We should be releasing Beta 2 of Vault 5 and Fortress 2 later today (watch the Development Blog for details). You’ll notice pretty quickly that the web interface has been revamped, especially on the work item tracking side; seemed worth a walkthrough of its own.

The Query page is not terribly different; but cleaner and easier to navigate.

Sometimes it’s as simple as letting you “roll up” any projects you’re not interested in at the moment, keeping your front page cleaner:

Once we start viewing query results, the changes really make themselves known. As always, we aim toward making it easier to find the bug you’re after. Hovering over the magnifying glass icon next to any bug in the list gives you a quick summary of that bug, without needing to leave the list and load the whole thing:

We’ve removed the sidebar, giving more space over to the actual bug information; selection of Customized and Grouped views has moved to the list header. Easy to find, but out of the way.

We’ve taking the friction out of adding and editing bugs, as well — getting a bug into Fortress takes just a couple of clicks from any bug list. We’ll (optionally) use the current query as a template, so a new bug added from the “Milestone 1” list will default to “Milestone 1”, tags will be copied, etc.

Updating a bunch of issues at once is easier, too: want to reassign or close some of the items you’re looking at? Check them off, and use the quick-edit tools at the end of the list to update them in-page.

We’ve also eliminated the “printable view” menu item from all pages; bugs, bug lists, etc. will print properly without any extra steps.

Editing a bug’s details is easier than ever — when you’re viewing a bug, clicking on any of its fields lets you edit the field in place.

The Source Control web interface has been revamped as well; the new repository tree is much faster, cleaner and easier to navigate.

There’s a lot more to the beta, from Shelve improvements to the new full-fledged VSS Handoff feature. I’ll post again later when it’s out; give it a shot, and please let us know what you think in the Beta Support Forum.