GanttProject 3.2 Release Candidate

 A Release Candidate build of GanttProject 3.2 is available for downloading.

The build number is 3.2.3190. You can download it from the public Dropbox folder It comes as a platform-independent ZIP archive and Java Runtime is NOT included. You have to install Java 11 or Java 17 with JavaFX modules. There are two vendors which provide such Java Runtimes: BellSoft Liberica (choose "Full JRE" package for your platform) and Azul Zulu (choose "JRE FX" package). Some tips on running GanttProject from ZIP are available here: https://github.com/bardsoftware/ganttproject/wiki/Installing-from-ZIP

We plan to fix the remaining issues, build packages for all platforms and publish the release build in a few days.

GanttProject 3.0 packaging and update system

TL;DR: there are many somewhat technical details below. Long story short, GanttProject 3.0 comes with built-in update system. Leave it enabled to get bugfixes and other minor updates faster.

GanttProject 2.8 Release Candidate

The Release Candidate build of GanttProject 2.8 is available for downloading. There are Windows installer, DEB package for Ubuntu, ZIP archive and zipped application for Mac OSX (we'll build a disk image with signed app for Mac OSX a little bit later).


Download the Release Candidate build from ganttproject.biz

Announcing GanttProject 2.8 "Pilsen"

Well, it was supposed to be a maintenance update to GanttProject 2.7.2, but the changes turned out to be big enough to bump the version number rather than maintenance number. The first beta was published today, and we expect the release to be available pretty soon.

Headlines

The major new feature is actually pretty old one which has been made working. We had so called "additional constraint" called "earliest begin" in task properties for years, and its meaning was pretty vague, mostly because this constraint didn't work.

Task Properties dialog with Additional constraint set to July 14

As of 2.8 this constraint made working and it has clear semantics: task with earliest start constraint set to some date X will be scheduled to start no earlier than X and as close to X as possible, provided that other constraints permit that.

The obvious use of this constraint is to set the earliest date when a task can start. For instance, if task begin date was set on July 5 then changing its earliest start constraint to July 14 will move task to the future (e.g. see issue 1254 which is now fixed)

However, there is another use case which is now possible. If task had start date and earliest start constraint set to July 14, and was moved to some later date because of finish-start dependencies on other tasks then removing the dependencies will move the task back to July 14 (see discussion in issue 1247).

This change may have impact on older projects where earliest start was set but didn't work. When GanttProject 2.8 opens a project file it checks if dates of the tasks remain the same as written in the file after the first run of the scheduler. If some task changes its dates GanttProject will show a report:

Report after the first scheduler run

There is a number of other important bugfixes and translation updates in GanttProject 2.8 [1]. The first beta should be quite stable, as it is really mostly a bugfix update to 2.7.2.

Compatibility

File format has slightly changed -- we removed redundant information about the configuration of task table -- and that's the main reason of the version bump. Files produced by GanttProject 2.7 should open fine in GanttProject 2.8. Files produced by GanttProject 2.8 can be opened by GanttProject 2.7, except that only Name, Begin date and End date columns will be shown in the task table by default, no matter what is written in the project file.

System requirements

GanttProject 2.7 can run on Java 7, but we recommend using Java 8.

Name

Pilsen (Plzeň in Czech) is a city in Bohemia region in Czech Republic, known for its excellent beer.

Download

Beta I is available as a platform-independent ZIP distro only (install instructions [3]). You can  download it from Dropbox [2]

[1] The list of issues fixed in GanttProject 2.8: https://github.com/bardsoftware/ganttproject/milestones/2.8
[2] GanttProject 2.8 beta I packages on Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0gwuayq6vg0kyss/AAApogLPlvpg0lY9JltS-3sZa?dl=0
[3] Installing GanttProject from ZIP archive: https://github.com/bardsoftware/ganttproject/wiki/Installing-from-ZIP

Ciao, Google Code! Привет GitHub!

Thanks, Google, for the great code hosting service which we have been using last six years. Bad news are that Google Code Hosting is shutting down; but the good news are that there are other code hosting services and that migration went smoothly.

Effective today, GanttProject source code and issue tracker are hosted on GitHub. The repository is bardsoftware/ganttproject, and it replaced one which we used for  mirroring our Google Code's repository. The latter is now available as bardsoftware/ganttproject-backup.


We will update the website and restore wiki pages at the new hosting in the next few days.

GanttProject 2.7: Release Candidate I

The first Release Candidate build of GanttProject 2.7 was published on Dec 12. We will be busy next days with building native OS packages, bugfixing and translations update and hopefully the release will be ready this year.

You can help us with testing! In addition to ZIP archive, GP 2.7 RCI is available as Windows installer, so testing is now easier for those who don't want to bother with command line. Windows installer places GP 2.7 into a separate folder on disk and creates a separate shortcut in GanttProject group of Programs menu, so it is possible to run it together with GanttProject 2.6. 

GanttProject 2.7 beta IV

We're approaching the end of beta testing phase. A few new features were added in Beta IV which was published today, November 7th, and we expect to focus on bugfixing and translations in the time remaining until release.

Okay, so what's new in the fourth beta build?

Holiday colors

You asked, we listened. Now any calendar event, whether it is a holiday or a weekend exception, or just a neutral date, can have its own color.
 

Neutral event and weekend exception with colors

Shortcuts for managing calendar events

If you only want to add one day as weekend exception, you don't need to open a settings dialog. Just right-click in the chart column at the date you want and choose appropriate shortcut action

Event actions in the context menu

Date pointer

When you zoom out, you see the project at small scale and locating exact date becomes more difficult. To make it easier we now show a small pointer under the timeline which follows mouse pointer in horizontal dimension and shows the date under the pointer.

Date pointer (yep, it is there!)

Application and chart font options

Hey, lucky owners of giant displays, you can now change application and chart font size from the settings dialog. And if you want to use some other font family, you can change it as well

Large application font and font option in the settings dialog

Why OK is disabled?

Usability improvements in the export wizard

One of the most frequently asked question about the export wizard is "why OK is disabled?". Almost always the answer is "because for some reasons you can't write to the file which is chosen as export target" but that's absolutely not obvious from the user interface. Now we show explanation which is hopefully meaningful.

Bugfixing

We have fixed a number of bugs found in the previous beta builds and reported by our awesome users. Thanks everyone who is testing beta builds!

How to get it

Download beta IV from this direct link: http://ganttproject.biz/dl/2.7-betaIV

During beta testing phase we publish ZIP distros only. You can run it on any Java-enabled platform (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, etc.), provided that you can run java command from your terminal window. Please refer to installation instructions on our Wiki pages.

GanttProject 2.7 beta III

We just've published the third beta of GanttProject 2.7. What's new?

Split one-off and recurring holidays

We moved one-off and recurring holidays in the Project Calendar settings to separate tabs.

One-off and recurring holidays on different tabs

Recently used colors

Java Swing color chooser won't remember chosen colors across program runs, so we extended it a little bit and added our recent colors list. It is stored in a project file and will show up on any computer running GP 2.7

Recent colors list in the color chooser

There is a new option in the Application UI settings which allows to choose application font. A number of bugs has been fixed, in particular, drag'n'drop of multiple tasks now works fine, Outline number column is used in CSV import to reconstruct WBS, and unlock works fine in WebDAV dialog.

Download GanttProject 2.7 beta III from our web site, test it and report bugs if you find them. 

Mirror of GanttProject source code repository on Github

We're keeping our code in Mercurial repository on Google Code Hosting  and we haven't seen any issues except for just one: a "third-party" developer can't easily propose a change in our code. That's what GitHub is really good at, and we decided to setup a mirror of GanttProject repository on GitHub. We're using hg-git for that and hope that the mirror will be as actual as the main Mercurial repo.

Waiting for pull requests from you!

The first beta of new GanttProject 2.7

Meet the first beta build of the new major update. GanttProject 2.7 "Ostrava"is available for download from our web site and SourceForge.

Ostrava is the third largest city in Czech Republic. It is located in Moravian region in the north-east, close to Poland and Slovakia.

While this build should be fairly stable, it is possible that something is broken. We'll appreciate testing and bug reports, especially related to our new features.

Now, the headlines!

Task cost calculation

This is one of the most requested features in our bugtracker. What is implemented in GP 2.7 is really simple, but we hope that  many of you will find it useful. 

So, we've added Cost property to our tasks model and user interface. It sits in the Resources tab:

Cost fields in the Task Properties dialog

Cost can be calculated automatically, which is the default setting, or typed manually. When calculated automatically, it is a sum of payment rates of assigned resources, each multiplied by their utilization and task duration. Naturally, in the resource properties dialog one can specify payment rate for each resource. At the moment we support standard rate only, with no specific currency, per our default time unit which is day. So, if you assign 1 resource with standard rate 50 to a task with duration 5 days, its calculated cost will be 250. If you assign one more resource with standard rate 100 but 50% utilization, the total cost will be 250 + 250 = 500

The cost of a summary task is the sum of subtask costs, but can also be set manually.

Cost and standard rate can be shown as columns in task/resource tables, can be exported to PDF, HTML, CSV, and hopefully MS Project import/export is also aware of them. We would appreciate testing of MS Project interoperability in this aspect, though.

iCalendar in the list of import tools

Import holiday calendars in iCalendar format

GanttProject has been using holiday calendars in its own simple format for years, but we understand that it is not the most popular format in the world, and people normally would prefer to publish calendars in other formats. iCalendar is one of the most popular, and there are lots of calendars in this format available from Mozilla or iCalShare. Now you can import holiday calendars into GanttProject with our new import tool. It can import .ics files, so you'll need to download them or export from other tools, and although iCalendar format supports more than just holidays, GanttProject will import all events as holidays into current project's calendar.

Weekend exceptions

One more highly requested calendar-related feature is ability to make working some particular weekend day. For instance, in some countries, e.g. in Russia, if a holiday happens on Tuesday, it will be "merged" with the closest weekend, and Monday will be non-working too (thus we get 4 days looong weekend), but one of the next weekends will have one working day.

Such use case could not be represented in GanttProject previously. In GP 2.7 it is possible to add "exceptions" and make particular weekends working. This feature sits in the refactored Public Holidays dialog which is now way more functional.

Adding weekend exception

There are a few less important changes, library updates, and so on. There is one removal: FOP based PDF export, which was deprecated since GP 2.5, is not included into GanttProject 2.7.

Installation requirements

GanttProject 2.7 requires Java 7 or Java 8 and is available as ZIP archive only. You can run it on any Java-enabled platform (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, etc.), provided that you can run java command from your terminal window. Please refer to installation instructions on our Wiki pages.

Compatibility

We expect that files created in the previous versions of GanttProject should work fine in GP 2.7, and that GanttProject 2.6 can read files created in GP 2.7, skipping data related to newly added features of course. Please let us know if you notice any compatibility problems.

Official download locations

Unfortunately Project Hosting on Google Code which we are using stopped its download service. You can download GanttProject 2.7 beta I from our web site or from our pages on SourceForge

Release Candidate build of GanttProject Brno

We're on the home stretch. Beta III has been in quite wide testing for a while, and now the Release Candidate build is available and has already been downloaded a few hundred times. What's new since the third beta:

• Fixed severe problems in the task properties dialog
• An option to store WebDAV password
• An icon on the right edge of the Gantt chart indicating that a task has notes
• An option for changing logo file
• Expand and collapse subtree keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+End expands the whole subtree, Ctrl+Home collapses it.

We will be working on translations next days and will be fixing severe issues, if any. I mean, if you find and report them :)

GanttProject with custom logo

It is GanttProject Enterprise Edition, priced at $1000, branded with your company logo. Wait, wait, I am just kidding. We decided to miss this chance to earn lots of money and provide this feature for free in GanttProject Brno. In fact, it has always been there, but now this option is exposed in the settings dialog. Just create an image file of appropriate size (40-50 px height) and choose it in a field on Application UI option page.

Free Software Foundation is not affiliated with GanttProject and we have no information if they are using GanttProject or not. We just picked their logo for this screenshot.

GanttProject Brno beta III

The third beta of GanttProject 2.6 Brno is available for downloading, and there is a "what's new" summary on our web site. We hope that the next public build will be Release Candidate and we want to be sure in its quality, so we need your help in testing.

GP Brno beta III is quite stable, settings and files are mostly compatible with GP 2.5.5 (there are subtle issues when Praha opens a Brno file with zero-duration milestones), so you can use it in your everyday work activities. And our forum and issue tracker are waiting for your feedback! 

Converting milestones duration

As I wrote previously, milestones in the next major GanttProject update (GP 2.6) will have zero duration. However, you may have reasons to keep them with 1 day duration in your existing projects. Don't fret. When you open a project, GanttProject will ask you if you want to convert your milestones or rather keep them mostly as-is.

Default option is to convert, but you may choose to keep non-zero duration. Milestones in this case will appear as regular tasks in GP 2.6, but if you save a project and open it in GP 2.5, they will appear as milestones.

Once you make decision, it is saved in a project file so next time you open this project you will not be asked. You can also tick "remember this choice" to save it to the options file for all projects.

Zero-duration milestones and labels in the timeline

New and hot features, just submitted to the repository. Milestone tasks have no duration anymore, so now when you reach "launch the product" milestone, you don't have a free day after that for celebrating :P

Besides, milestone task names appear in the timeline as clickable labels, so you will always see and access your deadlines, no matter how deep they are in the task tree.

GanttProject 2.5 beta IV

Beta IV fixes severe problems discovered in all export functions in beta III on Windows.

GanttProject 2.5 "Praha": the third beta

So, the third beta is waiting for you on our download pages. It finishes the stage of implementation of major features and opens the stage of bugfixing.

What has changed since the second beta?

Export functions. iText PDF export engine now prints data columns, just like other exports and printing. It also was promoted to default way of PDF export, and FOP engine will probably be removed in the next major update.

PNG and PDF exports now allow for choosing a date range for the charts.

UI. We have a new set of toolbar icons painted in one style and color scheme, 1.5x bigger in size. Thanks to the authors of AnyColorYouLike Gnome icon theme! Also we added a search box to the toolbar. Oh, wait, there is also a long anticipated feature: separate option for the short date format! Find it in the basic application settings, just under appearance and interface language.

Recover and bug reporting. A sudden power outage can ruin all your work unless either you or software regularly save it. GanttProject does save your projects but this has not been exposed in the UI. Now we have Recover project action in Help menu which scans through autosaves and suggest you to recover (or skip) them. Also, to make bug reporting easier, we added an action to view log file contents.

The last, but not least, is that Custom columns tab in task properties dialog now shows and edits the values of custom columns for the selected task. Not the columns themselves and their default values as it was before. Less surprises, less need to write manuals.

GP Praha has got its version number, now it is officially GanttProject 2.5. Go ahead and give it a try!

Eager to discuss? Visit the forum!

GanttProject Praha: beta 2 is here!

The second beta of GanttProject Praha is available for download. We have packages for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

It fixes a lot of issues found in the first beta and on old usability problems, such as losing entered data in task resource and predecessor tables. Thanks to all who reported them!  We also updated the UI of custom columns management in task and resource tables. Now you can add, remove, change default value, hide or show custom columns from the single window.

It is available from the context menu on task/resource table header.

Beta 2 certainly has a lot of bugs. Please report them on the forum or in the issue tracker, and please save our time by checking first if it is already reported or maybe even already fixed!

We plan to release the third beta with a few remaining features to the wild as soon as possible and focus after that on translations and bugfixing. Stay tuned!

GanttProject Praha: beta1 is out!

Hello everyone!

The first public beta of the new major update of GanttProject is available for downloading. All traditional packages plus a new DEB package for Linux (Ubuntu) users are waiting!

There are many updates, some of them have already been around for a while, so here I enumerate those which appeared after the last alpha build.

• Notification area in the status bar which reports errors, if any, and keeps you tuned by reading updates feed from our site. It checks the updates just once per day and it incurs no startup delay. 

• Simple search service which can search in task/resource names and task notes. You can activate it by hitting Ctrl+F

• Rubber dependencies are now rendered as dashed lines

• If you're sharing with your colleague a project file on a network disk and your buddy overwrites it while you're working on your part, GanttProject will show you a warning

• WebDAV over HTTPS is now supported, and overall is expected to work better.
• Column resize mode is now "next column" instead of "proportional resize" which turned out to be annoying. 

It is a public release, and we encourage you to try it, but keep in mind it is still beta. There are bugs, some of them are already known, so please check the existing issues before submitting new bug reports!


Wondering how to comment? Visit the forum!

GanttProject Praha build 428

A new build of GanttProject Praha is available for downloading.

What's new and noteworthy (I will try to give more details later on the most important items) :

• Major rewrite of the options dialog. I hope it now looks much more clean and professional.
• Move the whole project feature. Checkout Calendar page in the project properties and set a new start date, with two rescheduling options.
• "Project states" renamed to what they're supposed to be, that is, to baselines.There is a new baseline edit dialog, and the button which shows it sits above the gantt chart timeline next to "show/hide critical path" button
• Some more intelligence with respect to the custom properties in MS Project MPP import
• Many small UI fixes everywhere.

We're approaching the wide beta testing phase, with announcements on the home page and all. It hopefully will start with the next public build of GP Praha. Stay tuned and give the alpha build the first try!

Download link: http://ganttproject.googlecode.com/files/ganttproject-praha-r428.zip