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