[Planner Dev] Anticipating future schema changes ?.

["lincoln phipps openmutual net" <lincoln phipps openmutual net>]

Is this a good idea ?.

Changing the DTD and SQL inserts for every new feature
as it is patched in is sort of a hassle. Be nice to define the
DTD at least (with CDATA IMPLIED) for all the forseable future
features even if there is no code or dialogs created yet for
them. That way we do one big schema /SQL change and then people
can use the feature as it appear in code without having to
migrate databases or update DTD. People could thus be a little
bit forward compatible; not perfect but better than crashing
out and never opening up the new version file at all.

Does anyone object to putting forward variables they would
like - even if there is just a little bit of stub code
behind the feature to set blank or nulls on the values
or structures. Then we can reduce the number of DTD and
SQL schema changes to a minimum.

This level of work implies already that you would have done
some preliminary requirements or specification work on
your "wish" ! Note that in many cases you can use Custom
Properties e.g. if you wanted to record a Task Difficulty/Risk
or Complexity then a custom property is fine.  It is when you
plan to calculate, ask or adjust something using that property
that is when it prefereably needs to be part of the GUI.

Ones I'd like to add are,

Project - Projected End (this is the desired/aspiration end
		date). Very useful when a task constraint is set
		to as late as possible (ALAP - which Planner
		can't do but should as a future enhancement).

Project - Schedule From (Either start or finish. Could be a boolean
		i.e. schedule_from_start = TRUE;


Resource - Per Use Cost (same units as current costings
		but this is a figure which is a 1-off cost of
		use i.e. using the linear equation of mx+c it is
		the 'c'. Used when this resource is assigned to
		a task,

Resource - Overtime Cost (already in I think is in anyway but has
		no GUI/code),

Resource - Maximum Units (currently everything is hard coded
		as 100 = maximum. Be nice to have smaller or
		larger maximums),

Resource - Chat system and handle (JID) e.g. System = Jabber
	Handle = openmtl jabber org (useful for launching a chat
	session from within Project. Maybe if Custom Properties
	could have a URL type ?.

Task - Don't Export To PDA (Boolean - I want this to flag tasks
		that are not neccessary to export to a PDA (Palm)
		Todo or other portable so as to help stop clutter
		on the PDA.

Task - Don't Export To Calendar (Boolean - as above but used when
		exporting to an ical file to ignore certain tasks),

Task - Subproject URL. Be nice to have a task which is really just
		a hyperlink to another task (or summary task)
		from another project file on the internet (or
		local file system). I envisage opening a Planner
		project and having it query external links and
		update the gantt display in realtime with the
		latest project status. Its not actually that hard to
		do this given we already parse the Planner files and
		its not relevant if its a local file handle or a URL.


Rgds,
Lincoln.