Posts Tagged ‘build 1’

Finished first version

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Well, we think we are finished the first version. Thanks to all those who have contributed recipes, reported bugs, and requested features. In this round we primarily fixed some bugs that where here or there. We also took the time to restructure a little and rename every file to match the emerging naming scheme. We are pretty proud of the first version and hope that you’ll stick around to see the next, we have a lot of new features planned to help streamline entry and explain features better.

Heres a quick run down of updates since our last roll up.

  • Hide getting started screen
  • Link in saved recipe back to original and then back to saved
  • Refresh button if community recipe is updated after time of save
  • More accurate save count (before removing save didnt update count)
  • Bold new messages on index if new
  • Category search only shows unique created recipes
  • Forum template updates
  • Email a friend (to help spread the word)

This is just a short list, you can always view a complete list in the footer link “change log”

We go live

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Tonight sometime before the super bowl the site will be live to all users. We made a couple changes this week to improve usability and fix a bug here or there. The site is far from finished but at this point i believe its good enough to merit a wider audience. Feel free to sign up and sign in tonight.

Thanks,

MM

Update

Monday, January 26th, 2009

We’ve been on the live server for about a week now for testing, and its been going pretty good. We are currently on our third revision fixing bugs and adding more features. We are really waiting for a basic security test before we go live to the public, in the mean time we continue working on more features to make a better first impression.

Im really hoping by begining of next week we can be live with our first live version. Even though we have had more time to polish everything there are still some areas that need more work and a lot more features to come over the next year.

Check back soon.

On live server

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

We have uploaded the site to the live server and are doing some last minute testing and changes before we open it to the public.

Check back real soon for our grand opening.

2 features left….

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

We started testing basic features and security yesterday. There are also 2 remaining features before we upload to our servers for restricted live testing.

Both features are already partially implemented. So its just a matter of figuring out why they aren’t working as expected.

Its still a little soon to tell for sure, depending on the bugs revealed, but a semi-realistic goal for release is Feb 1, 2009. We will obviosuly release it when its ready wether thats sooner or later.

Please continue checking back.

IE8 and nearly finished

Monday, January 12th, 2009

I just got my hands on IE8 rc1. While the rendering looks nearly perfect (with a small header cut off on one end that should be easy to fix, and nobody will notice) it still only recieves a 21 on acid3. This is a little disapointing that they didnt strive to be the firt to release it in a final release. Sure firefox and others would have it shortly after, but it would have made a statement. I guess its not out of the realm of posibilities that it be in the final, but i wouldnt count on any major changes between now and then.

We have officially begun local testing. We have a list of about 10 or so things that need changed currently before we can release it to the public. I do intend on putting it up in the next couple days for live testing. Check back soon..we are almost there.

Testing begining shortly

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

We have 2 more pages to finish before we can begin local intranet testing. Neither are extremely in depth features and so I expect to have them done within the week. Tentative plans are to test good for a week or two (or as long as it takes to fix the issues) and then open up testing to the public.

As we get closer I’d like to just state again that we are a new web site and are bound to have bugs once the public gets their hands on it. We will try to work quickly to get things resolved but this is not our full time job. So some patients will be appreciated. That said we usually test pretty thoroughly and can predict sticky points pretty well, so we definitely aren’t anticipating any major bugs, and of course we wont release to public testing until we’ve resolved all known bugs with this version.

Now about future development. We will try to have updates fairly frequently. At this point we are planning on adding 2-5 features between release, depending on size and scope. This way we wont have too much downtime but we will still have a nice flow of new features coming out. We do have a full feature set planned for the next release and some beyond that. This is typically how we work. After a couple releases (and depending on the suggestion) we will begin entertaining outside future needs. So if you have an idea, or if you just need one or two more features to make this site work for you than please send us your suggestion in the forums. We definately want to accomidate you as much as possible to earn your membership.

Baby Leave

Monday, December 29th, 2008

My wife and i had our first child recently, in celebration i took a two week leave from work. It was a nice time to relax and learn about our baby. Unfortunalty a lot of our time was spent getting things in order so i didnt get to spend as much time as i would have liked on the site, but i did get all major features except one working to some degree. Over the coming 2 weeks i hope to have a final build 1 so we can begin local testing for security and stability as well as making sure things work as we think they logically should.

So far so good.

General Update

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Recently we’ve been making a lot of backend progress. I would say there really is 1 more feature that will be hard, another 2 that will take a little time, and then a couple more that arent even worth mentioning and we will be ready for sitewide testing.

To do the testing i plan on having 2 others and myself use it like a normal user would. Once we feel comfortable that all is as it should be we’ll be putting it up for the world to use. Hopefully it wont take long before we get a couple users that are willing to give up feedback.

After our first release we already have a slew of new features slated that will make the site faster and easier to use. The only reason we are not doing them up front is because we would prefer to have a lot of input on everything before we go too deep in features.

Well, I guess I’ll get back to work. Hopefully we will have something to show before the end of the year…

SVN

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Last night we made some cool feature updates and are just about finished placeholders for the front end. So today we will hopefully have a good portion of the backend up and running. We don’t plan on conquering the world on this first release as long as we can get something running so we can start to really get users and feedback.

This morning i added our current test build to svn, this is an important step for source control. I currently use http://tortoisesvn.net/ though I’m up for suggestions. This will hopefully help us concentrate on implementing one feature at a time and tracking changes so if a bug pops up we can know better where it came in.