This presentation is an evaluation and demo of the ProjectFork 4.1 project management system and its integration with the Joomla! 3.x UI. Presented for the Melbourne Joomla! User Group on 27 March 2013, content revised on 10 June 2013.

1. ProjectFork 4.1 in Joomla! 3.x
Russell Searle
Principal Consultant, Psicom
Melbourne Joomla! User Group
27 March 2013
Melbourne Joomla! User Group
27 March 2013, revised 10 June 2013

2. Agenda
• What is ProjectFork?
• Demo ProjectFork 4.1
• Demo ProjectFork Pro features
• Joomla! 3.o User Interface
• ProjectFork in Joomla! 3.x
• Happy parts of ProjectFork
• Sad parts of ProjectFork
• Conclusions

3. What is ProjectFork?
• A native project management system for Joomla! 2.5 and 3.x
• Exploits the Joomla! 3.x UI
• Imports its own copy of BootStrap and JQuery media
• Equivalent back-end and front-end functionality
• Features:
• Any number of Projects
• Time-boxed Milestones
• Task Lists and Tasks
• Project document storage
• Time sheets
• Forum
• User roles and access via ACL
• Custom templates (Pro version)
• Team design gallery (Pro version)
• User activity tracking (Free and pro versions)

4. Demo ProjectFork 4.1

5. Demo ProjectFork Pro features

6. Joomla! 3.x User Interface
• JUI is a vision to:
• Provide a single set of UI elements and behaviours
• Unify/standardise all Joomla! front-end and back-end theme elements
• Minimise redundant UI development by themers and component
developers
• See Kyle Ledbetter’s JUI site, JUX Portal and Bootstrap
• JUI is not the end of the Joomla! UI story, just a milestone:
• No JUX themer or developer standards guide yet
• Extension and theme developers have major investments at risk
• Backward compatibility problems for component developers
• Forward compatibility problems too: Bootstrap v3 is coming
• CMS uses BootStrap/Jquery, but system uses MooTools: danger zone

7. Joomla! 3.x User Interface
• JUI = Bootstrap + IcoMoon + LESS
• Bootstrap is a front-end framework
• JavaScript/JQuery + CSS/LESS
• IcoMoon is a large, standardised icon library
• LESS extends with CSS with dynamic behaviours
• LESS can run server-side or client-side (modern browsers)
• You need a LESS compiler to compile LESS to CSS. Choices:
• lessc.php from lesscss.org
• Various Mac and Windows GUI compilers
• Eclipse and PhpStorm plug-ins
• Some Joomla! template frameworks (e.g. T3) include a LESS compiler
• Joomla! 3.x doesn’t include a LESS compiler: planned for Joomla! 3.1

8. ProjectFork in Joomla! 3.x

9. Happy parts
• Very good UI, pretty good UX
• Well laid out, quite attractive
• Fully responsive templates
• Simple and approachable
• Most PM functionality available on front-end
• Full functionality available in admin console
• Nice JQuery pop-ups and icons for actions in lists
• Well-architected structure, quality code

10. More happy parts
• Very good design gallery and client approval feature
• Very good activity tracking
• Very good use of Joomla! ACL permissions
• Useful document repository
• Useful team forum topics
• Development road map has now been thrown open for
community voting
• Good fit as a PM system for small web team: up to 4-6
developers/designers

11. Sad parts
• All times default to minutes! You have to type in time units
and also spell them correctly.
• Changing an existing repository folder name fails
• Can’t set a standard rate for users on time sheets
• By default, all users in the system are eligible to work on
projects: should be limited to defined roles
• ‘Global labels’ aren’t: they belong to projects
• Date handling insists on time stamps
• Coloured ‘progress’ bars for time sheets are confusing, can
be misleading

12. More sad parts
• Progress bars do not show up for Tasks, where a PM would
want them
• As implemented, Milestones should be Stages or Phases, and
they may also conflict with delays and rescheduling
• Can’t set percentage complete on projects, tasks or anything
else
• No resource allocation or balancing, no calendar, no
conditional ‘labels’ (but development is quite active)

13. Conclusions
• ProjectFork 4.1 is a pretty good project management tool for
small, informal web teams
• Up to about 4-6 developers/designers
• Not a good fit for large, dynamic or corporate project teams
• Best suited for Joomla! 3.x installations
• Pro extensions are worth having
• US$79 unlimited lifetime licence for v4.1