Shortly after I posted about IceCore, I noticed that there was a VMWare image available on their website. That was the easiest way to get going with IceCore, so I fired it up on VMWare Fusion on my Mac. I did have some problems connecting at first. It turned out that the image was only listening to eth0 and my connection was being detected on eth1. I went to edit the network settings, but alas my favorite editor (nano) was not in the image. I limped through vi, and got the settings to work, and poof there was IceCore.
In terms of features, I think IceCore has the perfect (and I do mean perfect) mix. It is easy to create new groups ("Teams") of users to work on projects, and then provide them with a common set of tools that includes Blogs, Calendar, Discussion, Files, Milestones, Surveys, Tasks and a Wiki. This is great combination of tools
There is tons of ajaxy responsiveness in IceCore (note that the proprietary version goes by "Novel Teaming"). But the UI design needs some work. Threaded discussion take up a lot more space than they need to, and some of the features and layout will not be obvious to novice users.
These shortcomings sent me in search of related projects, when I found Liferay. At first, I couldn't tell the difference between Liferay and IceCore, but then Liferay did an update to version 5.0 and I was able to tell them apart. It turns out that IceCore is built on (the earlier version) of Liferay. Both have a similar portal display that allows you to add lots of widgets (both internal "portlets" as well as external sites and google gadgets).
It does add quite a number of features that facilitate working in teams, but much of the underlying functionality remains. There are numerous bundles of Liferay available, and I chose a bundle with Tomcat 5, which simply required me to run a start script. This uses hsqldb (which is fine for testing) and also installed a lot of sample data (which users on the forums have told me how to get rid of if I choose to continue with Liferay).
The new release of Liferay (which I assume IceCore will eventually incorporate) makes some welcome changes. For example, this is how threaded discussions appear in Liferay 5.
While this is how it appears in IceCore
Notice the popup frame that I'm sure seemed like a good idea at the time, but it isn't how much discussion forums work. New users like to have familiar functionality.
Similarly, this is how you see Wikis in Liferay.
And this is how you edit them.
These are pretty straightforward. But IceCore adds additional complexity with a Wiki that takes up more space, multiple views that are confusing and popup frames.
But where IceCore shines is in having all of the functionality that is needed in a one step install. Liferay is missing tasks most importantly. These could probably be added with a portlet, though I couldn't find one that was free and easy to integrate. IceCore also makes it really easy to manage teams. Liferay has similar functionality in Communities, but the Teams, along with the spaces that get created for them, are easier from an admin perspective.
I've seen some new UI designs for IceCore in their forums, and if they follow through on those and then build on the new Liferay, I think they'll have a real winner. Still, at this point in time IceCore is one of the best products I've seen. Speaking of which Chronopolys has gone 1.0 final and now includes an easy installer. I've also started looking at the community edition of Alfresco which has some new collaboration features in there. I'll try that next (after I can get it to install - it has been fighting with Liferay).
In terms of features, I think IceCore has the perfect (and I do mean perfect) mix. It is easy to create new groups ("Teams") of users to work on projects, and then provide them with a common set of tools that includes Blogs, Calendar, Discussion, Files, Milestones, Surveys, Tasks and a Wiki. This is great combination of tools
There is tons of ajaxy responsiveness in IceCore (note that the proprietary version goes by "Novel Teaming"). But the UI design needs some work. Threaded discussion take up a lot more space than they need to, and some of the features and layout will not be obvious to novice users.
These shortcomings sent me in search of related projects, when I found Liferay. At first, I couldn't tell the difference between Liferay and IceCore, but then Liferay did an update to version 5.0 and I was able to tell them apart. It turns out that IceCore is built on (the earlier version) of Liferay. Both have a similar portal display that allows you to add lots of widgets (both internal "portlets" as well as external sites and google gadgets).
It does add quite a number of features that facilitate working in teams, but much of the underlying functionality remains. There are numerous bundles of Liferay available, and I chose a bundle with Tomcat 5, which simply required me to run a start script. This uses hsqldb (which is fine for testing) and also installed a lot of sample data (which users on the forums have told me how to get rid of if I choose to continue with Liferay).
The new release of Liferay (which I assume IceCore will eventually incorporate) makes some welcome changes. For example, this is how threaded discussions appear in Liferay 5.
While this is how it appears in IceCore
Notice the popup frame that I'm sure seemed like a good idea at the time, but it isn't how much discussion forums work. New users like to have familiar functionality.
Similarly, this is how you see Wikis in Liferay.
And this is how you edit them.
These are pretty straightforward. But IceCore adds additional complexity with a Wiki that takes up more space, multiple views that are confusing and popup frames.
But where IceCore shines is in having all of the functionality that is needed in a one step install. Liferay is missing tasks most importantly. These could probably be added with a portlet, though I couldn't find one that was free and easy to integrate. IceCore also makes it really easy to manage teams. Liferay has similar functionality in Communities, but the Teams, along with the spaces that get created for them, are easier from an admin perspective.
I've seen some new UI designs for IceCore in their forums, and if they follow through on those and then build on the new Liferay, I think they'll have a real winner. Still, at this point in time IceCore is one of the best products I've seen. Speaking of which Chronopolys has gone 1.0 final and now includes an easy installer. I've also started looking at the community edition of Alfresco which has some new collaboration features in there. I'll try that next (after I can get it to install - it has been fighting with Liferay).
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