Release Resolved Community Contributions
2.0
Jun. 29
304
bugs
Leo Dos Santos contributed the working set switching UI, Balazs Brinkus contributed the welcome content and other new user experience improvements, Shawn Minto identified and fixed resources leaks, and Willian Mitsuda improved editor. Helpful bug fixes and enhancements were provided by Frank Becker, Erik Pearson, Meghan Allen, Christian Dupuis, Tomasz Zarna, David Green and Mark Phippard.
2.0M3
May. 14
181
bugs
Meghan Allen made significant improvements to the UI Usage Reporting infrastructure that she has contributed.  Shawn Minto resolved 6 bugs and provided numerous fixes. Boris Pruessmann contributed task editor content assist. Additional bug fixes and enhancements were provided by Benjamin Pasero, Lubos Pochman, Tobias Widmer, Bryan Hunt, Andrew Overholt and Frank Becker.
2.0M2
Mar. 30
232
bugs
Shawn Minto provided numerous bug fixes and enhancements, Meghan Allen improved monitor usage reporting, Fabio Zadrozny improved the Context API for resources, Michael Valenta helped with proxy settings patches and Nathan Hapke set up a Bugzilla 3.0 test server.  Additional bug fixes and enhancements were provided by John Anvik, Wayne Beaton, Juerg Billeter, Leo Dos Santos, Igor Fedorenko, Jean-Michel Lemieux, Benjamin Pasero and Boris Pruessmann.
2.0M1
Feb. 16
183
bugs
Brock Janiczak contributed his JIRA web service wrapper. Meghan Allen contributed monitor improvements and personal activity reporting and Brian de Alwis contributed monitor fixes. Juerg Billeter contributed contributed repository URL drag-and-drop. John Anvik contributed Bugzilla history parsing. Fixes and patches were also provided by Shawn Minto, Hasan Ceylan, Dmitry Stadnik, Hasan Ceylan, Alex Blewitt and Andrew Overholt.

Also see the New & Noteworthy for previous releases


Help

Welcome Content

Open via Help -> Welcome.


UI Legend for Connectors

The Show UI Legend in the Task List view menu can be used to show Task Repository Connector specific icon contributions in addition to other icon and label display conventions. 


 

Task List

Working Sets
(Eclipse 3.3 only)

Mylyn now provides a unified working set mechanism for tasks and projects.  Using the switcher bar on the Task List create working sets that includes related queries, categories and workspace projects.  As long as Eclipse views are set to show the Window Working Set (this is the default), switching Mylyn working sets will cause both the Task List and Eclipse views to show only the tasks and projects  that are part of the working set.  For example, if you set up a Mylyn working set and enable it with the drop-down, the Task List, Package Explorer and Problems views will only show content related to that working set. You can also scope Search to only find things in the working set.  Selecting Show All in the drop-down will ensure that you all elements as usual.

In addition to using the pull-down to switch active tasks, the context menu on the task hyperlink can be used to perform actions on the task.  To edit the working set use the pull-down menu visible above or click the working set's label.


Improved Layout

The Task List layout has been updated to use a custom drawn tree instead of relying on multiple columns in order to provide the following improvements:
  • Support for subtasks (for an example see the Bugzilla section)
  • The icon columns no longer take up a large amount of horizontal space, making more of the Summary visible.  Sort using Sort by in the view menu.
  • The table header and horizontal scrollbar are gone, making 2-3 more tasks visible.
  • The icon scheme has been updated to make incoming indicators easier to pick out, hits more consistent with tasks, and the kind of task appear on the icon.  Note in particular that new tasks now have the task icon background and are distinguished by a special incoming indicator.


Scheduled Presentation

The Task Activity view has been removed and replaced by the Scheduled presentation of the Task List.  When in focused mode this presentation shows only the tasks scheduled for the current workweek.  Since unscheduled query hits will not show, this makes it easier to work without getting distracted by incoming items.  To focus on the workday, use the Go Into action on the day container.  When the focused mode is off, this presentation both past task activity and tasks scheduled for the future.  


Drag and Drop

To attach files to a repository task them onto the Task Editor from a navigator view or operating system window.  Dragging a URL that corresponds to a task onto the Task List will cause the corresponding task to be created and added to the Task List, if the corresponding repository exists.

Java Editor Hyperlinks
(3.3 only)

References to tasks and bugs in the Java Editor and now hyperlinked consistently with the Task Editor.  The Task Repository must be defined on the corresponding project (set via Project Properties -> Task Repository). References to tasks must be moused over to turn into hyperlinks. The syntax used for hyperlinks is connector specific.


Text Editor Hyperlinks
(3.3 only)

Hyperlinks are now supported in all text editors.  Modify enablement or behavior via Preferences -> General -> Editors -> Text Editors -> Hyperlinking.


Tooltip Show Changes

Task List tooltips now summarize incoming changes, making it easier to scan for changes without opening the task editor.  Note that the popup menu can be used to mark tasks read without opening.


 

Task Editor

Content Assist

The Task Editor now supports content assist.  The proposals include all usernames/emails associated with an "Assigned to" for all bugs in the repository.  The username in the repository credentials is used to highlight your username.


Offline Improvements

The offline cache is now much faster and much more robust.  Offline data for all tasks, even unread ones, is downloaded in the background, so before going offline all you need to do is run one successful synchronization.  If switching frequently between being connected note that you can toggle background synchronizations via the Synchronize Automatically button in the Task List view menu.  Opening repository tasks is now much faster due to synchronization and offline concurrency improvements.  Any submission errors are now shown on the task editor header (Eclipse 3.3) instead of the Error Log view.  Also note that the History button is now on the toolbar and a Submit buttons has been added as well.


Performance and Layout

The performance of repository task opening has improved dramatically because there are no more synchronous trips to the server and all editor pages load lazily.  If editor contents become stale, the header will be updated as below (Eclipse 3.3) or a dialog will show (Eclipse 3.2).  The Synchronize button on the right of the header retrieves the latest contents.  The information density and layout of the editor has also been improved.


Lifecycle Streamlined

The Task Editor no longer closes on submission, and instead shows progress while it synchronizes with the repository. If incoming changes occur while editor is open the refresh will preserve and mark any outgoing changes.  In order to clear outgoing changes use the context menu -> Mark -> Clear Outgoing.  If an editor is opened for a task not in the Task List the Add to Task List action can be used on the editor's context menu. Formatting of the editor has been improved and uses the new form look on Eclipse 3.3.


 

Task Repositories

Repository Actions

Repositories can now be put into Offline mode, which will cause them to stop participating in synchronization.  Thanks to the improved offline cache robustness this can be used when you stop working with a particular repository but still want to access the tasks that you had queries for.

Also note that local tasks (stored with the Task List, not on a server) are now a repository and that actions for working with tasks and queries are available in the context menu.


Search Actions

The results of a search created via the Search dialog can be used to create a query with the same search parameters. While the recommended way to work with repository tasks is via queries, individual tasks can also be added to the Task List with the search results popup menu.


Platform Proxy Settings
(3.3 only)

By default task repositories now use the global platform proxy settings instead of the Platform Update settings.  These can be overridden per-repository.


 

Team

Hyperlinks in Annotations and History
(3.3 only)

Team annotations, enabled in the Java editor via popup menu -> Team -> Show Annotation now show hyperlinked references to tasks.  Note that you must press F2 for focus and Ctrl to activate the hyperlink.  Task Hyperlinks are also available in the History view.


 

Focused UI

Context Activation Improvements

Task contexts are now dramatically quicker to activate and provide a perfect restore of the editors that were available when the task was deactivated.  This includes restoring the line numbers and selections of editors closed. 

Quick Context View

There is now quick view of the task context that  similar to the Ctrl+O quick outline.  Invoke it via Navigate -> Quick Context view or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+RightArrow.  This quick view can be used to show the task context when a navigator view is not visible (e.g. in the Debug perspective) or when the navigator view is not in filtered mode.


Retrieve from Attachments Table

The Retrieve Context action on the attachments table can be used to bypass the Retrieve Context wizard.


Add to Task Context from Synchronize View

The Add to Task Context action can be invoked on change sets or resources that appear in the Synchronize view.  This can be useful when an incoming change set should be reviewed but has no corresponding task context or when outgoing changes have no task context, e.g. if applied from a patch with no context attached.


Task Context editor

The Context tab on the Task Editor provides a preview of the task context contents.  This facility can be used to remove elements and edit their interest, for example, before sharing the context with others. When first opened this view will show all of the elements in the task context that have a corresponding content provider (e.g. Java elements and files). For long-running tasks this can cause a large number of elements that have decayed in interest to show.  The filter slider bar can be used to adjust degree-of-interest threshold to show only the most interesting elements.

 

Bugzilla Connector

Dependencies show as subtasks

If a bug A is set to "depend on" B, bug B will be shown as a subtask of A.  This supports creating dependent bugs to indicate that the work is not completed until all dependent bugs are done.  Enable this functionality by toggling off Filter Subtasks in the Task List view menu.


Shared Due Dates and Time Tracking

If Time Tracking is enabled on the repository, shared due dates can be scheduled.  When the due date arrives the task will get a small red bell overlay in its upper-right corner.  Personal scheduled for dates can be used independently of due dates.  Tasks with due dates that are not past will have a blue bell overlay instead.  If the time tracking is not enabled, or not supported by the repository, due dates can be used locally as with personal tasks. 


Local user names

If your Bugzilla repository is configured to use local user IDs rather than full email IDs enable the corresponding option on the Task Repository properties page.


 

Trac Connector

Hyperlinks in Task Editor
(3.3 only)

Trac hyperlinks are now supported in the task editor.


Custom Fields

Trac now supports the selection from a list of pre-defined values for custom fields.


 

Jira Connector (Incubation)

General Improvements

The JIRA Connector now supports features such as issue operations, task editor content assist and subtask viewing in the Task List (enable via view menu).

Attachments

The JIRA task editor now supports attachments, both for files and for task contexts.  Submission errors are now displayed instead of failing silently.

 

Java Editor Hyperlinks
(3.3 only)

If a JIRA repository is set as the task repository on a project hyperlinking will work per task key.


Task Editor Hyperlinks

References to JIRA issue keys are now hyperlinked.


 

UI Usage Reporting (Incubation)

UI Usage Reports
(Experimental)
3.3 only

File -> New -> Other -> Mylyn -> UI Usage Report will generate a report of your perspective, view, preference, command and editor usage in Eclipse.  This reporting facility builds on the Mylyn Monitor used to study early releases of Mylyn and has been extended to upload statistics to the mylyn.eclipse.org server where they can be accessed by all interested (via the button in the Actions section).  As before, we will be using these statistics as input to evolving and improving the Mylyn UI. 

UI Usage Reporting is installable as a separate feature that can be used independently of the rest of Mylyn.  Currently it is only available to Eclipse 3.3 users but will be made available to 3.2 users for the next release.  If installed it will ask to run once every three weeks, at which point you will see statistics displayed as below.  We then ask that you share your usage data with the community, via the Submit to Eclipse.org button, so that it can help inform Eclipse developers how the UI is being used.  Note that only interaction events that have IDs starting with "org.eclipse" will be uploaded in order to avoid having private ID names made public.  Note that the information gathered also includes interaction information about elements, so to avoid sharing the IDs of private elements make sure to leave on "Obfuscate elements using SHA message digest one-way hash" via the Preferences -> Mylyn -> Usage Data page.  More information on how the monitor works can be found in Eclipsepedia.