The Biggest Problem in Web Development II

The first time we wrote about ourselves on Habré half a year ago and we are very glad that we accepted our product . At that time, we released an updated version of our service and were very pleased with the reviews and constructive criticism that we received after the first publication of the TrackDuck article . We specifically did not make marketing announcements too often, but now I would like to write about all the major improvements at once. I want to warn in advance those who are not interested in the product - do not read further :)

Integration

Initially, we decided to lay the foundation of each integration with the principle that truly complete integration should fit as easily as possible into the existing development process, occur with minimal time delays and work in two directions - data export and import.

Basecamp

From the very beginning of working with user reviews, it became clear that most of all people lack the ability to integrate the tool into the processes already used by the company. We received a lot of requests from users with suggestions to make more integrations with existing project management systems. As a result, one of the first, it was decided to do integration with Basecamp. We really like 37signals and its products, and besides, we received the most requests for integration with this system.

When connecting TrackDuck to Basecamp, the system allows you to export existing users, send task descriptions and screenshots created in TrackDuck, in Basecamp. We were also able to implement two-way integration - now changing the status of a task or adding a new comment in one of the systems will certainly be updated in the second!

Jira

Integration with this system took our development team the most time, but some Jira users already appreciated the opportunities that integration with the visual commenting system provides. It allows you to create new tickets in the system in one click directly from the site being developed. As in the case of Basecamp, the system can synchronize tasks, their status and comments on them. A screenshot of the site made using our system is attached to each task, and you can always see the problem through the eyes of the user commenting on it. Now we are preparing for publication plugins for jira that will help connect TrackDuck in one click.

Wordpress

We also prepared and published extensions for several content management systems. Now you can install TrackDuck on the most popular CMS in the world in 2 clicks: just do a search query in the extension installer for the word trackduck or install the extension from here

Modx

Our extension for another great content management system and framework is already ready and available for installation. It can be installed completely free from the official repository .

Drupal

Now the extension is in the process of publishing , which, for reasons beyond our control, will take some more time (we will be very grateful for advice on how to expedite this process).

Enhanced browser support

After the release of extensions for Google Chrome , Mozilla Firefox , Apple Safari and a bookmarklet that allows you to work with the system in IE and Opera (in the latter case, you can also use the Chrome extension installed with this tool ) We are also ready to provide solutions for everyone our customers who are not ready to install the code on the site and work with projects in the local environment.

Support for loading images in various formats

Now the designers from your team do not need to convert images from their usual formats, we added support for Jpg, Psd, Png, Gif, Tiff, Pdf, Ai, etc.

Image Versions

As before, you can upload an image and get comments on any part of it. Now you can also prepare a corrected version of the image and not just upload it, but update the existing file by adding a new version to it, thus preserving the history of edits and the progress made in the work.

System tour and new onboarding for users

About how we developed this part of the system and why it had to be done before launch, I already wrote in this article . Do not repeat our mistakes, make the system understandable to all users from the very beginning!

Our promo video

The wonderful guys from the meinart studio in Vilnius have developed an excellent explanatory video for us that will help non-technical specialists better understand what TrackDuck is for.

Transfer your data to TrackDuck for integrated snippet

You can specify in our js snippet user data that we can accept and store on our system. This will be useful so as not to force your visitors to enter an email every time for feedback in the anonymous feedback field.

Enterprise version of the system

As it turned out during the work, several teams who tried TrackDuck and found it very useful in their work, as a result, could not use the system due to strict corporate restrictions that did not allow them to use cloud services. We really didn’t want to say goodbye to these customers, and so we decided to make a separate hosted version of our application, which could be easily integrated into the enterprise infrastructure, so that it works independently and provides the necessary level of privacy. I can note that for us it was a very useful experience from finding consultants to the final implementation of the product. If you are using node.js and you need to create a similar solution for your clients - feel free to ask questions in the comments or hp,

JavaScript client api (very soon)

You can make your own decision based on our physical feedback technology. Now we are ready to provide for this a special toolbox that will allow you to connect the TrackDuck online commenting system to your solution in a couple of lines of code. So if you are developing, for example, a new photo hosting or portfolio service and want to give users the opportunity to comment on images or html content directly where they see it, or you are creating a new super cool service for creating prototypes or discussing documents, then we will be very We are glad to help you save development resources and provide early access to js api and help with installation and configuration for free.

Screen video recording

We realized that just a screenshot is not always enough to understand what exactly went wrong. For example, when we tested the system on target users, we used a mobile phone camera to record the user's reaction to the interface and its actions in the system. Although we know about applications such as silverback or webvizor, both of these solutions are not suitable for full testing.

Interviewing customers and acquaintances, we decided that the application or service with which you could get a recorded session of your user or visitor will be in certain demand. But working with video is more complicated than capturing screenshots, so now we launched our solution as an additional tool within our system, which allows us to record the user's screen for a short period of time (30 seconds) and convert it to gif. This, of course, has not yet been very long, but it already makes it possible to more clearly report errors and problems in the animation and the behavior of interactive elements on the page. In addition, soon we will release a version with no recording time limits.

You can read more about this in Russian in my article on medium

As always, it is important for us to know your opinion about the new features of the system that we are going to introduce. At the moment, we are working or are going to start work in the following areas and we will be very grateful for the help in prioritizing them. Thanks for the comments and feedback! Your TrackDuck Team