Deskzilla 3.0 Released

June 24, 2011

It's been over a year since the last stable release of Deskzilla, and it's been a busy year here at ALM Works. Today we thank you for your patience and present a new major version of our product — Deskzilla 3.0. We've put a lot of love and effort into it, and we hope you like it too! Now let's see what hides behind the number three.

Support for Bugzilla 4.0

We have tested Deskzilla 3.0 against the latest major version of Bugzilla, and fixed all the discovered incompatibilities. The new default workflow introduced by Bugzilla 4.0 is also fully supported. If you upgrade your server to 4.0, please upgrade Deskzilla as well; earlier versions of Deskzilla will not play well with it.

New Features

There is plenty of them, just as you would expect. Let's look in detail at the prominent ones.

See the list of issues you have recently changed

Have you ever struggled to find the bug you've just submitted? It's easy now! A message in the status bar notifies you whenever a new or updated bug is uploaded to the server. You see the new bug number immediately. Click on that message or press Ctrl+/ to see the list of your recent uploads, where all the familiar actions and keyboard shortcuts are instantly available.

Per-query table configuration

Bug table settings, including selected columns, sorting, and hierarchy setting, are now remembered independently for each query. So you can adjust how bug table looks once, and it will stay that way no matter what changes you make for your other queries.

Suppress background synchronization

Suppose you have a connection to an open-source project, which you don't use very often. But Deskzilla keeps synchronizing it in the background, consuming memory, and generating a lot of network traffic. Now you can use Right Click | Get Changes in Background sub-menu to suppress background synchronization for that connection. To manually synchronize when you need it, invoke Right Click | Get Changes Now.

Also, you can use Right Click | Reload Bugzilla Configuration on individual connections when you know exactly which configuration changes you want.

Search for empty fields

"Is Empty" option was added to the Query Builder, so you can easily find bugs that have certain fields empty. Remember, however, that such conditions cannot yet be converted to Bugzilla searches, so Deskzilla might have to load more bugs than necessary.

Combine and save text searches

The Query Builder now has a new condition type, Text Search. These conditions work just like the Quick Search field at the top of the main window. However, you can combine them together, use them in complex queries, and save them in the navigation area.

UI Improvements and Bug Fixes

Here are a few highlights:

You can hide the navigation area to save screen space for your bugs.
Deskzilla now loads and displays the full names of Bugzilla users.
Some important background processes — connection initialization, downloading or uploading the current bug — now provide better visual feedback.
If you have custom fields or options that depend on Products, Deskzilla could lose track of those dependencies; this is fixed now.

Indeed, there are too many of them to list; you can scan through the change log for details.

Rewritten Backend

Significant parts of Deskzilla have been rewritten from scratch for this release. Deskzilla 3.0 uses a new local database facility backed by SQLite. This is a big step in improving performance, as it removes the limit on the number of bugs that you can store effectively in your workspace.

What's New Since Beta 3

Only two error reports came in this time, and we took care of them. The main improvement we've made is automatic tag migration, that will only affect those upgrading from Deskzilla 2.x. The Early Access phase is over, and the usual licensing scheme is back. Deskzilla Lite is available again.

Upgrading from Deskzilla 2.x or 1.x

Please read carefully! Because of the new local database format, Deskzilla 3.0 will not see any of your uncommitted local changes when it starts. These include new and changed bugs that you haven't uploaded, and unpublished Time Tracker data. So, before you install the new version, please take care of your Outbox!

Migrating local tags

On the first launch Deskzilla 3.0 will migrate your local tags from the old database. Don't worry about your tags being empty at first, Deskzilla will restore them in a few minutes.

Should anything go wrong, you can always migrate your tags manually by exporting them to a file and then importing back:

On Windows and Linux you'll find the standalone Tag Exporter tool in the etc\tagexporter folder of your Deskzilla 3.0 installation.
On Mac OS X, please right-click the Deskzilla application and click Show Package Contents. You should see the Tag Exporter tool in the Finder window that opens.
Launch the Tag Exporter and follow instructions.
In Deskzilla 3.0 use Tools | Import Tags... to import the file created by Tag Exporter.

Upgrade procedure

Though longer than usual, we've tried to keep it simple:

Upload all your local changes, publish and upload Time Tracker data.
As we always ask, back up your workspace.
You can install Deskzilla 3.0 over the older version.
The old local database will be left intact, so you can safely return to your older version at any time.
On the first start Deskzilla will pick up your connections and queries, and re-initialize them; please wait until background synchronization finishes.
The new local database will be empty at first, you'll need to re-download the bugs from Bugzilla by running your queries. To save your time, run the most generic ones first.

Upgrading from Deskzilla 3.0 Beta

Upgrading from a beta version is simpler:

Back up your workspace.
Install Deskzilla 3.0 over the beta version.
On the first launch, please wait until background synchronization finishes.
In order to improve performance, Deskzilla will analyze your local database on the first launch. It can be unresponsive for a short while, so please be patient.

This version may be used in a free 30-day trial mode or with any Deskzilla license key with active maintenance subscription. Deskzilla Lite may be used freely with any Bugzilla server having up to 1,000 bugs, or with a Bugzilla server that hosts a sponsored open-source project.

As always, we'd like to know your opinion. If you are experiencing a problem or need a feature, please raise an issue in our issue tracker.

Pavel Zvyagin
ALM Works Team

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