To answer Mark’s complaint about gobs of text – Project Pier uses Textile markdown, though I don’t think it’s documented at all. The default is to use a restricted set of Textile, but that can be tweaked in /application/helpers/textile.php . The lack of documentation is kind of a bitch, but rather than whinge about, we should all contribute and help make Project Pier better.

There are some great themes available already if you look for them, and it’s easy to skin your own as well.

I think what it boils down to is that if you want project management software that you don’t have to maintain or tweak, then you are probably better off investing in something like BaseCamp. If you like Project Pier and it’s open source roots, jump in and start contributing!

The program is easy to start using right away, however it’s shortcomings became apparent in the first five minutes of use. Most notable, lack of rich text or any formatting support in comments. I could not create hyperlinks, underline, bold…etc. So for real use, with real projects, with real team members, gobs of text are easily created but all the important details get lost. The whole point of this app is to create a space where everyone involved in a project can readily locate and share resources. At current, its more of a place for everyone to dump and dig.
I read some of the thoughts on this in the forum and this feature was considered of low importance and a hassle to implement. Which goes to show that programmers often concentrate on programming, testers often test away, and the user never sees the useful intent of the product.

Sorry didn’t mean to bash anyone here…

I won’t go into the rest…themes etc…uhh humm…

Overall, the concept is good, the install is good. Beyond that i am going to use for a while and see what happens. I am somewhat hesitant to dump all my current projects into this system. After all, I can easily upload files and text into a folder and send my team an email that points to it. I was hoping for a bit more….