RT 4.4.0rc1 released

RT Developers
1

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RT 4.4.0rc1 – 2015-11-03

We’re extremely excited to announce the availability of RT 4.4.0rc1: the first
release candidate for the next major version of RT.

We would be thrilled to hear your experiences installing or upgrading to this
release; the more feedback we get, the sooner the official release of RT 4.4.0
can occur. Please be sure to review the upgrading documentation available in
docs/UPGRADING-4.4, as there are a number of backward-incompatible changes that
come along with the new version number. Upgrading documentation is also
available here: UPGRADING-4.4 - RT 4.4.0 Documentation - Best Practical

In addition, to help kick off RT 4.4, we’re having a public training session in
Chicago on December 14-15! This two-day session covers RT basics, as well as
development, and will highlight the new features in today’s release candidate.
If Chicago isn’t a good fit for you, we’ll be having public sessions in
Washington DC, and Hamburg, Germany, in Q1 and Q2 of 2016 (respectively). To
purchase a seat via credit card for the Chicago training, please visit
shop.bestpractical.com. If you prefer to pay via other methods, or you have
questions, please write in to training@bestpractical.com. And, as always, we
welcome suggestions for training locations in the future.

https://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/devel/rt-4.4.0rc1.tar.gz
https://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/devel/rt-4.4.0rc1.tar.gz.asc

8a437bac6e6e8e89f67e9536605c4fe533b18261 rt-4.4.0rc1.tar.gz
62bec3a37b8fd1b222e5666d164dc891002cb9ca rt-4.4.0rc1.tar.gz.asc

A list of the major new features in RT 4.4.0 is included below. Many
of the new features will also be described and demoed in a series of
blog posts on http://blog.bestpractical.com/ in the coming weeks.

  • Shawn M Moore, for Best Practical

  • RT now includes the Assets extension for tracking your physical and
    digital resources.

  • Attachments can now be stored outside of the database either on disk, in
    Dropbox, or on Amazon S3. Attachments can also be directly served from S3.

  • SLA tracking is now part of core RT. You can define many different service
    levels that take your business hours and holidays into account.

  • External authentication and LDAP integration are now shipped as core RT
    features.

  • RT now has support for custom roles, along the lines of Requestor, Owner,
    Cc, and AdminCc. These roles can be single-member or multi-member.
    Privileges can be assigned to members of custom roles, you can search based
    on custom role membership, you can notify custom role members in
    scrips, and so on.

  • RT now has a modern file upload interface which allows you to select
    multiple files in one fell swoop, drag and drop attachments onto RT, and
    inline preview certain file types like images.

  • We’ve added a “scroll” option for gradually loading in ticket history as
    the user scrolls down, much like “infinite scroll”. This considerably
    improves perceived performance.

  • Existing attachments on a ticket can be reused in subsequent replies,
    so you don’t have to upload them again.

  • We now provide some basic Articles configuration for new deploys so that
    you can start using the feature immediately.

  • You can now break up your RT_SiteConfig.pm file into logically-related
    chunks under the RT_SiteConfig.d/ directory.

  • You can now specify default values at the queue level for certain ticket
    fields, including custom fields.

  • RT now warns you when you write the word “attach” (or “attached”, etc)
    but haven’t provided any attachments yet, to avoid “sorry, I forgot this
    attachment” followup mail.

  • RT now understands many more types of “human” date strings.

  • Users can now choose any subset of the seven weekdays to receive their
    daily dashboard subscriptions.

  • The query builder display format panel has seen several improvements;
    most importantly adjusting the display columns no longer reloads the
    entire page.

  • We’ve added a popout ticket timer for helping you track time inside RT.
    The timer is associated with a ticket and will add the time to to it for
    you.

  • RT now ships with keyboard shortcuts for primarily for navigating ticket
    search results.

  • We ship a (disabled-for-upgrades, enabled-for-new-deploys) scrip for
    carrying over time worked to parent tickets. Similarly, we ship a scrip for
    tracking time worked per user.

  • We’ve added a way to quickly create new linked tickets in queues other than
    the one that the current ticket is in.

  • There’s a new site-level config setting and user preference for hiding
    unset fields on ticket display pages.

  • Custom fields now have a customizable “entry hint” for helping users
    understand what they should be entering as values.

  • TicketSQL and the search builder now support Status = ‘Active’ and
    Status = ‘Inactive’ type queries, so you no longer need to enumerate
    all statuses like Status = 'new' OR Status = 'open' OR Status = 'stalled'

  • The mailgate has been completely redesigned and modernized.

Additional changes:

General user UI

  • Improve and unify display of topactions (new ticket in, simple search,
    article search, etc)
  • Empty selection boxes no longer render 1px wide (#31316)
  • Replace singular use of “Administrative Cc” with “AdminCc”
  • Don’t display “check box to delete” for every group on queue watcher page
  • Don’t render empty “Ticket #:” results in bulk update
  • Improved the paging links in collection lists (#30374)
  • IPv6 custom fields are rendered in their compressed representation
  • Queue name on ticket display is now a link to a search for all active
    tickets in that queue
  • Search builder display format now properly supports “large” sizing
  • Display more “show columns” in search builder
  • Record transactions for queue changes
  • Show queue ID if the user can’t see the queue name
  • New, modern bookmark star icons to better match ticket timer icon
  • If there’s a single pending ticket, just show the ticket number (#30692)
  • Improve messaging for enabling and disabling custom fields
  • Improve messaging for applying a custom field to a queue (#31128)
  • Mention which principal and right was granted instead of simply saying
    “Right Granted”
  • Improve “user already has right” error
  • Gray out “(no value)” for custom fields
  • Hide “transaction has no content” entries from extract as article
  • Improve CSRF whitelist (#31090)
  • Make user preferences use label tags for better clickiness (#30953)
  • Rename “Quicksearch” (the table of queues) to “QueueList” (#18514)
  • When possible sort charts numerically rather than ascii-betically
  • Self-service Cc field now allows for autocompleting multiple users
  • IP custom field textboxes now wide enough for full IPv6 addresses (#24565)
  • Move attachments to below messagebox on bulk update for consistency
  • Stop rounding large numbers of hours worked into days
  • Add a “chosen” UI for making long lists of select custom field values more
    friendly
  • Search builder now uses the “chosen” UI for selecting display columns
  • Increase MaxInlineBody
  • Improved management of mail recipients
  • Stop cloning time fields when creating child tickets
  • Improve datepicker usage for relative date strings
  • Squelching now applies to all updates in the request, instead of only the
    initial correspond/comment transaction.

Command-line

  • Fix for “0” values in bin/rt (#31290)
  • rt-email-dashboards now has a --log option
  • rt-crontool now allows multiple actions

Mail

  • Improve structure of multipart mail

Web Administration

  • Rights management pages now have gray callout for sections that have
    rights granted
  • For new installs we now provide a General topic and Content CF for Articles
  • Query log now supports Undup and ShowElem params
  • Queues now have a sort order
  • We no longer delete articles but instead just disable them to help maintain
    auditability (#19323)
  • Allow ModifyTicket to change nobody to someone else, without OwnTicket
  • Select CFs will now suppress “(no value)” option when it’s invalid

Server Administration

  • Use MiB rather than MB for attachment size config (GitHub #162)
  • ReferrerComponents lets you fine-tune CSRF whitelist and blacklist
  • The user shredder now supports a no_ticket_transactions option
  • Avoid warnings if users don’t have sufficient rights on reminders
  • Fix decoding issues (#31155)
  • Removed redundant Apache::DBI dependencies (#31210)
  • Shred object custom fields when shredding a custom field
  • Improve compat and docs for Apache 2.4
  • Put temporary files for email parsing in /tmp
  • Allow deep namespaces for ScripActions and Conditions

Developer

  • Upgrade jQuery from 1.9.1 to 1.11.3
  • Upgrade jQuery UI from 1.10.0 to 1.11.4
  • Upgrade CKEditor from 4.0.1 to 4.5.3
  • Removed many unused fields on tickets and users
  • Added a Group->Label method for displaying groups in the UI
  • Ticket Modify now processes watcher updates
  • Support optional inclusion of RT-System and Nobody users in autocomplete
  • Transactions now have a ColumnMap
  • /User/Prefs.html became /Prefs/AboutMe.html for consistency (#14200)
  • We now warn when you forget to undef $mech in tests, which can
    cause spurious failures
  • Additional callbacks
  • Remove mostly-duplicate code for Rules which can never trigger

Documentation

  • We’ve written new documentation for the query builder, dashboards,
    reporting, and other related features
  • SLA cookbook
  • Update documentation to expect that most installations will deploy
    fulltext search
  • Also remind users that they should set up backups in the README
  • Clarify “otherwise your internal links may be broken” (#31117)

Internationalization

  • Graphing now uses the localization engine in more places
  • Updated localizations (Basque, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Greek,
    Japanese, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Turkish)

A complete changelog is available from git by running:
git log rt-4.2.12…rt-4.4.0rc1
or visiting
Comparing rt-4.2.12...rt-4.4.0rc1 · bestpractical/rt · GitHub

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2
  • Attachments can now be stored outside of the database either on disk, in
    Dropbox, or on Amazon S3. Attachments can also be directly served from
    S3.

I assume shredder supports removing things from external sources, too?

Nevermind… just found in docs that “This feature is not currently compatible
with RT’s shredder tool; attachments which are shredded will not be removed
from external storage.”

  • The mailgate has been completely redesigned and modernized.

Were [rt-bugs #31065] and [rt-bugs #31064] fixed? (don’t see these in
changelog on git master)

Would be also nice if “Ticket creation failed … No permission to create
tickets in the queue” bounces were customizable.

In our setup we revoke access to rt for all users who send spam… and then we
get new spam from these users to our $OwnerEmail address because rt sends “No
permission…” errors to owner :-/

Option to ignore such emails (to disabled users) or bounce to sender (instead
to owner) would be nice.

Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz, arekm / ( maven.pl | pld-linux.org )

3

should be entering as values.

  • TicketSQL and the search builder now support Status = ‘Active’ and
    Status = ‘Inactive’ type queries, so you no longer need to enumerate
    all statuses like Status = 'new' OR Status = 'open' OR Status = 'stalled'

so Login can be
closed?

Easter-eggs Spécialiste GNU/Linux
44-46 rue de l’Ouest - 75014 Paris - France - Métro Gaité
Phone: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 37 - Fax: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 76
mailto:elacour@easter-eggs.com - http://www.easter-eggs.com

4

Could you propose a dead line for po updates before release of 4.4.0 final?

Easter-eggs Spécialiste GNU/Linux
44-46 rue de l’Ouest - 75014 Paris - France - Métro Gaité
Phone: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 37 - Fax: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 76
mailto:elacour@easter-eggs.com - http://www.easter-eggs.com

5

Forgot to say thank you to all BPS folks for this upcomming new release
and the work needed to produce it :slight_smile:

  • External authentication and LDAP integration are now shipped as core RT
    features.

it’s difficult to find doc on this, seems the only way is to look at pod
in lib/RT/, nothing in doc directory and nothing in RT_Config.pm except
an obsolet example in @Plugins sections.

authentication.pod only talk about http auth.

I understand that external auth configuration is a bit complex to add to
RT_Config.pm, but it would be nice for new users to have a pointer in
this file to the doc, no?

  • You can now break up your RT_SiteConfig.pm file into logically-related
    chunks under the RT_SiteConfig.d/ directory.

very helpfull to manage prod / staging variables when you manage
eerything in git, thanks!

  • The query builder display format panel has seen several improvements;
    most importantly adjusting the display columns no longer reloads the
    entire page.

next step would be to do the same for search criterias …

  • We’ve added a popout ticket timer for helping you track time inside RT.
    The timer is associated with a ticket and will add the time to to it for
    you.

very nice idea, helpfull here. Thought the popup is a window with all
navigator window decorations, isn’t it possible to have something lighter?

Easter-eggs Spécialiste GNU/Linux
44-46 rue de l’Ouest - 75014 Paris - France - Métro Gaité
Phone: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 37 - Fax: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 76
mailto:elacour@easter-eggs.com - http://www.easter-eggs.com

6

Could you propose a dead line for po updates before release of 4.4.0 final?

I couldn’t find 4.4 po on launchpad.

Easter-eggs Spécialiste GNU/Linux
44-46 rue de l’Ouest - 75014 Paris - France - Métro Gaité
Phone: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 37 - Fax: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 76
mailto:elacour@easter-eggs.com - http://www.easter-eggs.com

7

I see several warnings like this when doing “make upgrade-database”:

[4864] [Wed Nov 4 10:17:12 2015] [warning]: Use of uninitialized value in string eq at ./etc/upgrade/4.3.5/content line 40, <$handle> line 1. (./etc/upgrade/4.3.5/content:40)

Cris

Cristiano Guadagnino

Servizio Sistemi Dipartimentali, Periferici e DB
Creval Sistemi e Servizi Soc.Cons.P.A.
Gruppo bancario Credito Valtellinese
Via Trento, 22 - 23100 SONDRIO
tel +39 0342522172 - fax +39 0342522997
guadagnino.cristiano@creval.it
www.creval.it

Il presente messaggio non è di natura personale ma inviato per esigenze lavorative; l’eventuale messaggio di risposta potrà essere conosciuto anche da altri soggetti diversi dall’originatore di questo messaggio per dette esigenze o per controllo aziendale. Questo messaggio, corredato dei relativi allegati, contiene informazioni da considerarsi strettamente riservate, ed è destinato esclusivamente al destinatario sopra indicato, il quale è l’unico autorizzato ad usarlo, copiarlo e, sotto la propria responsabilità, diffonderlo. Chiunque ricevesse questo messaggio per errore o comunque lo leggesse senza esserne legittimato è avvertito che trattenerlo, copiarlo, divulgarlo, distribuirlo a persone diverse dal destinatario è severamente proibito, ed è pregato di rinviarlo immediatamente al mittente distruggendone l’originale.On 03/11/2015 21:35, Shawn Moore wrote:

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RT 4.4.0rc1 – 2015-11-03

We’re extremely excited to announce the availability of RT 4.4.0rc1: the first
release candidate for the next major version of RT.

(…trimmed…)

8
  • We’ve added a popout ticket timer for helping you track time inside RT.
The timer is associated with a ticket and will add the time to to it for
you.

very nice idea, helpfull here. Thought the popup is a window with all
navigator window decorations, isn’t it possible to have something lighter?

Maybe it is better to display the timer inline in the ticket.
There seams to be enough space under the ticket timer icon.
If you go to another browser tab and then go back to the browser tab
with the ticket, you don’t see that there is an ticket timer running.

Also, if you stop (submit) the timer, the ticket page isn’t refreshed,
so you don’t see the time worked changes without manually reloading the
ticket.

Chris

9

I am still seeing the bug I recently posted to the user mailing list: when you create a graph, RT gives you the option to group by nickname; however, when you click on a row of the related data table, the search that is automatically fired will produce an error.

The error is:

There was an error parsing your search query: Invalid watcher subfield: ‘NickName’. Your RT admin can find more information in the error logs.

The search is something like this:

(Status = ‘resolved’ AND Resolved = ‘today’ AND ( Queue = ‘BO’ OR Queue = ‘SQL’ OR Queue = ‘DC’ OR Queue = ‘WS’ )) AND ((Owner.NickName = ‘Cris’))

But the Owner.Nickname field is not recognized.

Cris

10

I found a problem with assets (I never used assets before):

  • If I click on “search” and then “assets” I get this error message: An
    internal RT error has occurred. Your administrator can find more details
    in RT’s log files.

In the log I find:

[5272] [Wed Nov 4 11:23:08 2015] [error]: No active catalogs. (/opt/rt4/sbin/…/lib/RT/Interface/Web.pm:4096)

[5272] [Wed Nov 4 11:23:08 2015] [error]: Can’t call method “Id” on an undefined value at /opt/rt4/share/html/Asset/Search/index.html line 50.

Stack:

[/opt/rt4/share/html/Asset/Search/index.html:50]

[/opt/rt4/sbin/…/lib/RT/Interface/Web.pm:696]

[/opt/rt4/sbin/…/lib/RT/Interface/Web.pm:375]

[/opt/rt4/share/html/autohandler:53] (/opt/rt4/sbin/…/lib/RT/Interface/Web/Handler.pm:208)

The same happens if I click on the “Assets” menu or any of the "Assets"
submenus.

Cris

11

Another problem: the new “Quick Search” portlet (now displaying as
"Queue List") does not appear in my “RT at a glance” page, even if I had
it before upgrade from RT 4.2.12.

If I go to the “Customize RT at a glance” page, I see a blank spot in
the list, corresponding to the place where the Quick Seatch portlet was
before.

Re-adding the portlet solves the problem, but this ought not to be a
necessary step.

Cris

12

This is awesome guys, thanks!!!

I ran the upgrade today from 4.2.11 to 4.4.0rc1
The upgrade itself was pleasantly uneventful, save for some confusion on my part as to whether or not to remove the obsoleted plugins from RT_SiteConfig.pm before or after running upgrade.
e.g.
Leave them in: get the warnings.
Leave them out: does it skip anything if it thinks I was not using them?

I am struggling a bit with shifting ExternalAuth (LDAP → Active Dir) to a core function though.
I’ll keep playing with it, but if anyone has a moment (yeah, right, like anyone has such a thing as Free Time!) I’d love some thoughts on it.

For example, I removed the old plugins, because I see they are installed under lib/RT now.
local/plugins/RT-Authen-ExternalAuth
local/plugins/RT-Extension-LDAPImport
I assume this was correct, though I don’t recall seeing it in the upgrade doc?

I noticed in /opt/rt4/lib/RT/Authen/ExternalAuth.pm that it still refers to the Set($ExternalInfoPriority config, but the RT logs tell me different:
ExternalInfoPriority not defined. User information (including user enabled/disabled) cannot be externally-sourced
(I see this whether I have it defined or not)

I kept all my old config settings for LDAP/ExternalAuth in RT_SiteConfig.pm
I did remove the plugins line for them, and added the Set($ExternalAuth, 1);
I just wasn’t sure if that was the right way to do it?

In short, I’m looking for anything else that people have had to tweak for ExternalAuth (esp. LDAP) to make it work post-upgrade?

Thanks!
Brent-----Original Message-----
From: rt-devel [mailto:rt-devel-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Shawn Moore
Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2015 3:36 PM
To: rt-devel@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: [rt-devel] RT 4.4.0rc1 released

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RT 4.4.0rc1 – 2015-11-03

13
  • TicketSQL and the search builder now support Status = ‘Active’ and
    Status = ‘Inactive’ type queries, so you no longer need to enumerate
    all statuses like Status = 'new' OR Status = 'open' OR Status = 'stalled'

so Login can be
closed?

I believe that ticket is for showing them in the drop-down in the UI.
The phrasing of the above (and [1]) support that the UI doesn’t
support adding Active or Inactive.

  • Alex

[1] rt/share/html/Elements/SelectStatus at master · bestpractical/rt · GitHub

14

Hi,

just started a quick test upgrade and seeing lot of this warnings:

Use of uninitialized value in string eq at ./etc/upgrade/4.3.5/content
line 40

This happens for dashboards which have only body panes but no sidebar panes.

This would also happen in the same upgrade step for HomepageSettings or
Pref-HomepageSettings which don’t have a body or sidebar pane (line 14).

Chris

15

Could you propose a dead line for po updates before release of 4.4.0 final?

I couldn’t find 4.4 po on launchpad.

Also french translation of Assets is not in 4.4 :frowning:

Easter-eggs Spécialiste GNU/Linux
44-46 rue de l’Ouest - 75014 Paris - France - Métro Gaité
Phone: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 37 - Fax: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 76
mailto:elacour@easter-eggs.com - http://www.easter-eggs.com

16

Could you propose a dead line for po updates before release of 4.4.0 final?

I couldn’t find 4.4 po on launchpad.

Also french translation of Assets is not in 4.4 :frowning:

fixed here: Login

Easter-eggs Spécialiste GNU/Linux
44-46 rue de l’Ouest - 75014 Paris - France - Métro Gaité
Phone: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 37 - Fax: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 76
mailto:elacour@easter-eggs.com - http://www.easter-eggs.com

17

Hi Arkadiusz,

  • Attachments can now be stored outside of the database either on disk, in
    Dropbox, or on Amazon S3. Attachments can also be directly served from
    S3.

I assume shredder supports removing things from external sources, too?

Nevermind… just found in docs that "This feature is not currently compatible
with RT’s shredder tool; attachments which are shredded will not be removed
from external storage.”

I’d love for this to work. I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t make it work (it just requires that we delete the file from external storage only after all references to it are shredded).

We figured better to ship the useful feature rather than wait for the next major release cycle to refine and perfect it. :slight_smile:

  • The mailgate has been completely redesigned and modernized.

Were [rt-bugs #31065] and [rt-bugs #31064] fixed? (don’t see these in
changelog on git master)

I encourage you to test them again, as we did completely reimplement the mailgate using a better design. In particular failure handling has been improved, so I wouldn’t be surprised if either of those tickets were fixed.

Would be also nice if “Ticket creation failed … No permission to create
tickets in the queue” bounces were customizable.

Agreed! I made a ticket for this for you: Login

In our setup we revoke access to rt for all users who send spam… and then we
get new spam from these users to our $OwnerEmail address because rt sends “No
permission…” errors to owner :-/

Option to ignore such emails (to disabled users) or bounce to sender (instead
to owner) would be nice.

Made a ticket for this as well: Login

Thank you for your feedback!
Shawn

18

tion to ignore such emails (to disabled users) or bounce to sender (instead

to owner) would be nice.
please don’t do this for spam … bouncing spams is a really bad idea :wink:

Easter-eggs Spécialiste GNU/Linux
44-46 rue de l’Ouest - 75014 Paris - France - Métro Gaité
Phone: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 37 - Fax: +33 (0) 1 43 35 00 76
mailto:elacour@easter-eggs.com - http://www.easter-eggs.com

19

Hi Emmanuel,

Forgot to say thank you to all BPS folks for this upcomming new release
and the work needed to produce it :slight_smile:

You’re welcome!

Thank you for testing 4.4 and providing feedback! :slight_smile:

  • External authentication and LDAP integration are now shipped as core RT
    features.

it’s difficult to find doc on this, seems the only way is to look at pod
in lib/RT/, nothing in doc directory and nothing in RT_Config.pm except
an obsolet example in @Plugins sections.

authentication.pod only talk about http auth.

I understand that external auth configuration is a bit complex to add to
RT_Config.pm, but it would be nice for new users to have a pointer in
this file to the doc, no?

Agreed. I’ve made several tickets for these:

Login Better, standalone externalauth documentation
Login Replace ExternalAuth example for @Plugins in RT_Config
Login Add ExternalAuth settings to RT_Config doc

Sorry we overlooked especially the last one there.

  • You can now break up your RT_SiteConfig.pm file into logically-related
    chunks under the RT_SiteConfig.d/ directory.

very helpfull to manage prod / staging variables when you manage
eerything in git, thanks!

:slight_smile:

  • The query builder display format panel has seen several improvements;
    most importantly adjusting the display columns no longer reloads the
    entire page.

next step would be to do the same for search criterias …

Agreed. I have more ambitious plans for the query builder, so we’ll see…

  • We’ve added a popout ticket timer for helping you track time inside RT.
    The timer is associated with a ticket and will add the time to to it for
    you.

very nice idea, helpfull here.

Thanks!

Thought the popup is a window with all
navigator window decorations, isn’t it possible to have something lighter?

nod There’s ways to hide some of the chrome in some of the browsers, so I’m on board with doing that. What browser are you using, and what specifically would you like to hide?

Cheers,
Shawn

20

Hi Chris,

Am 04.11.2015 um 10:51 schrieb Emmanuel Lacour:

  • We’ve added a popout ticket timer for helping you track time inside RT.

The timer is associated with a ticket and will add the time to to it for
you.

very nice idea, helpfull here. Thought the popup is a window with all
navigator window decorations, isn’t it possible to have something lighter?

Maybe it is better to display the timer inline in the ticket.
There seams to be enough space under the ticket timer icon.
If you go to another browser tab and then go back to the browser tab
with the ticket, you don’t see that there is an ticket timer running.

When I was initially implementing this feature, I did exactly as you suggested: I embedded the timer right into the page. But that caused friction every step of the way of development. For one, what if you navigate away from the page? If you’re just navigating between ticket display, ticket update, ticket modify, etc., the timer should keep counting up. If the time is just thrown away, or if RT nags you that you have a timer running before letting you leave the page, then that’s annoying. After all, what’s the point of having a timer if you have to keep manually dealing with it? And if you navigate away from RT entirely, what happens to the timer? Do we remember it when you come back and just add the time? How do we know whether you were on another website doing your work, or that you were just reading Facebook? If we remember the timer, what if you open RT up in a second tab, do you now have two copies of the timer running? If we throw the timer away, then people lose the time they were tracking.

There are so many somewhat arbitrary decisions to make that I worry people wouldn’t use the timer because they wouldn’t develop an intuition about how the feature works with all these scenarios.

The popout approach is so much simpler both to understand and to implement, and I think is way more flexible than any in-page approach. Open it when you start working. Pause it when you pause working. Resume it when you resume working. Submit it when you’re done working. The timer’s state directly corresponds to whether you’re working. :slight_smile: The timer even tells you when it was originally opened (for when you work then get distracted, to help you figure out how much real work you had done). And expert multitaskers (if there is such a thing) can have multiple timers open at once.

In short, I tried to make the feature as practical and approachable as possible.

Also, if you stop (submit) the timer, the ticket page isn’t refreshed,
so you don’t see the time worked changes without manually reloading the
ticket.

You’re right, that is something we can’t really have with a popout timer. We can’t easily refresh the originating page once you submit the timer. And even if we could I don’t think we would want to. (What if you’re in the middle of typing a message? or reading a long message? etc etc)

What would be nice is if when you’re looking at a ticket and someone else updates it (or you update it in a different tab, like submitting the popout timer), RT displays a little notification that the ticket was updated so you might want to refresh to get the latest information. But we’re not quite there yet. :slight_smile:

So it’s not an entirely new problem.

Chris

Cheers,
Shawn