The WebIssues Client Manual
Desktop client for the WebIssues system
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## Chapter 3. Using WebIssues Client

## Main Window

The Main Window of the WebIssues Client allows to connect to a WebIssues server. When the client is not connected, the window contains the Start Page which allows to reopen a recent connection or create a new connection. After opening a connection, the Main Window allows to work with projects and folders and to access other windows. When the client is connected to a server, the name of the server appears in the title bar of the Main Window. Select WebIssues → Connection Information to display more information about the current connection.

The WebIssues Client uses separate windows to display information like folder contents or issue details. You can open multiple windows at the same time, switch between them and close them when you no longer need them. If a particular window already exists it is not opened again, but instead the existing window is activated. Some common commands like Tools → WebIssues Settings or Help → WebIssues Manual are available in every window.

### Tip

You can close each window when you no longer need it. Closing the Main Window causes the application to automatically close all other windows and quit. If the Tray Icon is used, closing the Main Window hides it leaving the application running and all other windows opened. Clicking on the tray icon opens the Main Window again.

### Projects Tree

The main part of the Main Window is a tree view of available projects and folders. In addition the type of issues in each folder is displayed. You can expand and collapse individual projects by clicking the icon with a plus or minus symbol. You can open a folder in a new Folder Window by double clicking the folder in the tree. Right clicking on a project or folder opens a context menu containing available options.

The tree is periodically updated to synchronize with changes made by other users. You can configure the interval of periodic updates in the WebIssues Settings. The tree is automatically updated after each change you make. You can also manually force updating the tree using the Projects → Update Projects option. The status bar at the bottom of the window shows the status of the update.

Options for creating, renaming and deleting projects are only available for server administrators. The names of projects have to be unique. Projects which contain folders cannot be deleted.

Options for creating, renaming and deleting folders are only available for administrators of the project to which the folders belong and for server administrators. The names of folders have to be unique within each projects, but may be duplicated between different projects. When a folder is created, the type of issues it will contain has to be selected; it cannot be changed later. Folders which contain issues cannot be deleted.

### Dashboard View

The second tab of the Main Window contains the Dashboard View. It displays summary information for all active folder watches. Folder watches are used to track new issues and modifications to existing issues that match given filtering criteria. You can configure watches for each folder separately by selecting a folder and selecting the Edit → Folder Watches option. See the Folder Watches dialog for more information.

When a folder has at least one active watch, its content is periodically updated in the background so that changes can be detected and displayed in the Dashboard View. For each watch, the dashboard shows the total number of issues matching the watch filtering criteria, the number of new issues (i.e. issues which have never been opened since watching had been enabled) and the number of modified issues (i.e. issues which have been modified by other users since last opening). New issues are marked with yellow color and modified issues are marked with green color. This way you can easily see when someone adds or modifies issues that you're interested in - for example bugs which are active and assigned to you. Clicking on the name of the watch opens the Folder Window with appropriate filter selected.

Folders which have active watches are also marked with a small dot icon in the Projects Tree. Gray dot indicates that there are no new or modified issues in the folder. Green dot indicates that there are modified issues and yellow dot shows that there are new issues in the folder which match at least one of the watches.

### Menubar

#### WebIssues Menu

Open Connection

  Show the Login Dialog which allows to connect to a server.

Close Connection

  Disconnect from the server, closing all opened windows except the main window.

Client Configuration
  Import

    Import all column settings, filters and watches from an existing configuration file.

  Export

    Export all current column settings, filters and watches to a file.

Connection Details...

  Show the URL, name and version of the server, encryption details and certificate (if secure connection is used) and information about the user.

Quit (Ctrl+Q)

  Quit the WebIssues Client application.

#### Projects Menu

Add Project

  Create a new project on the server.

Add Folder (Ctrl+N)

  Create a new folder in the selected project.

Open Folder (Ctrl+O)

  Open the selected folder in a new Folder Window.

Update Projects (F5)

  Update the projects and folders.

#### Edit Menu

Rename (F2)

  Rename the selected project or folder.

Delete (Del)

  Delete the selected project of folder.

Project Members

  Show the members of the selected project in a new Members Window.

Folder Watches

  Show the Folder Watches dialog allowing to select active watches for a selected folder.

Find Item (Ctrl+F)

  Show the Find Dialog allowing to find an issue, comment or attachment by identifier.

#### Tools Menu

User Accounts

  Open the Users Window.

Issue Types

  Open the Types Window.

Change Password

  Change your password used to login to the WebIssues server.

Configure WebIssues

  Modify the WebIssues Settings.

#### Help Menu

WebIssues Manual (F1)

  Open this manual in a web browser.

About WebIssues

  Show information about the WebIssues Client application.

About Qt

  Show information about the Qt toolkit.

### Start Page

The program automatically remembers up to 10 recent connections and displays a list containing server name and URL for each connection. You can quickly open a connection by double clicking it. The Login Dialog will appear prompting you for the password unless you select the Remember password option. You can change the URL, login and password of an existing connection or delete a connection by right clicking on it and selecting an option from the context menu.

You can create a new connection by selecting WebIssues → New Connection or clicking the New Connection in the bottom part of the window. The Login Dialog will appear prompting you for the URL, login and password.

### Login Dialog

To open the Login Dialog, select WebIssues → New Connection or right click on a recent connection and select Modify. Enter the URL address of the WebIssues server, including the protocol, i.e. the `http://` prefix for a regular connection or `https://` prefix if a secure, encrypted connection should be used. Also enter the login and password identifying the user account on the server.

When a secure connection is used, the server certificate will be automatically verified. If the certificate is invalid, you will be prompted to review the list of errors and the information about the certificate. You can then choose to ignore the errors or abort the connection. You can select WebIssues → Connection Details... to check if the current connection is encrypted and view the certificate. Note that using secure connections may not be supported by some servers and on some client platforms.

Each successful login is remembered in the list of recent connections. If you select the Remember password option, the password will also be remembered so you don't have to type it again at each login. Note that storing the password is not entirely secure, so use this option with caution.

After filling the required fields and pressing the OK button, the application will connect to the server and authenticate the user. This may take a few seconds. During that time the fields are disabled and an Abort button appears allowing to break the operation if the server takes too long to respond. When login is successful, the dialog is automatically closed and all necessary information is downloaded from the server.

If the connection fails for some reason, the dialog remains open and a status message appears at the bottom. The most common reasons of failure are:

`Connection failed`

  The host name is incorrect or the connection couldn't be established.

`Server error (404 Not Found)`

  The URL is incorrect and doesn't exist on the server.

`Not a WebIssues server`

  The URL is correct, but it doesn't point to a valid WebIssues server.

`Command could not be executed (302 Incorrect Login)`

  The login or password is incorrect or the user account was disabled.

### Tip

There is one predefined user account called `admin` with initial password entered during the installation of the server. System administrators can create user accounts for other users.

### Folder Watches

The Folder Watches dialog allows to select active watches for selected folder. To open it, select the Edit → Folder Watches option. Each watch is associated with filtering criteria, so the list of available watches is the same as the list of predefined filters for a particular type of issues. There is also an item named `(All Issues)` which allows to watch all issues in the selected folder. Select or deselect the checkboxes in the list to activate and deactivate watches.

To create a new filter, click New Filter and use the Filter Settings to define the conditions for the filter. Click OK, enter the name of the filter and click OK again. The filter will be available for all folders containing the same type of issues as the selected folder.

### Find Dialog

The Find Dialog allows to quickly open an issue by entering its identifier. It can also be used to locate a comment or attachment with the given identifier. The dialog can be opened by selecting Edit → Find Item from the Main Window's menu or the Tray Icon's context menu.

If the item is found, the Issue Window is automatically opened and if the item is a comment or an attachment, its position in the issue history is automatically located. If the item doesn't exist or is not accessible to the user, an error message is displayed saying that no item with the given identifier was found.

### Tip

Identifiers in WebIssues are always prefixed with the `#` (hash) character. They appear in the list of issues and attachments and in the history of the issue. They can also be placed in comments and attribute values for referring to other items (see Smart Links).

### WebIssues Settings

The settings dialog can be opened by selecting Tools → Configure WebIssues from any window's menu. It can be used to change some global settings of the WebIssues Client.

#### General Settings

Dock main window in system tray

  Enable or disable the Tray Icon.

Show main window at startup

  Make the main window initially visible, hidden or restore the previous state when the program was closed. This option is only available if docking is enabled.

Restore last connection at startup

  When the WebIssues Client is started, always connect to the previous server, remain disconnected or restore the connection only if it was active when the program was closed.

  ### Tip

  If you enable this option, it may be useful to also enable the Remember password option in the Login Dialog. This way you won't have to enter your password everytime the WebIssues Client is started.

Start WebIssues when I start Windows

  On Windows only: automatically start the WebIssues Client after logging to Windows.

  ### Tip

  This option is not available on Linux. Instead, if you leave the WebIssues Client running when you end your session, it will be automatically restarted the next time you log in. This feature is especially useful in connection with the Tray Icon because it makes the application always available with a single mouse click.

#### Connection Settings

Proxy used for Internet connections

  Type of proxy used for connecting to the server. Supported types are HTTP and SOCKS5 proxies.

Host name, Port number

  Name of the proxy server and the port number. These fields are required when a proxy is selected.

User, Password

  User name and password needed if the proxy requires authentication. Only simple authentication method is supported.

#### Advanced Settings

Interval of periodic updates

  The interval in minutes between periodic updates of the projects, users and issue types which synchronize the client with changes made on the server by other users.

Default action for attachments

  By default when you double click an attachment, a message box is displayed asking if you want to save the attachment or open it directly in the default application. You can change this option to always perform the selected action automatically. If you do this, you can still use the context menu to select another action.

Maximum size of attachments cache

  Downloaded and opened attachments are cached on your hard disk for better performance. You can control the maximum amount of space this cache will take. Note that for each server that you connect to a separate cache is created.

Warn when adding attachment larger than

  A warning message is displayed when you try to upload an attachment larger than this value. Unless your server administrator has configured the server to accept larger attachments, it's recommended to leave the default value of 2 megabytes.

### Tray Icon

The tray icon is not available by default. You can enable it in the WebIssues Settings. It is useful if you frequently use the WebIssues Client and want to keep it running in the background so that it's always accessible with a single mouse click.

If you click on the tray icon with the left mouse button, you can show or hide the Main Window; it is either shown if it's hidden or minimized or hidden if it's visible. You can also hide the Main Window by simply closing it. The application will keep running until you select WebIssues → Quit from the menu.

If you click on the tray icon with the right mouse button, a context menu is displayed with some commonly used options like Open Connection, Close Connection, Find Item and Quit.

A small lightning appears in the bottom right corner of the icon when the WebIssues Client is connected to a server. The tooltip of the icon displays the name of the server.

If the Main Window is hidden when you quit WebIssues Client or log off from the system, the window will not appear automatically the next time you run the application but it will remain hidden.

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