[61 total ]
Posted
3 days
ago
by
psychcf
We've upgraded our Trac installation to 0.11, and it's now being hosted on the Dojo Foundation's servers. Source browsing is back again, which we couldn't do while we hosted Trac, and they hosted the SVN repository. The only thing we're using our
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servers for now is the website. Once we finish the new website, we'll be using their servers completely. This is good, because now we can focus on development, and we don't need to worry about implementation at all.
Also, the 1.1 release that we were planning on starting after 1.0 has been broken up into smaller releases, so we can get the improved backends out in the wild ASAP. In 1.0, the backends are not very maintainable, and break easily. The new backends will be completely rewritten using the Zend Framework, and will be faster as well as more maintainable.
The initial 1.1 release will just feature the improved backends, along with some new developer APIs. In the next two releases, 1.1.2 and 1.1.4, we will work on polishing the core, and adding some new features and apps. This way, developers won't have to worry about compatibility between 1.1 and the two later releases, we can get the better backends out there, and we can still add in all the features planned for 1.1. [Less]
Posted
12 days
ago
by
psychcf
The new website's code portion is now complete. Now, all that's holding us back from releasing the new site is the design, and the deployment. If things go as planned, it will be up in a week or two.
As I have said before, the new site is a
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dramatic improvement compared to the current site. Here's some things in the site:
Download page that auto-generates md5sums, and separates stable releases from unstable releases. (Makes the release process on our end easier)
REST interface to fetch the latest version (will be implemented in #178)
Package repository, where users can upload, rate, and comment on apps and themes (Will be integrated with the desktop in a package manager app later)
Better forums, similar to Lussumo Vanilla
(Hopefully) Shared accounts across Trac and the website itself
Overview page, which walks through various features of the desktop
Dojo being used in various places (TabContainers, TitlePanes, etc.)
Better site navigation
I feel the website was one of our biggest weak points, and I'm excited to see that they will finally be fixed.
As for the desktop itself, there have been various things put into it this week. The biggest change is the new flash uploader, which addresses the usability problems of the old uploader. The old uploader took three clicks in order to upload a file, and this one only takes two. It will auto-select between flash and the traditional method, based on if flash is available. This way, the user doesn't need to make an unnecessary choice between the two. Upload progress is shown in a statusbar widget, so there aren't any extra windows being shown.
Lastly, we're now in a feature freeze for the 1.0 release. No additional features may be put in, and the only thing we will accept is bug reports.
We're coming very close to getting a release candidate out, and we're looking forward to finally releasing a stable version after two years of work. [Less]
Posted
19 days
ago
by
psychcf
Beta2 has less major changes since the last beta, but we've ironed out most of the kinks. The biggest fix was #161, the first one on the change list. This prevented the installer from working correctly on some PHP configurations. If you had problems
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with installation before, it is recommended that you try it again in 1.0beta2.
Here's the full change list:
#161 Installer no longer fails during app installation, after table creation in some PHP configurations
#148 Minesweeper app now resizes the window properly
#151 Window maximize fixed in fx < extra
#150 Calculator now has correct button size
#152 Replaced dojox.Grid with dojox.grid.DataGrid
#155 Better error handling on the installer implemented
#156 Package installer no longer raises notices when reading metadata
#157 Feed reader works again
#158 Task manager less temperamental
#149 Extra editor plugins added to the Word Processor
Please report bugs! If you are sure you found a bug, make a new ticket. If you're not sure, ask in our support forum. Be sure to search in both places for an identical issue before making a new topic. Expect a quick response if you do.
Download
.tar.gz archive (16.6mb)
.zip archive (20.8mb) [Less]
Posted
26 days
ago
by
psychcf
I'm proud to announce that Psych Desktop 1.0 Beta1 is finished! The desktop has gone through some major changes since 1.0 alpha2, including RSS reader improvements, enhanced xsite security, bug fixes to the installer, improvements to the window
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widget (now uses BorderContainer), and other small improvements.
As I've said before, this is a huge landmark for us, and there is very little that has to be done before we start spitting out release candidates. The final 1.0 release will be launched in conjunction with our new site, which should be finished in a few weeks.
Developers: Please note that we're using Dojo from trunk, and not Dojo 1.1.1. Also note that the window widget has changed dramatically, so instead of treating it as a LayoutContainer, treat it as if it were a BorderContainer.
Lastly, please report bugs! If you are sure you found a bug, make a new ticket. If you're not sure, ask in our support forum. Be sure to search in both places for an identical issue before making a new topic. Expect a quick response if you do.
Download
.tar.gz archive (17.0mb)
.zip archive (21.1mb) [Less]
Posted
27 days
ago
by
psychcf
I'm happy to announce that we're almost ready to release 1.0-Beta1. This is a huge milestone for us, and almost all of the features that will be in 1.0-Final will be in Beta1. There are a lot of changes since alpha1, and you'll find that there are
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many more features and improvements. The only thing preventing the release is a minor problem with the build system, but expect it soon, most likely by the end of the week. Once we close #99 and #77, we'll release a release candidate. We will continue to release the release candidates as we get bug reports. During this time we'll also focus on the new website, since bugs aren't too difficult to fix. As I said before, we're not releasing 1.0 until the new site is finished, which won't be for a while (but probably before the end of the month).
We really would appreciate it if you reported bugs. I check the forums on a regular basis now, and I have our bug tracker's RSS feed in my feed reader, so expect a quick response. If you are sure you found a bug, make a new ticket. If you're not sure, ask in our support forum (and be sure to search before making a new ticket/post). [Less]
Posted
about 1 month
ago
by
psychcf
Well, 1.0 is almost done. There's only a handfull of tickets left to finish. Once everything is done, we'll push out a release candidtate. If you want, we'll release Beta 1 tomorrow, after the two blocker tickets are closed.
As for the site
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, There's still some work to be done. The majority of work has been finished, but there's some things that have to be improved. [Less]
Posted
about 1 month
ago
by
psychcf
Right now most of my energy is being focused on the new site. I haven't really gone into much detail with it, so I'll let you all know now.
First off, we decided to ditch Drupal for Django, since we'll have an easier time with integration
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, and we can customize everything that goes into the site. We'll be using Django 1.0. We're also using a Django addon called Dojango, which some of our friends at Dojo have been working on. The design has been completely redone, although it's not 100% finished yet.
The homepage is much better. At the top we'll have a quick summary of what Lucid is, and to the right, links for downloads and documentation. Underneath that we'll have a list of recent blog entries. I feel we need to keep the blog fairly visible so that we can communicate with the fans of the project (yes, all three of you :D).
The IRC logs will be integrated with the site thanks to Djangobot. It's the same IRC bot the Django project uses.
The forums have major improvements. We're using a django app called "Snapboard", which we've modified so that it will work with the Django 1.0 release. I got anal, and decided to rewrite the js portion to use dojo as well (it used to use YUI. Nothing wrong with YUI, but using Dojo would simplify things since we can use Dojango to build the layer files). Anyways, if you've ever used Vanilla, it's very similar. And it has RSS feeds, which was my biggest problem with drupal's forum module.
The biggest addition to the site would be the package repository. You can submit packages to the repository, and they will be listed. You can browse them by category, letter, and name. You can also rate each package. You can also specify separate versions of the same package. Eventually we're hoping to integrate this with a package manager, but that won't be available in the 1.0 release.
We'll be putting up the new site along with the 1.0 release candidate. Everything should be up early or mid-september, depending on how smoothly things go. [Less]
Posted
2 months
ago
by
psychcf
The rewrite of the backends in trunk are going well, but slow, since I'm the only person producing code. Still nothing in the 1.0 branch, hopefully I'll find the energy to wrap that up soon. We desperately need more developers. I'd be a lot more
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motivated if I had two core devs by my side who knew what they were doing. I'm more then willing to spend several days with anybody who wants to learn about PD at the core, so long as it'll give me some help.
After 1.1 is done, I want to implement integration with web services. This includes both social-networks, and document services like google docs. That would tie into a publishing api, that would allow you to share things from apps to various social websites very easily. For example, posting a news article from the feed reader to twitter, delicious, and facebook with one click. Also, a personal website system, where each app will be able to provide a section of the site (such as a blog). The page would be customizable with themes. I'm not going to go into the specifics, but when it's done, it's going to be awesome. [Less]
Posted
3 months
ago
by
psychcf
Ok, so we've been working mostly on trunk in the past days. The rewrite of the backends is going well, we just have to finish the database portion of the code, and then we will be able to start rewriting the backends to work with JSON-RPC. We are
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focusing on security as one of the goals of the rewrite, and I will use penetration testing tools once the rewrite is complete (I've been reading a lot about pentesting in the past month). Hopefully we can find the courage to finish some of the stuff that needs to be done in the 1.0 branch :).
Steven has finished our new site design, it's just a matter of passing it off to me so that I can write the HTML/CSS for it, and intergrate it with the new site. If things go as planned, the new site should be done in a few weeks.
Lastly, we've been thinking of changing our 1.0 release to the 0.9 release. The rewriting of the backends using Zend has opened our eyes to how our backends were put together with duct-tape and chewing gum, and we really don't want that in the 1.0 version. The 1.1 release would be changed to the 1.0 release if this were to happen.
That's about it. If you have any other questions, ask us in our IRC room, or leave a comment to this post. [Less]
Posted
4 months
ago
by
psychcf
The Dojo Foundation has recently decided to support Psych Desktop. Our membership with the foundation will improve ties with Dojo. We will be donating some parts of the desktop, such as the sound api, to dojo as a result of this. The membership also
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will help us reach out to Dojo's community in order to improve the API, and deliver a better developer experience.
This is also a good time to announce that we will be redoing our site very soon. We understand that the forums we have are not very good, and seldom used. Also, a lot of the content is old, and it's good to start from scratch once 1.0 has been released.
Lastly, I'll tell you all what's happening in trunk. At the moment, it's broken because we're re-writing the server-side code completely using the Zend Framework. The new architecture will feature RPC, XHR long polling, and better server-side apis for apps that require server-side code. The 1.0 branch works, which you can get from http://svn.psychdesktop.net/branches/1.0/.
Development in the past month has been slow, but it seems to be picking up gradually. We really do need some more contributors though, so if you're interested, contact us. [Less]
Posted
4 months
ago
by
psychcf
It has recently been discovered that Katana IDE does not work after being built. We've fixed this, and have released an application package that you can install from the apps section of the administration
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panel.
Katana-IDE-fixed.lucid.zip
Installation Instructions:
Log into the desktop as a user with the "api.ide" permission set to "allow".
Find the "Katana IDE" app in the list of applications, right click on it, and select 'remove'. When the yes/no dialog appears, select 'yes'.
Click on the "Install App Package" button on the toolbar. Click "browse" and select the package.
The admin panel should then automatically upload the package. If it does not, click on something other then the upload box.
Clear your browser's cache, and refresh the desktop. The IDE should work now. [Less]
Posted
4 months
ago
by
psychcf
If you haven't done so already, please make sure you nominate us for the SourceForge Community Choice Awards.
The two categories we want to get into is either "Best Project" or "Most likely to change the world". Please nominate us for both of them.
Thanks!
Posted
4 months
ago
by
psychcf
1.0 Alpha 2 has been released! This version features a drastic amount of changes since alpha1. This is the final alpha version. All releases after this will be beta versions, and there will be more frequent releases.
The reason why we
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released a day late was because we were experiencing a problem with the build system. This version has optimized versions of the apps that are compressed and merged into one file for faster execution times.
Downloads:
.tar.gz archive (15.6mb)
.zip archive (19.5mb) [Less]
Posted
5 months
ago
by
psychcf
If all goes as planned, we should be done with alpha2 in two days. The only things left to do is fix IE issues, and mimetype guessing (because the windows port of php does not have good mime support).
This will be the last alpha release.
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After that we will release beta1, which will feature some minor cosmetic improvements. During the beta stage we will be releasing on a regular basis until all the bugs have been removed.
So the next release will be 1.1. There are a lot of changes going on in that release. Huge changes to the server-side code structure are going on, including taking advantage of the Zend Framework, as well as using RPC for server-communication. We really could use some help from the community. If you are interested in helping us out, ping psychcf in either IRC or by email. [Less]
Posted
5 months
ago
by
psychcf
The IDE has gone through a huge change recently. It now supports syntax highlighting, and a tree to manage the app's files. Take a look:
Posted
5 months
ago
by
psychcf
Hello everybody.
If you have a SourceForge account I would apprecate it if you could nominate Psych Desktop for the SourceForge Communtiy Choice Awards. It will take very little time. Make sure you've logged into SF before clicking on the link
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below.
The two categories we want to get into is either "Best Project" or "Most likely to change the world". Please nominate us for both of them.
Thank you for showing your support! [Less]
Posted
5 months
ago
by
psychcf
Psychcf has been interviewed on the dojo.cast() podcast, a podcast about happenings with dojo. Definitely worth checking out if you're interested in the project and want to find out some general info.
[link]
Posted
5 months
ago
by
psychcf
Ok, so we should be done with 1.0 in about 3 weeks.
Here's the major tasks on our todo list still:
A mail API and client
Filesystem Quotas
Rewrite of Katana IDE
You can find the full list here.
Posted
5 months
ago
by
psychcf
Psychcf just finished writing a twitter applet for the desktop. It remembers your login info, and encrypts it before storing it. You can also post updates directly from the applet. This is a good example of how an app/applet can use api.xhr to make cross site requests and utilize 3rd party RESTful apis.
Posted
6 months
ago
by
psychcf
We finished moving onto the new SVN server:
For anonymous access: http://svn.psychdesktop.net/
For developer access: https://svn.psychdesktop.net/
Note that the trac file browser will not work, as we are moving to new servers
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(the site is on the old server, while the SVN repos are on the new server), and I don't feel like setting up svnsync all over again.
Also, the demo will not be updated until the server move is complete. (however, it will still be working)
Enjoy! [Less]
Posted
6 months
ago
by
psychcf
As of today, all future revisions or releases of Psych Desktop will be licensed under the AFL. This does not include alpha 1, that will still be licensed under the GPL2.
Also, we're in the process of moving svn servers. If you are a
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developer, please don't commit anything. If you are a user, you may continue to take checkouts from the current server, however when we post up the new server information you have to use the new repository if you want to get the latest copy. [Less]
Posted
6 months
ago
by
psychcf
The documentation section of our site was redone using dojo's jsdoc utility. It is much better suited for us, as it specializes in javascript documentation where the old system was only a general documentation system. Take a look: http://docs.psychdesktop.net/
Posted
6 months
ago
by
psychcf
This is a bit old, but for those of you who have not noticed, you can type an ftp url into the file browser and you can browse the files on the server. The url can be something like ftp://user:pass@server.com:21 if you need to use a special port or
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log into the server first. You can also edit files directly from the ftp server, and even drag and drop works! Any application already written for the desktop has support for this, and will also support additional protocols once they are written. Take a look! [Less]
Posted
6 months
ago
by
psychcf
A file browser for cell phones and PDAs is now in trunk. It allows you to download and upload your files from/to the desktop. You can take a look at a demo here: http://psychdesktop.net/desktopdev/mobile/
You can log in using the username 'demo' and the password 'demo'.
Posted
6 months
ago
by
psychcf
Thanks to nefariousD, we now have a minesweeper clone in trunk. This uses dojo.gfx to draw everything (except for the toolbar) and is a great example of how you can mix dijit widgets with dojo.gfx. You can check it out in the demo installation we have set up if you don't feel like installing the development version.
Posted
6 months
ago
by
psychcf
Last night we got localization via dojo.i18n working. We're currently in the process of setting everything up to be localized. If you speak english and another language we would love for you to take an hour or so to write a translation for us, please
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let us know. Just make sure you've signed a CLA and sent it over to the dojo guys. We'll get a page in the wiki on how to do a translation as soon as we get things working. [Less]
Posted
7 months
ago
by
psychcf
We have decided as a team to rewrite the entire javascript portion of Psych Desktop to LOLcode. LOLcode introduces many intuitive features that assist with:
productivity
readability
execution
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speed
maintainability
scalability
Rapid Application Development
popularity
communism
We're really excited to start working on this. There's a LOLcode to javascript converter, so it will still be able to run in the browser. We think this will benefit us so much that we will rewrite the entire dojo toolkit in LOLcode! Because of this, it may take us longer to release alpha2 then we expected. Come back in a few years and we should be done.
--The Psych Desktop Team [Less]
Posted
7 months
ago
by
psychcf
today we modified the filesystem to use a new VFS system, where you can write plugins to interface with storage protocols, the local server's filesystem, etc. We tested it with two plugins, a file plugin (what's currently in alpha1) and a public
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plugin (which is a system-wide public folder to share files in).
Each plugin has it's own protocol (so the user's home folder would be file://, public would be public://). When no protocol is provided, it defaults to file://. Eventually we'll be able to write plugins for FTP, SCP, and webDAV access. We're still unsure if we're going to do this for alpha2 or if we should wait for 2.0. Still, very cool stuff. [Less]
Posted
7 months
ago
by
psycy...@users.sourceforge.net (psychcf)
Psych Desktop 1.0-alpha1 was released today!
Take a look at our site for more details:
http://www.psychdesktop.net/node/149 (0 comments)
Posted
7 months
ago
by
psychcf
I'm pleased to announce that Psych Desktop Alpha1 is released! This release has been roughly a year and a half in the making. Built off of the new dojo 1.1.0 release, and dojo's shrinksafe javascript compressor, we are confident that this is as
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optimized as much as possible for excellent performance and load times.
***UPDATE*** At 7:25pm EST we updated the uploaded files. When building the release I forgot to add the login form as a layer (and so it was not optimized), and I also forgot to remove the email client application. You can fix your installation by deleting the email client from the administration panel, and by copying /desktop/dojotoolkit/login/Form.js to your server. Sorry for any problems I may have caused!
Known Issues
IMPORTANT! Admins aren't given access to the IDE by default. This was a mistake and we have fixed it in trunk. You must add this permission to yourself from the admin panel. If you do not have perms the IDE will not work when you save any changes to the app.
Providing an email when making a new user will create a validation error. The workaround is to leave the email field blank, and set a real email when the user shows up in the table (by double clicking on the cell).
The RSS reader app will break if you add your own feeds and then restart the program.
The terminal is buggy
Having more then one panel on the same edge of the screen will result in occasional placement bugs
Transparent PNGs don't display correctly in IE
Downloads
.tar.gz archive (15mb)
.zip archive (19mb)
Also, we will be having a developer meeting in our IRC room (freenode.net #psychdesktop) on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 from 2:00pm-3:00pm EST. Here we will discuss goals we have for alpha2, as well as discuss the upcoming branding change, among other things. Even if you're not a developer, we would love to see you there and get some input from the community. [Less]