• Hans in Carlisle and Isabel in Germany will work on more maintenance screens, mainly for the personnel module.
• Bernd will add more conference reports.
• Timotheus will work on exporting of partners with all their data and import into another database, which will be needed for the “Online Application form”: We can have one OpenPetra system on the web server, and another one locally in the office.
• We might spend time on documenting and refactoring the Winforms generator, and also extend the GUI generator to also generate ext.js screens.
• Other members of the Petra/OpenPetra team will spend time at home with family and supporters, and therefore will not be available to OpenPetra for a number of weeks.