Mastering Redmine

Author: Rock1997

To demonstrate, what is Redmine and how it works, in Mastering Redmine I create a special demo project. This project is about the book, so the latter can be considered to be about the former as well (yes, it’s about Redmine, but uses the project as a sample). And, for the second edition of the book… Yes, I work on its second edition right now, if you have not yet been aware. So, for the second edition I do the same – i.e., create a demo project on a demo Redmine installation. But, this time the installation is… live!

The second chapter of the second edition, that was rewritten a month ago (or so), describes two primary options for installing Redmine (the first addition also included these options). The first option is the installation from a package, that comes with Redmine 2.5 (which Debian guys have versioned as 3.0), under Debian 8. And the second one is the installation from sources, that uses the recent version 3.1 under Ubuntu 14. However, this time for the second option I described the real installation of Redmine on a DigitalOcean droplet. And, this installation can be accessed by anyone, as it’s public! Also, as for the server I used the domain mastering-redmine.com, you can access the book’s Redmine just by entering this domain into the address bar of your browser.

If you open mastering-redmine.com right now, you will see, that it’s still being configured. That’s because I’m still working on the second edition. In particular, recently I finished the fifth chapter, which is about managing projects. In other words, you can now watch, how the second edition is being written! Maybe, you can even influence it a little…

But, what is the end purpose of that website? Is it just to share the progress of the work on the second edition?.. Of course, no! To be honest, I’m not 100% sure yet, what I will use this project for, after I finish updating the book. But, I already got some ideas:

• First, I plan to keep it live for as long as I can. In the book I, actually, describe, how to use the book’s project (e.g., how to submit errata). So, after the book gets published I hope to see readers using this project (e.g., submitting errata)… In other words, the project is going to become a support site for the book.
• Second, unlike the first edition the second one comes with topics, that describe how to update Redmine (it was done partially on request of Scott Duensing, who asked for such topic in his review). But the problem described in the first edition remains – i.e., I can’t be sure, that the common upgrade procedure will work for versions, that have not been even released yet. And, as for Mastering-Redmine.com I use the recent version of Redmine, I will need to upgrade it as new releases come – like those of you, who will use the book to install the recent version of Redmine. Therefore, in the book’s project I also plan to share, how do I upgrade it, and describe, whether there were any issues and how did I resolve them, if they were. In other words, readers of the second edition are going to have a Redmine upgrade instructions available.

Any other ideas are welcome!..