BoltWire 4.0 Beta coming...

[The Editor]

Greetings everyone!

It has been a long while since there has been much activity on the
BoltWire newslist. I hope it is because everyone is satisfied with the
software and everything is working fine for you. I know my main site
is humming along quite well with a very large, active, and happy
community. Mission accomplished!

At the same time, I have been wanting to do a major rewrite of the
software for some time, and relaunch it under a 4.xx series. I have
been making excellent progress on that the last month or so, and am
getting close to a beta release. Here are just a few of the features
of the new software:

* Improved form handling. Now you can put various parameters in input
fields to filter and/or transform user input in a whole new way. And
parameters can go in command fields (formerly 'sessions') to control
how they function--just like we do in BoltWire functions. This was
actually the major goal for this upgrade and it is working
beautifully. It adds amazing new capabilities to commands that were
either difficult or impossible to do before. In fact, I'd describe it
as a major conceptual breakthrough.

* Improved boxes. Added some major flexibility to these--including
among other things a "rules" parameter which allows you to control
which markups can be processed in comment boxes for example. Great
idea!

* Info var arrays. Now you store info arrays like field:
var1::var2::var3 and either retrieve the entire field or any of the
sub-elements. This is a fast and efficient way to store and extract
discrete sets of information. I've been really wanting this feature
myself for awhile. And it's working perfectly now.

* Improved code commenting. Having done little developing for over a
year, and coming back to the code cold--I definitely see the value of
comments in the core! I'm adding lots of notes here and there.

* Streamlined code. Even with all the comments I've managed to cut out
20% of the code by removing some config options, and moving some
rarely used features to plugins. I've also rewritten major sections to
simplify the code. I'm going through the entire code base little by
little. I'm surprized at how much simpler the code can be--while
enhancing functionality! And speed should get a boost too...

Anyway, wanted to find out if there is anyone interested in testing
out the new software. It won't be ready for prime time release anytime
soon, but getting a few hands to take a look at things would help
speed up development. BoltWire 4.xx will not be an easy upgrade--but
if you have time to play around or are considering developing a new
site--it might be worth a try. I need to also set up a 4.xx site to
start posting new documentation.

Ok, looking forward to hearing back from some of you. I should be
putting out a final 3.xx release sometime soon with a few fixes and
tweaks from the last year or so and then that strand should come to a
close. Moving forward, my focus is definitely going to be getting my
live site switched over to BoltWire 4.xx.

Cheers,
Dan

[mz]

Following your site, I am happy that you still find the time for some development. This comes just in time as I wanted to start some new projects! I am excited to try and look how the new features are working out!

Just wanted to ask here for your image-sizer-plugin. I also altered the csv fmt/template to return json values. I can't remember where I did this, but json would be handy for some javascript trickery.

I really look forward if we can manage to pick up the discussion here again!

Greetings, Martin

[Kevin]

Dan,

Nice to see you coding again.... Will be interested in what you come up with.

I'm still using BW a lot... have many sites using it.

[The Editor]

Thanks for being willing to check out the new code Martin, Kevin.  I'm still working on it and need to get it a bit more polished before I put out the beta--but will definitely give you guys the first look.

I've been tinkering with it and it works great and does some really nice new things. Just need to rework the commands for example to take advantage of the new features. And scrub out even more thoroughly whatever unnecessary code I can find. Leaner and meaner--that's the goal.

Give me a few more weeks.

Cheers

Dan

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[Kevin]

Dan, do you have a list of what you are trying to get going in that version?

I've been playing way too much lately with my Raspberry Pi's lately... with my spare time

http://rpi.tnet.com

Site is of course using Boltwire.

[Lino]

Hi guys!

Really glad to hear you all.

Looking forward to test drive 4.0. 

Lino

[FredL]

Hi Dan,

I am glad to hear that you are still actively working on this great project, and I am still using Boltwire for our local project wiki. Therefore, I would be quite interested in being involved in your developments to help you get some feed-back if you want to.

Looking forward to testing your upcoming 4.0 release ..

Cheers,

Fred.

[jacmgr]

Dan,

 

Glad you are still dong well.  I am still interested and using bolwire.  Looking forward to new version.  Wouldn't mind testing or helping with documentation.

 

john