Having not blogged for a quite a while I’ve decided to post an update on my whereabouts with the CHUI project. First of all, I upgraded my hosting account to accommodate for an extra domain so that I could launch thechuiproject.org. Although only the basic framework is in place at the moment, I’ve spent many hours emailing and configuring and button-pressing getting it to even appear in a browser! The reason that this site launch is so complex is due to the project’s dependency on server architecture. First of all, I needed a server running Apache alongside MySQL and PHP. Not only this, but I needed the PEAR libraries installed and the possibility of creating scheduled tasks (also known as ‘cron jobs’ on Linux). Even the version of PHP and MySQL was important due to the scalability I wish my code to have. As a result, I now (almost) have a LAMP server running all of these, as well as my personal website and my girlfriend’s website.
I have emulated the same server architecture (except on Windows Vista) on my home computer for development purposes. This should also provide me with a live back-up/mirror should the LAMP server go down.
So, what have I actually got working so far? Not as much as I had planned by this point in time. I currently have a full screen, fluid, cross-browser, gracefully degradable, modular and accessible layout. It’s very easy to work with as each ‘block’ can be initialised by simple typing in div tags (with a module class) and placing any content you wish within the tags. Each module has a fixed width and height so each is given scroll bars - only when needed of course. I have RSS working on my development server but not yet on the LAMP server because I’m still in the process of installing the appropriate PEAR libraries. The logo has been designed and a colour scheme chosen. I even came up with a slogan last night that nobody appears to be using at this point in time: “chui, customise your life.”
Tonight I’m going to work on drag-and-drop functionality and hopefully sort out those PEAR libraries finally.
Next step: First alpha launch.
UPDATE: The PEAR libraries have now been successfully installed on the LAMP server.