a. xamarin/xbuild: Right now if I want to build a Xamarin project which uses xbuild, I have to use a plain command line build step and configure the command line myself. It would be nice to have a built-in Xamarin or xbuild step type similar to msbuild step type.
b. Javac: Right now, I use a command line step to run javac. It would be nice to have a javac build step that asks for parameters like classpath, srcpath, optional switches, etc. to perform the javac command line execution.
c. Junit: Right now, QB has the built-in ability to consume junit output and publish it but not to run junit itself. I have to write an ANT script to run the junit ant task and then use an ANT build step to execute it. It would be nice to have a Junit build step that asks for parameters like classpath, test classes dir, junit categories, timeout, optional switches, etc. to perform the junit command line execution.
d. excute process: In a recent post, I needed to start an external server process just before I ran my junit step. However, I needed to discover the process ID it was given so that I could kill it later. Right now, I would have to write an external script to launch the server process and capture the PID and save it somewhere. It would be nice to have a step type that could do this for me and save the PID in a QB variable for killing later.
e. pause: It might be useful from time to time to pause for a few seconds during a build workflow. This is easily done now with a groovy script step to execute java code that does a Thread.sleep. This could be even easier by adding a sleep or pause function to the util script object.
f. Publish to Hockeyapp: Mobile developers use hockeyapp to publish beta versions of their app to beta testers. Right now, I have to manually configure a curl command line to publish to hockeyapp web service. It would be nice to have this step built-in.
g. ANT task: I have used ANT for many years and love it because it is so powerful and cross platform. When using ANT with QB, I have to separately maintain an ANT build file to use the ANT build step. I think it would really nice to have an ANT task step. This is different then the current ANT build step in that the ANT build step wants an ANT build file, but the ANT task step would just ask for the name of any available ANT task and any parameters that it requires. QB could either dynamically generate an ANT build file with 1 target containing just that 1 ANT task to run OR perhaps run ANT programmatically without the need for an actual ANT build file. This new ANT task step would open up all of the currently available ANT tasks as possibilities for QB build steps without the need to right an ANT build file and maintain it separately. In fact, this ANT task step would remove the need for the suggestion above for javac and junit build steps since those two functions are already ANT tasks.