Tasktop Launches Tasktop Pro 1.6 with New Eclipse, ALM Support

Tasktop Technologies, maker of Eclipse Mylyn and the provider of task management solutions for application lifecycle management (ALM), has announced Tasktop Pro 1.6.

Tasktop Pro 1.6 builds on Mylyn 3.3, the latest version of the ALM integration suite for the Eclipse IDE.

Mik Kersten, creator of Mylyn and CEO of Tasktop said new time-tracking, document sharing and ALM system interoperability create a complete task management layer that provides the missing link between software development delivery and agile project management.

“With this latest release of Tasktop Pro, we have leveraged Mylyn’s task management framework to seamlessly link development activity with the leading change management and ALM tools,” Kersten said. “For developers, this removes the pain of keeping the ALM system up-to-date with actual development activity. For Agile teams, it means realistic estimation thanks to the automated tracking of time spent, providing accurate project tracking and visibility. When linked with the measurable productivity benefits of the task-focused interface, it yields some of the biggest productivity benefits since the adoption of the IDE.”

Tasktop Pro 1.6 includes features such as cross-repository linking, automated time tracking, and rich document collaboration.

Meanwhile, Tasktop Pro also includes Mylyn 3.3, which contains several new features that improve the usability of task management facilities. In addition, Mylyn 3.3 adds support for C and C++ projects. The ability to automatically link relevant information with development tasks is now fully supported for C and C++ developers using the Eclipse C/C++ Development Tooling (Eclipse CDT) project. This is especially useful and popular with mobile and embedded application developers. C and C++ developers now get the same focused workspace and one-click multitasking as Java developers using the Eclipse Java Development Tools (Eclipse JDT) project, Kersten said.

In addition, Tasktop has led the movement to integrate ALM tools with the IDE, Kersten added. Mylyn has been downloaded 1 million times monthly with Eclipse distributions, and is extended by 42 different ALM tools. Moreover, Mylyn includes integrations with popular open source ALM tools such as Bugzilla, Trac and Mantis.

The commercially supported Tasktop Pro is the company’s full-featured tool that extends the benefits of Mylyn by adding time tracking and task-focused support for activities such as Web browsing, office document authoring, email and calendars. Tasktop Pro provides all of the Tasktop certified Mylyn ALM integrations, such as Atlassian JIRA, CollabNet TeamForge and Subclipse, Danube ScrumWorks, IBM ClearQuest, Rally with ThoughtWorks Studios set for availability December 2009. Tasktop also provides providing productivity tool integrations with Microsoft Outlook, and Google Apps.

Kersten said Tasktop created its task management tools to help developers be more productive by making it simple for them to organize their work around tasks and automatically presenting the most relevant source code and project management information associated with each task. The end result is that developers no longer have to waste time repeatedly searching and scrolling for the information they need to write code, since the IDE shows only the information relevant to the task-at-hand.

Tasktop Pro 1.6 is available for Tasktop Pro is $99-per-user and includes commercial ALM integrations, and Eclipse IDE and standalone application for project managers. In addition, Tasktop offers the Tasktop Enterprise edition for $199-per-user, which includes enhanced support and additional integration for IBM Rational ClearQuest, with further support for ClearCase expected in December 2009.

For more information, go to http://tasktop.com.

Mylyn 3.3 is available as a free open source tool from Eclipse.org with community support and support for Bugzilla and JIRA. It can be downloaded at http://eclipse.org/mylyn.