Turn Architel on. Get back to business.

We began developing SimpleTicket back in 2004. It started out as a simple application, but over the years it grew and grew into something bigger, something more complex. The old name just didn’t fit, so now we are embracing the change and will call SimpleTicket – ComplexTicket. Change is hard, but the reality is that SimpleTicket just isn’t that simple anymore. In fact it is so complex we can’t even release the latest version of the code (internally or externally). Instead of calling it ComplexTicket, perhaps we should call it GhostTicket? Yea, GhostTicket is about right. GhostTicket, ‘the most complex ticket system you will never see’.

The last update I made on SimpleTicket was back in February.  I know this will sound lame, but I lost the login for this blog and couldn’t make the update here so I made on my blog here.  Anyway, I am back in so I thought I would repeat the update so that I could reduce the more than 10 calls per day:

Simpleticket

On a daily basis I get an email or call about SimpleTicket (our open source trouble ticket application).  Each of the emails look something like the one Thomas sent to me this morning:

Do you guys still maintain simpleticket. Why is it still a RoR 1.x product? I have downloaded it and we’re trying to install it on our platform with RoR 2. It’s a major pain! Are you planing a new release any time soon? 

When we initially built SimpleTicket it was my intent to regularly release the source code using an open source license.  The reality is that the version we use for Architel has become tightly integrated with our companies proprietary processes.  We have connections to Basecamp, Asterisk and our wikis built into various versions of the code.  SimpleTicket has become a bit, how do I say, complicated.  About a year ago we realized that we would have to ‘fork’ the code base (one internal version and one public version) and as a result increasing our workload significantly.  We have two new releases in the internal pipeline, but they have been on-hold for the past six months as we have been busy with projects for Lego, FX and WhiteBox.  Hopefully, we will be able to release the new internal code sometime next quarter and if the recession hits our business we might be able to release a public version by late summer.  I love SimpleTicket and think with the right resources it could be a major player in the ticketing landscape.

We have been using SimpleTicket to run our IT support business (Architel) for two years.  Our business has grown and the software has grown as well.  Other projects have prevented us from focusing on the open source version of the software ~ we apologize.  Over the next few months we will be making ‘Simple’Ticket a little more complicated.  Why?  Our business is more complicated than it once was.  We will be adding scheduling into the mix in the next release.  Oh and we might actually release the newest code at that time.

The same team that brought you the SimpleTicket code is releasing the source code for their RSS feed tools. The source code is being released using the GPL.* Each tool was written using Ruby on Rails. If you review the code you will note that each tool was built at a different time. See if you can guess which tool was first and which was last. As promised:

The repositories can be accessed either by browser or via the svn client. The svn username is “anonymous” and the password is blank.

* To be clear, it is our intent that anyone who modifies the code MUST release those modifications publicly. If you modify the code for use as your own hosted service we require that you release the modified code. Get it? There is some confusion about this point in the open source community. The license explains that you are required to do so if you distribute or publish the code and some argue that a hosted application does not constitute “distribution” or “publishing” of the code and as such you are not required to release the modifications. We understand the confusion, but want to be very clear, for the purposes of our license hosting the source code for other’s use constitutes distribution or publication of the binary code. This is detailed in the source code files as well. Enjoy!

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This is the SimpleTicket blog. SimpleTicket is hosted by Architel and is currently in pre-Alpha. We plan to release the beta source code on SourceForge for Christmas. Things should be stable around the New Year!

So Jason Best was helping me test SimpleTicket today, and it turns out IE and the Scriptaculous Effects.js library are not totally compatible. Seems I have to apply some CSS majick to force IE to work with opacity on certain elements. Will be working on this tonite and hopefully posting code when I have it working…

Lotsa love to my friends at MicroSquish!

We are putting some finishing touches on the alpha version of SimpleTicket today. We committed to pre-Thanksgiving, and by golly we are going to give you some software today!

Here are the features that are in the Alpha:

  • Basic Customer info
  • Ticket Creation
  • Ticket Tracking for clients ( open, closed, mine, and all )
  • Email notifications of ticket status
  • Technicians view of all tickets
  • Ticket journaling ( technician and customer )
  • Standardized CSS that you can modify!

More to come as the release progresses…