Fall 2006 Roadmap

DRAFT - This is a document in progress and contains material from the Spring Roadmap which should not be considered official until this notice has been removed.

Summary

This document is intended to document uPortal Framework development planned to occur over the next 6 months (until the Spring 2007 Developer Meeting). The following branches are slated for active development. Unless otherwise stated, new features listed in a lower numbered release can be expected to also be incorporated into any higher number releases – e.g. 2.5.x features can be expected to also be present in 2.6.x. Which features are targeted for a specific branch is determined by the Release Strategy

uPortal 2.5.x

Release Engineering: Andrew Petro

uPortal 2.5.x is the current mature, production branch of the uPortal Framework. This release is undergoing active maintenance and is recommended for production deployment. The focus of development on this branch is improvements in performance, stability, and incorporation of backwards-compatible features consistent with the Release Strategy.

Previously Planned Work (Spring 2006)

Work Item	Contributor
Person Directory Externalization Encapsulation of the Person Directory infrastructure into a separate project to improve modulatity in the uP 2.x code base, and enable sharing of this component between uP 2.x & 3.x	Eric Dalquist (UW-Madison)
WSRP Consumer Functionality Enhanced ability to consume WSRP provided services. Initial work is focused on integrating Peoplesoft functionality utilizing included WSRP support.	Jameson Watkins (KUMC) & Jonathan Markow (JA-SIG)
Performance Validation & Enhancements	Columbia, Dan Mindler & Faizan Ahmed (Rutgers)
Stability Validation & Enhancement	Columbia,Dan Mindler & Faizan Ahmed (Rutgers)
XHTML Theme & CSS-based Skin Templates Valid XHTML theme to reduce page download size and ease local customization by separating structure & presentation	Jason Jason (Rutgers)
Layout Publishing Tools Tools for programatically publishing a layout for a given user/group of users.	Rutgers
SLM -> DLM Migration Tools Tools to migrate existing customized user layouts from one layout manager to another. May eventually support any layout implementation, though initial work will focus on SLM -> DLM conversion.	Rutgers
Misc improvements from Academus Changes to uPortal itself produced for Academus will be available for inclusion in uPortal.	Unicon Andrew Petro

Planned Work (next 6 months)

Work Item	Contributor
2.5.3 Bug fix maintenance release of uPortal	Unlicensed user (Unicon)
XHTML Theme & CSS-based Skin Templates Valid XHTML theme to reduce page download size and ease local customization by separating structure & presentation	Jason Jason (Rutgers)

Opportunities

Work items which may be desired, but which currently have no resources allocated for implementation within the next six months.

Work Item	Contributor
UW Webproxy Portlet UW Does not have resources to complete separating out their local modifications to the Webproxy portlet to enable it to run in a stock uPortal environment, but would be able to volunteer assistance & guidance if someone else was able to commit to doing so.

uPortal 2.6 (tentative)

Release Engineering:

uPortal 2.6 is a tentative release categorizing ongoing development efforts currently occuring in the HEAD of the uPortal source tree. This release is incomplete, undergoing active development and is NOT recommended for production deployment as it may change at any time. This release includes features which may not be backwards-compatible with previous releases, as per the Release Strategy.

Planned Work

Work Item	Contributor
i18n Framework Improvements Framework support for internationalized messages. Includes i18n framework & channel support, message externalization.	Jan Nielsen (Sunguard HE)
Make DLM the Default Layout Manager Data.xml and portal properties will be modified to specify DLM as the default layout manager to showcase the codebase and communicate it's status as the preferred layout management approach for new installations	Jason Jason (Rutgers)
DLM Fragment Manager GUI tool for configuring and specifiying DLM fragments and permissions	Mark Boyd (Sunguard HE)
DLM Integrated Modes Support Support for in-line customization of a user's layout under DLM	Mark Boyd (Sunguard HE)
Misc improvements from Academus Changes to uPortal itself produced for Academus will be available for inclusion in uPortal. Changes that cannot be accomodated in a backwards compatible way are available for inclusion in 2.6	Unicon Andrew Petro

Opportunities

Work items which may be desired, but which currently have no resources allocated for implementation within the next six months.

Work Item	Contributor

uPortal 3.x (sandbox)

Release Engineering: Eric Dalquist

uPortal 3.x is an independent development branch currently located in the JA-SIG sandbox. It represents a complete re-architecture of the uPortal framework. While it is expected to encompass most of the featureset of uPortal 2.x, it is a separate codebase, and work items listed above do not apply to uP 3.x. This release is incomplete, undergoing active development, and may change at any time. It is NOT recommended for production deployment at this time. While a migration path from uPortal 2.x is a high-priority work item for the uP 3.x project, backwards compatibility is NOT guaranteed, and significant work may be required to migrate existing installations.

Planned Work

Work Item	Contributor
Improved Portlet Specification (JSR-168) Support Improvemed compliance with the portlet specification and support for Portlet features	Eric Dalquist (UW-Madison)
DLM Integration Integration of the Distributed Layout Manager (DLM) into the uPortal 3 codebase to provide for pushed/pulled fragments, and enhanced layout publishing and permissioning	TBD (SCT & Unicon)
Enhanced UI & Interaction Behavior Theme and management work to enhance and refine user interaction with uPortal	B. Collier Jones (UMBC)

Opportunities

Work items which may be desired, but which currently have no resources allocated for implementation within the next six months.

Work Item	Contributor