Your comments
Yes, I agree this should be totally optional. My preference is that if you use the *markup*, only that shows.If you don't, only the "I want to..." shows. But if you guys always want the whole story but with part bolded, that certainly gets me closer to my goal. Bottom line is, I think it would be very useful to be able to see a list of stories, with each taking up just one line of vertical space so I could see a bunch at one time.
I'm not quite sure how to answer the question "are you not able to print double sided cards". I don't want to print double-sided cards. We typically use two cards: one for the story, one for the acceptance criteria. We create a hinge with tape so that the acceptance criteria folds under while it's on the board. The advantage over printing both sides is that when you unfold it, you can see both the story and the acceptance criteria without having to flip back and forth.
Would showing the whole story with linebreaks achieve what I was after? No, not really. When we discuss stories in meetings and conversations we always use some verbal shorthand: "the test runner", "support team X", "summary report", etc. That's how the stories live in my head. I don't want to have to read a whole story to know the two or three words that concisely describe what the story is about.
As for the need to collapse, it's because I want to more easily see an overview of my stories. For the release that I'm trying ezbacklog with I'll have roughly 35 stories or so. With pivotal tracker I can see all 35 stories in a list very easily. With ezbacklog I can only see about a dozen, which makes planning harder.
For me, the bottom line is that ezbacklog is just too verbose. While all the verbiage is critical for the actual cards, for _planning_ I want to be able to see more stories, and only the "meat" of each story rather than all the verbage. That's why I thought that the ability to collapse along with the ability to select two or three words to highlight was an ideal solution.
it's sufficient that the collapsed state is only good for a session. Individual cards don't need to remember if they are collapsed or not.
As for the need to collapse, it's because I want to more easily see an overview of my stories. For the release that I'm trying ezbacklog with I'll have roughly 35 stories or so. With pivotal tracker I can see all 35 stories in a list very easily. With ezbacklog I can only see about a dozen, which makes planning harder.
For me, the bottom line is that ezbacklog is just too verbose. While all the verbiage is critical for the actual cards, for _planning_ I want to be able to see more stories, and only the "meat" of each story rather than all the verbage. That's why I thought that the ability to collapse along with the ability to select two or three words to highlight was an ideal solution.
it's sufficient that the collapsed state is only good for a session. Individual cards don't need to remember if they are collapsed or not.
I have a suggestion for a slight alternative. What if, instead of a name or title,we had a way to mark part of the story with some markup, and that becomes the title?
Pur team typically underlines the most important two or three words in a story on a physical card. For example:
As a user of X, I want a graphical test runner so that I can blah blah blah
("graphical test runner" is underlined when I type this, but it's not showing up when I click save...)
What if you allowed me to write a story like this:
As a user of X, I want a *graphical test runner* so that I can blah blah blah
... and then you bold everything between the *'s, and use that as the title. This cuts down on redundant data entry yet still makes it possible to have a short description for a longer story.
Pur team typically underlines the most important two or three words in a story on a physical card. For example:
As a user of X, I want a graphical test runner so that I can blah blah blah
("graphical test runner" is underlined when I type this, but it's not showing up when I click save...)
What if you allowed me to write a story like this:
As a user of X, I want a *graphical test runner* so that I can blah blah blah
... and then you bold everything between the *'s, and use that as the title. This cuts down on redundant data entry yet still makes it possible to have a short description for a longer story.
Customer support service by UserEcho
I might have a story under "User Experience" to provide a graphical tool for printing a frobbitz. The theme is "User Experience" but the thing I'm creating is a tool. It's also related to printing.
I foresee wanting to do a search like "show me all stories related to printing" if a stakeholder asks "what's coming up related to printing?". Or, I may know that all of my core tool developers are at a conference so I want to find all "tool" related stories so I can put them on hold.