Certainly, not all tabs in the project menu are provided by modules. Thus, even if all project modules are disabled for the project, it will still have the three core tabs—Overview, Activity, and Settings.
The Overview and Activity tabs are public and the Settings tab is visible only to project managers. We will talk about the Settings tab in The project configuration section. Right now, let's speak about the first two tabs.
The overview page is the landing page for the project. That's why it combines all of the information that can be of interest to users. However, it needs to be stated that users who use Redmine intensively rarely come to this page, as they know where they can find the information they need. On the other hand, new users of the project, especially first-time users, come to this page more often. So, it can be concluded that the overview page is intended mostly for new users. Still, this page contains some information that you won't find elsewhere.
So, let's check out the Overview tab:
The description of the project that you can see under the Overview label is what you specify in the Description field of the project form. Below the description, you can see the value of the Homepage field of the same form. Towards the right from the Overview label is the New subproject link. This link opens the new project form with the Subproject of field set to the current project. All of these elements are already known to you.
Near the New subproject link, you can see the Close link. This link will be discussed later in this chapter. On the sidebar, you can see the grand total of the time spent on this project and the related links. The whole Spent time block is provided by the Time tracking module, which we'll discuss in Chapter 8, Time Tracking.
The content of the Latest news block should already look familiar to you, as it contains the latest news provided by the News module, which was discussed earlier. This block also contains the View all news link, which redirects to the News tab.
The next two blocks are available only on this page.
The Issue tracking block lists the numbers of open and closed issues and total number of issues for each tracker in the project. If you click on the tracker name or a number of issues in the Total column, you will be redirected to the issue list with the issue filter preconfigured to show only the issues of this tracker. And if you click on a number of issues in the open or closed column, you will get the list of issues of the corresponding tracker and status.
The Members block lists all members of the project grouped by their roles. Project managers and administrators can see this information on the project's Settings page, but other users can find it only here.
With Redmine, you can keep track of what's happening in the project using email notifications. But what if you missed some notifications, for example, because there were too many email messages in your inbox? In such cases, you can always check out the activity page and filter the actions there to find out what you need. This is especially useful if you don't use notifications or you are interested in all events in the project (and you don't have to be its manager for this).
The activity page that I'm referencing is available under the Activity tab, which is shown in the following screenshot:
By default, the activity page shows a summary of events in the project for the last 30 days. This period can be configured using the Days displayed on project activity setting, which can be found under the General tab of the Settings page in the Administration menu. The dates for which the activities are shown can be seen under the Activity label. At the bottom of the activity list, you can see the Previous link. This link allows you to move to the previous 30 days (that is, before 11/01/2015). If you go there, to the right from the Previous link, you will see the Next link. This link can be used to move back to the current period. So, using these links, you can navigate the history of project events.
Additionally, you can subscribe to the activity feed using the Atom link which you can see below the list.
The sidebar of the activity page contains the already mentioned filter that allows you to select what kinds of events you want to see. Most of the event types that are available here do not need any explanation, so let's review only those that are less obvious. Thus, if the Issues checkbox is checked, the activity list will include changes of the issue status and notes. If the Changesets action is enabled, the list will also include repository commits. And, if the Messages checkbox is checked, you will also see messages that were posted to forums (including topics, replies, and so on).
Unfortunately, as you can see, it's not obvious which item is for which event type. Different event types have different icons, but to learn which one is for which, you need to use this page for some time. Anyway, let me tell you what events you can see in the previous screenshot.
The first two items for 11/17/2015 are the status changes for the Chapter #4 and Chapter #5 issues. Below them, you can see the upload of the 9144_Ch04_PreliminaryDraft.odt file. For 11/16/2015, you see notes for the Chapter #4 issue.
Once you get used to this page, you will love the listing, as it is compact, is easy to read, and supports the filter—there is no easier way to quickly check out the latest events in the project.
Tip
Global activities
There is also the global activity page that shows events on all projects (to which a user has access, of course). This page can be useful for employees who work on different projects, for example, company directors who want to know what's happening on all projects. To get there, click on the Projects item of the top menu and then click on the Overall activity link.