Dan PodsedlyDan Podsedly
New in Tracker: Updated look, Google Accounts sign-in
edit Posted by Dan Podsedly on Saturday December 04, 2010 at 09:06AM

Tracker has a new look!

The Tracker team has been busy since the hosting move last month. We've shifted our focus from improving Tracker's performance and stability, to core product enhancement. This update introduces an updated visual design, as well the first wave of usability improvements. We've also added some new features, including the ability to sign in to Tracker with your Google Account

Reorganized Drop-down Menus

The Tracker project page (above) has a number of visual changes for improved contrast and readability, but it should still be familiar, and just as easy to use. We did, however, re-organize the various drop-down menus to make finding things more intuitive.

The More drop-down menu allows you to access the less commonly used panels such as charts, releases, history, and any integrations you may have enabled for your project.

The new Project drop-down menu contains project level actions such as changing settings, inviting people, configuring integrations, etc. Finally, the Stories menu allows you to perform actions on selected stories, such as deleting, applying a label, or moving to another project.

The Projects drop-down menu has also moved, it's now part of the navigation links on the right. In addition to allowing you to switch between projects easily, you can now also use it to access the All Projects page, where you can see all of the projects you're a member of, grouped by account.

The preference settings for including the current iteration in the backlog panel, and showing the project tabs have moved to your Profile page.

Dedicated Signin Page and Google Accounts

The sign-in form is now on a dedicated, HTTPS-only page. Access it with the 'sign in' link in the top right corner of the new home page, or this URL:

https://www.pivotaltracker.com/signin

Tracker now allows you to sign in via OpenID, using your Google Account.

If you've used your Google Account email address when you signed up for Tracker, signing in with Google will automatically take you to your existing Tracker account.

Disabling Enter Key When Editing Stories

We've also added the ability to disable the automatic saving & closing of stories with the 'enter' key, as a new preference on your Profile page. This should make it easier for our Japanese users to use the 'enter' key to select from kanji words, for example.

Known Issues and Feedback

This is a fairly major update, especially in terms of the visual design. Please let us know if you discover any issues - by email, posting to Satisfaction, or via @pivotaltracker on Twitter. We plan to address these as they arise, and update the site frequently this week. At the moment, we're aware of some layout issues in Internet Explorer 7, which will be fixed within the next few days.

As always, we're looking forward to your feedback!

Comments

  1. Zubin Zubin on December 04, 2010 at 10:56AM

    Looks great, thanks for providing such a great service! One small suggestion: After clicking a drop-down menu, a second click should hide it.

  2. Larry A. Larry A. on December 04, 2010 at 01:23PM

    Thanks for everything you guys do for us. A free service like this should not be so good.

  3. nathan nathan on December 04, 2010 at 02:35PM

    Wow great job on the UI redesign! It's looking real smooth and awesome... I love it! Keep up the good work.

  4. arno.nyhm arno.nyhm on December 05, 2010 at 04:41PM

    why not a github login?

  5. AlekSi AlekSi on December 05, 2010 at 11:16PM

    Looks great, but one minor suggestion: start/finish/etc. buttons are somewhat blurred…

  6. anestesya anestesya on December 06, 2010 at 02:48AM

    Nice look! I like effects of CSS3 in the interface and the tanks for fix 'automatic save'

  7. pilooch pilooch on December 07, 2010 at 01:45AM

    hum... UI redesign is ok, making it free software would be better...

  8. Neil Benson Neil Benson on December 07, 2010 at 03:28AM

    Thanks Pivotal. I'm a big fan of Tracker and like the overall UI improvements. However, I'm having real trouble working with projects using IE8. Not too much of a problem for me working on my own laptop, but my clients are stuck on corporate PCs where IE8 is the only browser installed and Tracker now has lots and lots of display issues. Any ideas when IE-specific issues might get resolved? Happy to send you screenshots and help get these things resolved.

  9. Dan Podsedly Dan Podsedly on December 13, 2010 at 03:48PM

    Hi Neil, we've resolved a number of IE8 issues so far. Could you let us know what problems you or your clients are still seeing? Please forward screenshots to tracker at pivotallabs dot com.

  10. ForzaRP ForzaRP on December 14, 2010 at 01:05AM

    I think ur product is excellent and based on this review, everyone thinks so too! http://creately.com/blog/experience/5-best-tool-for-distributed-project-team/