Battlereports.com Development Blog

Progress

So what's been done:

So what's been done:
User registration / login
OpenID authentication
Forums & Comment sub-system
News posts

Working on:
Replays
Report wizard

Another feature omg

I'm the biggest slacker in the world.

So I put in a spam reporting button -- should help cut down on spam.

I'm fooling around with replays right now, and talking to ashwin a bit too much.

Also, I really want to implement this whenever we implement user accounts.

Also, I want to do that damn search thing pretty soon.

Also, I'd like more time.

Search functions zomg

So I was responsible for yanking out the easy access to the search functions. That's basically the worst decision I've ever made.

So I guess the very next task is to get a good search method. Like, just type in a name or a title, and it will return results by category (forum posts, reports, replays, etc...).

That shouldn't be too hard. I just have to think of a nice way to put it (where it's going to be used).

Slow work for a while

Yeah, so, you thought it couldn't get slower.

But my friend is in town, so I won't be working on the site in all my [abundant] free time.

Next thing up appears to be new home page at least. Layout and design are not my forte, but it wont involve hours of php programming, so that might work out for the best.

Next steps

So what's next. Here's what I've identified as low hanging fruit that could be implemented in a few weeks:

* Replay Analyzer
* "Replay of the week" feature or "Featured Replay" feature
* New homepage
* New Guides

And of course, not so low hanging fruit:
* New UI
* User accounts
* New Forum

Okay, just a little peek

Maybe in the future we'll have something for everyone. Submit a quote and a rater / staff member will review and approve/disapprove.

But a peak is neat!

First new feature: quote editor

Unforunately, only raters can use it. But know that I created a quote editor with my computer wizardry, and that all of you funny peoples have a chance to be immortalized on the top of the site ^_^.

Raters, check your e-mails for instructions.

- LuckyNewbie

So the non technical explanation of what I'm up to

It's quite scary when taken out of context, actually:

The scope of this project

I've been reading over the old suggestions forum (http://battlereports.com/suggestions_old/). It was something that I missed out on, because I knew I couldn't put the time into.

I see that a lot of initial work was done -- a requirements spec, a cvs server, a production environment (possibly, I'm not sure what its setup was).

It also set out to do a lot of things. JV ultimately saw this as part of a larger Content Publishing and Rating System, and starting from scratch rather than migrating away from the existing PHP system.

A lot could have been done, but it was probably a project doomed to failure. JV didn't have the time, and nobody else had the skills or know-how to carry it in his stead.

So now, the contrast.

This project's aim is to build a bigger community, and bring life to a very old website.

We're still going to be about battlereports, but the emphasis on replays and tournaments will be better defined. There won't be technical migration from PHP to another sort of technology. That's just too risky.

So right now I'm concentrating on re-factoring the code for maintainability. I want to remove the presentation from the logic and data flow, which should make it easier to make changes when the time comes.

And what implemented features will make this change? That I'm not too sure about. It's a group process to figure that much out, and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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