Lost in a sea of bugs? Try Lighthouse

 I have recently discovered Lighthouse ( or LighthouseApp ). I really like it and thought I’d share this app simply because I found it hard to find something open and cheap/free to use to track bugs with the other person involved in this project. I needed something that could allow either one of us to create and track issues, assign them and manage them as the project commenced. I didn’t want anything too cumbersome and I was hoping to find something not in PHP. The answer was Lighthouse (http:///www.lighthouseapp.com)

It does the Basic Stuff

As claimed, the application is simple but powerful.

Tracking Requirements

• I first create a new “Milestone” something that you would normally consider a category. i.e. “Shopping Cart Process”Then I’d start adding “Tickets” and assign them to this Milestone i.e. “As A Customer, I want to Add An Item To the Cart”
• You can also attach a date for the Milestone to be reached. This is useful if you want to organize and target certain dates or track progress for all the Tickets associated with the Milestone.

Tracking Bugs (Tickets)

• Bugs work in a similar way and can be added as a Ticket and then add it to a Milestone and assign it to another user
• Useful features are that it allows you to upload a file ( i.e. document, photo ) to the ticket and alert other users of the new Ticket

Tags

• LighthouseApp requires the same shift in concept as the Gmail Inbox, no folder, just tags. You can tag your tickets and then search for them. The good news here is there is lots of help to get you to the tickets you’re after. Make sure all users tag and you shouldn’t run into any problems

It has some Shiny Features

Update without logging inIntegrate Subersion

• This is no suprise given their Warehouse application, but Lighthouse allows you to integrate with Subversion. I haven’t opted to do this as of yet, but if I do I’ll be sure to expand on this in the future if I decide to use it.

But, It’s Not Perfect

 It’s not specifically a bug tracking tool“Your Activity”… I could live without the Facebook style updates on the dashboard.Dashboard maybe TOO simple

• I would like to see the Dashboard be more of a Springboard.. as it is, it’s of no use and the menu is limited. You have to go to different parts of the page to get to the section you want i.e. Switch between projects, get to your tickets, view upcoming Milestone..

No way to sub-categorize or group Issues/Tickets or Milestones

• Because there is no way to assign to more than one category, you may not be able to exactly

It’s Hosted

• I would have liked to be able to download and install this cleanly, but I respect they need to make some money from their good work, so they may want to have a purchasable app as opposed to licensed/monthly usage. That being said, if I were to pay for it, I’d definitely want something with more features

What happens if I want to leave

• Assuming things end and you want to download a history, there is no way that I’ve seen to do this. I would like to be able to take my project(s) and go somewhere else should I feel the need to. There is no option to do this.

The people Behind Lighthouse

The good people at eptn developed LighthouseApp and a lot of other useful apps

Link’d Up

eptn
LighthouseApp
Warehouse
Assembla may ( or may not be based on Warehouse also by eptn devShop ) Assembla is also a useful way to host Subversion

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