Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. About

JTrac is a generic issue-tracking web-application that can be easily customized by adding custom fields and drop-downs. Features include customizable workflow, field level permissions, e-mail integration, file attachments and a detailed history view.

JTrac was created after the author felt that he could write a much better alternative to a commercial defect tracking tool that he was having to use. Development started in 2004. JTrac is ideal for issue tracking or bug-tracking, but it has been designed to be generic and you can define custom fields to track almost anything you need.

JTrac development used to be hosted at jtrac.dev.java.net, but moved to SourceForge in early 2006. The older working version was based on Spring MVC, Spring JDBC and MS Access and is not being maintained any more. JTrac 2.0 uses Java 5.0 features and was completely re-written to use Hibernate for persistence and the Acegi Security framework for Spring. The presentation layer for version 2.0 was mainly using Spring WebFlow but as of early 2007 (version 2.1.0 onwards) JTrac switched to using the Apache Wicket framework. After being dormant for a long time, JTrac development picked up again in 2021, and a new version 2.2.0 was released that moved the Java baseline to Java 8.

JTrac is extremely easy to install and the only pre-requisite is a Java 8 (or higher) Runtime Environment. You can be up and running in seconds because JTrac comes bundled with a small-footprint web-application server called Jetty and an embedded database called HSQLDB. Please refer to the installation section of this documentation for details. You can also choose to drop the WAR file into an application server of your choice and start using JTrac right away.

1.2. Release Notes: Version 2.1.0

There are no database changes between version 2.0 and 2.1.0. Instructions on how to upgrade are available in the "upgrading" section of this document. The bundled Jetty web-app server has been upgraded from version 6.0.2 to 6.1.1 but it is not mandatory that you upgrade.

1.3. Release Notes: Version 2.2.0

A new table in the database accommodates the new saved link/bookmark feature. Instructions on how to upgrade are available in the "upgrading" section of this document.

There where a number of new features, changes and bugfixes:

  • The details and comments fields support Markdown syntax.

  • All dates and times can optionally be displayed in a "pretty" format like "10 minutes ago", "2 months ago" etc.

  • It's now possible to bookmark searches, as all relevant parameters are part of the URL.

  • The dashboard can be configured to show a number of links that are relevant to the project, like saved searches ("All Open and In-Progress Tickets") or to other pages.

  • Outgoing emails can be signed using DKIM.

  • More items can be configured at runtime under Options -> Manage Settings

  • It is possible to configure an individual header and an individual logo for your own JTrac.

  • Errors that occured because of missing language resources are fixed.

  • Some email issues e.g. sending duplicate mails are fixed.

  • Localizations into Ukrainian, Hungarian, Turkish, Arabic, Slovenian, Czech, Korean, Norwegian and Swedish have been added.

For details see NewFeatures220 on SourceForge.

1.4. Release Notes: Version 2.2.1

A couple of new database attributes have been added (in the Space and the StoredSearch tables). Instructions on how to upgrade are available in the "upgrading" section of this document.

There where a number of new features, changes and bugfixes:

For details see NewFeatures221 on SourceForge.

1.5. Release Notes: Version 2.3.0

There are a couple of new database attributes in the User table in 2.3.0. Instructions on how to upgrade are available in the "upgrading" section of this document.

The release contains a number of new features, changes and bugfixes:

For details see NewFeatures230 on SourceForge.

1.6. Release Notes: Version 2.3.1

jTrac 2.3.1 has no new features, but fixes a couple of bugs and updates a few dependencies. Instructions on how to upgrade are available in the "upgrading" section of this document.

For details see NewFeatures231 on SourceForge.