split plugin into an estimation plugin and a billing plugin

[Pierre Phaneuf]

I see two major users of the TimingAndEstimationPlugin: consultants and other such companies that need to bill customers for specific work (as well as give them an estimate ahead of time, of course), and then there are other software development shops that want to use it simply to plan their software (for example, those who would use the ScrumBurndownPlugin or something similar).

Myself, being in the latter group, am finding the presence of the "billable" checkbox and report pages that make just about no sense for my environment to be slightly annoying. This is certainly supportable, but I can't help but think that the parts that I don't want should in fact be very easy to implement on top of a more simple plugin that only provided basic time estimation and provided all the more sophisticated reports and such needed by the consultant crowd.

How about a BillableHoursPlugin that would depend on TimingAndEstimationPlugin and which would add the billable checkbox and the reports? I would even offer myself to help with the coding work, actually, but I can't help maintain that hypothetical BillableHoursPlugin, since I wouldn't even use it myself...

[Russ Tyndall]

Unfortunately this means that I have to maintain 2 projects instead of one. It also means that in order to get the full TimingAndEstimationPlugin users would now need to install 2 plugins (or I need to package one plugin inside the other.)

I sort of see where your coming from, but I think a better solution is available in the next version of trac (and it only requires that I be lazy until it gets here :).

In trac 11, by availing our selves of Genshi filter technology, the reports do not show on the reports screen (only on the management screen).(This patch is already committed ot the trac11 branch of the plugin). In addition, the management screen itself can be removed by disabling it (timingandestimationplugin.webui =disabled in Trac.ini or uncheck the box in webadmin). As this solution is already implemented, I think without a very compelling reason otherwise this should remain a single plugin.

In order to meet your need about the billable bit, I can try and come up with a way to allow disabling that in the future.

If you have any further comments, please dont hesitate to add them, or if you really wish, reopen the ticket.

Thanks,

Russ