Spring 2006 Roadmap

Summary

This document is intended to document uPortal Framework development planned to occur over the next 6 months (until the Fall 2006 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: ~awp9

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.

Planned Work

Work Item	Contributor
Person Directory Externalization	~edalquist (UW-Madison)
WSRP Consumer Functionality Enhanced ability to consume WSRP provided services. Initial work is focused on integrating Peoplesoft functionality utilizing included WSRP support.	~jwatkins@kumc.edu (KUMC) & ~markow@columbia.edu (JA-SIG)
Performance Validation & Enhancements	Columbia, ~dmindler & ~faizan (Rutgers)
Stability Validation & Enhancement	Columbia,~dmindler & ~faizan (Rutgers)
XHTML Theme & CSS-based Skin Templates Valid XHTML theme to reduce page download size and ease local customization by separating structure & presentation	~jayshao (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

Opportunities

Work items which

Work Item	Contributor

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	~jan.nielsen@sungardhe.com (Sunguard HE)
DLM Fragment Manager	~mboyd (Sunguard HE)
DLM Integrated Modes Support	~mboyd (Sunguard HE)

Opportunities

Work Item	Contributor

uPortal 3.x (sandbox)

Release Engineering: ~edalquist

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	~edalquist (UW-Madison)
DLM Integration	TBD (SCT & Unicon)
Enhanced UI & Interaction Behavior	~bcollierjones (UMBC)

Opportunities

Work Item	Contributor