Blog Entries - XP-Dev.com

New Release 4.42 - Fixx Integration & WebDAV

rs — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:47:33 GMT

I’ve just released a new version of your favourite subversion hosting provider XP-Dev.com which brings Fixx integration, WebDAV & a number of smaller bug fixes.

Fixx Integration

If you happen to use Fixx as your issue tracking tool, you can now get your Subversion repository changesets posted to your Fixx issues as comments. Full documentation details (inc. screenshots) are provided in the XP-Dev.com documentation site.

http://docs.xp-dev.com/user-guide/fixx.html

Example Fixx comment

WebDAV

You can use a regular WebDAV client (Windows operating systems support WebDAV quite nicely, they’re called Web Folders) to download & upload files to your XP-Dev.com Subversion repositories. WebDAV has been enabled on all paid accounts.

Bug Fixes & Other Enhancements

A number of bugs have been fixed and some other enhancements have been implemented as well:

Trac projects can now edit the estimated hours field and add hours to tickets.
Fixed the upload progress bar when uploading files for attachments or importing repositories.
Increased font size: you no longer have to squint to read your bugs, stories, forums, wiki pages, etc.
Creation of initial Subversion directories (trunk, tags, branches) when creating repositories. Just turn on the checkbox for Create Initial Directories when you’re creating a new source control repository for your project.
Better looking Subversion repository browsing. Have a look at http://svn.xp-dev.com/svn/xpdevdocs/ as an example. (You’ll need to use a browser that understand XML Stylesheets)

Feedback is much appreciated. Just drop a comment here, or raise a new support ticket.

Startup Weekend London

rs — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:36:24 GMT

XP-Dev.com is one of the sponsors of Startup Weekend London which kicks off tomorrow (Friday 20 Nov 2009) evening. I don’t think its too late to join in.

All event participants get an awesome 1GB of upgraded (pro) space for FREE FOR LIFE from XP-Dev.com! That’s right – its basically the current Small Pro Plan with all the bells and whistles included in, and no strings attached. That’s a saving of $60/year for the rest of your life.

So, don’t wait – I heard that there are still some spaces left. Book 'em up before they disappear.

You can find out more about Startup Weekend here, and the schedule for the event is posted on the event's homepage.

Trac Hosting

rs — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:10:50 GMT

There are a number of you out there who have been asking for Trac hosting on XP-Dev.com for the longest time, and have been waiting patiently. Well, you don’t have to wait any longer! Trac hosting on XP-Dev.com has just been released.

To get started, just head over to your projects page and create a Trac project. If you want to get the full instructions with screenshots, just head over to the documentation page which even explains how to add and remove users, as well as getting a Subversion repository setup for your Trac project:

http://docs.xp-dev.com/user-guide/trac.html

All XP-Dev.com hosted Trac project have full integration with Subversion repositories, including using smart commit messages to link changesets with Trac tickets and even update the tickets themselves.

Additionally, a number of plugins are installed and enabled for each Trac project (full info on the documentation page), and if you’d like to have your favourite plugin installed, just raise a support ticket and I’ll see when it can be slipped in.

Feedback as usual will be appreciated! Just drop a comment below, or raise a support ticket

More Integration - Here Comes Lighthouse

rs — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:42:04 GMT

The integration madness carries on! Yesterday it was integration with FogBugz, and today, its Lighthouse!

As per usual, the documentation site has all the juice and goodness on how to get your XP-Dev.com repositories hooked up to Lighthouse:

http://docs.xp-dev.com/user-guide/lighthouse.html

This brings the number of apps integrated with XP-Dev.com’s Subversion repositories to 4: Basecamp, FogBugz, Lighthouse and Twitter. Lets not forget that XP-Dev.com does have its own bug tracker and that integrates quite nicely with the repositories as well.

If you’re using a bug tracking tool that’s not XP-Dev.com and want your repositories integrated with it, do give a shout. I’ve got a (pretty long) growing list of bug trackers and project tracking tools to integrate with, so, better add yours in asap. Just raise a support ticket with all the details, and I’ll give you a rough date on when it will be implemented.

Fogbugz Integration & Drag-n-Drops

rs — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:49:47 GMT

A new release has just been rolled out which includes Fogbugz integration

Fogbugz Integration

Full documentation of this feature is on the documentation site (including screenshots):

http://docs.xp-dev.com/user-guide/fogbugz.html

For the impatient, all you have to do is head over to your project’s Source Control tab and click on Edit Fogbugz Integration Options. Fill up the form and click on Save.

To reference a Fogbugz case, you just need to mention a #<case number> somewhere in your commit message. Additionally, you can close, resolve and even reassign cases.

To resolve/close a case, you need to have close(s)/resolve(s) #<case number> in your commit message.

To reassign a case, you need to have reassign to user or reassign to "full user name" following a case number in your commit message.

The Fogbugz integration documentation explains it with full examples.

In the example below, I managed to resolve case #11 using the following commit message

add fogbugz integration documentation

resolves #11

Example Fogbugz integration: case updated with changeset information

Drag-n-drop to Prioritise Stories, Bugs and Tasks

In the past, if you wanted to prioritise your bug, stories and tasks you had to click on a button that either pushes the object up or down the list. Needless to say, this gets pretty annoying if you had a really long list and wanted the bug/story at the bottom of the list top go to the top.

Well, that’s a thing of the past — now you should be able to reprioritise your lists by dragging and dropping them. Additionally, you should be able to reprioritise items in your saved search filters as well.

Hope you enjoy these new features. Feedback as usual is always welcome! Do raise a support ticket or just drop a comment below.

Newsletter #1

rs — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:20:12 GMT

I’ve just sent out the first newsletter for XP-Dev.com.

You can read it online here

http://lists.exentriquesolutions.com/pipermail/xp-dev-newsletter/2009-October/000000.html

Do “subscribe to the newsletter”, as you will get XP-Dev.com news directly in your e-mail inbox every two weeks:

http://lists.exentriquesolutions.com/listinfo/xp-dev-newsletter

Backups and Subscriptions

rs — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:52:14 GMT

Here come another bunch of new features from your favorite Subversion Hosting provider.

Backups, Backups and more Backups!

Real-time backups for paid accounts have been around for a while, and with this release, all paid plans will have an additional off-site backup for FREE. Off-site backups are encrypted and then sent away every night.

So, right now, users on paid plans have double protection in case anything goes wrong (kind like wearing two safety goggles while drilling a hole in a wall):

Real-time backups to your slave server (which is an entirely different physical server, in an entirely different datacenter)
Nightly off-site backups.

Amazon S3 Backups

All users (free and paid) can now backup their repositories in real-time to Amazon S3, and only costs $2/month ($19.20/year). The backups will be sent to an S3 bucket thats owned by you, so Amazon will charge you for using their service.

This is extremely useful for Free account holders, who in the past never had any backups.

To configure your account for sending backups to Amazon S3, just head over to the configuration panel and put in your AWS access key and secret key. XP-Dev.com does not store any of these keys, and instead will setup the permissions on the bucket you provide such that the “XP-Dev.com” AWS user can write objects to it. All backup objects will the the appropriate permissions set on them so that you can read and write them as well.

Additionally, I have written a bunch of command line Python scripts to retrieve these backups at your own leisure. The project wiki homepage will be updated with more details, but for the eager, you can checkout the sources from:

https://svn.xp-dev.com/svn/xpdev-amazon-s3-tools/trunk/

For more details on these backups, head over the new feature page for backups or have a look at the documentation

http://docs.xp-dev.com/user-guide/amazon-s3-backups.html

Recurring Payments

Support for recurring payments have been added in to save you the trouble of manually paying every month. You can still pay manually if you’d like that. To use recurring payments, just click on the Subscribe button when you’re upgrading your account or paying your next installment.

New Pricing Page

The pricing page used to be an utter mess and I decided that it was time to use a tabulated form so that its easier to compare the available packages and features. So, here you go: http://www.xp-dev.com/pricing

Feedback is always welcome. Do raise a "support ticket:/support or just leave a comment below.

Basecamp and Twitter Integration

rs — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:17:21 GMT

A couple of new features have been rolled out:

Basecamp Integration

If you’re using Basecamp as a project management tool, you can now get your Subversion repository commits into Basecamp as messages.

All you have to do is head to the Source Control tab of your project and click on Edit Basecamp Integration Options. You will need to pass it a Basecamp username, password, domain and project ID.

If you don’t know your Basecamp project ID, then not to worry, XP-Dev.com will get the list of your projects. Just fill in your username, password, domain and click on Find Basecamp projects for the user above. If everything goes well, you should see a list of your projects in a drop down box.

Full Basecamp integration documentation is available as well (inc. screenshots):

http://docs.xp-dev.com/user-guide/basecamp.html

Twitter Integration with OAuth

For all you Twitter fans out there, you can now get your Subversion commit messages as status updates.

All you have to do is head over to your project’s Source Control tab and click on the Enable Twitter link. From there, just follow the instructions and allow XP-Dev.com access to your Twitter profile.

There’s no need to pass your Twitter username or password to “XP-Dev.com” as we use OAuth with Twitter to get authorisation to update your Twitter status.

Full Twitter integration documentation is available as well (with screenshots):

http://docs.xp-dev.com/user-guide/twitter.html

A working example is at @xpdev_svn which has status updates of XP-Dev.com own projects.

Bugfixes

Couple of bugfixes:

Users who have maxed out their private project quota can now carry on creating as many open source projects.
Deleting non-empty iterations are working again.

XP-Dev.com gets a phone number - Call Us!

rs — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:25:48 GMT

There are tons of ways to contact XP-Dev.com for any support issues or queries. There are support tickets, forums, skype, email, twitter and now you can even use a regular phone! If you’re in the UK, you can call 0208 1444 014, otherwise, give +44 208 1444 014 a ring.

Calls will be charged as a regular local London phone call. I did consider using one of those 0845 numbers, but I personally hate them as they’re not usually covered by any phone subscription package, and hence have decided on a regular UK land-line number.

I tend to find talking to someone over the phone so much more effective in fact-finding, or even problem solving. Hopefully this will make your XP-Dev.com experience even more uber-awesome.

Feedback is welcome, do post a comment below, or just pick up the phone and call!

Plan Sizes have Doubled

rs — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:40:51 GMT

Things are going a little crazy here at XP-Dev.com -- first, it was the free advertising for startups and developers and then it was the announcement of the newsletter, and now we’re really rockin' the house — all paid pricing plans have double sizes. Yes, that’s a 100% increase in space for all your project tracking and subversion hosting needs!

Check out the pricing plans for yourself.

Users who have subscribed to the new pricing plans (i.e. not on the V3 Pro plan) will see the new quotas updated on their account page. If there are any problem or queries, do drop a line.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone! It has been a busy week for me, and like me, I’m sure there are plenty of you out there who are thinking: TGIF!