User:ClockworkSoul/Igor

Igor is a stand-alone multi-functional WikiProject management tool that will allow its user to more easily maintain the often tedious and laborious tasks of managing a medium to large WikiProject. Upon its completion, it will provide a straight-forward and user-friendly GUI allowing:


 * The Wikiproject Browser, allowing the user to easily navigate the project tree and inspect several project details.
 * An intuitive GUI interface for viewing all articles that have been tagged as being in the domain of the project, including their current class and importance rankings, and a relative priority-based value on the same.
 * There will be support for sorting and searching and filters based on several criteria (class, importance, type [article, list, category]).
 * This will provide a simple mechanism for the manipulation of the class and importance values of all such articles, individually or in batches. (1200 unassigned articles? Not anymore!)
 * An interface for adding messages to the talk pages of all members of the project, or subsets of members in the form of multiple mailing lists.
 * Support for members to "opt out" of any or all of these lists.

Do you have any suggestions for features you would like to see? Put them on the Igor talk page!

Current version: 0.2.0 (May 17, 2008)
The current version is 0.2.0, available here for testing. This release introduces a number of new features and improvements to existing features, the majority of which are summarized below. For more information, see the documentation below. The number of changes made, both obvious and otherwise, will necessitate a bit of testing.

Please note that Igor is still in development and lacks a number of features that will be included in upcoming releases leading up to the 1.0 release. The included documentation includes a short list of known issues, and there will certainly be at least a few more to come. Finally, the Category Navigator wasn't ready to be included in this release. It will definitely be ready by the 0.3.0 release, which will be available in much less time than the 0.2.0 was!

Arbitrary project banner parameters

 * Intended for support of task-forces, the article manager now includes full support for arbitrary project banner template parameters of the style:




 * or



WikiProject Browser

 * The drop-down box on the Article Manager has been removed, and replaced with a fully featured WikiProject Browser. This browser merges project data from multiple sources to give a complete list of all known wikiprojects. By selecting a project, some of the information for that project may be viewed.

News Window

 * Upon login, relevant information will be displayed in this window upon login.

Login

 * The login window will now remember your name and password if the "Remember me?" checkbox is selected. This information is saved in as encrypted text in a user preferences file.

Article Manager

 * The "article data compiler", which downloads the article data for a selected project, has been replaced by a much more efficient version, increasing download time to a fraction of the previous version.
 * Article data lists are now cached as compressed files.

Output window

 * The output window has been removed from the Article Manager into its own window. If you close this window, you can reopen it via the menu option Igor -> Window -> Show Output Frame.

Bug Fixes

 * The "Remember Me?" in the login dialog is now fully functional
 * When posting article importance/class changes, the GUI is now locked.
 * The "cancel" on the "downloading articles" dialog now actually cancels the download.
 * The update-to-preferred attribute of the  processing directive now correctly read and processed.

Revision history and schedule
Following is a list of which features will be (and were) available in releases leading up to version 1.0. This list is subject to change at any time.

Version 0.1.0 (March 20, 2008)
The focus for this initial release is on the article presentation and basic "behind the scenes" connectivity.


 * Ability to log in via a login dialog. (Future versions may require the user to be logged in to use this tool.)
 * Article view interface for all articles that have been tagged as being in the domain of any WikiProject.
 * Properties shown: current class and importance rankings, and a relative priority-based value [calculated from same]).
 * Listings may be sorted by name, class, importance, or priority.
 * Individual listings may be changed and uploaded to Wikipedia as a batch edit.
 * View an article page by clicking its name in the list (will open an instance of system browser).
 * Addition of a splash screen to be displayed during startup (anybody know any decent artists?)
 * Support for searching and filtering of the articles table.

Version 0.1.1 (March 23, 2008)
Version is 0.1.1, available here until the SourceForge account is up and running. It will be available again sometime on April 8, when I'll have time to set up the Sourceforge account. This is a "between release" update that doesn't include any new features, but fixes several bugs and known issues, including:


 * Article management
 * Unlocked column widths. Columns may now be resized at will.
 * Clicking on an article name will now open the native browser, if it is supported by your OS/Java implementation.
 * Fixed a bug that prevented some projects’ article listings from being generated.


 * MikiMedia Interface Framework
 * Igor now understands how to deal with any characters you want it to, even the ones used by the Vietnam wikiproject!
 * Added support for subcategories to WikiCategoryFactory. This will be used in the upcoming category browser.

Version 0.1.5 (April 9, 2008)
Version 0.1.5 was available here. This is another "between release" update that doesn't include any new features, but fixes several bugs and known issues, including:


 * Startup
 * A new splash screen has been added, courtesy of LadyOfHats!


 * Login
 * Anonymous logins by leaving the username/password fields was not intentional. This has been fixed.
 * Failed logins now display Captcha images, if WM demands it for second (or third, or more) login attempts.


 * Article management
 * Added a menu bar; incidentally, this also allows changing attributes of multiple rows.
 * Popup menus (right-click on Windows systems): A second and possibly more convenient way of affecting multiple rows.


 * MikiMedia Interface Framework
 * Significant behind-the-scenes changes have been made to the MW interface framework in advance of upcoming v0.2.0 features.

Version 0.2.0 (May 17, 2008)
This release focused on improving Igor's ability to manage the project's article roster. First, it will include several usability improvements to the article manager. Second, the manner of project selection will move from a simple dropdown to an easily-navigable and information-rich wikiproject browser. Finally, this release will allow a user to browse all of the articles listed in any category, and if desired to add some or all of the articles listed in that category to the project.


 * Article Manager
 * Filter articles list by attributes (class, importance, type [article, list, category, template, etc.]).
 * Ability to add or remove articles from the project's scope.
 * List export: export the articles in the manager view into wikitext, HTML, and (possibly) Excel format.
 * Explicit support for task forces.


 * Wikiproject browser
 * Wikiproject browser: navigate the wikiproject hierarchy via a tree interface and inspect a number of project attributes, including WP 1.0 membership, active/inactive status, and the project, portal, peer review, and portal pages, if they exist. A search feature will be included as an alternative to navigating the tree for specific projects.


 * Category browser
 * Examine all articles in a given category. Selectively add articles in the category to the selected project, or navigate to subcategories.

Version 0.3.0 (in production)
Because this version contains a number of features that people have been asking for, this will be a relatively quick version with only two major features.

Category browser
Navigate categories to find the right articles to include in your project or task force.

Member messaging
Member messaging: post messages to all group members
 * Full support for opt-out
 * Support for multiple mailing lists, but project defined (defined by the project) and user-defined (stored on user's computer)

Version 0.4.0

 * Wikiproject banner template creation wizard. No more messing with arcane template code. Let Igor do it for you!
 * Management of articles for projects that are not yet listed on the Version 1.0 Editorial Team index

Version 0.5.0
This will add one major function:

WikiProject Creation Wizard
This tool will allow members of a project to create a project page with a design similar to that of the WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology or the WikiProject Viruses. The user will be guided through a process of selecting the project colors and contents of each section, and when it's through will post the new layout to the project page. Future versions may allow a greater range of layouts and other projects options.