RTFM 2.4.3rc1 feedback

Steve_McStravick1 · October 7, 2010, 3:44pm

No Glaring issues, but here is some feedback.

  ACL - user can click "Update" article even if they don't have the

right…luckily permissions on the CF’s protect updates.
2. Lists of Classes (e.g. Quick Search, Create an Article)…should be
in Alphabetic order (or optionally if you could defined the order, but
defaults to alpha)
3. Search KB in menubar, ideally should be a “search all fields”
4. Kwiki formatting for the CFs is confusing, make it VERY difficult
to add formatted items,…e.g. if you added some SQL:
select a.column,
b.column2,
c.column3
from table1 a inner join table2 b on (a.id = b.id)
it turns into a numbered list and adds line padding,etc…even if you wrap
around it. 5. Article # but not the Article name appears in the ‘Refers To’ link of a ticket. Patched: diff /opt/rt3/local/html/Elements/ShowLink /opt/rt3/share/html/Elements/ShowLink 58c58 < % } elsif ( UNIVERSAL::can($member, ‘Name’) or UNIVERSAL::isa($member, “RT::FM::Article”)) {



% } elsif ( UNIVERSAL::can($member, ‘Name’)) {



  The Custom Field labels (when viewing a ticket) blend in to the



content…I modified the CSS for CFs in general to make them stand out a bit.
Thanks,

Steve

Kevin_Falcone · October 7, 2010, 8:38pm

No Glaring issues, but here is some feedback.

Steve

Thanks for reporting your experience, it helps me know that 2.4.3rc1
is probably ready for release.

Do you mind sending a few of your comments into
rtfm-bugs@bestpractical.com so they get into the tracker?

I have a few clarification questions below.

  ACL - user can click "Update" article even if they don't have the right...luckily
permissions on the CF’s protect updates.
  Lists of Classes (e.g. Quick Search, Create an Article)..should be in Alphabetic
order (or optionally if you could defined the order, but defaults to alpha)

Is this on the Select Class page or something else?

  Search KB in menubar, ideally should be a "search all fields"

I assume you mean ‘search all custom fields’ rather than the ‘search
name and description’ that currently exists? You could certainly port
the code from the SelfService search bar.

  Kwiki formatting for the CFs is confusing, make it VERY difficult to add formatted

items,…e.g. if you added some SQL:

Wiki Custom Fields aren’t Kwiki syntax, and you may just want plain
text fields for RTFM.

select a.column,
            b.column2,

            c.column3
from table1 a inner join table2 b on (a.id = b.id)

it turns into a numbered list and adds line padding,etc…even if you wrap around it.
Article # but not the Article name appears in the `Refers To' link of a ticket.


Interesting.  We probably just want to add a Name method to Articles

instead of patching RT here, but please raise this in the bug tracker.

Patched:
diff /opt/rt3/local/html/Elements/ShowLink /opt/rt3/share/html/Elements/ShowLink
58c58
< % } elsif ( UNIVERSAL::can($member, ‘Name’) or UNIVERSAL::isa($member, “RT::FM::Article”)) {


% } elsif ( UNIVERSAL::can($member, ‘Name’)) {



  The Custom Field labels (when viewing a ticket) blend in to the content..I modified



the CSS for CFs in general to make them stand out a bit.

Similarly, it would be interesting to see CSS tweaks, but I assume

these are RT rather than RTFM specific.  Those should end up at

rt-bugs.
Thanks
-kevin

Steve_McStravick1 · October 8, 2010, 3:08pm

Ok, I’ll post some of these finds to rtfm-bugs.

  Lists of Classes (e.g. Quick Search, Create an

Article)…should be in Alphabetic

order (or optionally if you could defined the order, but defaults to
alpha)

Is this on the Select Class page or something else?

This is in:
Overview->Quick search and Create an article,
http://{my_server}/rt3/RTFM/index.html
Articles->Search
http://{my_server}rt3/RTFM/Article/Search.html
Articles->New Article
http://{my_server}/rt3/RTFM/Article/PreCreate.html
Topics
http://{my_server}/rt3/RTFM/Topics.html
Configuration->Classes->Select Class
http://{my_server}/rt3/Admin/RTFM/Classes/index.html

I also noticed when you go to the “Configuration” tab you get the RT “create
Ticket” and Search at the top, rather than the Search KB

  Search KB in menubar, ideally should be a "search all fields"

I assume you mean ‘search all custom fields’ rather than the ‘search
name and description’ that currently exists? You could certainly port
the code from the SelfService search bar.

Yes. Search->Content->Any field
I think this is useful, since for a Knowledge base you’re usually looking
for keywords rather than the name/description
I’ll try my had at porting the code over, though I’m not a Perl guy!

  Kwiki formatting for the CFs is confusing, make it VERY

difficult to add formatted

items,…e.g. if you added some SQL:

Wiki Custom Fields aren’t Kwiki syntax, and you may just want plain
text fields for RTFM.

Problem with plain text, is I can’t embed screenshots etc., yes I can attach
them, but the article becomes disconnected. Currently I’m trying “Write
Area” (someone suggested that in one of the threads) to add/edit content,
and I attach images to an attachment CF, then use that URL to embed it into
the article…works great…but
I’m having issues with any type of Code…I frequently use SQL, XML, and
java properties in my articles, so having some way to do it with nice
formatting would be a great help. For a straight FAQ storage you could get
away with plaintext, but with a Knowledge Base, it’s too limiting.

  The Custom Field labels (when viewing a ticket) blend in to

the content…I modified

the CSS for CFs in general to make them stand out a bit.

Similarly, it would be interesting to see CSS tweaks, but I assume
these are RT rather than RTFM specific. Those should end up at
rt-bugs.

Yes they are RT specific…I hadn’t adjusted it since upgrading to RTFM
2.4.3rc. Basically I increased the size, bolded and added a light
background color. It affects both RT and RTFM. It looks ok in RT too,
though not required there.

I’ll also mention a few other things (do I add this to rtfm-bugs as well?),
I know others have commented on it…but it would be REALLY handy to pull in
attachments from RTFM articles to Tickets…even if it’s just the URL to
link to the RTFM article (to avoid filling up the DB with duplicate
documents).
And Ruslan just responded to another question I had, re: searching IN
attachments, which apparently isn’t supported…this really should be added
to at least RTFM, there appears to be a few OpenSource solutions to this.
We should be able to search in pdf, doc, etc., in a KnowledgeBase. My brief
search turned up an open source “Sphinx Search” (sphinxsearch DOT com) and
using antiword (word 200-2007), docx2txt, pdftotext and OpeOffice::OODoc ,
which seem to do this…though obviously there would be code involved to
actually get it to work with RT/RTFM (if it’s possible at all) and way out
of my realm…Anyone attempted this?

Finally…I’ll mention it, but it’s not Best Practical’s code. I found I’m
using tons of CFs in RTFM to handle specific Class requirements, this was a
nightmare from a Assignment and Priv point of view, so I thought I’d try
using RightsMatrix. Problem is it only works for RT and Asset Tracker…so
I’ve modified it to work with RTFM…problem is, I’m not a Perl guy, so my
hacks may be ugly…and since I don’t use Asset Tracker, is possible I could
have broken it without realizing it. If anyone reading this who knows
something about that plugin or wants to clean up my hack, I’d be happy to
share it.

Steve

Kevin_Falcone · October 8, 2010, 7:46pm

Ok, I’ll post some of these finds to rtfm-bugs.
  Lists of Classes (e.g. Quick Search, Create an
Article)…should be in Alphabetic

order (or optionally if you could defined the order, but defaults to
alpha)

Is this on the Select Class page or something else?

This is in:
Overview->Quick search and Create an article,
http://{my_server}/rt3/RTFM/index.html
Articles->Search
http://{my_server}rt3/RTFM/Article/Search.html
Articles->New Article
http://{my_server}/rt3/RTFM/Article/PreCreate.html
Topics
http://{my_server}/rt3/RTFM/Topics.html
Configuration->Classes->Select Class
http://{my_server}/rt3/Admin/RTFM/Classes/index.html

I also noticed when you go to the “Configuration” tab you get the RT “create
Ticket” and Search at the top, rather than the Search KB

Internally, there is a SortOrder field, but it isn’t exposed. I
expect that to change, but please file a bug about it.

Problem with plain text, is I can’t embed screenshots etc., yes I can attach
them, but the article becomes disconnected. Currently I’m trying “Write
Area” (someone suggested that in one of the threads) to add/edit content,
and I attach images to an attachment CF, then use that URL to embed it into
the article…works great…but

I’m afraid I’m not familiar with ‘Write Area’.

If you want to learn more about the wiki syntax in use, you can check
out the Text::WikiText module on cpan.

I’ll also mention a few other things (do I add this to rtfm-bugs as well?),
I know others have commented on it…but it would be REALLY handy to pull in
attachments from RTFM articles to Tickets…even if it’s just the URL to
link to the RTFM article (to avoid filling up the DB with duplicate
documents).
And Ruslan just responded to another question I had, re: searching IN
attachments, which apparently isn’t supported…this really should be added
to at least RTFM, there appears to be a few OpenSource solutions to this.
We should be able to search in pdf, doc, etc., in a KnowledgeBase. My brief
search turned up an open source “Sphinx Search” (sphinxsearch DOT com) and
using antiword (word 200-2007), docx2txt, pdftotext and OpeOffice::OODoc ,
which seem to do this…though obviously there would be code involved to
actually get it to work with RT/RTFM (if it’s possible at all) and way out
of my realm…Anyone attempted this?

This is a relatively complex piece of development.

Finally…I’ll mention it, but it’s not Best Practical’s code. I found I’m
using tons of CFs in RTFM to handle specific Class requirements, this was a
nightmare from a Assignment and Priv point of view, so I thought I’d try
using RightsMatrix. Problem is it only works for RT and Asset Tracker…so
I’ve modified it to work with RTFM…problem is, I’m not a Perl guy, so my
hacks may be ugly…and since I don’t use Asset Tracker, is possible I could
have broken it without realizing it. If anyone reading this who knows
something about that plugin or wants to clean up my hack, I’d be happy to
share it.

You can send patches to the appropriate queue on rt.cpan.org, there is
an email address you can use specific to that module. That way the
author involved can evaluate your code.

-kevin

Kevin_Falcone · October 8, 2010, 8:13pm

I realize I forgot to address this point.On Fri, Oct 08, 2010 at 11:08:45AM -0400, Steve McStravick wrote:

I know others have commented on it…but it would be REALLY handy to pull in
attachments from RTFM articles to Tickets…even if it’s just the URL to
link to the RTFM article (to avoid filling up the DB with duplicate
documents).

Unfortunately, sending attachments isn’t quite as easy as I’d like it
to be. Especially maintaining formatting with the rich text editor.
Sending a URL will only work in environments where all users have
access to RT. If folks are using RT to correspond with users who
never see the web UI, it isn’t a solution.

Adding “Add a link to this Article” wouldn’t be terribly difficult.

-kevin