Well sitting on a plane at 35K feet with internet for the first time, I guess I couldn't resist doing a post while also wishing all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow a great Turkey day! (Or more likely, I hope you had a great day as I suspect most of you won't read this before then.) I wanted to reflect on some of the feedback that we have gotten on my [url=/news/2010-11-17/features-we-are-considering-for-2-9] 2.9 Features blog post[/url] where I asked you for thoughts and feedback on what we should be working on and what release schedule you would like us to shoot for.
The feedback has been great and I encourage you to keep it up. I'd like to reinforce to those of you who are adding new suggestions that you make sure that there are trac tickets submitted for those ideas if not already there. These blogs are a great way to get interactive discussions and ideas to move forward on, but they are very much a "short term memory" where as the trac tickets make sure we retain the ideas if they can't make it into the current release.We are getting a good sense of ideas from those of you who are interacting with us but other than a few posts, I’m not getting a real sense to whether you would prefer to have a release date further out getting more into the release, or a quicker turn around? If you have thoughts on that, let us know.
While we continue to solicit discussion on this next release, I thought I would distill down some of the work that has been going on mentioned on the previous post. Since we are not standing still while discussing the ideas, here is a summary of some of the bigger inclusions that have already been added to 2.9. You can always follow the progress realtime on the FreePBX trac timeline.
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[] Already mentioned, Time Conditions now each come with a BLF enabled feature code that can be used to override the current time condition and then automatically reset after the current time period has expired. The BLF always reflects the current state. There is also a ‘sticky’ mode that will not reset that can be changed in the GUI, and there are plans for an Aastra XML script from Schmoozecom for this. (If someone wants to develop a feature code for that one, feel free, otherwise for now it’s just in the GUI for the sticky mode.)
[] Destinations and associated CID prepends for extensions now. That means you can direct an extension to a different destination based on the DIALSTATUS results (BUSY, NOANSWER, CHANUNAVAIL). In addition, Follow-Me will provide a destination to its own extension that can be used even if it is currently disabled (similar to the VmX Locator ability to go to its disabled follow-me.)
[] Extensions can be configured so that all internal calls will be auto-answered like an intercom call, while external calls and blind transfers will still ring the phone. This is dependent on the paging and intercom module having proper configurations for the phone to auto-answer, and it will honor all black-list/white-list settings on the phone being called.
[] Extension “search” module. This has been implemented by enhancing the Print Extensions module. FIrst of all, when you pull up that module all extensions are now live links that will be directed to edit the corresponding extnesions, ring groups, etc. In addition, there is a search box at the top that can be used to search for either a specific extension with the results of being directed straight to the edit page, or you can put in regex search patterns and a refined list will be presented in the same way that Print Extensions already generates its lists (and you can either use the links to go edit them, or use the printer friendly option to print the page).
[] Feature Codes now generate destinations for all codes that make any sense to have a destination. In conjunction with this, the feature code select ‘wizard’ in Misc Destinations has been removed. Existing misc destination will still work.
[] Andy (tm1000) has moved his endpoint manager out of the contributed modules directory into 2.9 where we will include it with FreePBX. We hope the exposure of all the great work he has been doing on this will help to really mature and enhance its abilities as more people start to get access to it.
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Ok … I probably missed something, but we are starting to land I want to get this posted so before they shut off the internet. For now, keep the feedback coming here an on the other post!
Have a great Turkey Day!
Philippe on behalf of the FreePBX Team!
I helped Andy