Re: Recent progress?

On Monday 17 February 2003 08:05, Bo Thorsen wrote:
> On Sunday 16 February 2003 19:11, John Lamb wrote:
> > Has there been any progress recently on kplato?
> >
> > I did a CVS build a few days ago and it certainly seems to have
> > improved since I last looked. From what I can see, there is not
> > too much to do to get kplato to do something useful.
>
> No real progress have happened since I did a little work on it
> around June last year. There was some checkins from a guy during
> the fall, but he quickly stopped working.
Not totally stopped, but slowing to a crawl ;)
>
> > I see two things that are needed to get kplato to the stage where
> > it could do a simple project plan.
> >
> > 1. The GUI needs to allow relations between nodes: i.e. to
> > specify that node A (a task, milestone, etc.,) must be done befor
> > node B. I don't know what the best way of specifying this within
> > the GUI is, but it shouldn't be hard to represent in XML or using
> > KPTRelation.
I have made simple dialogs just to get data into the program, nothing 
that can really be used as is, though.
>
> The problem really is the GUI. In the underlying code and the XML
> file, this is pretty easy to do.
>
> > 2. (Some) nodes must have some time specification: a KPTDuration
> > or better a Distribution. Initially, a Fixed distribution could
> > be used, but later distributions such as Pert (5th percentile,
> > median, 95th percentile), Beta, etc., could be used. The GNU
> > Scientific library already has most of the code we'd need.
>
> Probably. I never even got around to start thinking about this
> part.
>
> > The DTD probably needs some fixing.
>
> Definately! This is a quick mock-up I did to have some basic saving
> and loading of files. I basically figured out what XML was and what
> should be in the file as I did it.
I have just added a few things to avoid typing in the same data every 
time. I had a look at the mrproject DTD but I don't know XML so...
>
> > Although it's probably sensible for
> > the GUI to call all nodes tasks this may not be the best
> > representation in the DTD because durations are calculated in
> > different ways. I'd suggest either
> >
> > <!ELEMENT node (project|node|task|milestone|relation|resource)*>
> >
> > and
> >
> > <!ELEMENT task (distribution|relation|resource)*>
> >
> > The logic of this is that calculations need to be done
> > recursively through the work breakdown structure, starting with
> > the top-level project. Nodes (here I'm suggesting tasks) that
> > have no subnodes would need to contain a duration (through a
> > distribution). Other nodes just calculate values as needed. As an
> > analogy, think of the factorial function. Nodes are like positive
> > integers, tasks like zero. The function can be defined
> > recursively but there must be different treatment for zero so
> > that recursion stops.
> >
> > An alternative might be to call everything in XML a task:
> >
> > <!ELEMENT task
> > (project|task|milestone|relation|resource)*|distribution)>
> >
> > This might reflect better the idea that a task could be broken
> > down infinitely. When a subtask is added, the distribution is no
> > longer needed.
> >
> > I think the terminal nodes are not needed in the DTD. They are
> > just an artefact needed for CPM calculations and both can be
> > created as needed from the rest of the project definitions.
> >
> > I'm happy to help with code (at least concept code ;-)) for
> > anything that's needed. Either GUI code or code for the
> > algortithms, though I have to admit I've never liked writing GUIs
> > much, even in Qt, which is the only thing I've seen in C++
> > comparable to Java's elegance.
>
> IMHO it's currently a GUI job to work on KPlato. We need to be able
> to manipulate the things there to be able to work on fixing the
> internals.
>
> GUI wise it should be interesting to note that in kdepim we
> (Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB) contributed a full gantt widget. We
> should be able to use this easily.
I have made Gantt/pert widgets (not based on kdepim). They need som 
cleanup and functions are missing, but I'll see if I can get 
something commitable this week. (No promisses)
>
> Bo.

-- 
Mvh,
Dag Andersen