YouTrack 2017 Roadmap

Natasha Katson

Hi everyone!

Today we are going to share our vision for YouTrack development in 2017.
Last year was pretty productive. We fully reworked the Agile Board and released it in YouTrack 7.0. This year, we plan to continue making YouTrack better.

You might have noticed that we recently switched to a new release scheme, for example, YouTrack 2017.1. Our primary goal is to deliver useful features as soon as they are ready, so we plan to release more often. If you are a YouTrack InCloud customer, your instance is automatically upgraded according to our Maintenance calendar. And if you use YouTrack Standalone, you can follow our blog and Twitter feed to get the latest builds.

We also want to try a new approach — to enable experimental features for venturesome users who want try them first. At this point, EAP won’t exist anymore, so you will be able try new features right in your instance. This approach means that you won’t have to install an unstable EAP build and risk your data to try new features. Also, many users who tested new features in our sandbox instance found it difficult to test new functionality without real data. We also hope this helps us to fine-tune the functionality before the feature is officially released. You feedback is highly appreciated, as always.

Let’s have a look at the features we plan to develop in 2017.

Workflows

As you know, the MPS-based workflow editor has been around for a while. We decided to retire it and implement a built-in web-based workflow editor. The new editor will support JavaScript instead of custom DSL, which simplifies the process of writing and customizing workflows. This new feature lets you write a workflow from scratch right in YouTrack. You can also write a workflow in any IDE that supports JavaScript (for example, WebStorm), pack it to a zip file and upload it to YouTrack. Attach the workflow to your projects and you’re ready to go.

Here is a list of the most popular workflow-related feature requests:

JT-17984 — Implement a built-in web-based workflow editor
JT-18128 — Provide operations on the period field in workflow
JT-10337 — Implement an ability to require a comment/tag
JT-13856 — Allow to create and add shared tag in workflow

We don’t want to over-promise, but we hope to knock them all out of the park.

Issues List and Full Page View

Now, when the new Agile Board looks so fresh and bright, the issues list and full page view issue pale by comparison. They need a little polishing, a fresh look and a better user experience.

Changes are coming to almost all of the elements in full page view: the toolbar, summary and description, linked issues, image editor, custom fields, comments section, attachments, voters and watchers.

We plan to replace the tabbed UI (comments, linked issues and so on) with an activity stream. With this new functionality, you will be able to filter the activity stream to show specific types of activity. This includes the option to display only VCS changes, comments, or work items. We plan to remove the Similar Issues tab and replace it with a link that shows these items in the issues list.

We’re not just redesigning the page, but are also improving the functionality, so we plan to add some new features to the full page view, such as:

JT-23673 — Formating issue descriptions as a checklist
JT-22752 — Adding reactions to comments with emoji
JT-11189 — Downloading attachments as a ZIP archive
JT-21112 — Supporting Markdown syntax
JT-5163  — Sorting comments from newest to oldest

Many users are anxiously waiting for the following minor update. Currently, the option to copy the issue ID and summary to the clipboard is located just to the right of the issue ID. In the redesigned page, this icon will be moved to the left and you will be able to copy either the issue ID or ID and summary from the UI.

As for the issue list, we don’t have any detailed drafts, but the general idea is to make improvements to the sidebar, enhance preview modes, and apply some general changes to make it look marvelous.

User Profile

Very soon, you will see a new and improved user profile. The updated interface lets you manage your general settings, notifications, plus tags and saved searches. On the new General tab, you will be able to change your personal information, view connected profiles, manage your time zone and date format. We consolidated all of the notification settings, including notifications that are sent by the TeamCity integration. We added a new tab that lets you view and manage your personal list of tags and saved searches. Here, you will be able to view all tags and saved searches that are shared with you and update your subscriptions.

Current Sprint

This feature is among the most wanted in YouTrack. The fix is in and we have released it recently. With this feature, you can filter for issues that are assigned to the current sprint when you create reports, search for issues and use commands on the board. You can also use current sprint feature to assign issues to the ongoing sprint instead of using the sprint name.

YouTrack Mobile

We continue working on YouTrack Mobile and plan to make the following improvements in 2017:

YTM-234 — Agile Board enhancements
YTM-202 — Push notifications implementation
YTM-232 — Comments draft support
YTM-128 — Votes and Stars support
YTM-114 — Multiple YouTrack instances support

By the way, YouTrack mobile is an open source project, so you are very welcome to participate. The source code is available under the JetBrains Repository on GitHub.

Other enhancements

One month ago, we published the 10 most wanted features in YouTrack to our blog. We have already fixed some of them, and will continue working on the others during this year. We are also keep improving the current functionality for Agile Board and Reports. For example, we will add an ability to change the Board Owner on the Agile Board, and will make some improvements to Kanban board, custom fields, and cards on the board.

We really appreciate your feedback, so please share your thoughts about our roadmap in the comments below. You are also welcome to vote for existing features, or to create new feature requests. To get the latest updates, subscribe to our blog and follow us on Twitter.

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