An Introduction to EZChangeLog

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The core technology of EZChangeLog is a log entry system that makes it simple to keep a journal of changes to your project. While primarily designed for the software market, the system is so flexible that it lends itself for use in most any situation where you want to keep track of changes.

Unlike the typical Notepad approach to logging changes, EZChangeLog is designed with publishing in mind. The result is an easy way to export selected change log entries for use in your documentation and on your website.

When you log your changes, you assign developer defined tags known as Change Types to the log entries.

By default these include:

·

Change

·	Improvement

·

Fix

·

Feature

·	Regression

·

Other

Note: you can easily rename these to other descriptive terms that may better suit your needs.

Each change you log can be marked for publication or you can leave it as a private reference entry. This makes it easy to log the changes you want without having to worry about mixing public and private notes. You can also enter non-published comments with any log entry.

Log entries marked for publication can be exported in a "Version History" format (with a marker for the release version and date). Entries added after an export are automatically added to the next release. This makes it simple to maintain an ongoing Version History for your project..

This exported content can be saved as a TEXT file, a PDF file or as XML. The Professional Edition can also export as a HTML file.

The XML file is in a format that can be consumed directly by SetupCast ( www.setupcast.com ) to produce nicely formatted HTML versions of these documents.


There are two different versions of EZChangeLog. A Standard Edition and a Professional Edition.


The Standard Edition of EZChangeLog is absolutely free.

No strings attached, no limitations, no gotchas.

With the Standard Edition you can:

1.

Create Change Logs for an unlimited number of projects

2.

Create an unlimited number of Version Releases for each project

3.

Enter an unlimited number of ChangeLog entries for each Version Release

4.

Export the change logs in Version History format

The Professional Edition of EZChangeLog enhances the change log system by allowing you to tag selected entries to be included in a "What's New" type of export. This makes it possible to get double service from your change log entries by easily extracting the exciting new features from the mundane fixes and slight improvements.

The Professional Edition allows you to add a separate description for the change log entry if needed. This makes it possible to retain the original change log entry content (from the developers perspective) and still provide a revised description of the change that may be better suited for the target audience.

The Professional Edition also continues the easy automation of repetitive tasks adding these new modules to the program:

·	Bug Tracker - an easy way to log problems reported with the project and communicate to those who reported the problem.

·	ToDo List - an easy way to keep up with miscellaneous tasks related to your project

·	Feature Requests - a way to track requests for enhancements and new features for the project

·	Project Ideas - a way to organize your own ideas for the project

·	Project Planner - a multipurpose tool that can be used to organize groups of related tasks and items. It also makes it possible to track the progress of individual tasks and calculate the overall progress of that group of tasks and of all the combined tasks in the project.

·	Multi-User Enabled - the Professional Edition of EZChangeLog can be configured to use a shared data location so that multiple users can access the program at the same time.

A key feature of the Professional Edition is that each type of content tracked can be marked as completed and converted into a change log entry at the click of a button. This eliminates duplication of data entry and increases the level of automation possible with EZChangeLog.