1. Using Trac Efficiently
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Vivek Khera, Ph.D. MailerMailer LLC

2. The Problem
Handful of developers
No “real” management layer
Many projects
Many customers

3. The Old Way
Email or IM requests
Pen and paper notes
Private to-do lists

4. The New Way
Create task; notify by email
Electronic notes
To-do lists prioritized and visible by all

5. Basics of Trac
Ticketing
Subversion Integration
Wiki

6. Configure Trac

7. Role-based permissions
Toss out default permissions set
Define roles such as “admin”, “user”
Real users given roles

8. Sample Permissions
BROWSER_VIEW CHANGESET_VIEW
CONFIG_VIEW FILE_VIEW LOG_VIEW
MILESTONE_ADMIN REPORT_ADMIN
Admin ROADMAP_ADMIN SEARCH_VIEW
TICKET_ADMIN TIMELINE_VIEW
TRAC_ADMIN WIKI_ADMIN
BROWSER_VIEW CHANGESET_VIEW
CONFIG_VIEW FILE_VIEW LOG_VIEW
MILESTONE_ADMIN REPORT_ADMIN
Developer ROADMAP_ADMIN SEARCH_VIEW
TICKET_ADMIN TIMELINE_VIEW
WIKI_ADMIN
BROWSER_VIEW CHANGESET_VIEW
FILE_VIEW MILESTONE_VIEW
REPORT_VIEW ROADMAP_VIEW
User SEARCH_VIEW TICKET_ADMIN
WIKI_CREATE WIKI_MODIFY
WIKI_VIEW

9. Ticketing System

10. Ticket Types
Default list:
Defect
Enhancement
Task
Add as needed, like “text_change”

11. Components
Examples: “parser”, “SQL”, “documents”
Specify default ownership of tickets

12. Other Properties
Severity
Priority
Version
Keywords

13. Managing Tickets
Break up “Big Idea” tickets into smaller steps
Add notes on progress
Reference ticket in subversion commit note:
closes #134
references #42

14. Milestones
Grouping of tickets
Set due date
Keep small enough to finish in two weeks

15. Send email on changes
Configure mail server information
Ensure every user has email address in default
domain

16. Subversion

17. SVN Integration
Source code browser
Commit messages interpreted for links
Configure subversion to send email

18. Subversion Hook
#!/bin/sh
REPOS=quot;$1quot;
REV=quot;$2quot;
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
export PATH
NOTIFY=nadine@mailermailer.com
# do some magic for Trac tickets
LOG=`svnlook log -r $REV $REPOS`
AUTHOR=`svnlook author -r $REV $REPOS`
TRAC_ENV='/web/trac/projects/nadine'
TRAC_URL='http://projects/nadine'
trac-post-commit-hook -p quot;$TRAC_ENVquot; -r quot;$REVquot; -u quot;$AUTHORquot; -m quot;$LOGquot; -s quot;$TRAC_URLquot;
# send nicely formatted commit message.
svnnotify --repos-path quot;$REPOSquot; --revision quot;$REVquot; --to quot;$NOTIFYquot;
--user-domain mailermailer.com --with-diff --subject-cx --no-first-line
--handler HTML --revision-url quot;$TRAC_URL/changeset/%squot;

19. Subversion Hook
#!/bin/sh
REPOS=quot;$1quot;
REV=quot;$2quot;
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
export PATH
NOTIFY=nadine@mailermailer.com
# do some magic for Trac tickets
LOG=`svnlook log -r $REV $REPOS`
AUTHOR=`svnlook author -r $REV $REPOS`
TRAC_ENV='/web/trac/projects/nadine'
TRAC_URL='http://projects/nadine'
trac-post-commit-hook -p quot;$TRAC_ENVquot; -r quot;$REVquot; -u quot;$AUTHORquot; -m quot;$LOGquot; -s quot;$TRAC_URLquot;
# send nicely formatted commit message.
svnnotify --repos-path quot;$REPOSquot; --revision quot;$REVquot; --to quot;$NOTIFYquot;
--user-domain mailermailer.com --with-diff --subject-cx --no-first-line
--handler HTML --revision-url quot;$TRAC_URL/changeset/%squot;

20. Subversion Hook
#!/bin/sh
REPOS=quot;$1quot;
REV=quot;$2quot;
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
export PATH
NOTIFY=nadine@mailermailer.com
# do some magic for Trac tickets
LOG=`svnlook log -r $REV $REPOS`
AUTHOR=`svnlook author -r $REV $REPOS`
TRAC_ENV='/web/trac/projects/nadine'
TRAC_URL='http://projects/nadine'
trac-post-commit-hook -p quot;$TRAC_ENVquot; -r quot;$REVquot; -u quot;$AUTHORquot; -m quot;$LOGquot; -s quot;$TRAC_URLquot;
# send nicely formatted commit message.
svnnotify --repos-path quot;$REPOSquot; --revision quot;$REVquot; --to quot;$NOTIFYquot;
--user-domain mailermailer.com --with-diff --subject-cx --no-first-line
--handler HTML --revision-url quot;$TRAC_URL/changeset/%squot;

23. Wiki

24. Structuring the Wiki
DesignNotes
ImplementationNotes
OperationNotes
TestingNotes
MarketingNotes
WordDefinitions

25. Extensions You Want
[[BackLinks]] macro
[[LastModified]] macro

26. Some You Might Want
Wiki Goodies
Footnote
Not Implemented
Reference
Wiki Include
TOC Macro

27. Putting it all Together
Everyone must participate
Do the tasks in order
Enforce documentation

28. Resources
Trac Project: http://trac.edgewall.com/
Trac Hacks: http://trac-hacks.org/

29. Questions
Presentation available from
http://labs.mailermailer.com/