Keeping a Hotaru installation

[petsagouris]

Since the site is live and quite active, I would rather not guess at the solution given my limited knowledge of PHP.
Whenever you administrate a site, keep another working installation where you will be testing changes before you publish them.
This helps so you are in control of various situations and prevent your users from having to deal with "limited knowledge of PHP" or "toying with CSS" or "Maybe the header should contain a <marquee>".

[richrf]

Thanks very much for the advice. However, I am not a developer and it will be difficult for me to set up a testing environment, and then learn php, css, html, and the source code for Hotaru while attempting to build a community around Links.com (http://links.com). But I will do my best. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a developer that can assist me at this time.

Rich

[petsagouris]

Just to note that my advice was not about turning anyone into a developer.
It was about testing any change to a working website before you take the change live.

[richrf]

Hi,

Setting up a testing environment is beyond the scope of most uses of CMS products. I never had to set up one for Wordpress. One of the reasons I never created one for Wordpress is because I never changed any code.

I do agree with you that testing code changes is a very good idea and unfortunately, I am now at the point where I am making many code changes, in the blind, for functionality such as posts that point to Journals and implementing Bad Behavior, which so far has not be successful. It is a bit stressful but it comes with the territory.

Thanks again for your help.

Rich

[petsagouris]

Wordpress started off as a blogging platform (read not CMS).
That means that you have bloggers setting it up.
Bloggers don't have programming skills for the most part.
Wordpress needs to steer away from code tampering to get a customized result (which you don't have to, blogs can look more or less the same).

HotaruCMS started off as a Social bookmarking platform.
That means you have website administrators setting it up.
Website administrators do have programming skills for the most part (even if those are basic),
HotaruCMS doesn't necessarily need to steer away from code tampering to get a customized result (which you have to, can't have many link sites looking the same).

Lets not go into a HotaruCMS vs <anything> on this thread.

Making untested changes to a live personal site is OK most of the time.
Making untested changes to a live community site should be considered a really amateur practice and it is not advised.
People that run websites seriously should have at least the basic set of knowledge on their tools and how to get the answers for the problems they face with them.

[richrf]

Hi,

What would you consider the minimal knowledge base for someone setting up Hotaru, e.g. XAMPP, PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, Editors, and how many months/years of training with each? Just so I have an idea of what I need to know and how much time I should put into training.

Also, what is a good way to maintain all of the changes so that they are not lost between releases and what kind of platform what you recommend to test on when moving between releases.

Since I am planning for the long haul, I am trying to plan my allocation of time and expenses. Thanks for your recommendation.

Insofar as Wordpress is concerned, I was attempting to point out that certain CMS packages do not require developer training which is why I am not use to have a development (for adding mods) and testing environment. This is very new to me.

Thanks for your help and recommendations.

Rich

[petsagouris]

Thats right, having a (W|L)AMP installation is a must, be it XAMPP or anything else. Although I think that it is a good experience to setup (not build) apache,mysql,php combo on your own as it gives you a good idea of what piece of software is responsible over what results.

For PHP, Javascript, HTML and CSS information is abundant on the internet and there are sites like SO (http://www.stackoverflow.com) to go about asking questions/finding answers.
For starters just arm yourself with Notepad++, time will take you to more advanced software if there is need for it.

As for Wordpress,... first release was in 05-2003 (http://wordpress.org/news/2003/05/wordpress-now-available/) and it has been in development for quite some time before that.
Just mentioning the name in here is like saying "Windows" in the forum of a 1 month old hobbyist Linux distro forum.

[richrf]

Thanks.

Yes, I have been reading lots about all of these development tools but I was wondering how much time I should set aside for each one. For example, I just realize I better have an environment so that I will be able to keep track of all of the changes so that they are not lost with each new version of Hotaru.

I realize that one cannot be sort-of-proficient since that just leads to endless bugs. What I am looking for is how much time I will need to spend learning everything so I am proficient enough that I can adequately maintain the code. I have to be able to depend upon the code if I am going to build a site around it. I don't think a site that is sort-of-working is going to be adequate. I realize I will need to put the time into it and I am willing to do it but I would like to know how long it will take me to become proficient. For example, how long have you been working with each of these tools? That would help me figure things out.

Thanks for your help.

Rich

[petsagouris]

Well as far as upgrades are concerned, on your testing Hotaru installation:

Go through with the upgrade.
Correct anything that is being thrown off by the upgrade.
Make sure that everything works as expected.
Upload to the live site.

This requires that your testing Hotaru installation resembles the live site's environment as close as possible.

I started PHP on 2004-5... so I don't want to throw off your morale.
What I got out of it material-wise is nowhere near the time invested.
It is being done for pure mentality reasons.
I can't give time or cost estimates on my hobby matters cause I have never thought about them in this perspective.
Even if you ask Rasmus Lerdorf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmus_Lerdorf) (creator of PHP) he will tell you that no time is enough and programming is the worst puzzle you can start wanting to solve. Kill the bugs as they come, set the direction as early as possible.

[richrf]

Thanks for the hints.

The issue I am facing now is that I am more or less working full out getting good content on links.com and trying to publicize it to get more visitors. On top of this I have to get the Bad Behavior plugin working some how as well as keeping track of all the mods I am making to the base code and theme as well as working around some of the limitations and bugs in Hotaru (particularly in the widget plugin).

On top of this I have to figure out a change control mechanism so that at some point I can move to a new version of Hotaru (I cannot chance it now). And ... I have to either find a competent local developer who can help me make mods to the base when necessary or to learn PHP, CSS, HTMP< WAMP, a developer editing tool - and whatever I will need to learn.

This is more than a day and a half work of work each day so I will have to figure out what I am going to have to do to manage the load of responsibilities that I have taken on since building the site is my primary occupation right now and hopefully a source of revenue in time.

Thanks again for your assistance and recommendations.

Rich

[Nick]

working around some of the limitations and bugs in Hotaru (particularly in the widget plugin).

There's a big difference between a bug in a plugin and a bug in Hotaru itself. A vanilla Hotaru installation doesn't have any plugins, and it's unfair to imply that Hotaru is buggy because of flaws in some plugins.

Hotaru is a plugin-based CMS because the intention was for users to develop their own plugins. The ones that are currently available are shared by people who have done just that. There is no obligation to use any of them.

As for the edit you want to make in bookmarking_post.php, that's just a template edit in your own theme. You don't need to hack Hotaru or any plugins to do it, and that applies to pretty much everything in Hotaru. There really shouldn't be a need to track your modifications because all changes should take place within your own custom theme (or optionally your own custom plugins).

[richrf]

Hi Nick,

At this point, I am primarily focused on what skills and what developers I need to get a system that will scale and have the functionality that I will need in order to build a business on my site. The requirements are much more than I expected initially since I am coming from a Wordpress background where most of the basic functions are built into the base product: e.g. user management, posting, security, plugin management, widget management, ping management, categories, Feedburner management, etc. Since Hotaru has a different design, I have to re-orient myself into a developer mode as opposed to a site promoter and see what it will take me to get to where I have to be from where I am.

Thanks for you help and suggestions,
Rich

[shibuya246]

Hi Nick,

At this point, I am primarily focused on what skills and what developers I need to get a system that will scale and have the functionality that I will need in order to build a business on my site. The requirements are much more than I expected initially since I am coming from a Wordpress background where most of the basic functions are built into the base product: e.g. user management, posting, security, plugin management, widget management, ping management, categories, Feedburner management, etc. Since Hotaru has a different design, I have to re-orient myself into a developer mode as opposed to a site promoter and see what it will take me to get to where I have to be from where I am.

Thanks for you help and suggestions,
Rich

As an admin of a hotaru site, you should be able to run a successful site using various plugins and themes, without editing much at all. Most edits I have seen by people are to the HTML of the themes, not to the code.

If you want to write or modify your own plugins that of course can be done, but it is not necessary.

Changes to the core of Hotaru itself should not be necessary at all, although anyone is welcome to join the core development team and help.

Good luck with everything. I would suggest spending time/money on getting a professional theme and then promote, promote, promote

Alan

[richrf]

As an admin of a hotaru site, you should be able to run a successful site using various plugins and themes, without editing much at all. Most edits I have seen by people are to the HTML of the themes, not to the code.

If you want to write or modify your own plugins that of course can be done, but it is not necessary.

Changes to the core of Hotaru itself should not be necessary at all, although anyone is welcome to join the core development team and help.

Good luck with everything. I would suggest spending time/money on getting a professional theme and then promote, promote, promote

Alan

Hi Alan,

My experiences have been slightly different than what you describe. For a variety of reasons I have had to become much more technical with Hotaru than I had to with Wordpress. While I hope to minimize any technical training that I might require, it remains to be seen whether this is possible. In several answers to my posts it has been suggested that I ramp up my technical knowledge so I have.

Thanks for your response,

Rich