This book describes the functionality and capabilities of Redmine, reveals its secrets, and gives tips on how to use it effectively. Here, you will find all the information needed to install, configure, use, and master this application. As the book is intended to be a practical guide, it also pays special attention to practical examples of using Redmine.
Additionally, you will find mentions of some third-party plugins in chapters and sections where they are pertinent. We will also review five of them in Chapter 10, Plugins and Themes.
Redmine is a very powerful and an extremely flexible project management tool and issue tracker. As it comes with many great features for working with projects, it is also often used as an application for project hosting. It's free, open source, built on the popular Ruby on Rails framework, and has a strong community.
Chapter 1, Getting Familiar with Redmine, prepares us for the next chapters by briefly going through the concept of the Redmine interface and reviewing replaceable components of the application.
Chapter 2, Installing Redmine, includes detailed instructions on how to install Redmine in two different ways, each of which is preferable for different purposes. Additionally, it mentions some other ways to easily install Redmine.
Chapter 3, Configuring Redmine, reviews the configuration options, which are available on the Settings page in the Administration menu, and covers the advanced options that are concealed behind them. Also, this chapter contains a section that describes how to troubleshoot problems in the application.
Chapter 4, Issue Tracking, reviews what makes Redmine one of the best issue trackers, also paying heed to the configuration options that are related to issue tracking.
Chapter 5, Managing Projects, covers the major part of Redmine functionality, which is related to projects, and demonstrates why this is one of the best applications for project hosting.
Chapter 6, Text Formatting, is a comprehensive tutorial for the Redmine rich text formatting syntax, which is used all over Redmine. This chapter mainly describes Textile (one of the supported markup languages), at the same time mentioning analogs in Markdown.
Chapter 7, Access Control and Workflow, is aimed at enlightening the permission system and the issue life cycle by explaining what the role, tracker, and issue status are and how they are connected.
Chapter 8, Time Tracking, describes the time tracking capabilities of Redmine and shows how to work with time reports.
Chapter 9, Personalization, will help you make Redmine more comfortable for yourself and ensure that you'll be notified about events that are important or interesting for you. Additionally, this chapter describes how third-party user accounts can be used to access Redmine.
Chapter 10, Plugins and Themes, guides the readers to find plugins for a particular version of Redmine, covers installation of plugins and themes, and reviews some plugins and themes.
Chapter 11, Customizing Redmine, shows the power of custom fields and shows how to customize Redmine without breaking upgrade compatibility. In particular, this chapter explains how to create a simple theme and plugin.
Appendix, Quick Syntax Reference, contains a brief list of syntax rules that are supported by Redmine's Wiki syntax. This reference includes the syntax rules of Textile and Markdown.
For this book, you need access to a Redmine installation (or you will need to install it as described in Chapter 2, Installing Redmine). It's better if you are an administrator of the installation.
This book describes Redmine 3.2.x. However, earlier versions should also be fine.
This book is for anyone who already uses or plans to use Redmine. But its readers should consider that some of the discussed topics are specific to the software industry (Redmine can be used for other industries as well). As the book sometimes describes things that require privileged access, it will be especially useful for project managers and administrators. No prior knowledge of Redmine is required.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and so on are shown as follows: ".rb is the extension for Ruby files."
A block of code is set as follows:
<VirtualHost *:80>
RailsEnv production
DocumentRoot /opt/redmine/redmine-3.2.0/public
<Directory "/opt/redmine/redmine-3.2.0/public">
Allow from all
Require all granted
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
$ sudo service apache2 reload
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Then select the Information page from the sidebar."
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply e-mail <[email protected]>, and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.
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Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/MasteringRedmine_ColorImages.pdf.
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.
To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.
This book also has its own website at mastering-redmine.com that runs the Redmine installation which is reviewed in the book. So, you can use Redmine on this website to submit errata as well.
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Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at <[email protected]>, and we will do our best to address the problem.
You can also discuss this book on its website using the message board that can be found at mastering-redmine.com/projects/book/boards.