November 2006

IP.Dynamic has been in “on-off” development for a long time. Some of the files I’m working on proudly display their creation date as “Wednesday 28th January 2004″. It seems impossible that some IP.Dynamic files are almost three years old.

Since that time, IP.Dynamic has been through a lot of changes both cosmetically and in structure both to keep up with the ever changing web landscape and changes in PHP, MySQL, etc.

IP.Dynamic has been in development for so long, I’ve changed Macs since I began. I retired my old G4 iLamp about a year ago and never got round to transferring a lot of my old files.
I have a folder on my desktop for the month and I throw all my miscellaneous files into that folder. At the end of the month I throw it into a folder called “Monthlies” for storage. I always intended to archive off the monthly folders onto DVD but never got around to it. The result is three years of monthly folders totaling around 31gig. Yesterday I dug the old Mac out to copy the files before formatting the drive so I can sell the old Mac. Among those files are some early IP.Dynamic screenshots which I though would be fun to share - especially when comparing them to current screenshots.

So, below are two images. IP.Dynamic “then” and “now. Click the thumbnails for a larger image.

Edit: Here’s a concept sketch drawn up after a few weeks of research on how IP.Dynamic should work. I think the end result is actually pretty close to this. This was done late 2003.

Hot on the heels of the two previously finished features, here’s another completed feature for the “MyCP” area of IP.Dynamic.

Personal Topics, is - as the name implies, a feature that allows you to start a topic and invite specific members to participate. It’s a bit like a personal message but in a forum topic format.

The movie shows the main features such as the ability for the topic starter (and admins) to remove and ban members from a topic. Each participant can optionally remove themselves from the topic or block it completely.

Expect this feature to make it to IPB 3.0.

6.4mb Quicktime Movie

I’m just about done with the IP.Dynamic task manager. As the name suggests, it’s a little corner of the CMS to organize you and your staff.

It should be pretty self explanatory as-is. Just after I took the movie capture, I added in a check box to ‘Hide Completed Tasks’ and made it so the settings are stored in a cookie so they are remembered across pages and when you return.

4.6mb Quicktime Movie

I had previously blogged about IP.Dynamic’s calendar.

Thankfully, it’s nearing completion.

There’s not much to say that the movie clips won’t other than it has support for multiple calendars that can be viewed simultaneously a’la Google Calendar and it introduces ‘context sensitive’ menu options (the Calendar View Options above the left hand menu).

4.5mb Quicktime Movie

5.7mb Quicktime Movie

I can never really get the hang of organizational software.

I’ve tried loads of different products, both web-based and desktop based and none of them have the intimate satisfaction of scribbling through a “to-do” item with a pen.

For example, this is a post-it note that has been stuck to my desk for about the last month or so and contains an informal list of things that needed to be done before RC 1. It’s also served as an improtu mug coaster too which proves the multitasking efficiency of paper.

Now that IPB is back off to have a final security audit (and thanks to Tom for his work in identifying a few areas (ahem) that needed improvement) I find myself in a curious position of having nothing urgent to do for the first time in about three months.

IP.Converge has been in limited beta testing for a few months and is coming together nicely. I’ve completed the first draft of the developer’s documentation and recently overhauled the XML-RPC method names to fall inline with the standard naming convention. I expect that we’ll be making the first public beta release very soon.

IP.Dynamic is now about 90% complete and I have some serious time to devote to it again rather than a few hours here and there. Once the task manager / calendar features have been completed there really isn’t much more to do which is a nice position to be in as it feels like it’s been in development since the invention of electricity.

There’s also a lot of activity behind-the-scenes with Rikki working on the websites and the team putting together the public and developer’s documentation for IPB. We really want to get IPB 2.2.0 off to a good solid start by having all the ancillary components ready to go.

Is it November already?