Different ideas

[PaulL]

Hi everybody,
I have many ideas in my head that I would like to discuss with you all.

1) wouldn't it be possible/usefull to create a developper Topic in the forum so that people actually working on how to improve the OR soft would be able to discuss the many possible avenue with the lead developer? A kind of developer thread. That thread could also be usefull for anybody wanting to help developing by participating. There could also be a "Documentation" thread.

2) wouldn't it be possible/usefull to create an addon section for extentions/templates/mods for the OR web site "à la" https://addons.mozilla.org/? It could even be done with the OR soft as a backend that could also be promoted as another way of using the OR software. For an example of this idea, see the PBFlash web site . Then all the extention/template/mods developper would be see as agents and the extension/template/mods as classes. All the addons could be listed under a free and a commercial section or listed by developper. I could create a project on SourceForge.net for the free/open source OR addons if it was the only thing that would have to be federated. We would have all the necessary features to develop some addons. Forum/mailling list, CVS access, documentation section bla bla bla.

3) wouldn't it be possible/usefull to create some technical documentation about the different queries made in on the DB? Or a kind of dictionary of all the possible links/relations between the OR tables in the DB. This could be usefull to get the big picture of the OR code and how to add some features to it faster without having to read the code several times to understand it enough to start hacking it confidently.

From my point of view(I may be wrong), it looks that there is a lot of peoples here that do know very well how the OR soft is implemented but they all have to be really present in the forum to help others getting to it. It looks also that there may not have enough people to handle all the web applications involved in this software. Leaving the main developer alone to handle everythings and loosing some precious time on coding or working for money.

I would be ready to discuss and to help getting this software a step further.

I'm going to stop here as I would like to know if I'm thinking too much before going any further.

[Mick]

Well first.. all would of course be possible.. anythings possible.. however:

1: Pretty much the purpose of the forums is to provide help for users and also communication with the developers... Myself, Paul and SK read these forums regularly and respond to many posts. Ryan, the lead developer hasn't been checking the forums as much lately while working on his hosting business and other commercial development projects. In addition to that anybody directly wishing to contribute to the project can post feature requests/bug reports on the bug tracker and contribute any code they've been working on there as well for consideration on being included with a future version.

For documentation there is already a Documentation link on the forums, OR homepage, installation and many people's signatures on the forums. The documentation is created with WIKI. It used to be open for anybody to contribute to, however.. unlike projects such as Wikipedia which is basically a contest between malicious people to screw up topics and the geeks to see how fast they can fix them.. we don't have enough people who regularly check or contribute to the documentation to make that effective. I locked down the wiki so that only I and the other developers now have the ability to edit the documentation. If anybody thinks they can make a worthwhile contribution to the documentation then they only need to let me know and I will get them access to add or edit information.

2: We already have forums for the releases of addons and templates. Honestly, with all of the developers already having little time to devote to the free open-source software adding in more and more tasks just for the presentation of the software or addons/templates for it is going a bit far. In addition to that... nobody bothers to check the ONE single place we have right now for these things... seperating it into an entire different area I think is only goign to cause more confusion and less people finding what they want. I foresee 10x as many posts on the forums asking for the same exact addons that are already posted elsewhere in that situation. There are already forums setup for the developement, discussion, help and assistance of addons and templates already. Having a sourceforge forum setup for the same purpose would again be pointless and confusing.

3: For the most part I find anything I need regarding DB table/data relationships using phpmyadmin. I've heard there is a way to generate a db schema using phpmyadmin but I honestly haven't looked or tried. Over time there have been many people who have offered to generate one and post it however none of them have ever followed through. I agree this would be helpful however again, I find just looking at the structure in phpmyadmin to be more than sufficient in most situations.

[PaulL]

Well first.. all would of course be possible.. anythings possible.. however:

That's why I was asking some thaught from others.

1: Pretty much the purpose of the forums is to provide help for users and also communication with the developers... Myself, Paul and SK read these forums regularly and respond to many posts. Ryan, the lead developer hasn't been checking the forums as much lately while working on his hosting business and other commercial development projects. [..]

I really understand Ryan's position I do have just a few web sites to maintain and it is very time consuming as I always need to learn and work at the same time. So in short, I could say that there is 4 peoples who really knows how the OR soft is made? Is there a place where we can find the specialties of all the peoples in charge and what are their responsibilities (more or less)?

For documentation there is already a Documentation link on the forums, OR homepage, installation and many people's signatures on the forums. The documentation is created with WIKI. [..] If anybody thinks they can make a worthwhile contribution to the documentation then they only need to let me know and I will get them access to add or edit information.

I already new about the Documentation on the OR web site and I also found that the Wiki was locked. I really don't have anything against that and I really understand why it is locked. Shouldn't it be usefull to add something about that in the wiki. At least I haven't found any mean to know who was in charge of the wiki. Because it looks unlock until you try to update a page.

2: [..] Having a sourceforge forum setup for the same purpose would again be pointless and confusing.

My point here was just because I wanted to have a place where one would find all the available addons without having to learn how to use the forum and then start searching with the searching feature of the forum which I always have problem finding me what I'm looking for. The example of SF.net was just in case where I would have to handle the addon web site alone and because I already know how to connect to a source code repository (aka CVS).

3: For the most part I find anything I need regarding DB table/data relationships using phpmyadmin. I've heard there is a way to generate a db schema using phpmyadmin but I honestly haven't looked or tried. Over time there have been many people who have offered to generate one and post it however none of them have ever followed through. I agree this would be helpful however again, I find just looking at the structure in phpmyadmin to be more than sufficient in most situations.

Yes there is a feature available in phpMyAdmin and it is the "Dictionary" link at the bottom of the Table Structure pages. It enable us to make some link from one table to an other like "tablex.id" to "tablex.tablex_id" and then at the end it generate a PDF file showing the name of the Database, table and their structure. At the end of the PDF document there is a graphical view of the table with all their links (joints) and you can click on an field and get to its definition. I have attached an example of to PDF files created this way. One is showing the entire DB and their joints and the second one is showing the joint made inside a function for a specific SQL query with the query shown at the bottom.
The only problem with those PDF files is that they need to be open in Adobe Reader or in an Object tag and it may not be the best way to show it on a web site as the links are working only inside the PDF file. I don't know either how to include that kind of files inside the Wiki. (The attached file is preatty large so as soon as you will have it you may remove it from the forum and anybody who would like to see what it looks like could PM me.)
I will wait for some reply before adding any words to this thread. I see the people in the back are falling asleep!

[ebmarques]

PaulL,

First I want to give you a welcome if nobody did it yet.

Mick, pbflash and SK will correct me if I'm wrong (sorry if the case...) so:

I think I see what you feel and how much you want to colaborate. But I also think you didn't notice that O-R it is not like some Free Code available, 100% Open Source (as Joomla, Mambo, etc...) and where there is a comunity behind.
O-R is owned by ONE person: Ryan Bonham.
O-R has an Open Source License with conditions.
O-R is a commercial product and shall/should give profit ($)
You will see "Mick", "pbflash" and "SK" giving their time (and blood!) here at the Forum for free and they do a fantastic job. I think they should be paid (don't be mad with me, Ryan!).
BESIDES THEM, we are just users (in my opinion, "phive" is not just an user, but more). Some users have a little more experience than others. I heard from them "read the docs" as answer to my posts, several times! I also had "to dig" how to make an add-on and when you know how it works, it becomes something very very easy to do. I also posted a lot of questions with answers that was right under my nose!
It is easy to love O-R! And... you, me and others want to give something back. Sometimes with money (the best way to help O-R) other times pointing "Bugs" and posting "Feature Requests" - there is nothing more to do besides answering questions at the forum (sometimes we/I answer wrong...and they have to come with hurry to correct the mistake!)

Sometimes we have (like you) suggestions and "new" ideas... I believe it's good to O-R having people wanting to make O-R even better! Post all your ideas! I just tried to give what I feel you missed.

Eduardo.
(also sorry for my bad English) - if the case!

[PaulL]

PaulL,

First I want to give you a welcome if nobody did it yet.

Mick, pbflash and SK will correct me if I'm wrong (sorry if the case...) so:

Thanks!

I think I see what you feel and how much you want to colaborate. But I also think you didn't notice that O-R it is not like some Free Code available, 100% Open Source (as Joomla, Mambo, etc...) and where there is a comunity behind.
O-R is owned by ONE person: Ryan Bonham.
O-R has an Open Source License with conditions.
O-R is a commercial product and shall/should give profit ($)
You will see "Mick", "pbflash" and "SK" giving their time (and blood!) here at the Forum for free and they do a fantastic job. I think they should be paid (don't be mad with me, Ryan!).
[..]

This part I already new and noticed because I have ask Ryan before using his software for one of my clients. I agree with what you are saying about the "Community Behind". I often saw some simple questions, or I should say already answered questions, in the forum. That's why I do not like to use a forum to find answer that should be on the main web site.

It is easy to love O-R! And... you, me and others want to give something back. [..]

Eduardo.
(also sorry for my bad English) - if the case!

It's very easy to fall in love with OR and from my point of view, there should more people helping Ryan on the core developement. I made some hack at the core files for my first Real Estate web site made with OR and now that I know that for some of them or even all of them I could have made an extention ... Not that I didn't knew anything about the fact that OR was expandable but just because I thought I did not had the time to learn how to use that feature.

So anyway, in short, I desperatly need to know who does what?

The Open Source idea for me is that when I need something inside a software which doesn't already have it, then I check if I can do it, if I can, I do it and give it back to the community for others to have it! I know we all need money, but if I can get a free soft and help that free soft get better, for me it's a win-win relation as others benefit from others qualities without having to be good in everything.

In the next days I will try to build myself a kind of "Draft" code documentation and a list of the peoples involved in the OR developement. If Ryan could give me some hints, I would apreciate. We all know it wont be defenitive but at least it should help others. Sometime we don't need to ask everybody a specific question. From my point, I see that Paul would be the one that could help me most as I would like to work on some addon or implement some stuff that I did on my own web site and that doesn't exist yet in OR.
I was even thinking making an unofficial version of OR to have it the way I want. But, it would be a lost of time since I can't enhence it with the surface knowledge that I have of it.
I have to be honest here. I would love to use it for my own web site but I still need to wait until OR 3.0 to be able to use an unhacked localizable version. So if I could help on the code, I would like to help on making OR localizable. On my web site I'm using the GETTEXT feature as it was available on our hosting server. I understand that it has to be different for OR as it needs to be working on as much different kind of hosting server as it is possible.

So at least you all have a better idea of who I am and why I'm here!
There is so many usefull features in OR and it is so easy to manage, you can't do anything else than fall in love with it!

[Mick]

Basically.. Transparent Technologies owns Open-Realty and makes it available for free under the Open-Realty license which is similar to most open-source licenses with a few minor differences. Ryan, as the owner of Transparent Tech is hence the owner of Open-Realty. Ryan is also the lead developer of the project and did 99% of the code rewriting when he rewrote the code to release the 2.x version. Sandking and I were co-developers at this time and provided some contributions as well as some from the community. Paul, PBFlash has always been very active on the forums and creating many useful addons and code modifications and submitting bug fixes with complete code to fix the bugs. Ryan brought Paul onboard after the 2.0 release as an additional co-developer. None of us really have an area that we specifically work on although we do all have our little niches that we do a little better in.

Lately, Ryan has been very busy with his growing hosting company and must devote more and more time to that. Ryan also has other commercial developement projects that he has to devote time to as well as squeezing in time to work on Open-Realty 3. As such he has had very little time in recent months to spend on 2.x and I have been heading up the continued developement on the 2.x version with Ryan providing all the oversight and double checking and in some cases correction/clean-up of my work as I'm not nearly as skilled as he is.

As far as changing from using the forums for the majority of support and posting of addon releases.. I Don't disagree with you that it would be nice to have a system dedicated to the release of addons and templates however with everything having been done and handled on the forums for so long now it wouldn't be practical to change IMO.

I already new about the Documentation on the OR web site and I also found that the Wiki was locked. I really don't have anything against that and I really understand why it is locked. Shouldn't it be usefull to add something about that in the wiki. At least I haven't found any mean to know who was in charge of the wiki. Because it looks unlock until you try to update a page.

This part I already new and noticed because I have ask Ryan before using his software for one of my clients. I agree with what you are saying about the "Community Behind". I often saw some simple questions, or I should say already answered questions, in the forum. That's why I do not like to use a forum to find answer that should be on the main web site.

This is a big part of why I won't recommend switching from using the forums for most everything. The forums grow with a ton of information and in many cases the same question posted many many times however, its nice that so many answers can be provided to those who simply SEARCH.

Plain and simple.. people do not read documentation or main pages of websites. Even you didn't on something you are looking into in such detail. From the MAIN PAGE of the Open-Realty Wiki Project, 2nd and 3rd lines:

If you find errors or think something should be added or changed please PM "Mick" on the Open-Realty forums with your changes.

Access for registered users to edit the WIKI documentation was removed due to abuse.

It pretty specifically answers two of your questions right there.. I, Mick am the one primarily in charge of the Open-Realty documentation and second, it has been locked down due to abuse.

I am happy for your enthusiasm regarding the project. Should have contributions you wish to make then currently the way to do that is create a feature request or bug report on the Open-Realty flyspray system. Be as detailed as you want. i.e. feature requests with all the coding already completed and all the modifications detailed and laid out in a manner that is easy to understand are far less likely to be denied. However, sometimes feature requests will be denied regardless of how much work is done. Ultimately it is up to the developers to determine if a particular feature meets with the direction and goals of Open-Realty and that it is not detrimental to it in any way. Some feature requests that have been posted in the past have had performance impacts and thus were denied although some were rewritten and implemented in the core code.

[PaulL]

[..]
Plain and simple.. people do not read documentation or main pages of websites. Even you didn't on something you are looking into in such detail. From the MAIN PAGE of the Open-Realty Wiki Project, 2nd and 3rd lines:
[..]

You made me lough a lot on this one as you made me realise that I had probably never read the 2nd and 3nd lines on the main page of the Wiki. Jumping directly on the "Table Of Content" items.

Thanks a lot guys. I will be able to start learning the code more confidently now that I know that, at least, I can come here and ask a funny question without being kicked off! For 3rd lines I remember reading once but I aparently forgot about it! :(

So now, some revised ideas...
Mick:
1) My idea about the addon (extention/template/mods) could be implemented in the Wiki at first, as "Unofficial addon" or "Community Addon". By letting the addon developer add the description by them self. We could create a template on how we want to describe the addon to keep the layout (look and feel) the same across all addon.
What do you think?

2)We could retreive some questions from the forum and put them in the FAQ.

3) Add a section in the wiki where we would see all the actual main contributors and their field of responsibility. We could put a link pointing to their forum profile. We could use your previous post to have something to start with.

4) Could you put a link to your profile in the wiki where it says "PM Mick" so that people would be sent directly in the forum at your profile page?

Today I'm going to get a copy of the trunk by SVN and I will start looking at how I could make a PDF file for the joints between all the tables in the DataBase. I may come back to ask some precisions about some of the table to describe better there use.

Cheers, Paul.

[ebmarques]

Just kiddind a bit:

Could you put a link to your profile in the wiki where it says "PM Mick" so that people would be sent directly in the forum at your profile page?

Mick, you got a new friend or a new enemy???

Eduardo.