I will be uploading a new version of the news system sometime over the next week or so. I have now added a file upload manager so images can be inserted into the post.
I am really happy with the progress of this module and it represents a big step forward in terms of interactivity with the site.
At this stage only the Add Post section has the latest upload feature, but this will be expanded to the Update Post area too.
The publishing section of the news system will also be up very soon. This will include and archive section and an RSS feed as well.
Stay tuned for more upgrade info as i move forward with the development of the news system.
The latest upgrade to the site is coming along well, all be it offine, on my home development server. I have now setup template switching so you can choose from a variety of templates once logged in. The news system has come along in leaps and bounds recently allowing for a load of new features such as file upload and javascript insertion of images. Still a few more updates on that module to make before it can go live though. I am currently working on the members section of the site. Features in the members section will include:
The above features as very near completion and will be enabled on my local server very soon. Once i have finished testing on my local server, the latest version of MPS, including all of the features mentioned above will be deployed on this testing & development site.
I am really looking forward to getting this system up and going on this domain as it will signify a milestone in the development of MPS and this site. Once i am satisfied that everything is as it should be I will launch on the main master domain (this will be announced when it goes live).
I will also be starting the business side of things over the next month or two and have some great products in the pipeline.
I have been busy over the last month or so working on a site for Markia Meehan - Graphic Designer & Illustrator - www.mika.net.au. This site has been designed by Markia and i have developed & hosted the site.
In other news relating to development, Markia & I have been busy building a site for a new brand: Funky Cherubs, This site is looking fantastic and I am really looking forward to completing it and releasing it publicly. Funky Cherubs is still under development and we hope to have the site fully operational within two months.
Both the afore mentioned sites: www.mika.net.au & www.funkycherubs.com.au will be ported over to MPS once the design phase is complete. www.mika.net.au is now live, but will receive a backend overhaul very soon as the initial brief was to get a site up and running asap. Now that the site is up and running, we have time to finesse it and setup MPS as the system that drives the site. www.mika.net.au is currently a static site only using dynamic asynchronous javascript calls (ajax) and php to drive the gallery sections of the site.
So i suppose i should leave this post here and get on with the updates for the members section of MPS.
The file upload system for the post editor is coming along really well. I had a breakthrough today, mainly to do with javascript. I was trying to find a way to insert an image tag into the textarea or a form field via a mouse click. After a bit of searching and then some frustration at not being able to find the solution i wanted, a burst of inspiration hit and i solved the core of the issue.
This will allow me to make a significant step forward with regards to getting the post editor up and working in the way i have planned. I have setup a a working proof of concept system on my home server (which is dedicated to developing this system & is a few steps ahead also) and am very please with the results. I have a little way to go before i am ready to have it go live on this site, but the bulk of the hack and slash development is now complete. Time to implement it in a graceful fashion.
It is now also time to break up some of the javascript into separate file to avoid unnecessary code load. I will be adding new features to the post editor very soon and this new development will allow me to launch my much awaited artists plugin very soon.
I will post more details on the file upload system as development continues. As soon as you see an image in one of these posts, that is the sign that i have the system live on this site and a huge milestone has been reached.
My Second attempt at giving up smoking this year is going well atm. As mentioned in my previous blog entry i gave up smoking again last Sunday.
I have not had a cigarette since then and am pretty happy with that effort. I think riding my mountain bike every day has been a contributing factor as well.
Well, I caved on Thursday night. I was out with some friends having a few beers and ended up have a few smokes.
All is not lost, starting tomorrow, Sunday 1st March I will start again.
I have decided to change the way MPS deals with styles, javascript, ajax applications and dynamic html.
Previously I had been creating style sheets and javascripts files to cover the whole range of modules.This is not a very good idea as it is a potential security risk and promotes unnecessary code load.
So the next step is to strip back everything not needed in the base system, this includes php, xhtml, css, javascript, ajax & dhtml. These will be added on a module needs this functionality basis.
This process will take some time to implement as i do not want to take a massive step back and start recoding the site from scratch at this point. This will be does in CodeBase v2.0, currently we are CodeBase v1.1.
The news system is about to be updated to include ajax style file upload features. Once this is completed i will start work on the Artists Plugin.
Things are going well in the "not smoking" department. I have kept to my plans and have not smoked at all since i started my mission.
I must admit i was a bit tempted tonight to go and buy some, but i simply buried my head in to my work and soon forgot about it.
I have been wearing 10mg Nicorette patches and my wife reckons i am much more pleasant than i have been on previous attempts at giving up smoking. So that is a very good thing :)
Not much more to say about things at this stage apart from all is going well.
I am currently developing this new template you can see called "Bandwidth 2". This is a great deal closer to what i am aiming for than my previous attempt. I guess it goes to show that if you keep working on something for long enough, one is bound to figure it out eventually.
Anyhow i am pretty pleased with the results of this so far and will keep working on it over the next two weeks or so.
One frustration that i am having is the fact that Internet Explorer does not adhere to web standards when it comes to CSS, so i will have to create a special style sheet specifically to deal with this. I think this is the best answer rather than hack and slash a CSS file to bits to make it compatible.
I have also come up with a new idea as well for links that will be used in this theme. There are 4 main types of content links I expect to use they are as follows:
That is about it for this update and I will add more info once i have the file upload working and have a more advanced version of the post editor up and running.
About a year ago i gave up smoking for about 7 months. I am disappointed to say i started smoking again. After all the hard effort i put into stopping (cold turkey) for some reason i started again.
During my holiday in Byron, i decided that it was time to stop smoking once and for all and get fit. Tomorrow is the day i start.
This morning i walked up to the local chemist and bought nicotine patches. Since i had already had a couple of cigarettes today the pharmacist suggested i start tomorrow morning. That is exactly what i intend to do, so tomorrow is the start of a new era for me, as a non smoker.
Also thanks to my mate Ben who when we caught up for a few beers and a meal said "Are you still smoking?", prompted me to take action.
I will keep this blog updated with my progress, so wish me the best of luck and i hope to be able to be smoke free as of tomorrow.
Well, i am back from holidays now. Had a fantastic week off in Byron Bay, i love it up there. By all reports we must have been extremely lucky not to get drenched as the whole of the East Coast was hit by a huge belt of bad weather.
The first couple of nights were a bit rainy so we stayed in a cabin to avoid setting up our tent in the rain, which would of been really awful.
I spent 3 days surfing/bodyboarding, must of been about 4-5 years since i last jumped on my body board. I was hoping that my body boarding skills had not left me, alas, they had lol. Even though i was back to being a learner the water temperature was fantastic, about 24 degrees i reckon, so it made the whole experience thoroughly enjoyable.
The downside to my surfing was some pretty nasty blisters on my toes from my flippers also my still sore muscles lol, i should get out more and exercise i think.
Well now i am back in Sydney, it is time to get things back on track in relation to my web development. I have a new level of inspiration to move quickly forward and finish off the foundation of my content management system.
Having said that, i am off to the pub to have a beer with my mate ....., it is Friday evening after all :-)
After a load of stuffing around tonight trying to find the cause of a form submission problem, i finally got to the bottom of it.
The culprit was a single inverted coma, damn, so simple, i thought i had setup a sanitising method to handle this, guess not, or at least perhaps i have not enabled it. Well then next thing on the cards now has to be a sanitising class to deal with all the little nasties that can upset the form submission or should i say, database insertion process.
While i am at it, i wil also setup a number of other validation and cleansing systems that i had in mind.
This time i am really off to bed .... night... for the second time.
It has been a busy day today, i have achieved a whole lot and and reasonably happy with the outcome. I have built this template from scratch including all the graphics and fixed a whole lot of little things that have been annoying me for some time.
It has been a pretty shitty day here in Sydney as it has been raining on and off all day, good day for geeking it out at home. BTW the reason that i have been home all day is that i am on 4 weeks holidays!!! I am really stoked about that as i have a load of things i need to get done web-wise.
I will be making regular updates on this site as to the progress i am making with MPS - Majickal Portal System (this website & others)so you all can stay informed of where i am up to, as well as keeping a record of updates for the about section of MPS when it is ready to be deployed in all its glory.
I still have a load of things i need to check and probably will uncover a lot of things i need to fix up too. So over the next 4 weeks i plan to have made significant progress with the site and have a whole stack of new features to talk about. Some of the features will not be deployed on this site, but on one or more of the many sites i have ready to turn on once this system has reached a stable deployment phase.
One of the main features of MPS is that i will be able to administer multiple sites from a central site. Another great feature i am building in is for people who sign up to one of my sites, then have access to any of the other sites that run MPS on my server. This will allow for a great deal of flexibility for users who will not be locked into a single site. I do have to get cross domain logins working seemlessly before this can happen though.
Enough of this idle banter, i really should head off, early start tomorrow.
Seem to be having a problem submitting form data, will check to see if it is related to the size of the post or something else that is going wrong....
I was able to post the above without any sort of problem... strange :s
Setting up an new category under MPS Development for trouble shooting. Could be something wrong with the category system..
I am not going to resolve this tonight, will have to give up and have a fresh look in the morning :(
Well i had one last crack at it, or i would not of been able to sleep and i got to the bottom of the problem. Time to write a conversion, validation & cleansing system .... DOH!! should of done that to start with.... At least i can go to bed now knowing what the problem is, i would not of been able to sleep otherwise.. night
I just noticed that the title for the pages are not rendering. I will look into this at another time.
This theme (bandwidth) has been hand coded from scratch and all images have been created using the open source (free) photo shop alternative, The Gimp.
None of the software used to create this template costs anything, it is all freeware!
I will be updating the post on www.bandwidth.net.au that relates to this at the appropriate time.
Having a problem getting the memberID inserted into the news item. Have just made some changes and now i hope this will be working as planned.
Next thing to do is the category link at the top of each post. There is something not quite working with these links. I will also look at this tomorrow. I think there is a method missing in the news class.
I am currently having some problems getting some css background images to display properly. More investigation in to this is required.
The next step is to test the layouts in as many browsers as possible. It is getting late now and i will have to continue this tomorrow
Magnetic Noise
Bandwidth Media