Framework, modules and plugins.

It's been a long time since last post now. That's mainly because I've had my hands full of other things I had to do. When it comes to myPal I've used the last weeks to find out more about how to create a usable framework for the application. This has not been an easy task as I must admit that I have no clue about how to build one or what to search for. I felt like a blind man in the forest. I have lost the count of how many ".NET framework", "Mozilla Framework" and "Web application framework" sites I have found during the search.

Lucky as I am, I have managed to find an Open Source project, Java Plugin Framework we can build myPal on. The team has not yet decided if we should use this or not, but I believe it is a very good solution. Saves us a lot of work too... I've got a very good feeling about JPF, since developing myPal as plugins and extensions; we can modify myPal in a thousand ways later on. One example could be to make myPal skinnable. By creating the GUI as extensions, we can later on add as many extensions of this type as we like, and then let the user choose between different skins ( of course, the skin chooser will be a dynamically driven module, giving the user choices based on the amount of installed skins).

We have decided to use the Model-View-Controller pattern for developing myPal. By separating the Model and View into different modules, it will be possible to change the whole myPal user interface, just by adding or replacing an extension. myPal has grown a lot bigger than my original idea. But I am not complaining. Every idea, even the rejected ones, that comes from the developer team brings myPal one step closer to greatness. Making myPal a pluggable application is one of those.

For the upcoming days, I guess most of my myPal-time will be used on creating a small test application to see how we can use the framework. So, Cheers for now.

Page update

Finally, myPal Home has got an acceptable layout. The design is no longer ugly and Internet Explorer users can scroll the page now. That was not possible before. Stupid IE .Stupid M$, not giving Internet Explorer a proper update in almost five years. Anyway, I found out that struggling and cursing over non-functional CSS layouts was nothing for me, so I decided to implement an Open Source webdesign. Open Source saves the day again. The design was pretty smooth. It was simple. If some of you have read abit of what I have written about myPal, the application is going to be as smooth and simple you just gotta love it. I felt a simple design on the homepage would match out project.
I also added new forums to the homepage. The old forums at sf.net got quite messy, and as an administrator I actually had very few administrative rights. I could hide a forum by marking it as deleted, I could add/rename forums and I could restrict people outside the project group from accessing a forum, but that was about all my administrative rights. By adding a new forum now that we "own" we have full control. Every one can contribute to the discussion if they want, but we have a Developer Zone where only developers of myPal project can enter. I hope it will be easier to keep these forums tidy.
Cheers

About first release

We have started planning the first release of myPal now. That feels good. I've got the impression that everyone on the team agrees to keep the first release as simple as possible. Database hosting is still an issue, so we've decided not do include that feature in the first release. I'd like the first release to include a pretty functional single-user calendar and an light-weight email client. Spam filtering is much work, so the spam filter will be added in later releases. At least this is what I think, I believe in democratic decisions so we'll see what the group agrees about

It's been a while since last post now. That's because I've managed to obtain a decent job. I also have to work at my previous employer for another month so right now I work 55 hours a week. In addition to that I have a three year old son. Having vacation from the kindergarden he usually wakes up when I eat lunch at job and goes to bed around 22:00. So right now, I have very little time for myself. Anyway, I cannot complain. Life is good, and hopefully it will stay that way too.

Cheers