Swell alpha release ?

ianpullinger

I am wondering if there is a planned alpha release of the Swell blogging software ? I am particularly interesting in the integration through People, and the ability to integrate a Weblog and discussion/forum is on a lot of people's wishlist. This is something that is not easily achieved using other software, with a bias towards one particular aspect of the software, either a great blog like WordPress or TextPattern, or a great forum like PunBB. By abstracting out the user authentication system (People), Mark is onto a real winner, and sets his PHP Framework to be one step ahead of the others (without the obvious hacks.)

lech

/me starts humming the duke nukem theme song.

Crypt

Good things come to those who wait

Jazzman

I'm also wondering how Mark integrated the various systems... If I want to host several applications on the same machine, how do I connect them with eachother, and how should I implement the directory structure? Do I put all apps in the same directory? Use different init_app.php's? How do the configuration settings affect eachother? These are questions I hope to be answered when Mark releases Swell en makes some documentation on how to integrate them

Bergamot

Well since Mark is mod-rewriting all the URLs already, the directory structure could be anything. I'm guessing his web root has Vanilla in one folder and Swell in another.

Jazzman

Well yes, but I guess the Framework and People library still resides in one folder. Also, how does the configuration look like? Are all settings stored in the same file? I'm still curious on Mark's view about this. I've integrated my own application (a Raid Planner for World of Warcraft) on this website: www.wow-scum.com. My directory structure is something like this:



As you can see, my root folder is a mess as it contains different applications in one directory...

Mark

In Vanilla you'll notice all of those path configuration variables at the top of your conf/settings.php file.

My thinking is that the libraries will be shared by all applications. For example, Swell and all instances of Vanilla on my server share the same core libraries. My library folder contains:

library/AddOns/
library/Framework/
library/People/
library/Swell/
library/Vanilla/

I've also in the past made it so that there is a core instance of all other vanilla files, and all of them (except the conf folder) get symbolically linked to different locations on the server. I had about six instances of Vanilla all running off the same files. The only folder that was unique to each one was the conf/. Which was kind of nice because I only ever had to update that one instance and all Vanillas were up to date. It was just a pain to set up because of all they symlinking.

Right now they're just sharing the libraries, and that's fine by me.

One thing that I've been considering more lately is the database. The apps need to share the same database, and all tables are prefixed with LUM_. I actually don't like that naming convention so much anymore, because I've found that different applications need similar table names. LUM_Comment, for example exists in three of my applications. I've been considering changing it to something like VAN_Comments and SWL_Comments and ADD_Comments for Vanilla, Swell, and Addons.

I'm rambling. I'll shut up.

giginger

I understoo the database part. The VAN_Comments etc makes a lot of sense and I think it's definitely the way to do it.

Minisweeper

I'm not too sure. Call me old vashioned but i've never had much to comment on about vans. Cars i like...vans get a bit boring after a while.

Mark

hahaha

WallPhone

I envisioned you re-cycling the tables and extending them with a 1:1 table where needed. I.E. have a framework FRM_Comment table that uses columns common to all types of comments (author, body, etc) then joining in additional columns specific for Vanilla or Swell. Does MySQL support views? I don't recall.

Minisweeper

I think the alternative prefix idea is better. It'd make it neater if you wanted to backup/remove a specific app and such. Obviously there are pros and cons of both ways but it seems seperate tables would be the way forward.