So its been a few months since anything has changed with this project. This includes not only a lack of weekly status updates or code commits, the IRC channel is currently in a state of disarray, and the project is somewhat at a standstill. I am hoping to change this in the very near future. This lack of forward progress is due to some career related changes that have consumed the majority of my time over the past several months. As I am currently the only code contributor to this project, the project’s success relies heavily on my schedule and commitment. I want to ensure all of the loyal fans and those observing this project from afar that this project is still alive and will reach a release. This timing has been shifted due to the delays and an official ETA will not be announced until sometime when I feel the code is ready for the next phases (BETA, RC, GA). If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email. Oh yea, I’ve been slacking in that department as well due to workstation issues which are now resolved.

Improvements have been made to the Launchpad project page to include a Link to the Wiki. Current work has focused primarily on fixing bugs. An update to the "Sequel" gem library introduces a new feature plugin called "SkipCreateRefresh". This plugin fixes the bug with database initialization on an empty H2 database where the program terminates abnormally when creating the Model tables.  This fix also revealed a bug in the Sessions creation during the very first user login and is being tracked in LP BUG# 581982. An improvement to the session creation has been made to correct this; however, it seems the global session variable is not properly handled. This bug should be fixed soon. 

The menus are continuing to be developed and features added. MVC style has been introduced to simplify the development of these areas. 

Some new enhancements have been added to the website:

• Built-in translations provided by Google – This is done in Ajax without a page refresh or having to load an external website. Simply click on the [Translate] link and select your preferred language.
• Launchpad Bug Tracker Feed – RSS feed from the Launchpad Bug Tracker is now shown in the sidebar
• WIKI Docs – Wiki style documentation is now available courtesy of Project Kenai. 

A new version of the RDOC for the Telegard  API have been uploaded to the webserver. This includes all of the current files, modules, classes, and methods as of BZR revision 47 to TRUNK.

Here are some screenshots demonstrating some of the newer features. In particular, the session creation/expiration, callhistory features, and login rejection based on time expired.

Session Timer Calculations

Entering /? displays a list of shortcuts

Displays what happens if Time Exceeded

Call Log History

Latest list of template files`

Some recent code changes have taken place in preparation for the next major coding marathon. During the last few weeks since the last post, I have gone back to the whiteboard to determine how to proceed with the next phase of development. Several challenges were realized and eventually overcome through thoughtful design considerations, and hand-off of particular requirements to the underlying operating system. Also in the past few weeks, a new major release of JRuby 1.5.0 went from 3 RC's to final release. In addition, H2 has also released several updates to the database engine. In an effort to keep things current, I have been continually keeping the Libraries and Components up to the latest versions.  So what are these so called recent changes?

• H2 Database Server has been decoupled from the codebase. This allows more than one instance of TG to be executed without requiring the BBS to run as a Daemon. H2 now runs as a TCP Server and is started from a Bash Script
• JLine Library has been updated to a newer release
• A new Controllers superclass has been created as the base for each section. 
• Session tracking is now handled via a Global Variable. As only one instance of TG is spawned as a unix shell in its own memory space,  the global variable will suffice for tracking the session throughout the life of the process.

The next section of development will focus on Call History,  Session Timer & Expiration, and Timebank Features & FIles Areas

In other news, NetBSD is being evaluated as a possible target operating system for the Virtual Appliance deployment. It is still early in the development cycle to fully plan for a final release to Virtual Appliance, however, at some point, it may be important to standardize on one or two recommended platforms for testing.

Here are some recent screenshots of the current work in progress.

New User Signup

Entering NEW at the login prompt to enter signup

Agreement to instructions & AUP

Completion of signup fields

Confirmation of User Signup Data

List of Templates

The following screenshot shows a directory listing of Templates available for user customization. As shown, everything output to the screen is a template file. This will allow for maximum customization and theming.

Current List of Display Templates

Sample Configuration File

The sample configuration file shows the current available settings. Note the ability to enable/disable signup questions including addition of some custom questions.

Current sample configuration file

Another week has passed. Whats been happening in source code?

Some key changes this week

• Module breakouts: Tgio::Input, Tgio::Dates, Tglogin::Signup – Introduces cleaner code by moving functions/methods into their own sub-module.
• Various Fixes. Removed requirement for Term/Ansicolor ruby gem. This has been replaced by Tgconstants.
• NEW User signup routine. Initial work to get a valid questionnaire up and running. Remaining items are to improve validation of elements. This will go into a new module called Tgio::Validate
• Various template improvements. Primarily in the New user signup areas. See tpls/signup_confirmdata.ftl for example.
• New Template function to simplify display without requiring creation of an instance. See Tgtemplate::display()

Whats next?

Continuation of the Signup and validation routines is important to be completed before moving onto the next section. The next week should see improvements in the data input routines. A Menu Prompt/handler will be created as well.

The IRC chat room has been relocated to irc.bbs-scene.org on  #telegard

Website Changes

• The website theme has been modified, with the addition of a new logo for the project.
• A new sidebar has also been added with developer links to useful resources.

Source Code Availability (Launchpad.net)

The source code for the project is now being published to Launchpad.net for public checkout. The private master branch is still the official branch, however, to make the code more accessible, it will be synced to Launchpad during commit. Once the code reaches a first release, all coding will most likely migrate to launchpad.

Status Report

As of the timestamp of this article, revision 19 has been committed to the BZR repository. This revision includes some major milestones for the new codebase:

• H2 Database Engine upraded to latest release 20100410
• Updates to Users Database model to be more transparent across DBMS abstraction via Sequel
• Updates to Users Database model to include shortcuts for data retrieval and user verification
• Creation of Tglogin:: module with supporting methods for performing a user login.
• Template creation for all aspects of login routines. This demonstrates the power and themeability of Telegard/2 over the original codebase.
• Updates to ANSI color constants to include aliases to bright and dark to their equivalent values in the namespace.
• Updates to Users Database model schema to be more specific about length of varchars. This will improve performance for systems with larger datasets.

Screenshots (demonstration of Tglogin::auth)

The following screenshots demonstrate a login session. To understand the technical details of these screenshots, and to appreciate the logic involved, note that there are a total of 7 templates rendered, checks for if the user is “Locked Out”, “Number of Failures”, current session “login failure limit”, given password matches encrypted password in the database, and offers password hints to the user on the very last attempt before the account is set to lockout.

Demo: Local Login Routine from CLI command

Demo: Login. - Account Lockout

What’s Next

Next up, is moving toward the post-login items such as the Main Menu.  This gets the new codebase back on track from where the original code ended, with the exception of the administration tools. There has been some discussion in the IRC chat about the admin tools. This is still under discussion. I believe making an ANSI version using Templates will work, however, a full-blown browser based or Java Webstart based GUI may make it into the project before release.