Latest Ramblings

Not much more I can say after that headline! Just go check out the site I’ve been working on for almost a year at GarageGames: InstantAction

Well, it’s finally open to the public. This is the site that I have been working on since I started working at GarageGames way back in September. It is a great idea, and I think we’ve done a great job on it, so do me a favor and check it out! While you’re there you can check out my profile and the profiles of the other people who worked on the site: Sean Sullivan, Nate Feyma, and Rick Overman. Of course, everyone at GarageGames gave valuable ideas and feedback, as well as everyone involved in the closed beta. But now it is up to all gamers to really make this site work, so let’s get to it!

The download for Overlord on GarageGames will be updated to 2.2.2 to address a rare security issue sometime today. And since I am taking the time to mention it, I thought I’d go ahead and give a little peak at the new stuff coming in the next big release.

I realize it has been a while since 2.2 was released, but I have been really, really busy. Anyway, coming in version 2.5, Checklists are being changed to Reminders, personal notes that only you can see.

Also, Tasks and Bugs are being merged into a single page called Issues, so that you can see everything that needs to be done for a project on one page. This will also include better filtering so that you can easily sort through everything.

Some other features not shown:

• Tweaks to the database to make things even faster.
• Commerical version with custom permissions, time tracking, and file version control.

Well, everything has been signed, and the product page is now live! Woohoo!

This version, 2.2, adds the long-awaited file manager to the mix. Each project has its own file section where files can be uploaded, organized into folders, tagged with keywords, and attached to other items like bugs and tasks. There is also a spiffy interface when creating or editing tasks, bugs, etc. that allows you to upload a file right there, without changing pages, and attach it to the item you are creating or editing in a completely seamless fashion. Also new is the redesigned message system, which now works like a forum. There are several other key changes as well. You can see the complete changelog below the image.

As for the future of Overlord, I am about to begin working on a more business-oriented version, which, hopefully, will be released before the end of the month. It will include such features as time tracking, advanced permissions, per-project user access, and more as time goes by. I don’t have a name for it yet, something like Overlord Advanced Technology maybe? Also, work is not stopping on the base Overlord product. I will continue to fix bugs, and there are certain features that will make their way into both products. I plan to include an upgrade script and there will be a discounted upgrade price once the new product comes out, so you can buy Overlord now and upgrade later without losing any data.

Note to current customers: If you purchased Overlord through http://www.phpoverlord.com, you need to keep an eye on your inbox. You will receive a message with instructions for getting access to future downloads.

CHANGELOG:

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Version 2.2
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NEW FEATURES:
File Manager: Each project now has a Files tab where you can upload files and organize them into folders. The limit to filesize is determined by both the user’s browser and the server’s PHP.ini configuration, so extremely large files are likely to fail to upload. 2MB or smaller files should work fine.
Attachments: Any file can be attached to any item, you can upload the file when you want to attach it, or attach an existing file.

CHANGES:
Messages for each project now function like a forum, which should make them more useful.
Links to the various RSS feeds are now displayed prominently where they are used on the site.
Bugs and Tasks now show linked Milestones in the list and will use the Milestone deadline if they do not have one.
The All Activity log is now shown on the My Domain page.
All items can now be commented on, not just messages.
Many log messages were changed. They should provide more useful information now.

BUGS SQUASHED:
Only active assignments are shown on the My Domain page.
Added the field to link a milestone when creating tasks, bugs, and checklists.
Completed Milestones do not appear in the Link to Milestone select box if they are also past their deadline.
Assignments are now properly deleted when the assigned item is deleted.

Well, I have moved to Oregon and am now hard at work at GarageGames. We are working on some great stuff, which will become public very soon. These guys are great and it is a blast to work here.

On a side note, Overlord development may stall for a bit, but pretty soon it will take a giant leap forward, so stay tuned!

Overlord version 2.0 has been successfully released this past week. There were some unexpected bugs that popped up once it was out in the wild, but I squashed them pretty quick. In the future, I will release bug fixes and new features in a modular fashion rather than waiting for a large release. This will shorten the time between updates and, hopefully, reduce the # of bugs that appear. Some features that are on the to-do list incldue:

• File manager and attachments
• Custom user ranks
• Total permission control
• Per-project calendar
• Activity reports

Well, it has been quite a while, but Overlord II is nearing completion. I am in the middle of fiddling with the UI to find the best way to display and edit a few things like Assignments and linking items to milestones. I then have to go over all of my model classes to make sure that they cascade properly (like updating the progress of a linked milestone when you update or delete an item). After that, I just have some HTML to tidy up and to udate and test the install and upgrade scripts. I will probably udate the online demo once it is feature complete, so that I can get some feedback while I work on the install and upgrade scripts.

Here’s an obligatory screenshot:

As I have been struggling to redefine the underlying structure of my Overlord software, I find myself ‘borrowing’ more and more concepts from Ruby on Rails. I am not stealing the code behind these ideas, I am simply following in their footsteps, so to speak. I found many of their methods and solutions to be quite useful, and have written my own versions of several, like render() and flash(), and am following the Rails MVC pattern fairly closely. Unfortunately, writting all of this new structure is taking time, even though I feel it will be worth it in the end. At times I feel it might be easier to start over from scratch and write the whole thing with Rails, but then I remember why I can’t. It can’t be distributed and used on 90% of all webservers like PHP can. Ah well, perhaps Ruby on Rails will gain enough momentum to become ’standard’ software on webservers…

In the meantime, here’s a little peak at some of the design tweaks I have been working on along with the code upgrade.

Ok, so I sat down and wrote up a list of goals I want to accomplish with my RPG inventory project. Basically, I want an easy way to add items found in-game and keep track of certain information including quantity, price, when and where they were found, where they are being kept, and I would like to have a decent way of sorting/searching these items. I decided to go with a tag system, which seems to be popular these days, and I can see why as it is pretty flexible. With goals jotted down, I started on the database design.
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Now that there are no major bugs left in Overlord, I have a bit more time to spend on other projects, like creating a map for Warcraft III and starting, or rather restarting, my RPG inventory project. The point of the project is to create a simple interface for keeping track of an inventory of items for a table-top RPG group, although I suppose it could be used for other things as well. I had a partially working version writtin in PHP and using a lot of AJAX stuff, but it wasn’t working great, so I stopped developing it. Now, I am planning to develop this new version with Ruby on Rails, mostly as an experiment to see how easy it is to develop with Rails instead of PHP.

I plan to post my progress at regular intervals and comment on the differences between developing with PHP and with Rails. Hopefully, someone will find it useful.