Mastering Redmine

I guess sizes of news and Wiki pages, which has been written by me so far, indicate, that I like writing to some extent… I don’t feel it this way though (it’s quite complicated for me to, but, I believe, that it’s the integral part of the good development process, so that’s why I do this usually). Or, maybe, I just don’t know myself well enough?..

Having started to deal with Redmine and having noticed, what kind of mistakes its users usually do, I got the feeling, that I would like to create a blog some day, where I would discuss such issues (by the way, I still want to do this)… I really had a lot of ideas, what to write about for Redmine, and even started to note them.

So, when I got the offer from Packt Publishing to write a book… there were no doubts, that I want to do this, and I agreed! Was I ready for doing this?.. No, I believe my English is far from being perfect. Did I have a lot of free time? No, my daughter was born and… you know these little kids. Why no doubts then? Cause I was not sure, that I will ever have such chance again! And what I learned during my last decade is: Never loose chances!

Of course, before agreeing I had ensured, that it was not mistake (I literally asked, why me). Honestly, it’s still sometimes unbelievable, that there going to be my book, printed, in English, by a British publisher… While writing first chapters I was constantly expecting the email claiming it was a mistake to ask me to write this book… Yeah, perhaps, I’m too self-critical? But now it’s the fact! At least untill or if the following link still promotes the book…

At the moment drafts for all the book’s chapters have been completed and the book has just entered the “production” phase (it’s the final phase before the book goes to stores). The book has 11 chapters (while the editor requested 10 and it was planned to have 10 chapters – one of the chapters got too huge, so we decided to split it into two) and about 350 pages. It will be available in eBook format and/or in printed copy.

Thanks to the book my Redmine to-write list, which has been mentioned above, is now empty! That is, everything, I wanted to write about and made notes about, is now in the book. I can’t say, that I was a dumb in Redmine, but, can you believe, having written this book I feel like I have learned much more. Cause sometimes I looked into the code/section, where I did not look before, and found yet unknown things, sometimes I just put my thoughts on the “paper” and this made me see Redmine from another point and so on. Anyway having read this book you will learn many things, I have already known, and many new things, I have discovered. I would not learn those new things without writing the book! So, you are lucky because you can learn them just by reading it…

The official book page on Packt Publishing is pretty much informative but let me tell you, what’s inside anyway:

• You would be shocked to know how many deployment options exist for a Ruby-on-Rails application, one of which is Redmine. Of course, the book was not to shock you so I review only most commonly used options. Anyway, this review will help you choose the best option for your Redmine installation.

• I constantly hear how complex and problematic is Redmine installation… For some reason I never felt it this way and I installed Redmine quite often. Maybe I do something “wrong”?.. You can check this as I review the installation in the book.

• In addition to the usual installation I also review some quick-and-easy-install options, which can be used for small organizations, testing and development.

• In the book you will also find the comprehensive guide on Redmine configuration. This guide covers many configuration options, some of which you may have never heard about but which you will unlikely find useless.

• The book is full of tips… Most of Redmine functionality is quite usual, noticeable and documented. But some part is unseen and known only to some experienced users. I tried to put into the book everything I know. Those things, which did not find their context, I put into tips.

• You would not be reading this, if you did not appreciate the power of Redmine plugins. The book includes many short and long reviews of plugins. Unfortunately or luckily it does not concentrate on popular plugins, instead in the book I’m trying to mention those plugins, which are related to the context, are essential, which fix things and so on.

• But don’t think, that the book misses the review of the core functionality! However, while reviewing it I tried to go deeper into things and explain things, which can be misunderstood. Therefore, I usually skipped things, which were obvious…

• The book describes the most recent Redmine version (at the moment)! But it also mentions the ChiliProject fork sometimes…

• As I’m the author of redmine:wiking, you can assume, that I know the Redmine Wiki syntax very well… Having read the book, you will also know it! In the book I show, what amazing things can be done using just the Wiki syntax.

• If you like how this website (i.e., this Redmine) was customized, you will probably be happy to know, that I shared some tricks about customization in the book.

• In addition, I also shared some best practices on maintaining websites like this one and projects like ones hosted on this site. As well as many other best practices related to project management, issue tracking, public projects, access control and so on.

While there are 11 items here (and the book has 11 chapters) they have nothing to do with chapter topics…

The “Mastering Redmine” book can be pre-ordered right now on the Packt Publishing book page. By the way, buying this book you also donate to Redmine (see Packt Open Source Project Royalty Scheme).

Pre-order the book

The book was also mentioned in my Personal report for 2012 under the name #MyOtherRedmineProject (it will be added as an achievement in the “Personal report for 2013” while the majority of the work was done in 2012). I also have been sharing the progress of the work on the book in my Twitter using the #MyOtherRedmineProject hashtag.