Positive Contact
By: R|A
Alright, A few weeks ago I managed to lose some work I did to the db due to me not backing up some files. I have manged to re-write the majority of the code I lost, most of which pertained to the Items sections.

Right now I have to create some new templates to display the information for the items, and do some testing to make sure I haven't broke anything yet.

I'm not going to give an ETA, but its not going to be long now.

Onwards, Forwards
By: R|A
Busy as shit lately. That's all I got to say.

The Arrival ( Take A Ride )
By: R|A
Life is pretty fucked up for me right now.

I'm working on items and bug-fixes when I can.

Don't expect it anytime soon.

Sorry.

Sometimes life throws a curve-ball at you, and then it pulls another one, and you end up lost and helpless with no end in sight.

Rise from the ashes and decay....
By: R|A
Since I have only just got the General Knoxx addon, I hadn't noticed that there are several other types of items introduced. I am not too sure on how complete the items over on the borderlands wikia page, so items are still going to be a while, since I use most of the informational data for the db structure and whatnot from there.

I am experimenting with a custom user system right now as well, and the possibility of mass uploading files from the new WillowTree locker format that Xander has added to it. I also need to implement a true administration page for myself and possible users to access, since right now I am pretty much doing SQL-Kung-Fu to work with everything that needs to be changed. Although since editing works (so far 100% alright) users can now update their own weapons if they need to.

I may also redesign the front-page and keep weapons & items within their own sections, along with adding user weapon/item ratings and displaying the top 10 weapons on the front-page & 10 newest weapons on their as well.

Sorry
By: R|A
I have been kinda busy playing the General Knoxx addon lately.

So I'm a bit behind on my projected schedule, although once again, I'm trying to do too much coding on different aspects of the db at once as well.

Sorry.

Dumbstruck
By: R|A
This is really strange.

As I've been implementing that javascript form validation system, it only wants to work on the new weapons page, and not the new items page. I don't know why the fuck its not working correctly since I'm using the same code and form layout for it.

I've gone though both scripts line for line, in both template & php scripts. The .js files are included on both, since it's part of the global header files, so its not like the scripts aren't included. So this is driving me crazy.

The script I am using for the validation is JSValidate, if anyone wants to know.
http://www.jsvalidate.com/

Bleh
By: R|A
Man, sometimes I just get too ahead of myself and start trying to add to much shit at once to the DB. I've found a javascript validation class that is very slick, for making sure certain fields are not empty before submitting them, and displaying a nice error message by the required fields, as opposed to using only server side checking which takes up submitting the form, and then telling the users there are required fields left.

I've also began re-writing the new weapons & items submission forms to make use of this checking, so It's still going to be a while before items are done, although I think I'm fairly satisfied with how I have the data stored and displayed for items.

Also editing is fairly polished now, although I'm trying to keep it down to checking and replacing only changed fields, instead of putting everything back which requires a fairly lengthy checking process, since its almost like adding a new weapon.

Lastly I was asked about converting the Weapons DB over to a blogging system. Which after looking at the underlying code, I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to make a blog/CMS system out of it. Although I would like to finish working on my gallery system as well, since the image resizing system and thumbnail generator are fully functional, the only thing to add is a category system for images. On top of that a user system would be required, although I am going to save that for quite a bit later.

Once again, I'm only going to upload all the changes I've made to the DB onto here once Editing & Items are finished, and everything is on my template system.

Looking good
By: R|A
Alright, so I've been really hammering out code lately. I've re-written the way the textual weapon stats are stored, so the exists in their own database, as opposed to a single line that looks like #FF0000:Pew Pew Pew;#CCCCCC:+100% Accuracy and so on. That has also allowed me to take the horrible and noobish coding way of having the colors locked into the database as the info is entered, and allowed me to use color & type references so I have a single array of information such as
$colors = array (0=>"",1=>"FFFFFF",2=>"5AC728");

Minor things like this I am having to change before weapon editing will work as I intend it to, otherwise its just a lot of wasteful extra coding I have to do in order to figure out what a weapons rarity, brand, class, & color information is.

The biggest reason the original code is like that, is due to the fact that I never imagined that this would be as popular as it is, and I had never intended to implement entry editing, or deletion. I kinda thought "Hey, you have a weapon? cool post it up, and that's that". Simplicity is how I designed it, but over time I noticed people wanted to leave comments about a weapon, or edit, and god forbid, delete their creation due to the backend not reading a willow text file correctly.

Now beyond that there is only 2 major features missing from the DB. Editing, & Items ( shields, grenades, & class-mods). I keep putting the Items portion off since I'm still debating how to best store and display the information. I don't know If having 3 different display areas is best for each type, or just having them all inline with each other is best. I also don't know if I want to keep them inline with the weapons on the front-page, or add another section underneath the weapons to display them, or even moving both items & weapons to individual pages, and only showing the most recent 5 weapons & items on it.

I've also been mulling over if I want to open source the code, or keep it private. I know I've read some flak about this DB concerning the fact that it allows people to put up ungodly creations of weapons, or private groups have bitched about people putting their stuff up. If I did open source this, people could keep their own private databases of weapons on their own sites, and keep their creations to themselves. Another option is creating a user-base system, and allowing users to have their own private collections, and giving others access to them, while keeping my code private, but still allowing for private weapons.

The last main thing I have to create is an actual admin page for the db. Right now if there is something wrong, or some fuckhead is putting random ass bullshit on the DB, I have to manually connect to the SQL backend and find each entry and delete it, or modify an entry is a weapon is named wrong, or its not listed as the right type or brand.

If anyone here has any feedback about this (or even reads this), you can shoot me an email at info@zerosubstance.net and tell me what you think.

Making progress
By: R|A
I'm about halfway through converting over the scripts & database for the newer DB schema.
Right now it's mostly the process.php script which I have converted over to use my own user data filtering class, along side of some scripts to convert the weapons & data into more a manageable form. Once this is finished, I believe the weapon editing side should be easier to work out, as my original script was was too messy and poorly coded to be used in a production environment.

However once I do finish converting the newweapon.php, process.php, viewweapon.php, viewbrand.php, & viewclass.php scripts over to the new DB schema, I won't upload them just yet as I wish to get weapon editing down as the next major update.

Finally
By: R|A
So I finally found some time to work on coding again. Right now I've scrapped the existing items portion I wrote, and I'm in the process of restructuring the database & condensing a lot of code.

When I originally created the db, I kept the colors of information inline with the data in the db. So if there was an orange weapon named EQ13 Primal Equalizer. It was stored in the MySQL db as such #FFAE00:EQ13 Primal Equalizer:6. When I first made the db, I saw no problem in this, it kept everything together in regards to coloring and information. Right now, it's a pretty bad way to keep information like that. Rarity level is also kept inline with that, so performance wise, it hits the db kinda hard, when ordering by rarity.

Things like that are what I am focusing on right now. Optimizing how weapons are stored, & read; moving everything over to my custom template system; Adding editing support; re-code the items portion; annotate & provide credit to some of the minor code snippets I use in the db, and possibly open source the whole system and put it up on GitHub.

Editing will be done by email verification only at this point (once I get around to it). Although a user system may be added if I feel up to it.

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