OGF2.5 Site Development To-Do List

[MegaBurn]

This is an updated to-do list, starting with stuff from the old list posted on the summit forum plus new stuff identified during development (noted in the dev log). Once everything below is completed a mass email will be sent out to all members, then once the community to-do list is completed and any major bugs are resolved, we will formally launch the site. There is no time frame for this, around here deadlines are wishful thinking, so it'll happen as fast as people make it happen.

-3.3- Install CB Plug-ins: reCaptcha for CB, AJAX What Are You Doing Plugin, CB User List/CB Last Users, CB Avatar Plug-in, Karma for Joomla 1.5, Public Mail, Zak Author 2 CB Plugin, CB Profile Navigator, CB Profile Book, CB phpBB3 Latest Posts (leave disabled until phpBB3 install), CB Profile Notifier, AutoWelcome Plugin (leave disabled for now), Force CB Registration and Password Reminder Plugin, CB Custom Select. Check on CB-SOBI2 plugin for J1.5 native update.

-3.8- Joomla Site Search: Investigate Google Ajax Search, googleSearch Component + googleSearch Module, PixSearch Ajax Search module, Content Search SEO Plugin for Joomla, and other search extensions (again), install something...

-5.4- Wiki Help: Update help articles from MediaWiki dump.

-5.5- Wiki Gadgets: Add Wikipedia gadgets, excluding the editor.

-5.6- Wiki Help 2: Update help articles to note new features and organization guidelines per site plan.

-5.7- Wiki File Support: Investigate and add in-article support for latex, SVG, UML, and if possible X3D (or VRML).

-5.8- Wiki Licenses: Find and add license templates, should be an extension with most common open source licenses.

-5.9- Wiki Exporters: Find and add extensions to export articles to PDF, Postscript, ODT, HTML, wiki XML, and any others available.

-- SOBI2: To-Do Later: The templates need some tweaking. SEF plug-in is disabled, needs config, do last.

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: The Acajoom CB integration sub-extensions failed to install, need to verify directory ownership and permissions, check Acajoom docs, then reinstall Acajoom.

-- Site Plan Change: To-Do Later: Removed "The Ultimate Social Bookmarking Plugin", couldn't find download link, this functionality is still required, find alternative.

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Investigate and install either Google AJAX Search or googleSearch Component + Module, this was skipped to expedite site development, a search system is low priority when there is no content to search. Also investigate and install "Content Search SEO Plugin for Joomla".

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Download for extension "phpBB Forum Finder Search Module" requires user registration, account creation failed, twice, try again later...

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Download for extension "PixSearch Ajax Search module" requires user registration, account creation failed, try again later...

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Download and install CD extensions after full membership is granted.

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Investigate and install gallery component, create main menu item.

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Investigate and install Calendar component, create other menu item.

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Review entire site for useful RSS feeds, then add them to the feed manager. Post a request for suggestions on the forums, including useful feeds from other sites, maybe member blog feeds too. Also check for better extensions, note this isn't to generate or read, only catalog. Might consider adding an RSS field to SOBI2 entries too, maybe with a reader module in/below the description to give people a preview of the content.

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Find the text for the new password emails generated by the forgotten password feature, change it to note users must change their password in Joomla before they can login into other sub-sites.

-- Note To-Do Later: Discovered OGF has a taint. OL is too prominent, could try starting complimenting projects to give appearance of counterbalance. Site failures and set-backs have seriously tarnished the site's reputation, need to implement full mirror for redundancy plus load balancing (slate for OGF2.6 due to funding limitations), define then rigidly enforce redundant backup procedures including archive distribution to admins, recruit more site staff, and don't fuck up. There is a misconception over leadership, need to reinforce democratic-technocratic management, restart leadership committee. There is a misconception regarding LDAP accounts, or that anyone who has ever registered needs to register again due to the site rebuilds (solution?). There is a misconception about OGF's security track record, that the site was hacked recently - the OL site was hacked twice in 06 (when Boyd was hosting it) and once in early 07 (wiki only), OGF1.0 was hacked in late 07 (resolved within minutes) - all things considered its a remarkable security track record, and the only spam is on the summit forums, consider posting a staff blog entry noting this history with analysis. Add FAQ items covering some of these issues.

-- Joomla: To-Do Later: Talked to Lazalong about OGF, implement content suggestions for covering the commercial side of open source game development. Add Think Tank discussion on adapting indie business models to work better with GPL, including membership models similar to what is becoming more common with Joomla extensions, closed source game data packs for a standardized OGF engine platform (GPL), and MMOG services using cloud hosting services for minimal infrastructure start-up costs (e.g. vps.net). Consider adding paid links directory entries for commercial games as featured listings (requires a rather expensive commercial SOBI2 extension). Consider adding paid Tree (or SOBI2) downloads entries (slated for OGF2.6, front-end to FusionForge FRS plus manually submitted entries).

-- Note To-Do Later: Ask for general feedback on OGF from other respected FOSS developers, both on the site and overall project. Post Think Tank discussion asking for more feedback to improve OGF and analyze results. Unfortunately people seem to have an aversion towards responding to general requests for feedback, need to ask personally via email or IRC. Asking members who are not widely known to be involved with OGF to discretely seed questions into IRC and forum discussion might also work. Compile feedback, analysis, and solutions then post as a news article.

-- Note: To-Do Later: Start OGF management forum threads on each of the articles which need community review, there isn't enough activity to warrant doing it now. Start think tank forum thread on game design libraries (e.g. follow up on #freegamer discussion about RPG rule systems as middleware projects, could extend to some of the technology stuff in OL too, note goal is to have highly polished systems for more rapid game dev). Post a news article for small project recruitment, focus on new and "desperate" projects as potential "community projects" and all others as "hosted projects" via using some part of OGF services.


Missing something? If anything else needs to be done post it here.

[spidi]

Hi There, its been a while since ive been around but am at uni now and have a couple of hours free during the day or at night some days of the week and just wondered if you needed any help in getting a joomla site setup as i have worked on a couple of joomla sites from scratch and my latest being

Code: Select all

http://robotslive.co.uk/

. Im pretty useless when it comes to graphics but coding wise ill always strive to find a solution

[dotcom]

If this is what we're keeping, I can work on the theme -- that's not too hard in the little down-time I do have. You can email me information at dotfrag@gmail.com ... Otherwise, I'll keep on trying to find a suitable engine and trying to put shit together... somehow...

[MegaBurn]

I don't know, this site seems dead, might be better to scale it down to something smaller or try to merge with FreeGameDev.

[dotcom]

Is SVN working or able to be working soon? If laz says I can work on OGE, I'll see what he thinks about moving everything of theirs to our site -- so they'd use our forums instead. Then all changes would be on OUR SVN and anyone willing to help can post on the forums with any changes.

For news articles, do you think it would be better for search engine ratings if we posted more news articles?? I'm trying to think of ways to attract people to the site. I'm trying to get more back into this as much as I can so....

Any way to send out a mass email to all the people who've registered in the past asking for help??



Just a few thoughts......

[MegaBurn]

Sort of, SVN is installed and mostly configured but only for unix accounts via SSH. Best bet is stick with SourceForge project hosting for now and just merge the forums/wiki.

Sorry I haven't posted that plan I typed up back in December, it was kind of pessimistic, almost counter productive. I'm typing up something new now. For a while I was thinking the best bet was merge OGF into FGD and essentially abandon OGF as an independent community, then at least OL and OGE could continue on. Now I think there are still some benefits to keeping OGF alive but working with the guys from FGD could be mutually beneficial, both communities have atrophied so much most of the barriers to a merger can be overcome. I'll post something more detailed tonight.

[dotcom]

Sounds good -- I'll look forward to reading it.

I haven't heard back from laz yet but I'm sure that'll take a few days. In the mean time, I'm reviewing OGE to see where he left off and will try and figure out what else he was working on. In addition, I've been doing some research on other middleware we can use (flight dynamics, etc..) as well as how to start building the engines we'll need -- like procedural generation, etc...

[dotcom]

Also, on the "Portal" link, it takes you to the PHPBB main portal for the forums. Is there any way to get the recent posts to show up there too? So far they only show the latest posts on opengameforge.org, not the forums section.

Just curious

[dotcom]

Also, is there any way to put that navbar that I made up at the top? It'd be helpful when trying to navigate between the main page, forums, wiki, and blogs. I know I'm asking for a lot .... just having random ideas as I look at the site

[MegaBurn]

That was lost along with the themes and all other customization done while the site was on Kumar's VPS hosting, at the time I was only maintaining database backups.

I'll try to get that OGF 2010 Plan finished and posted tonight, just needs some more research for the site updates...