Before I get started though, I just wanted to encourage you to start playing our software and for those of you that had a crash when using certain languages with the Accomplishments Information viewer, I released a 0.1.2 update earlier that fixes this.

Automated Testing

As we continue to grow the Ubuntu Community Accomplishments collection it is going to be more and more complex to ensure all of the accomplishments are working effectively every day; we are already at 28 accomplishments and growing! What’s more, the community accomplishments scripts work by checking third-party services for data (e.g. Launchpad) to assess if you have accomplished something. These external services may change their APIs, adjust how they work, add/reduce services etc, so we need to know right away when one of our accomplishments no longer works and needs updating.

To do this I wrote a tool called battery. It works by reading in a test that is available for each accomplishment that feeds the accomplishment validation data that should succeed and also data that should not validate. As an example, for the Ubuntu Member accomplishment the data that succeeds is an existing member’s email address (such as my own) and the test for failure is an email address on Launchpad that is not a member. The original script requires the user’s email address to assess this accomplishment, so battery tests simply require the same types of information, with data that can trigger success and failure.

This approach allows us to test for three outcomes:

• That the valid email address returns exit code 0 (the script ran successfully and the user is verified as being an Ubuntu Member).
• That the invalid email address returns exit code 1 (the script ran successfully but the user is not an Ubuntu Member).
• If the script has an internal issues and returns exit code 2.

The way this works is that battery includes a customized version of the general accomplishments.daemon module that we use for the backend service. In the code I override the back-end module and load a custom module. This way the original accomplishment script does not need to be modified; instead of get_extra_information() calling the back-end daemon and gathering the user’s details, the custom module that comes with battery instead has it’s own get_extra_information() that gets returns the test data so battery can run the tests.

Originally battery only output textual results, but this would require us manually running it. As such, last night I added HTML output support. I then enabled battery to run once a day and automatically update the HTML results. You can see the output here.

There are a few important features in this report other than a list of all the accomplishment test results:

• It shows the failures: this provides a simple way for us to dive into the accomplishments and fix issues where they occur.
• It shows which tests, if any, are missing. This gives us a TODO lists for tests that we need to write.

While this was useful, it still required that we would remember to visit the web page to see the results. This could result in days passing without us noticing a failure.

Tonight I fixed this by adding email output support to battery. With it I can pass an email address as a command-line switch and battery will generate an email report of the test run. I also added battery‘s default behavior to only generate an email when there are failures or tests are missing. This prevents it generating results that don’t need action.

With this feature I have set battery to send a daily “Weather Report” to the Ubuntu Accomplishments mailing list; this means that whenever we see a weather report, something needs fixing.

One final, rather nice feature, that I also added was the ability to run battery on one specific accomplishment. This is useful for when we are reviewing contributions of new accomplishments; we ask every contributor to add one of these simple tests, and using battery we can test that the script works for validation success, validation failure, and script failure with a single command. This makes reviewing contributions much easier and faster and improves our test coverage.

Graphing

Something Mark Shuttleworth discussed at UDS was the idea of us building instrumentation into projects to help us identify ways in which we can make better decisions around how we build software. This is something I have also been thinking of for a while, and to kick the tyres on this I wanted to first track popularity and usage of Ubuntu Accomplishments before exploring other ways of learning how people contribute to communities to help us build a better community.

Just before we released version 0.1 of Ubuntu Accomplishments, I created a little script that does a scan of the validation server to generate some statistics about the number of daily new users, the daily number of new trophies issued, and the totals. Importantly, I only count users and trophies, and I am only interest in publishing anonymized data, not exposing someone’s own activity.

To do this my script scans the data and generates a CSV file with the information I am interested in. I then used the rather awesome Google Charts API to take my CSV and generate the Javascript need to display the graph. Here are some examples:

While this is not exactly instrumentation, it got me thinking about the kind of data that could be interesting to explore. As an example, we could arguably explore which types of contributions in our community are of most interest in our users, how effective our documentation and resources are, which processes are working better than others, and also some client side instrumentation that explores how people use Ubuntu Accomplishments and how they find it rewarding and empowering.

Importantly, none of this instrumentation will happen without anyone’s consent; privacy always has to be key, but I think the idea of exploring patterns and interesting views of data could be a fantastic means of building better software and communities.

I thought this might be handy to have on YouTube, so I re-recorded it today, and you can see the video below:

Can’t see it? Watch it here!

If you want to create your own application for Ubuntu, be sure to visit developer.ubuntu.com.

• Accomplishments Contributor
• Attend LoCo Team Event
• Bug Squad Member
• Ubuntu Forums Council Member
• Ubuntu Forums Staff Member
• Imported an SSH Key
• Ubuntu Beginners Team Council Member
• Ubuntu Beginners Team Member
• Bug Control Member
• Ubuntu Forums Ubuntu Member
• Launchpad Profile Mugshot is now fixed too.

Thanks to Silver Fox, Michael Hall, Matt Fischer, Rafal Cieslek, Angelo Compagnucci for contributing these additions! It is wonderful to see our community growing!

If you want to contribute accomplishments, be sure to see our guidelines, some suggestions, and how to get started!

If you are already running Ubuntu Accomplishments 0.1, you just need to do the following to get the new set:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

If you are running the daemon, kill it first with killall -9 twistd and then load Accomplishments Information from the dash.

If you are new to Ubuntu Accomplishments, be sure you have your Ubuntu One set up and running on your computer, and then follow these installation instructions.

These values continued to be common themes at the recent Ubuntu Developer Summit in California. Today our culture continues to involve important integration work that is a rich and interesting challenge, but this work has also been augmented by us building assurances around Ubuntu too; assurances such as regular releases (cadence), the reliability and quality of the experience (quality), and attention to detail in both design and engineering (precision) are all examples of the strong balance of predictability and innovation that we want to bring.

These values are not limited to Ubuntu though: we want Ubuntu to be a platform where you can get the very best software experience, whether you are using Open Source or commercial applications. In a nutshell, we want to take the lessons we have been learning regarding cadence, design, quality and precision and share them with our upstreams. This is going to be a big chunk of what Michael Hall will be focusing on in the coming months.

One upstream project though that I am actively involved in in my spare time is Ubuntu Accomplishments and I wanted to share some of our plans surrounding our next 0.2 release and how these values are forming an important core of this work. Before I continue though, I just want to say a huge thank-you to everyone who has been participating in Ubuntu Accomplishments. Ever since our 0.1 release a few weeks ago we have had over 180 people start using this very early PPA and a number of people have started contributing accomplishments. Thanks to all of you!

Quality

With the expanded number of accomplishments being contributed, I started thinking last week about how we could perform better testing around these contributions as well as daily testing reports; I wanted to ensure that our project, even though we are very young and small, demonstrates a level of quality that we can be proud of. To kick this off, this weekend I wrote a small tool called battery that helps us assure quality. I created a validation test for every accomplishment and battery runs all the accomplishments and feeds them this data that will cause an accomplishment to succeed as well as fail. This serves a few valuable purposes:

• We now have better testing for new contributions and we can test both success and failure more effectively.
• We can build testing into the accomplishment submission process so that when someone contributes an accomplishment we will ask them to also submit a test file (the test file is extremely simple and just specifies data used for success and data used for failure). This should take a contributor ten seconds to put together.
• Finally, we can now run battery in an automated environment every day and have it alert us when one of the tests fails. This gives us better visibility on our accomplishments collections to ensure that we can assure quality and resolve issues quickly.

As an important part of building good design into the system, battery was designed to not require any changes to the existing accomplishments sets and require a bare minimum from our contributors who should be spending more time having fun writing accomplishments than caring about tests. I am delighted with the results.

The Road To 0.2

In addition to helping to ensure the accomplishment contribution process is simple (see our list of ideas for accomplishments and how to create them), we have been planning the 0.2 release. This will continue to focus on refinements and building a strong, reliable platform for both community and local accomplishments.

We will be focusing on the following in the 0.2 cycle:

• Local Accomplishment Support – in 0.1 we focused our efforts primarily on community accomplishments (that is, accomplishments that need to be verified). Although we have always supported local accomplishments (these are accomplishments on your computer such as installing a package for the first time or sending your first email), this local support was a little broken in 0.1. I have already landed a branch from Rafal that fixes these bugs, using GNOME Mines as the test application. We will continue to refine this support.
• Daemon and API Refinements – this won’t be visible to the user but we are planning a raft of API improvements to ensure that the back-end daemon is precise and high quality. This requires some functional changes, API naming conventions, standardizing on accomplishment IDs and other improvements.
• Growing Ubuntu Community Accomplishments – we plan on continuing to grow and expand the Ubuntu Community Accomplishments collection. We need help though, and that help could come from you! If you know a little Python and want to help our community, be sure to let me know! You can also join our IRC channel at #ubuntu-accomplishments.
• Introducing Ubuntu Desktop Accomplishments – we plan on introducing our first set of desktop accomplishments that can be used with the local accomplishments feature in the system. This will help us to start mapping out an awesome journey for how ours users use the desktop, discover things to do, and more!

It was wonderful to see the excitement and interest around Ubuntu Accomplishments at UDS, and I am excited to see where the project can take us. If you want to join us, be sure to join the mailing list and/or join us on IRC on freenode in #ubuntu-accomplishments.

Electronic Arts are delivering two games into Ubuntu, Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances and Lord of Ultima. They are currently available in the Ubuntu Software Center.

While some may focus on the fact that these are loading web apps, the really exciting opportunity here is that EA have identified Ubuntu as an exciting channel to deliver their content. I would like to encourage our community to welcome EA to Ubuntu, and download and enjoy the games.

Let’s not get side-tracked by the fact that these are web games and not native to Ubuntu: EA are dipping their toes in Ubuntu as a channel of opportunity, and let’s welcome them with open arms.

Roosters Roadhouse, 1700 Clement Avenue, Alameda, CA 94501

This is about a 5 – 10min cab ride from the Oakland Marriot hotel.

Get down there for about 7.30pm to ensure you get your tickets as the show has sold out of pre-sold tickets. We go on stage at 8pm. Hope to see you there!

Some of you may have seen the news of our very first Ubuntu Accomplishments release. Thank-you to everyone for testing the system; the feedback has been wonderful so far.

The power of the Ubuntu Accomplishments system is dependant on the range of accomplishments available to our users; a comprehensive range of accomplishments that span the full Ubuntu community will make the system an exciting and empowering resource. As such, I would like to put out a call to encourage you lovely people to contribute some accomplishments

Fortunately all you need to know is a little Python to contribute here.

How to Participate

This is how you can help:

1. First, ensure you are running the new release. Find out how to install it by clicking here.
2. Now familiarise yourself with our guidelines for what makes a great accomplishment (we are looking to avoid the ‘X number of SOMETHING achieved‘ accomplishments as they can be gamed and abused easily. We are instead looking for accomplishments for new experiences and skills such as ‘First Translation Made‘ or ‘First Contribution to the Ubuntu Sponsorship Queue‘. We have lots of ideas available on this page for inspiration!
3. Now read the tutorial and create your accomplishment (thanks to Rafal Cieslak for his excellent work on the tutorial).
4. With your accomplishment ready, submit it to the project and we will review it: details of how to do this are in the tutorial.

Thanks!

Importantly, while this blog post is seeking contributions for the Ubuntu Community collection of accomplishments, if you want to create a collection of accomplishments for your community or project (e.g. your software project, distro, local user group etc), you can use the same tutorial and resources to get started! Let us know if you have any questions!

Getting Help

If you have questions, you can get help in a few places:

• Join the mailing list – we have an active email discussion list and you are welcome to join and post questions.
• IRC Channel – we have the #ubuntu-accomplishments channel on the freenode IRC network.

Thanks so much for your contributions!

As part of the 0.1 release, we have added David Callé‘s Ubuntu Accomplishments Unity lens to the 0.1 PPA. It looks like this:

The lens neatly integrates into your desktop your trophies and available opportunities. Clicking on an opportunity will show information about how to accomplish it.

Installing

To install the lens first, add the PPA to your system with:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-accomplishments/releases

Now update your package list:

sudo apt-get update

Ensure you have the full Ubuntu Accomplishments system (including the accomplishments-lens package):

sudo apt-get install accomplishments-daemon accomplishments-viewer
ubuntu-community-accomplishments accomplishments-lens

You will need to re-login to see the lens.

Please note: you will need to have the accomplishments back-end process running to use the lens. This is simple: just load Accomplishments Information from the dash and this will start the back-end process. You can now view the lens.

As ever, you can report bugs here.

Thanks, David, for your efforts in creating the lens!

Back in January I first posted about initial progress on the Ubuntu Accomplishments project; an effort to present our users with fantastic documentation and guidance for a range of different community activities and automatically award our users with trophies when they accomplish those activities. The end-goal is to make opportunities on your computer and in your community more discoverable and satisfying when accomplished.

Importantly, Ubuntu Accomplishments is not about meaningless awards such as 1000 posts to a forum or 500 bug comments (the like of such can be easily gamed and generate too much noise to signal), but we are instead focusing on awards for new experiences and skills acquisition (e.g. learning how to file a bug, becoming an Ubuntu Member etc). You can see our guidelines for how we decide on what makes a great accomplishment here.

Well, after a furious period of development, I am delighted to announce our very first release: Ubuntu Accomplishments 0.1. This first release is a huge milestone in the project: this isn’t just a small GUI app…to build this first milestone involved creating a back-end service (featuring a DBUS API), a Python API to ease writing accomplishments, a server validation service, a graphical front-end, and a collection of community accomplishments to get people started. In addition to this everyone’s favorite Callé…David Callé…has created a Unity lens for the system which we plan on releasing over the next few days too.

Currently the 0.1 release does the following:

• Browse a range of different Ubuntu Community opportunities and filter them based on different categories.
• Click on different opportunities to discover more about them, what is involved, how to get started, as well as tips and tricks for success.
• Some opportunities require others to be completed before you can progress: this provides a logical on-ramp for participation.
• Accomplishments are automatically checked to see if you have achieved them. If you have they are verified to ensure they can’t be faked.
• The GUI client shows your collection of accomplished trophies as well as the available opportunities.
• Comprehensive Unity integration featuring Launcher numbering, notification bubbles, and hi-resolution icons.
• Full translated and available in a range of languages (language support varies due to the early nature of this release…but you you can help translate it!).
• We also provide a collection of community accomplishments covering Development, LoCo Teams, Juju, Governance and more. We need more accomplishments contributing and I will be talking more over the next few days about how you can contribute.

The goal of the 0.1 release was to demonstrate the core system working and I am delighted to share this first release with you.

Installing

Please note, there is a reason why this is version 0.1 – this is a very early version, so use with caution. There are bound to be some bugs, but we welcome all testing so we can resolve bugs and problems. Thanks!

The 0.1 release is only available for Ubuntu 12.04 and is available in a PPA. You will need to have an Ubuntu One account set up and working (you don’t need a paid account, just the free account).

You can install the PPA by following these instructions.

First, add the PPA to your system with:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-accomplishments/releases

Now update your package list:

sudo apt-get update

Now install the packages:

sudo apt-get install accomplishments-daemon accomplishments-viewer
ubuntu-community-accomplishments

To use the system simple click on the Accomplishments Information app in the Unity dash. The graphical app will load and if you wait a few minutes you should start seeing notification bubbles arriving that tell you which trophies you have achieved.

You can browse the Opportunities by double-clicking on them to read more about them. You can view your collection of trophies by clicking on My Trophies.

Known Issues

A few known issues with this first release:

• Unicode decode crash – we have had a report of a translation causing a crash when clicking on an opportunity to view it.
• You have to start the GUI to start the back-end process. This will be started on login in the future.

Reporting Bugs

If you find a bug you can report it here. We are keen to know about all bugs you find!

Thanks

I just want to offer thanks to the following people who helped get this 0.1 release out:

• Rafal Cieslak
• Stuart Langridge
• Matt Fischer
• Duncan McGreggor
• David Callé
• Simon Watson

Thanks!

Next Steps

Moving forward we want to focus on these areas:

• Growing our range of accomplishments in the community to have an expansive collection that covers all parts of the community.
• Fix up support for local accomplishments so that you can browse opportunities for things on your computer (e.g. sending your first email in Thunderbird) and be awardd trophies for these.
• Fix bugs reported by you good people to get things rock solid.
• Expand our translation coverage.

If you would like to get involved and participate, please join our mailing list. Thanks!

Many of you will be familiar with the Ubuntu Accomplishments project I have been working on recently. Well, we are gearing up to release our very first 0.1 release in the next week in a PPA, but we have one area where I would like to reach out to you folks for help.

Translations!

We want to ensure that Ubuntu Accomplishments is available in as many languages possible; not just the application, but also the fantastic documentation that is part of the application.

As such, can I please ask you wonderful people to help contribute your translations by following the instructions below.

Translating the Application Software

We want to ensure the backend process (which displays the accomplishments achieved and opportunities unlocked bubbles) as well as the graphical client is fully translated. To translate just follow these steps:

1. Go to the daemon translations page and the viewer translations page.
2. Ensure you have the language you want to selected (you can change this by clicking the Change your preferred languages… link at the bottom of the page.
3. You should see a row for each language you have selected. Click on the number under Untranslated and go and add your translation.
4. Sit back and bask in your wonderful contribution to Ubuntu Accomplishments!

Oh, and if there are no translations for your chosen language, please do go and add translations!

Translating the Accomplishment Information

For each of the different opportunities (things you can achieve in the system) we provide comprehensive documentation for how to achieve that particular accomplishment.

Translating these is very similar. To do this just follow these instructions:

1. Go to the Ubuntu Community Accomplishments translations page.
2. Ensure you have the language you want to selected (you can change this by clicking the Change your preferred languages… link at the bottom of the page.
3. The translation of Ubuntu Accomplishments works a little differently. You should IGNORE the English line at the top and instead look at the documentation just below. There it tells you which accomplishment you are editing and what the original English translation is.
4. You can now type your own language’s documentation into the New translation box. For the larger chunks of text you can use the grey button at the end of the New translation box to make the text entry bigger. If there is already a translation there and you want to edit and improve it, click the Current <language> translation button and the text will be copied to the edit box where you can edit it.
5. Now click the Save button at the bottom of the page to save your contributions. Sometimes you have to scroll to the right to see the Save button due to some of the long chunks of the text on the page.

Thanks in advance to every one of you who helps to translate Ubuntu Accomplishments!