Now, I am ready to post my first issue by clicking on "submit an issue". The input form for adding a new issue is clear and easy to use. I selected a predefined category and a predefined group and selected "notify when issue changes". Finally, I entered a title and a description text and also I attached a file.

After I posted my issue I received an email containing information with respect to this issue, such as, author, priority, title, summary, category, etc. Some attributes such as priority and status can only be set after the issue was sumbitted. This can be done easily, by clicking on the issue to edit it's attributes.

Any time a user changes the issue, I get an email that the issue was changed because I had selected the option "notify when issue changes" when I submitted this issue. Very nice: the email contains only the attributes which have been changed (In the following example, I logged in with another user "jphelp" and set the issue status from 4 to 6). Here is the email I got:

Screenshot

Screenshot: email notification

I wish the email would also contain the name of the user who made the changes to the issue.

Another nice feature is: users who are not the author of an issue can choose "notify when issue changes" as they view an issue.

Deleting issues

To delete an issue one sets it's status to "deleted" so this issue won't appear on the issue summary page, even if the status attribute in the filter is set to "any". Nonetheless, this issue is still available. By just setting the status attribute in the filter to "deleted", it will display all issues which have been deleted. You can then edit this issue and set it's status back to "open" or make another selection. An issue will never be removed from the database until the ZShrink instance is completely removed.

Configuration

You can configure a ZShrink instance via its Properties tab. The categories, groups, statuses, etc. are properties of the ZShrink instance, so you can change them to meet your own needs.

User Documentation

There is a 4 pages README file with install instruction giving you information about the features and an online demonstration to see ZShrink in action. Also, it tells you something about email notification.

Code Documentation

The Python code is not well documented: for example, some of the methods do not have a "docstring" and the classes the author developed do not have a "docstring".

Summary

I tested some other tracker products for Zope and figured out that ZShrink is a good one for me. It is easy to install, easy to use -- except the user management. The email features are very nice and the product itself uses Zope's new language "TAL". In further releases, I would wish for a better user management plus a search interface. If you are looking for a tracker product for Zope this product deserves a closer look.

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Product Review End.