57 replies to this topic

[Brito]

Arvy, would you be available to help on the site reorganization and add up the widgets?

I lack the time to apply the necessary changes at this time because of other ongoing projects but this development is still very needed to improve our work conditions as soon as possible.

What we need currently:

- Widgets addon with the "Recommended" box to honor our link exchange agreement, possibly the current online member list to replace the one on bottom of the forum frontpage.
- Remove mkportal from http://boot-land.net and produce similar frontpage (or better) based on the IPBWI API integration functions.

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The company that was interested in helping us the external mySQL hosting hasn't given a reply back for some time now so I'm assuming they're no longer interested. Doesn't really matter as we already marked and solved some the reasons responsible for the poor server performance and currently the site speed is already satisfactory but we can surely improve them to a point to avoid any need for external servers in the future.

Minimalism is a good philosophy. Let's see if we can keep things balanced and create a good site for everyone.

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If you're up for the task let me know and I'll email the FTP/SSH/forum details so that we can start working on this matter right away.

Let's make boot land grow without fear of error 500 messages!

[Arvy]

Well, I'm certainly willing to try to help to the best of my ability.

Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of the IPB Widget details involved in our earlier experiments. I vaguely recall that we had to modify slightly the original author's dB setup scripting to avoid NULL errors, but I can't remember the exact changes required. Besides, having since deleted our temporary experimental installation, I'd need a day or two just to get re-acquainted with the basics.

Your requirements seem quite straightforward as you've stated them here, but I've done no previous work at all with IPBWI API integration and really know nothing about it. Perhaps it would be best if I try out a few things first on my own server and get back to you ASAP. That okay?

[Brito]

Take your time, no worries and good luck with the widgets, from the last experiment the results were good.

Maybe it would be a good idea to open a new topic for the widget discussion, or better yet, have a section dedicated to forum issues and improvements to keep all these topics tidy and organized on the same place, will work on it.

[Arvy]

Thanks. A separate section for discussion of this and related web site subjects seems like an excellent idea. It will certainly be helpful to have direct feedback from users as various new arrangements are being developed and tested.

If you wish (and if it won't create any software licensing problems for you) I'm quite willing to use my own server as the initial development and testing platform. That way we can try out lot's of different "experimental" possibilities before actual implementation here on the boot-land server. Personally, I'd feel more comfortable not incurring any risk to the current working environment prior to careful testing elsewhere, but agreement or otherwise regarding that approach is entirely up to you.

[Brito]

It doesn't go against the IPB license if you only use the forum for testing purposes.

I've seen it being done several times in the IPB discussion sites, so no worries about this matter.

[Arvy]

Okay, great. I'll get to work on it straight away.

To get started, I've added a bootland subdomain on my virtech.org server so that it can totally imitate whatever we may want to test and experiment with for possible changes to the actual site here. It may take a day or so for that new http://bootland.virtech.org address to get fully propagated throughout the global domain name system. In the meatime, anyone who may wish to follow our experimental first steps can get there via the alternative http://virtech.org/bootland URL.

Initially, there is nothing whatever on the new subdomain's home page. It will just redirect you automatically to the "virgin" forums set-up that is located in the /ipboard folder thereunder. For now, that set-up is strictly an out-of-the-box IPB v2.3.4 installation with no modifications of any kind, but I expect to have the IPB Widgets basic add-on in place very soon. As soon as I do, I'll then work on your "recommended" and "users on line" requests. Possibilities for re-organizing the home page itself will probably come later.

I know you're quite busy with other stuff, but if you want an admin and/or file management account to play around with it yourself at any time, just let me know. It's no problem at all to set one up for you.

[Brito]

Thank you.

I know you're quite busy with other stuff, but if you want an admin and/or file management account to play around with it yourself at any time, just let me know. It's no problem at all to set one up for you.

I already have a local server as safe test machine on my workplace but it might be nice to join over there and help you with the codings/feedback whenever possible.

[Arvy]

Sure thing. You can just register for the forums yourself as a normal user and I'll admin your account as soon as I see it. I'll also create FTP, file manager and phpMyAdmin accounts for you and send you the login details via private email later today or early tomorrow.