May 20, 2008

Feature Update

Minor sidetracks last week, but some of the following features have been implemented with further development:

  • Experience
    • now available on user page and dashboard
    • state changes on search results and media browsing
    • state changes from other user’s experience pages
  • Reflections
    • caching and expirations handled via filesystem
    • editable (ie /dashboard/reflections/20080505+000000/edit)
    • lacks interface for reaching edit URI
    • not yet removable

Still much work to be done, but having solid development in these two “foundation” areas is important. One step closer to full-usability. API is still the next key development topic, and will likely be on a subdomain (api.melative.com).

I will set aside an empty week for this, but like RSS, it should only take a small amount of effort since the underlying classes have all been developed, XML data is caching, and available areas are limited to the functional compents on melative.com.

Proceeding…

May 4, 2008

Development Status

It is the weekend here on the East coast, which equates to less development, but this will be a declaration of status.

Currently, the social features of melative.com are lacking. Most notably, the “friends” engine is very shaky and the dashboard, which will display social ongoings, is basically a blank spot. I have not taken time for the social core, and though it will be present in the future, there are other areas needing attention.

Base Features

  • experience (needs work)
  • reflections (usable, needs editing feature)
  • messaging (working, not revised)
  • commenting (working, not revised)
  • tags (working, no central dashboard management)
  • user settings (working, soft implementation)
  • media variation (working structure, need general section editing)
  • search (working, needs AJAX)
  • browse (working, needs AJAX)
  • relativity (working core, needs interface)
  • friends (working?, needs revision)
  • vote/report (working, needs implementation)

This is the rough status of the www features. In the coming week, I will focus on the items in bold, but an area which needs short development is the API.

API

The API will be a simple JSON-post mechanism. The structure will mimic RSS and www URIs, but the details have not been drawn up. While it will be similar to the Ajax/JSON implementation on www, it will use PHP’s json extension for object creation. Areas which I will be looking into for definite API functionality will include reflections, experience, and tags. It is arguable how necessary the data-retrieval portion of the API will be, as RSS can handle any updated information, and/or general data (ie. a given title’s synonyms or standard resources). Though, JSON does yield the benefits of being lightweight and speedy.

All in due time. I am looking towards further development, but these features are quite important. Stay tuned.

Developer Ryan