[Setools] Gjallar report

[Göran Krampe]

Hi all!

Work is steaming ahead on Gjallar and the team works quite well I think!
We are having fun and producing code, IRC has turned into our primary
channel for communication (#gjallar on irc.freenode.net - try
ircatwork.com just to pop in and say hi).

Generally I can say that all work being done right now is "good" even if
it is a difficult balance keeping our eyes on the ball and focusing on
immediate needs compared to refactorings/design improvements/framework
improvements. :)

The transaction level work made by Balazs and Levente has now been merged
into the gk-line, I haven't had time to look closely but my impression is
that we have a much better and *tested* mechanism in place for replaying
transactions reliably - which of course is the basis for our offline
mechanisms.

Ralph is working on "builtin statistics" and he has gotten PlotKit into
the platform and has gotten some nice graphs up on the screen. Next step
is to create a view presenting the statistics we estimate to be the most
important - we have a draft on that and it will be interesting to see how
it all plays out.

Igor has been finishing his plugin work, especially the so called
"spawn-and-link"-plugin which is an important new mechanism which allows
users - given that a Process admin has configured it - to create a new
case in a different Process, copy over selected forms and create a link
with a particular type from the source case to the new case - all in a
single button click! This is the first example IMHO where the advanced
model and framework of Gjallar is showing its potential for tailor made
functions.

Now Igor is moving onto some "small fish" but which are important for the
users - like for example configurable "color coding" in case tables. The
next dish on the table is performance, performance, performance.

Keith is moving forward with the Process editing views and is also
involved in general reworkings of the Gjallar framework aimed to enable
running Gjallar in a multi-image setup.

I myself has unfortunately not been able to put my hours into filters as I
intended, instead I have to a large extent been caught in "team support"
and bug fixing of stuff that has popped up as results of all our other
efforts. I hope to refocus on filters ASAP but will most definitely also
be involved in all the previously mentioned efforts too. :)

Sadly this paid "boost" will end soon, but hopefully some of the
developers might find it worthwhile to continue development on low
intensity.

Personally I am committed to Gjallar, and Toolkit Software is also
committed and I think we will soon begin to see Gjallar reaching a state
where it gets really interesting. :)

And... finally - anyone who wants to join us in development - just say
"hello!" and we will try to guide you the best we can. :)

regards, Göran

PS. Gjallar is also a great open source "sample app" for an advanced
Squeak/Magma/Seaside application. If you are about to build a web app
using Squeak there are several pieces of the puzzle to be found in
Gjallar.