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 and Android

Mobile devices are all around us and more  and more people ask if GanttProject runs on iOS and Android tablets. It doesn't, but there is a couple of third-party Android apps which can read GanttProject files. I installed them on my tablet and gave them a test drive.

GanttMan

GanttMan is developed by Martin Doudera from Brno, Czech Republic.

Gantt and Resource charts look very close to original GanttProject charts. There is not too much interaction on the charts: you can only scroll, pinch zoom or select a task with a long tap. The remaining user interface also resembles GanttProject and is quite intuitive and simple.

Task properties dialog in GanttMan

Rescheduling overdue tasks

GanttMan doesn't support all GanttProject features: you can't see baselines or custom columns, can't export project to PDF or image.  However, it adds some features which are missing in GanttProject. Rescheduling of overdue tasks is one of them. You can find all tasks which are not yet done by the moment and ask GanttMan to either mark them as completed or extend them to finish on the current date. Optionally overdue tasks can be shown on project open, which might serve as a handy todo reminder.

Sample project file which comes with GanttProject opens in GanttMan without any problems. I tried to stress-test GanttMan and opened a big real-world project consisting of some 350 tasks and it worked pretty smooth.

Besides traditional file transfer through SD card, there is a little bit hidden option to send projects to Dropbox, Google Drive, email or other destinations included into Android's standard "Share" feature. Please be aware that  unsupported bits of information in the project file may be destroyed on saving, so if you have a custom column in your project, open file in GanttMan add a new task and save file then the custom column is lost. Martin plans to fix it, though.


GanttMan is freemium and (surprise!) doesn't show any ads. Pro version costs about 3 bucks and adds task filters and a few other features, such as multiselection.

 GanttMan page on Google Play

GanttDroid

GanttDroid is developed by Spanish guys from Rato WRS and can also read GanttProject files.

GanttDroid user interface  resembles GanttProject too but it has more custom look. Its Gantt chart is interactive, and it is possible to change task dates and draw dependencies directly on the chart, which is really nice. However, overall impression is that interface is a little bit cluttered and unsteady.

GanttDroid allows to change task dates directly on the chart

GanttDroid also provides a list of overdue tasks with the only option to mark them as completed. It can also export chart to raster image.

Task properties dialog in GanttDroid

GanttDroid can read and write files to SD card and Dropbox/Google Drive (in paid versions). Unlike GanttMan, it seems to preserve unsupported bits, so working on the same file from desktop GanttProject and GanttDroid sounds possible.

For stress-testing I opened the same big project and overall GanttDroid worked good, although it started freezing for a couple of seconds on scrolling (especially vertical one) and tree nodes expansion.

GanttDroid is also freemium. Lite version is free and shows ads which I personally find quite annoying. Pro version (priced at ~$10) and Extended (~$15) add a number of interesting features, such as Dropbox and Google Drive integration and project and task templates.

GanttDroid page on Google Play

Conclusion

Both apps look interesting; I liked GanttMan more because of its simple and clean user interface, but GanttDroid is more feature rich and features may overweight its UI quirks. I hope that they both will develop further to provide excellent user experience and will be great companions to desktop GanttProject.

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. 

Web site update

We have launched an update of our website. It now features responsive mobile-friendly design, and hopefully is more attractive and informative. We tested it with the major combinations of browsers and operating systems, but we could easily miss some layout glitch. Should you find any problems, please let us know in Twitter or in the ticket tracker

Forum pages will be using old design for a while. We'll update them too in a few days.

ganttproject.biz on 1600x900 screen

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!

GanttProject 2.7 goes to public beta testing

The second beta of GanttProject 2.7 is available for downloading. GanttProject 2.7 adds simple task cost calculations, weekend exceptions and import of project calendars from iCalendar format.

We're starting public beta testing and bugfix phase, so bug reports are welcome. Please read bug reporting guidelines to make your bug report really good.

Download GanttProject 2.7 beta II | More posts about GanttProject 2.7

GanttProject 2.6.6

GanttProject 2.6.6 fixes a few annoying issues and provides compatibility with Java 7 on Mac OSX

It turned out that application launcher which was built into GanttProject.app was not aware of Java 7 and insisted on installing Java 6. GanttProject 2.6.6 for Mac OSX is repackaged with other launcher, and we hope that it will work fine with both Java 6 and Java 7 from now on.

Bugfixes and translation updates:

• Gantt chart rendering issues when some of the tasks are collapsed 
• Timeline labels are saved to project file and survive project reopenings and application restarts
• WebDAV locking functions made working
• Mac OS X users can now move tasks on the chart with Shift+left button
• Hungarian, Korean, Chinese, Polish and Norwegian translations update
• Added Hungarian and Chile calendars

You can download GanttProject 2.6.6 from our web site or from our pages on SourceForge.

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

GanttProject 2.6.5

GanttProject 2.6.5 which fixes the problem of excessive memory consumption on some system and a couple of other bugs is published. As always, you can download it from our pages on Google Code.

The release build number is 1638. If you installed previous builds of GanttProject 2.6.5, we recommend to upgrade, since they contain a few severe bugs.

Out of Memory issues in GanttProject 2.6.3 and 2.6.4

A few users reported that GanttProject 2.6.3 and GanttProject 2.6.4 may fail with Out of Memory exceptions on start time or at any other moment (e.g. when running export/import operations). We're aware of this issue, we know the root cause and we're working on the fix. The root cause is that we're now reading more font files than we used to (this fixes another problem in PDF export) and once a file is read, it remains in memory (this is a feature of iText library which we use). It was the same in the previous versions, but we just read smaller number of files.

The fix will be available soon, and if you urgently need a temporary workaround, you can do one of the following:

1. Remove plugin/org.ganttproject.impex.htmlpdf folder from GanttProject installation directory. Please be aware that this will remove PDF export feature.
2. Open plugin/org.ganttproject.impex.htmlpdf/plugin.xml file in any text editor, find <extension point="org.ganttproject.impex.htmlpdf.FontDirectory"> line and remove these three lines below:
   
   <dir name="C:/windows/fonts" absolute="true"/>
   <dir name="/usr/share/fonts/truetype" absolute="true"/>
   <dir name="/System/Library/Fonts" absolute="true"/>
   
   Do not remove <dir name="fonts"/> line. This will prevent GanttProject from reading TrueType fonts from your system but will keep bundled Liberation Sans font.

Hope it helps to solve the issue and sorry for the troubles!

GanttProject 2.6.4

Our users reported a couple of severe bugs in GanttProject 2.6.3, so we had to build a new version. GanttProject 2.6.4 is here, and it fixes these two issues:

• Weekend as working day not honored in 2.6.2 and 2.6.3
• Predecessors removal in task properties dialog is broken

There are also minor translation updates in Serbian and Norwegian languages. No other changes. 

GanttProject 2.6 video tutorial

One more video tutorial which shows the basic features of GanttProject 2.6. This tutorial was created a year ago by Ben Brouse from New Jersey.

GanttProject 2.6.3

GanttProject 2.6.3 a maintenance update of Brno release branch was published a couple of days ago and is available for download.

There is a lot of translations updates, thanks to our awesome translation volunteers and Crowdin translation service! GanttProject 2.6.3 is completely or almost completely translated to 25 languages. Worth noticing that we internationalized Sortavala PDF export theme, so now you'll be able to send a report with Tâches instead of Tasks in the task list to your French-speaking partners, and print the name of Encargado do proxecto instead of Project manager for those who speak Gallegan.

There is a couple of important bugfixes, specifically, we fixed a few CSV and MS Project import/export problems and these annoying ghost remnants of collapsed tasks:

The complete list of bugs fixed in GanttProject 2.6.3 is available in our bugtracker.

Galician translation

There is Galician translation in GanttProject 2.6.2, contributed by Xesús M. Mosquera Carregal, but unfortunately it can't be chosen in GanttProject interface language settings. The reason is that language dropdown shows only locales supported by Java Runtime (unless an exception is explicitly set up). However, you can add a third-party implementation of Galician locale by just copying a file into appropriate folder in your system. The instructions are given on Galician locale site. They mention JAVA_HOME which is the folder where your Java Runtime is installed. If you don't know where is that folder on your system, you can find its location in the second line of GanttProject log (Help→View log in the menu).

Having this done, you should see Galician language in the dropdown (don't forget to restart GanttProject).

We're working on making Galician translation available without corresponding locale and on making locale installation process more automated, if possible.