New Modified progress report

[PoisonTaffy]

I don't want to clot the original "upgrading modified" thread with project reports and planned changes at the New Modified site, but I do want to share them, and maybe even get some feedback. IMO the original thread should be dedicated to discussing solutions, and this thread should discuss the implementation of the specific custom "New Modified" solution.

Currently hosted here

Project repository here

Issues tracking here

So jumping right in,

Today I added video posting, where you can paste urls from youtube and vimeo and put them on the front page (a lot of the code was scavenged from my "freestyle video feed" project ). I want to add to the video post a 'subtitle' where the posting user can say something about the video. Also, I want to list each user's posted videos in their member page, and create a "Videos" page with a list of all posted videos. Eventually I want also to be able to 'tag' users on videos, so you can see not just videos a user posted, but videos they are actually involved with in some way.

Next, I want to add a comments system to both posts and videos.

Also, I want to add "gravatars" to users. Much easier than rolling our own avatar solution.

[PoisonTaffy]

Posts and videos are now comment-able.

Gravatar is in place. I added a little twist to it that I always wished it had: In your user details (accessible from "My Area"), you can tell it which email to use for the gravatar. this means that if you registered with youremail@gmail.com, you're not stuck with the same avatar from some other site with youremail@gmail.com. You can change it to youremail+something@gmail.com, which is actually the same email, but can be given a separate avatar.

Next up, notifications for when someone posts a comment on something you posted.

After that I'm thinking of doing a quick design fixup round as the site is growing to be a total eye sore.

All this under the missile threat that has returned to Tel Aviv. 2 sirens in the last 24 hours. It's not quite like the south, but still pretty surreal.

[PoisonTaffy]

Kudos (likes) implemented, and a new site layout that will enable me to refactor the view code (which, in turn, will enable much faster 'skinning' of final design). The site layout only works on the front page at the moment, everything else looks like a giant mess.

[rjadamson]

Thanks so much for your continued efforts.

[PoisonTaffy]

Thanks! I hope it all comes to fruition soon

Today's updates:
Added an 'activity bar' showing who posted, commented, gave kudos. Added a flyout menu when clicking on the heart to show who gave kudos. Showing 'unread notifications' in header (for when you get comments or kudos).

Next up: Blogs and styling of the rest of the pages (videos, users, user profile, login, register).

After that: Private options for posts and blogs (so only registered users can see them), more profile info (like nickname, player info, location, etc.), user to user messaging, and anti spam measures.

When all the core functionality is ready, I'll upgrade the client to do most things in ajax (infinite scroll, kudos and commenting won't reload page, etc.)

Anything else I'm forgetting?

[PoisonTaffy]

In a frenzy of development: Blogs, user to user messaging and slightly improved styling of pages. Blogs and user to user messages are pretty basic at the moment, but they're there.

I hope I haven't made a mess of anything as I really just rushed forward with the above.

[PoisonTaffy]

Blog posts support most of the codes we use here to stylize our content. I screwed up the demo post on the live site so now I have to implement editing...

[PoisonTaffy]

Users can enter a nickname that will replace their real name in every public place. real names will only be visible to registered users.

Also, added anti spam measures in the registration form.

[sen]

Things are coming along nicely. Great work!

[PoisonTaffy]

As written elsewhere, editing and privacy option for posts are implemented. I think this is all the core functionality, and to make the site less annoying to use, I'll need to make most things work with ajax.

Next problem to solve is hosting. There are two options: Easy to set up yet expensive monthly fee (upwards of 50$), and hard to set up yet cheap(er) monthly fee (hopefully around 20$-30$). Unfortunately, configuring servers and stuff is beyond my field of expertise, so hard to set up is going to be very time consuming. I've already spent half of last Saturday trying one cheap solution, it was pretty frustrating and although I came close, it didn't work. I am going to read a bit on the components that I have to put together to get it working and try again, as I realize that easy and expensive is simply not an option if this site is to be alive for years to come.

Once this is solved, I'll be able to implement email sending for forgot password and notifications, and start thinking about migrating the existing blogs to the new database.

[sen]

What about going add supported on it?

[PoisonTaffy]

Ad support is such a small revenue that I wouldn't even bother. If, however the site generates some traffic, especially of newcomers, shops like world footbag and freedomfootbags may cough up some dough to help us stay alive and in return we'd help drive quality traffic to them.

[MathieuGM]

The look fo the new website seems to be pretty sexy!
Not sure how to figure out categories? Like i see only 1 big wall?
Still thank a LOT for taking time to work on such a nice project!
Mat

[PoisonTaffy]

Thanks!
The front page only has 1 big wall with posts and videos, and if you want to see only videos or blogs, just click on the menu. I can add a content filter on the main wall if ppl want it.

I couldn't sleep tonight, so instead of sleeping I implemented infinite scroll and ajax for kudos giving/removing (which means, the page won't reload when you give/remove kudos). I also got to see the sun rise.Commenting is the next thing to turn ajax, and then stuff like notifications and activity.

Also, I managed to get the site hosted on amazon aws, which should be a good priced hosting solution. The site can be found here: http://modified-env-g78w6hekix.elasticbeanstalk.com/

I have no idea how much it's going to cost since it's per use, but for a while it should be free, and when it starts costing money it should be cheaper than where it is hosted now.

[LinoSphere]

hey roy,

big up for this project! i really hope you can follow through all the way with it, that would be awesome!

as for the hosting: i am a little surprised by the prices you mentioned... where we host fcfootstar.de, 10gb of webspace with unlimited traffic and stuff like perl, ruby, mysql and php5 included, costs 7 euros/month.

i am sure we could get this money together, if a couple of clubs and/or individuals would agree to spend 1euro or 50cents each month..

anyways, since a new fc footstar website is not in sight anywhere soon, i might as well offer you to use the above mentioned hosting for the time being. i don't know how difficult setup would be, though. also, config menus are in german only, and i wont have time to help, unless it's really a one time thing to set up the database, and then everything is run on a web front end...?

[PoisonTaffy]

Thanks, I totally plan on following through. Yep, the first hosting was really expensive.. I think the amazon hosting will be a lot cheaper. They charge according to usage, so if the site gets a lot of traffic, it'll cost more but it should also automatically increase capacity so stuff will continue working. No running out of bandwidth or database storage, which is long-term good. The hosting is free for small amount of traffic so I might as well stay here and not move environments, but I appreciate the offer!

New on the site: Almost everything is now updating via ajax. notifications, personal mail, activities and main feed check for updates every x seconds. If there's no activity on the browser for a while, the checks are disabled so as to not stress the server for no reason. Also, only logged in users get this periodical update.
I want to change the way the main feed updates, since right now it refreshes the posts which causes video posts to flicker, and if they were playing, it will stop the video as well.

I'm also working on a mailing feature, so the site will be able to send mail (registration, password forget, new personal mail, etc.). In fact, the site just sent me a "welcome" email, so it's starting to work

[PoisonTaffy]

I'm only upgrading the site on the new location now. The old location is not compatible with the new one so I had to choose.

New on the site:
Admins can give/revoke other admins' status
Redirects work better now (e.g. if you write a comment on someone's blog, you'll be redirected to the blog, not to the front page)
Registration doesn't require captcha (commented it out until the site starts getting spam)
Post registration is not user's profile page, but user edit profile page.
Form to post content on video feed and user's blog page.
Fixed bug where no activities were posted on content creation (thanks Allan)
Reversed comment ordering (newer on bottom, like facebook)

Upcoming work:
Add activity on site for when a new user registered
Add more info on profile (location, motto)
Add more content to videos (title, participants, location, year, maker)

[PoisonTaffy]

Added notification on new user registration.

Also, worked a lot on video meta data.
One feature I'm pretty excited about, as I think it would be very hard to pull it off on any solution other than a tailor made site: Tagging players on videos.

When you post a video, you can list who the players are. If one of the names is a registered user, the system will link the video to the user. Later on, just viewing the user's profile will show all the videos on which he got tagged.

It's not completely perfect yet. When a user registers, I want to scan all videos to see if he is already tagged, and auto associate him with the video (i.e. retrospective tagging). Also, I want to indicate to the poster of the video if a name he is writing matches a user, so he can tell whether the tag will work. But both of these can be added later without interrupting the system.

As a bonus, you get notified privately when someone tags you on a video.

[PoisonTaffy]

Video search by title or players

Added auto quoting when replying to a personal message

Personal messages sent in reply are collected together to form a conversation. Currently no functionality other than a database representation.

Added "Mark as unread" button for the personal messages drop down (to massively mark as unread if you have plenty of messages)

BBCode can be used on posts, blog posts & comments

Admins can post sticky posts that appear at the top of the feed. They can make any post sticky, and of course remove sticky as well.

If users forgot their password, they can reset it via a unique link sent to their email

Users can specify their location (country, city). Will be used for helping new players find someone around them. Only visible to registered users

Re-skinned the site

[Anz]

So is the site at the point now where nothing will be lost once it's moved?

I like the feature that blogs don't have other peoples comments visible unless you click on the comment-button.
I also like the activity list.

What about featured blogs? I think it'd be a good idea. For example have some people write about tournies and have it featured.

Is the Gravatar required for having a picture up there?