Apollo now shows file categories in Project files, and works harder to cache uploaded files

We did some improvements on the file management side of Apollo — although only one of them is actually visible.

When you go to Project > Files, you see all the files associated to a particular project. However, when viewing "All files", you will now see the category the file belongs to:

Also, when a file is served, it will also serve the right HTTP headers so that browsers will cache them more aggressively.

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PDF preview in Apollo

Uploading files is one of the central features in Apollo. Knowing that you need to design a leaflet with set prerequisites is great. However, at some point you will need to show that leaflet to the customer, and will most likely attach it to a comment, asking for input.

One aspect of file upload is that you expect to see a preview of the file you are downloading before actually transferring the whole thing onto your computer (similarly, most desktop file managers will show images' thumbnails when you open up a folder).

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Auto-saving of drafts in Apollo

In web applications, we all have a bit of a fear of losing our current window in the middle of writing a long text. A browser window can be lost for a number of reasons (the dreaded "back" button, a lost connection, or simply the wrong keyboard or mouse stroke that gets the current window out of the picture).

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An example on how to integrate Apollo and Google Documents using Apollo's API

I was really excited to hear about the Apollo API because it offered the prospect of pulling data from Apollo to suit some of the 'non-standard' reporting that we needed in our company. Here I will explain how we used Google Docs to access the API and pull time reporting information from Apollo. You can copy the example spreadsheet from here: Apollo API Example. Remember to make a copy of it in order to use it and change it.

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Ability to change workspace owner and to navigate through time reports

We recently added two features to Apollo, both of which might well come handy:

• The ability to change the workspace owner
• Ability to navigate through time reports

Let's have a look.

Account owners

This is a request we receive periodically: employees often sign up for Apollo, and discover later that since they are the workspace's creators, they are also marked as "owners". In Apollo, owners have extra powers that other users don't have, especially in terms of billing and account management: they can set "groups", enable API access, change billing information, and so on.

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Editing time entries within a task

When you develop a program like Apollo, sometimes it's tricky to decide where users should be able to "just see" data, and when they should be able to edit it.

A common feature request was the ability to see all time logged against a specific task. That's why we added a dynamically loaded section of the site, where we show exactly that:

Shortly after that, another request came: the ability to edit those entries without having to jump a few hoops to finally "find it".

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How to organise house renovation using Apollo

House renovation can be much more stressful than building a new house. While with building from scratch always gives you the benefit of having a company managing the whole process professionally, with home renovation you are on your own. Here is how you can use Apollo to do that. Please note that while this article focuses on the need of one person renovating their house, it could well be applied to people who coordinate house renovations as a job.

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How to organise your print magazine using Apollo

Publishing is the king of deadlines. If you organise a publication, print or online, you definitely know that making a magazine is like juggling balls of different weight and size while reading Shakespeare. Apollo comes as a great helping hand for the publishing world. In this article, I will explain how to make Apollo work for your print magazine.

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Tag management in Apollo

One of the most requested features as far as Apollo's CRM was the possibility to manage contact tags within Apollo.

One typical scenario is having a contact with a mispelled tag: Apollo's auto-completion basically means that that spelling mistake was given as an option to the users every time.

Implementing tag management was trickier than one can imagine. One of the big issues is about visibility of contacts. For example, you might have Contact X with tags A, B, C and Contact Y with tags C, D and E. Assume you only have access to contact X. If you change tag A, it's all fine.

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News on development: what's new in Apollo?

When you work on your car, sometimes you do things that really show: a paint job, shiny new handles, etc: everybody will see them. Some other times, you might add some fancy indicator to the dashboard: every user will notice them. Finally, sometimes you need to work on the engine itself: nothing changes from the outside, and the car is still the same car as ever. However, the engine is happier and will run for longer.

Well, over the last 2 weeks we have been working on Apollo's engine. We are working on the major update of one of the main Javascript libraries we use.

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