Dingo's Release History

Previous Releases

6/23/09 - 1.5.7 Zoltan - 15 changes.   Zoltan was mostly a small bug fix/cosmetic release.  Things like time/date fields that were not consistent.  We added a new column (Item Type) to the list screen so you could sort by that field.   (Somehow we never included that one in the filter)      DB did not change so no upgrade script was needed.

5/17/09 - 1.5.6 Rudolph - 69 changes.   Mostly Rudolph was about the addition of the CSS Manager that allowed you to "skin" Dingo for a better fit into whatever template were running.    About half of these changes were small cosmetic tweaks but 17 user-requested features were added.   e.g.,  CAPTCHA was added for Visitor Tickets.  

4/12/09 - 1.5.5 Klaudia - 14 changes.   Put charge type into the backend so you didn't have to mess with the language file.   It was during some Klaudia changes that we decided that the next release would include a way to easily tweak how Dingo would integrate with different templates.    Klaudia included a change to the database so an upgrade script was required to go from 1.5.4.

3/22/09 - 1.5.4 Leonora -  We did away with the concept of a person owning an item.  Instead we started we began to refer to everyone as Resources.   The first person on an item is called the Primary Resource. 

The Attachment Viewer (Files link) was added for admins.

Fixed 8 bugs including one that prevented new items from being emailed to those with notification turned-on.

02/17/2009 1.5.3 Elvira

Biggest addition was the "visitor ticket" feature.  About this time we decided that Dingo should be business-aware so we started asking users for their specific item_type lists.  Elvira was released configured for Joomla webmasters, but it was during this revision we realized different item lists should be provided as part of the install process.

02/13/2009 1.5.2 Alex

Alex was a quick maintenance release when we discovered we had left out a few key items in Karolina.   

02/02/2009 1.5.1 Karolina

This was the first official release of a stable Dingo.  It did everything we had intended for the first release, but still had a number of features that we hadn't enabled.   The first copy was sold to someone in Stugudal Norway,  about two hours after we made Dingo available. 

01/08/2009 (com_dingoB2.zip)
01/15/2009 (com_dingoB3.zip)
01/19/2009 (com_dingoB4.zip)
01/20/2009 (com_dingoB5.zip)

We had four more releases in the month of January we implemented 39 change requests coming mostly from the beta group.   Many of the changes were cosmetic, but some were for adding of features and screens.  

12/29/2009 (com_dingoB.zip)

The official beta version of Dingo was released on 29-December-2009.  It had no version name other than 0.9 Beta.   It was solid in that it saved records, but it we knew it was loaded with tiny bugs and cosmetic issues.   Our beta group consisted of about 25 users who offered to give Dingo a try while providing some much needed real-life feedback.

When Dingo Was Born:  November 19th 2008

Meetings held in Budapest and Tirgu Mures concluded that Taskhopper II should be created.  The idea of not extending Taskhopper into a Joomla 1.5 framework seemed like a missed opportunity.   It was decided that Taskhopper II (the name Dingo hadn't yet been conceived) should be built along side another project that would later become part of the Taskhopper Dingo foundation.

How Dingo Came To Be

As collaborating software development companies, API Network and IBCNet needed a way to manage many people doing many different things from very different locations. They tried everything from simple ticket systems to full blown project management and groupware/collaboration systems.

Most of them were impressive - but they were either too complex, required them to change the way they did business, or came with a difficult to extend underlying code.

What they needed was a simple task manager that ran inside of Joomla. As a result, and out of a rather selfish need for a simple, yet flexible collaboration product, TaskHopper was born.

Taskhopper v1.0 was released in July of 2005, and made it to the Top 3 in the Joomla extensions directory. (http://joomla.org). It proved to be so versatile, that it branched into niche applications (such as online progress tracking systems for athletes) or was extended to work with other Joomla components such as VirtueMart. By using TaskHopper in their business every single day, APIN and IBCNet kept connected in an environment that spanned many time zones, but also fueled the vision of what was next to come.

What the future held for TaskHopper was a more elegant solution to an efficient, but not a perfectly-groomed system. After an investment of over 12,000 engineering hours, Dingo was conceived in early 2008 and released to a controlled beta group on the 27th of December as a full, fresh rewrite of TaskHopper running within native Joomla 1.5. It remains faithful to the one principle that has guided Taskhopper development: keep it simple and fast! It offers much of the same interface, but the improvements are significant in both what you can and can't see.