Thursday, 6 October 2005 14:34 EST

St.Petersburg, Russia. - October 6, 2005: ALM Works today announces the release of Deskzilla 1.0, the first version of a handy desktop client for Bugzilla bug tracking system. This client offers you an interactive user interface and a set of capabilities that expand the Bugzilla functionality to organize your work with bugs for more convenience and efficiency.

According to Igor Sereda, the founder of ALM Works, the concept behind Deskzilla is to make bug tracking handier. "Deskzilla is a perfect companion for Bugzilla users," says Mr. Sereda. "The program lets you view the project as a hierarchical structure with nested queries, which allows you to apply a more consistent and orderly approach to bug tracking. Thanks to bug counters in Deskzilla, users can get an immediate insight into the state of the project. Also unique to this client is the ability to run a quick, customizable search in the local database, which acts as a cache for bugs. And finally, using the local database you can work with bugs in the offline mode without any need for the internet or Bugzilla server!"

Searching with Deskzilla
Deskzilla provides several ways for searching. You can quickly enter search terms in a single box, or you can create a complex filter using the Query Builder. One of Deskzilla benefits is the search in the offline mode. The client downloads the results of the last search and stores them in the local database. This means you can search, view and modify them anytime, regardless of the Bugzilla server availability. Also, Deskzilla lets you create a distribution for enumerable Bugzilla fields, such as priority, severity, component and others. A distribution is a number of sub-queries where each sub-query allows only bugs that have a certain value in that field. With a few simple clicks, you can see how many bugs are there for each value and work further with these sub-queries.

Examining Bugs with Deskzilla
Deskzilla displays the number of bugs passing a query's filter right beside the query name. This happens when the local database "knows" that it has all the bugs for this query. The bug table, which displays the result of running a query, can either track the ongoing changes and immediately reflect them ("Live Mode"), or simply give a notice to the user that something has changed ("Frozen Mode").

Making Modification with Deskzilla
Deskzilla may be used to update bugs and to submit new bugs. It also lets you tackle conflicting changes with ease. If it detects a bug update collision, which typically comes as a result of you and someone else changing the same bug simultaneously, Deskzilla lets you carefully review both change sets and resolve a conflict instantly or put off conflict resolution for some time. In the latter case you changes will remain in the local database until you decide to resolve the conflict.

Pricing and Availability
Deskzilla 1.0 runs under Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Server 2003, Linux and Apple Mac OS X. The client is compatible with a wide spectrum of Bugzilla, from version 2.14 to 2.20 and newer. Registered customers are entitled to free lifetime patches and minor updates, and to limited-time technical support and major upgrades. Additional information on Deskzilla, as well as its free evaluation version is available from the product website:
http://deskzilla.com.

About ALM Works
Founded in 2004, ALM Works Ltd is a St.Petersburg, Russia based technology company. ALM Works specializes in the development of consistent and interoperable software for project tracking and information management.
Since its incorporation, the company has developed the first product, Deskzilla, which gives new possibilities for effective use of the Bugzilla bug tracking system. For more information about the company and its products, please visit http://deskzilla.com.