DIARY

Copyright (c) 2006 Nathan Wilson

March 20, 2006 - Installed Ruby and mysql
March 27 - Started going through blog demo
March 28 - Started using CocoaMySQL.  Finished blog demo.
March 29 - Downloaded Agile Web Development with Rails (DAWDR)
March 30 -  Showed blog demo to Renee.
April 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 - Started following along with DAWDR, but with observer in mind
April 12 - Screwed up and tried to recover from backup, ended up
      starting over and copying stuff in as needed.
April 13 - Worked on uploading images
April 15, 16, 19 - more work on images
April 19 - Figured out how to run shell commands (identify) and how to use regular
      expressions objects.
April 20 - Started this diary.  Work on images.
April 21 - Got image resizing working.
April 22 - Moved Dbpict test logic over to Image and got it working.
April 25 - Cleaned up list_images
April 26 - Art class.  Got show/edit_image to show image and changed background color.
  Fixed image resizing.  Cleaned up show_image.
April 30 -
May 1 -
May 2 - Added join tables
May 3 - Art class.  Worked on checkboxes for selecting images.
May 6 - Decided to not use checkboxes for selecting, but rather to think of images as
  connected to particular observations.  Added thumbnails to show/edit observations.
May 8 - Add observation list to show_image.
May 10 - Art class


May 11 - When I got home from art class, I worked for a while trying
to get some radio buttons working.  Went to bed with no answer.
Played more with this morning, still no joy.  Asked for a friends help
this morning at work.  He didn't know, but in the process of talking
through the example I had found on the web, a new possibility occurred
to me.  Finally cracked it tonight.  I have enough stuff working now
that it is ready to go up on the web for some initially testing.  I
have cleaned out all the test data and want to do one more pass
through it all to make sure everything is working and to fix any
outstanding wonkiness.  Things are looking good for getting it online
sometime this weekend.


Fri May 12 - I finished the review pass.  The whole thing looks a lot
better and much more consistent.  I was playing around with the colors
and had the idea of setting all the colors based on actual colors from
some of my photos.  Sort of the digital equivalent of mushroom dyeing
:-).  I'm not going to worry about tweaking the colors for the version
I'm planning on setting up this week, but I really like the idea for
the actual release of the site.

I also figured out how to cleanly purge the database and setup an
automated testing framework.  Next I'm going to figure out how to get
a bunch of data loaded into the database and then I'll work on putting
up the site.


Sun May 14 - Didn't feel very well this weekend.  Between that and
Mother's day I only made a little bit more progress.  Started setting
up some stuff on and for my web server.  Figured out some of what I
need to load a whole bunch of data I have into the system
automatically.


Tues May 16 - Got SVN repository setup on DreamHost.


Weds May 17 - We'll I finally felt well enough last night to work on stuff
again.  I got something up and running on my webserver, but it still
has one annoying problem that makes it essentially unusable (unable to
load CSS file) :-(.  I've been scouring the net for a solution.  I've
started exchanging email with another person who is using the same
system on the same hosting service, but so far that hasn't borne any
fruit.  It looks like I'm going to have to debug this one the hard
way.  Also talked to Gavin Doughtie at work.  Still haven't figured out
what's going on.

In art class I created agaricus.css with the idea of having color themes
based on different mushroom groups.


Thurs May 18 - Fixed CSS problem by tweaking the .htaccess.
Got source into SVN.

Fri May 19 - Finally uploaded the first real image to the alpha internet website.
Worked on getting svn configured reasonably.
SVN log entries:
Symlink approach to dev/prod distinction
Ignoring log files.
Added agaricus.css.
Added development logs to log/.svnignore.
Change image directory lookup to be handled in config/environments.
Fixed the production image path.
Switched save image button to Do It.
Switched to Agaricus color scheme as the default.


Sat May 20
SVN log entries:
Separated out themed color CSS stuff from rest of CSS.
Moved to observer in preference to sightings.  Add more stuff to TODO.
Added copyright.
Added link to original image.
Move image to the left on show image page and got rid of redundant fields.
Got load_image_directory working as a hack to quickly load my images.
Tweaked left hand links.
Removed color on flash notices.
Added 'Colors provided by ...' note.
Moved page specific links to just under the banner.
Updated database definition files.
Tweak CSS files.


Sun May 21 - Got a big set of data uploaded: 710 photos and 557
observations.  Set out a message to CA Fungi and some mycologists to
get their feedback.  Polled people for their preference between
mushroomobserver.org, mushroomsightings.org and mushroomobservers.org.
Added creative commons links and notice.


Mon May 22 - Got some great feedback from Darvin.  Added created and
modifed fields to the Image class.  Added some more images.  Had a
snaffu with the production database and ended up having to reload the
data and recreate the changes Darvin suggested.  Got the stats page
working with more .htaccess magic.


Tue May 23 - Added Observations by Name and Images by Title.


Wed May 24 - Adjusted navigation around add image to make it more
intuitive.  Started working on comments for observations.  Reversed
sense of herbarium indicator in list observations page.


Fri May 26 - Deployed comments for observations


Sat May 27 - Worked on getting locations and notes recorded for some of
the bulk created observations.  Create intro.rhtml.  Added LICENSE and
put some copyrights and license references into the source.

Mon May 28 - Got textilize working and did a general string handling cleanup pass.

Tues May 29 - Added reuse_image

Fri June 2 - Merged add_image and reuse_image into manage_images and added
section section.

Wed July 5 - Finished first pass at users (been working on this on and off over the last month)
Users - Adding observations, adding comments and editing should only be done
        by known users.
  cleanup logout page (links to pages that don't require login)
  cleanup login page (links to pages that don't require login)
  create account
  email address
  user chosen color theme
  preference page
  Add user foreign key for observations and images
  user page changes:
  Control:
    Controller functions
    Don't render non-permitted links
  Admin user
  Add created and last login dates to users

  Moved 'Show' -> Title and image on list page.

  Cleaned up image destroy so it gets rid of extra thumb references


Mon July 10 - Updated external DB and website.  Added password change option.

Tues July 11 - Added list_comments page.

Weds July 12 - Used migration to add species_lists and observations_species_lists.  Also removed extra user related rows from images and observations.  Implemented new_species_list.

Thurs July 13 - show_species_list.  Hyper links in the notes of species_list members to the species_list.  Used under windows at work to confirm that it works reasonably well.

Fri July 14 - Made reference to species_list on show_observation derived from actual link rather than getting added to observation when created.  Implemented remove_observation_from_species_list, list_species_list and destroy_species_list.

Sun July 16 - species_list_by_title, edit_species_list, manage_species_lists

Tues July 18 - Started next/previous

Weds July 19 - Got next/previous working for observations.  Started to add documentation about textilize and provided hints for adjusting species lists.

Fri July 21 - Finished up textilize reference.  Sped up interaction by going directly to images rather than going through separate methods.  Registered mushroomobserver.org and got the site running under that name.

Sat July 22 - Added users_by_name page.  Added references to Ruby on Rails and FireFox.  Briefly tested with Safari and Internet Explorer.

Sun Aug 6 - Finished annotating my images with locations and id notes.

Wed Aug 9 - Wrote up Hygrocybe.rhtml.  Added link back to the observation for Manage Species Lists.  Added method for extending a species list with another list.  Added delete to Show * pages.  Set it up so Manage Images goes to show_observation.  Avoids a redraw problem.
Checked in the following list of changes:
  Added ability to extend a species list from edit_species_list
  Added Cantharellaceae and Hygrocybe themes
  manage_images now goes to show_observation
  Fixed next/prev behavior
  Added Destroy option to show pages
  Link back to observation from manage_species_lists
  Added list size to species_lists_by_title and put it in a table

Sat Aug 12 - Added verification email for new accounts.  Checked in changes and updated external site.  Ran into a bug during deployment.  Site is now ready to be more widely advertised.

Sun Aug 13 - Change Next/Prev links at the bottom of list_* pages to pagination_links at the top and bottom.

Mon Aug 14 - Added New Account link to Login page.

Wed Aug 16 - Tweaked the titles so they are more distinct and include the unique name when appropriate.  Motivated by Google getting the 'show_observation' pages mixed up.  Added password resetting process.

Thurs Aug 17 - Started work on RSS feed.

Mon Aug 21 - Ready to release RSS feed.

Mon Aug 28 - Implemented email for new features, questions and commercial inquiries.  Includes user preferences for disabling each of these.  Added copyright_holder field including automated column population.

Thurs Aug 31 - Started adding observation_logs, but realized that species list events wouldn't work.  Switched to rss_logs.

Fri Sep 1 - Finished testing rss_logs.

Sat Sep 9 - Adjusted RSS log URL to go to object.  Got show_log working for RSS items whose object has been deleted.

Sat Nov 1, 2014 - Been a long time since I wrote anything here.  Just making a minor tweak to trigger Travis