Atlassian News

JIRA Studio upgraded with customisable tabs, JIRA 3.13

mknighten — 2008-10-06T11:57:57+10:00

The October release of JIRA Studio has been rolled out to all customers, and includes a host of new features and application upgrades.

First off, the projects toolbar in Studio has been overhauled in this release. We updated it with an eye towards simplification and hierarchy, but also incorporated some neat new features, like global history and customisable tabs.

Customisable tabs mean you can add new application tabs, hide existing ones, or rearrange the order on a project by project basis. For example, only need wiki and issues for a project? Hide the other tabs. Want to add a tab for your project manager's personal blog? Add a tab with the link. In the future, as we expand the flexibility of JIRA Studio with other optional add-on applications, the ability to pick and choose your tabs per project will become even more powerful.

Global history means that you can skip back to issues, reviews, wiki pages etc. you've visited in the past without searching. And global hIstory is session-independent, meaning history will be displayed for prior visits to Studio and not just your most recent visit.

We've upgraded the JIRA application to version 3.13 in this release. This is a major JIRA upgrade, which includes popular features such as sharable dashboards and filters, favourite dashboards and filters, and editable active workflows.

And we've made it easier for you to provide us with large files, like SVN dumps, by including a free WebDAV directory with your Studio account in this release.

For more, please see the JIRA Studio release notes here: http://tinyurl.com/3ngjxs

Dash to the webinar near you

jsilvers — 2008-10-03T02:15:53+10:00

Dash is the new kid on the block, and they're shaking things up in the world of GPS navigation with an innovative new product, Dash Express. Behind the scenes, Dash developers use JIRA, FishEye, Crucible, and Confluence to make great software.

Register now to listen live as Patrick Coleman, Director of Platform SW, walks us through their equally innovative use of our products. They've done some impressive integrations between the applications as well as with third-party tools.

If you're just getting started with our products, or looking for more advanced ideas and uses, this is a good presentation for you. Register today.

Interested in sharing how you use Atlassian products? Please let us know and we'll schedule you for a future webinar.

Behind the scenes of the JIRA Desktop Client

jsilvers — 2008-10-01T23:10:47+10:00

The JIRA Desktop Client offers JIRA users an alternative, asynchronous method for working with your issues. The connector is a good example of JIRA's SOAP and RPC services in action.

On October 29th, the JIRA Desktop Client's creator, Igor Sereda, will demonstrate the connector and discuss the ins and outs of developing an application that works alongside JIRA. His presentation is part of our Plugin of the Month webinar series.

To get things rolling, we asked Igor a few questions:

Q: I like to code in ______
... a dimly lit room of a seaside villa, sitting in a comfortable chair, listening to tranquil music, while two gorgeous models give me shoulder massage. Or, was it about language, not fantasies? Any language I find most effective for the task.

Q: JSR-666 is ______

A collection of absolutely necessary improvements to Java language and platform. I hope they still can add cross-class goto and pointer math in it.

Q: When I'm not coding I'm _____

Looking for people to code with me!

Q: My advice for other plugin developers is _____

Not much here from a remote add-on developer. Consider if it makes sense for your plug-in to have a remote API. If it does, design API from the very beginning; chances are you'll be using the same interfaces.

The webinar takes place October 29 at 9am PST/16:00GMT and will run for approximately 45 minutes. Register today. Interested in being our guest on a future webinar? Please drop us a line.

Atlassians go Conservation Volunteering

smaddox — 2008-10-01T15:31:30+10:00

On Friday, fifteen Atlassians went out to Long Reef to help with an ongoing bush regeneration project. Our team leaders were Matt and Emma from Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA). We were there under the auspices of the Atlassian Foundation, a company initiative driven by the interest of all Atlassians in improving our society and environment. Each Atlassian can take up to five days "Foundation leave" per year to devote to their pet project. So we went conservation volunteering.

The battle field

Take a look at exactly where we were — point A on this map.

View Larger Map

Drawing the battle lines

At the start of the day, Matt and Emma briefed us on the history of the area. CVA have been working in Long Reef for six years, under consultation with the Warringah Council, the Reefcare volunteer group and Pittwater Council's Bushcare.

The area is ecologically important because it forms a headland which juts out into the ocean quite a distance and so is exposed to a number of currents and winds. The soil and rock types are different from the surrounding areas too. So there is quite a large variety of plants and animals, both land and marine, including some not found elsewhere on the New South Wales coast.

Thanks to the ongoing bush regeneration activities, a number of important native species have returned to the area over recent years. Green and Golden Bell Frogs have reappeared. Penguins stop by occasionally, and we hope that they may re-establish the colony that once lived here. The number of migratory birds has also increased. Native plants, like Kangaroo Grass, have sprung up again where weeds once smothered native growth.

Major and minor skirmishes

Our task for the day was to remove a number of annual and longer-lasting weeds.

The CVA also hoped that we would have fun, learn something, and know that we had made a contribution to the area.

Spoiler: Mission accomplished!

Atlassians versus Weeds of National Significance

We targeted some major weeds. The battle was fierce, with wins on both sides. Atlassians suffered splinters, thirst, dust, and concerted sticky-seed attacks. But we persevered and won the day.

Above: Council of war on the evils of the Bitou Bush.

The Bitou Bush is a "Weed of National Significance", "noxious", and generally not a Good Thing. If you find it growing in your garden, you are legally obliged to get rid of it. The plant was deliberately introduced into Australia, in an effort to control erosion of the sand dunes. But then it spread. Now threatens the native vegetation up and down the east coast.

Above: Pat and Gurleen versus the Cestrum.

Cestrum has rather pretty yellow tubular flowers, and a nasty smell when you crush the leaves. The plant has a swollen root base and can re-sprout after chopping. To get rid of it, we learned how to scrape a vertical stripe up each stem, starting near the base and going upwards for about 30 cm. Then we dripped herbicide onto the scrape (the red stuff in the photograph).

Above: Pat declared himself the "Lantana King" and waged his own private war.

Lantana is another one for the hall of fame: a "Weed of National Significance" which "must be continuously suppressed and destroyed".

Above: Bogdan emerges victorious, clutching the vanquished Cobbler's Pegs. Gurleen uses a mattock against the same terrible foe.

Cobbler's Pegs have sticky seeds that adhere to everything. Uproot and bag the plant. When you leave the area, try to remove as many of the seeds from your clothing as possible.

Above: James victorious against the dreaded Asparagus Fern.

Here's a snippet of conversation overheard during the peak of the battle:
James: Oh my goodness, what's this?
Sarah: That's grass.
James: This branch thingy? Crumbs.
(Well, that last word is not actually the one he used, but it will do.)

Above: Surrounded! Atlassians get to grips with Fleabane.

Fleabane is an annual weed that can smother native vegetation. Strategy: Pull them out and leave them lying on the ground. They will not re-grow. But if there is a seed head, cut off the head and bag it.

Battle stories

Above: As so often in history, this battle was fought in the most beautiful of locations.

David Y arrived in Australia just last week. He is based in our San Francisco office. Today he heard his first kookaburra! And he suffered some Atlassian-style ribbing:
Matt (CVA) to David Y: Are you here on some sort of exchange?
David Y: Yeah, you could call it that.
Matt: Why have they sent you here?
Bogdan (in his best Polish accent): We teach him English.

Above: Dave attempted to negotiate a truce with the encroaching hordes.

Above: We may not look all that warlike, but when the going gets tough, Roy keeps going.

A conversation overheard:
Roy (when he heard we were stopping work): Is there another session?
Emma (CVA): No, we're wrapping up now.
Roy: Oh no!
Emma: We're going for a walk, to see the rest of the area.
Bogdan: OK, you go! We carry on here.

The survivors

Above: The survivors. Fifteen Atlassians plus one CVA team leader. (The other CVA team leader survived too. She took the photograph.)

Above: OK, so this is a weed. But it was not on our target list for today. And it's pretty. So it survived too.

Special thanks

Matt and Emma let us know that Reefcare and the Warringah Council greatly appreciate the contribution which volunteers make to bush conservation and regeneration.

Thank you to Emma and Matt and the CVA, for a carefully planned and thoughtfully managed day. We had fun, learned a lot and I certainly feel that we made our mark on that patch of bush. Thank you to the Atlassian Foundation for making it possible.

Plugins + mashup = brainstorm

jsilvers — 2008-09-29T23:19:47+10:00

Is it possible create a mashup with Confluence that mimics a combination of Dell's IdeaStorm with Digg? That's exactly what netoCiety, a partner of Atlassian's, did with their netoVation solution.

Stephen Danelutti at netoCiety emailed me several weeks ago to tell us about their solution, the so-called Networked Innovation Platform. Using a combination of Confluence's Reporting Plugin, Rating Plugin, Autopage Macro, Scaffolding Plugin, Advanced Search, plus netoCiety's own code, they've created a powerful new social networking tool for users within an organization to develop an idea.

I had a few questions for him after reading this overview.

Me: Is it accurate to call your solution a plugin mashup?
Stephen: Yes absolutely, that is exactly what it is! Having said that, a lot of native Confluence features and concepts are used but to achieve the core functioning of the main feature (idea creation, rating and sorting, several plugins had to be integrated and enhanced with some custom development.

If you're already using Confluence, is it something you can download and install yourself?
If you are well versed in the functioning of Confluence and its plugins and have some knowledge of the development environment it is manageable, otherwise you may have to consult with the originators (netoCiety) and get some support, all of which is readily available.

It's brand new, is anyone using it?
It is not in production use but it is being tested by several large blue chip companies prior to roll-out.

Upcoming Webinar

I also thought their application sounded like a perfect case study for our new Plugin of the Month webinar series. Join us on November 19th to hear Andreas Meingast at netoCeity talk about developing their application and building on Confluence. Register today.

New FishEye and Crucible video

jsilvers — 2008-09-24T23:17:54+10:00

In case you missed our "What's New in FishEye 1.6 and Crucible 1.6" webinar this week, you can now watch it on-demand.

For more Atlassian video, tune your browser dial to AtlassianTV and/or subscribe to this blog.

New FishEye & Crucible Releases, plus the IDE Connector!

kolofsen — 2008-09-24T07:46:20+10:00

Big news from Atlassian today. I'm pleased to announce two shiny new product releases - FishEye 1.6 and Crucible 1.6 - as well as the impending release of the much-anticipated Atlassian IDE Connector, which lets you interact with your favorite Atlassian tools directly from IntelliJ IDEA (and soon, Eclipse).

FishEye and Crucible are two of Atlassian's best weapons to turbo charge development teams, and the new releases are full of over 100 customer-driven features and fixes.

FishEye 1.6: The Secret Sauce for your Source

FishEye opens your Subversion, Perforce or CVS source code repository and helps development teams keep tabs on what's going on. FishEye lets you track code changes, stay notified of commits via RSS, and search through the guts of the repository quickly and easily through the Web.

Key new features in FishEye 1.6 include:

Search enhancements: FishEye's Quick Search as been designed to return more accurate results faster. And FishEye will now index the full content of every commit and will also return changesets for content hits. You can also now search specifically for added or deleted content, so you can find something even if it was renamed.

Multiple admin users: need multiple admins? No sweat. Now existing Administrators can grant Admin status to other FishEye users.

New "change" chart type: this new chart provides a quick view of activity by extension, author or subdirectory over a specified period. Check it out:

Plus, lots of other great features and fixes. See the release notes for the low-down.

Meeting FishEye for the first time? Check out the new FishEye overview videos at http://www.atlassian.com/fisheye.

Crucible 1.6: Team Code Review, Now Deployable Standalone

Crucible is a peer code review tool that helps teams review, edit, comment and record outcomes all from the comfort of a Web browser. Every bit (and byte) of code needs review, and Crucible is up to the challenge.

Key new features in Crucible 1.6 include:

Deployable standalone: for the first time, Crucible can be deployed without FishEye.

Light SCM: related, but worth highlighting separately, Crucible 1.6 offers new Light SCM plugin infrastructure for supporting additional repositories (like GIT and ClearCase). Crucible 1.6 supports Confluence, server file systems, and Subversion.

Confluence page reviews: through Crucible's support for Confluence, you can now use Crucible to review Confluence pages, in the same way you use it to review code.

Lots of other great features and fixes. See the release notes for the low-down.

New to Crucible? Learn more at http://www.atlassian.com/crucible

And finally...Introducing the latest Atlassian IDE Connector

Last but not least, I'm pleased to introduce the new IDE Connector (currently supporting IntelliJ IDEA, and soon other dev environments). So for those of you that would prefer to not leave the comforts of your IDEA, but still love to use Atlassian tools for tracking issues, running builds, digging through the source code repository or kicking off code reviews, you get the best of both worlds. Check the release notes for the full scoop.

More information about the IDE Connector, and its integration with JIRA, Bamboo, FishEye and Crucible can be found at http://www.atlassian.com/ideconnector.

In conversation with Ross Rowe

jsilvers — 2008-09-24T02:23:54+10:00

Join us tomorrow for our talk with Ross Rowe as he demonstrates several plugins he's built for Bamboo. This is the second webinar in our new Plugin of the Month series that attempts to highlight the 400+ free and commercial extensions and applications built on top of our products. Tomorrow's webinar is ideal for Bamboo customers that want to get an idea for how to extend the application, and individuals that are interested in learning how to build their own plugins. Register now.

Did you miss the "What's New in JIRA 3.13" Webinar?

jleyser — 2008-09-23T03:22:45+10:00

Missed last weeks webinar on "What's New in JIRA 3.13? No problem! A 30 minute is below (and also on Atlassian TV) for your viewing pleasure. And thanks to everyone who attended. We've heard your feedback, and we'll be doing more of the sessions!

Once you've viewed the session, be sure and swing by the Webinar Landing Page to find links, copies of slides, and answers to common questions from the live sessions.

Webinars, webinars, webinars!

mfriberg — 2008-09-22T06:19:44+10:00

Ready to pimp out your Atlassian products, interconnect them, or create a custom plugin? Then you should join us for our new webinar series: Voice of the Customer and Plugin of the Month.

Each month, we'll feature a different customer and different plugin developer to tell you a little about their business and demonstrate how they're using and/or customized our products or product plugins.

The Voice of the Customer webinar series is geared at highlighting how our customers use our products. Many of our customers ask for "best practices" on how to squeeze the most value from our products, and this webinar series seeks to address their needs. The webinars are about customers, for customers, much like our popular Atlassian User Groups.

The Plugin of the Month webinar is intended to highlight plugins which spring up from our Atlassian Developer Network. Our inaugural Plugin of the Month webinar was held late last month with Dan Hardiker of Adaptavist.

Along with Dan's webinar, all webinars of both series are recorded and will eventually be available on Atlassian TV.

Register now!

Voice of the Customer

Patrick Coleman, Dash: Integrating JIRA, FishEye, Confluence, Crucible and non-Atlassian products with workflow and reporting. 15 Oct 2008 - 1pm PST

Nate Nash & Jay Hariani, BearingPoint: Confluence, Crowd, and JIRA. 12 Nov 2008 - 9am PST

Joanne Thurmann, Polycom: Advanced uses of JIRA, 10 Dec 2008 - 9am PST

Plugin of the Month

Dan Hardiker, Adaptavist: Killer Confluence plugins and tips for developing your own, recorded August 2008

Ross Rowe: Bamboo plugin development, 24 Sep 2008 - 2pm PST

Igor Sereda, ALM Works: JIRA Desktop Client. 29 Oct 2008 - 9am PST

Andreas Meingast, netoCiety: Confluence plugin mashup. November 19, 2008 - 9am PST/16:00GMT/

Keep an eye on the Voice of the Customer and Plugin of the Month pages for upcoming presentations.

If you are interested in being a presenter, please drop us a line: marketing [at] atlassian [dot] com.

The Case for Personal JIRA

jleyser — 2008-09-20T04:10:39+10:00

As I recently mentioned , you can now get a Personal license for JIRA for free! Gratis! Zero dollars. No Dinero! Gratuit!

But what can you do with free, personal JIRA?

Well, there were lots of good suggestion in JRA-10393, such as using Personal JIRA to learn, or to develop a plug-in. And I'm sure, with over 275 Personal Licenses already generated in just the first two weeks, lots of people are doing just that.

Track Personal Projects

Or you can be like Andy Bang (father of Christina Bang, one of our Pre-Sales Engineers). Andy will use his Personal JIRA to track work against two personal websites he maintains, one for a Boy Scout troop, and the other for a Rugby team. Andy loves JIRA, but has to use another bug tracker at work (I feel your pain, Andy), and doesn't want to track personal tasks there, so he's installed a server in his house, and will have JIRA and Subversion running there shortly.

Moving? Use JIRA?

Or follow Julia Westen's lead. I noticed Julia Twittering about her Personal JIRA :

Julia was kind enough to give me all the details, too. Here is what she had to say:

At work we use JIRA, Confluence and Bamboo as part of our daily workflow. (We are also doing a trial of Fisheye and Crucible!) So, I was already familiar with JIRA and how good it can be for task/issue tracking.

Anyhow, when I found myself with overwhelming mental lists, a bunch of emails I was trying to keep track of, a bunch of random papers and at least one large project (buying a house), I realized that JIRA would be the perfect solution. And, not just for the current project of moving house but also for future things we want to do. I remembered that my husband had told me recently you had personal licenses (he's the one at work who has convinced everyone to use Atlassian products).

So, we installed that on the server we have space on and we have one project, Home, right now. I just started putting in tickets yesterday and I've got 32 so far! I've used components for Home Maintenance and Improvements, various move categories (utility setup, getting to closing, physical move, other) and a general other. I can see me using this for keeping track of lots of things (I could possibly even use it for keeping track of who's left to buy Christmas presents for -- hey if you've got it, why not use it?) especially all the things I want to do that I'll forget otherwise.

Got a great idea for your Personal JIRA? Go get your license, and let me know what you do!

GreenHopper brings Agile to JIRA Studio

mknighten — 2008-09-18T17:06:44+10:00

We're pleased to announce the immediate availability of the GreenHopper plugin for JIRA Studio.

GreenHopper for Studio is an agile project management tool which adds a number of very useful features to JIRA, but what it really brings you is a way to visualize your coming releases, organize your tasks, and plan your development. We've been using Greenhopper for a few weeks now on the Studio team internally, and really don't know how we ever got along without it.

GreenHopper replaces your card wall with a virtual card wall which allows you to stack rank issues by priority and drag and drop them from version to version. It also gives you:

Global view of all unreleased versions and all components
Card and List look & feel
Issue ordering using drag-and-drop
Version planning using drag-and-drop
Coherent handling of sub-tasks
Graphical burn-down reporting

The Planning Board helps you schedule many issues over an entire release cycle. GreenHopper also offers a Task Board to show you the work-queue for a version or component. And there is a Chart Board which will show you the burn-down chart for a release.

Interested in learning more? Check out the video below, or read the GreenHopper documentation. And please see this page for more on JIRA Studio, Atlassian's hosted development suite.

Pricing for the GreenHopper plugin for JIRA Studio is available here.

Innovation and awards and smarties - oh my!

rmunro — 2008-09-18T13:09:40+10:00

Business innovation today is not an easy thing to do and to sustain. We live in a connected, global knowledge economy, where ideas, capital and even people can be accessed with the click of a mouse... Competing on innovation and knowledge is decisive to successful business performance for firms and to sustainable prosperity for nations. It is vital that Australia is well endowed with innovative firms and workplaces. - Dr Cutler, Venturous Australia

Innovation has definitely been the buzzword down under since the Australian Federal Government's national innovation review was released last week.

However in our merry little corner of Oz things don't seem near as dire as is being made out - especially last week when Atlassian was recognised for being both innovative and successful!

Atlassian's fearless leaders - Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar were awarded the NSW Pearcey Award. The award was established in memory of Australia's computing pioneer Dr Trevor Pearcey and is awarded to an Australian, early in their career for demonstrating innovative and pioneering achievement and contribution to research and development in Information Technology. So it is great to know that innovation is being encouraged and recognised in Oz.

SmartCompany also thinks we're a bunch of SmartyPants and sent the Top Exporter award our way. We took home some delicious smarties and were placed 17th in the overall revenue growth in Australia in 2008. At last count we had exported to 106 countries, the most recent two being Monaco and Nicaragua!

Atlassian developers David Loeng and Brenden Bain in Melbourne accepting SmartCompany's Top Exporter Award

Atlassian in Europe!

jwold — 2008-09-17T20:50:27+10:00

As Jeffrey announced yesterday, Atlassian has now opened our European headquarters in Amsterdam!

On a personal side, I'm particularly excited about this because I've moved to Amsterdam to help get this office started. Along with Sherali who is heading up EU support, we'll be hiring people and getting the process started. With canal and tree lined streets, an abundance of flowers, windmills, great sidewalk cafes, friendly and helpful Dutch people - its hard to beat. I also found an incredible local chocolate shop giving all of us quite a sugar rush.

Why?
To be nearer our clients. European clients make up over 35% of our overall revenue without ever having a local Atlassian office; now we're simply more accessible. Interestingly this is a move driven primarily by our clients. We'll be providing sales and technical support and be able to be more active in local conferences and user groups.

Desk assembly stage....
We've got a lot of hiring to do in the next few months... in the meantime we are still at the desk assembly stage. :-)

Recruiting
Speaking of hiring - we need people! This is an awesome office (located on the Herengracht canal) in an awesome city dealing with great products & clients with people who work hard and have fun. We've got quite a few open positions. If you know of anyone who would be interested, we would love to talk with them.

Amsterdam User Group & Open House
Just like last year we'll be having an Amsterdam User Group in late Nov, however this time - we'll have people from our local office! And we're hoping to do an office open house that very day so stay tuned for details. Any Atlassian open house should be a good time so we'd love to meet you there.

See you in Europe!

Did you miss the SharePoint Connector webinar?

barconati — 2008-09-17T03:56:27+10:00

Well you can stop all the crying, kicking and fist-clenching because we recorded it for you. In about 30 minutes we demo-ed all the Connector's high-level features and answered quite a few customer questions. Thanks to everyone who attended. And if you missed it, don't worry. We still love you:) As always you can find more information on our SharePoint Connector page. In the mean time check out the video...