WordOwl

Well, it seems that the crisis of faith hasn’t exactly gone, which is why it’s only now, the early hours of Monday that I pick up the strips from Friday onwards. *rasserfrassermumblemumble*

Anyway. I’ve been trying to distract myself over the last 2-3 days to see if that helped. I spent several hours animating a lemming based on a random forum thread. (Specifically it’s one about having two chambers, one with you in and one with a cake in, joined by a thin shaft, with deadly spikes in it. I recoloured the base image to be more in keeping with Lemmings then animated a basher bashing through the wall. See it here.)

I’ve also been playing with another project, but I won’t make that public until I have it more completed. Interesting though, since it’s taught me about the perils of binary across XMLHttpRequest and got me into using jQuery for an interface. And it’s huge. But you’ll see what I mean when it’s done.

So what’s the deal? Well, the last couple of weeks (months, maybe) I’ve just been feeling pretty meh about WordOwl and everything around it, and the last week of virtual abstinence from the project has just reinforced why I need to finish building Thundervolt. I did get the comic area XSS-proofed but haven’t yet sorted the users area.

Then it occurred to me that I really need to have it all done by mid-February,  so I figured the user area can go whistle for a while; I’ll add user permissions manually for the time being. So tomorrow’s plan is to implement one of the new key areas, the data parser. I will try and write it to interface with the strip renderer as far as possible but that will too need a rewrite.

Anyway, it’s 3.41am, I still need to do the washing up, so it’s goodnight from me.

Since my crisis of faith, I’ve seen the light and have been working on Thundervolt with semi-reckless abandon. So much so that I still haven’t done yesterday’s or today’s strips, which is very remiss of me. I will catch up tomorrow morning with tomorrow’s strips (it’s easier to do it all in bulk, after all)

For those wondering why the strip count has dropped by almost 1,000 strips, it’s because of the change-overs happening at inktank.com at the moment, where the site is being retrofitted and as such all the strips transcriptions are pulled until the strips themselves are back up and I have sorted out all the URLs.

Thundervolt - the admin system - is moving quite nicely. The login and underlying permissions system is in place, and the ability to edit core comic data (as you see on the Copyright page) is working nicely. There’s still an awful lot to do but it’s getting together quicker now I’ve solved the hurdle around handling UTF-8 in CodeIgniter (or more accurately, it’s not CI’s fault, it’s how everything else interacted that meant data was being received as ISO-8859-1 instead of UTF-8 which broke accented letters spectacularly.)

I still need to XSS-protect the comic data form, though, as it could still be a route for XSS hacks at the moment.

Tomorrow’s jobs, after doing the strip back archive, are to XSS-protect the data form, and to implement the user editing system, so I can edit users in the system, add/remove permissions, that kind of thing. It won’t be a free-for-all. I’m not accepting random sign-ups. Maybe one day I’ll do that, but for now, the intention is invitation only.

I have a difficult choice ahead. I think we all know (by that I mean the 4 people who actually read this blog) which I’ll take, but I want to make it clear that it is weighing on my mind that heavily.

Option 1. I write Thundervolt (the proposed admin system for WordOwl). Comics then can be added to by their authors or their representatives, and can be updated without my intervention (after a fashion, but that’s another story)

Option 2. I stop WordOwl development entirely once the archives of all strips are up and hand all the data over to Oh No Robot. I will, however, wait until all the data for each comic is up before handing it over to Oh No Robot, and would complete the already agreed comics first.

I’m not going to dwell on the consequences of either of these. Simply instead I’ll post it here and see what happens next.

By the way, I’m not expecting or looking for a pity party, or indeed either an overwhelming vote either way, right now I’m just punting the forks in the road. When I choose one I’ll let you know.

Argh, it’s the early hours of Wednesday morning and the column was meant to be updated on Monday. Weird thing is I already have a draft of about 70% of it. Oh well, I’ll finish it later today (Wednesday) and post it, back-dating it to Monday and I’ll let it run for 2 weeks.

Meantime, things have seemed a little slow because I’ve been concentrating most of the last 2 days or so on the admin system design work. Now, seems a little excessive perhaps, but it’s not.

Let me explain a little more of what’s involved in the admin system and why I’m spending the time on getting the structure right in my head before I even touch a line of code.

The admin system is designed with the express purpose of being able to update and add strips via a web interface. That means, first up, moving the code that I already relocated back to my PC… back to the server.

That also means resetting up a database for WordOwl to use, but this time instead of just having raw data to contend with, it also has to manage user logins, permissions, archival of strip data, and somehow integrate that into Sphinx, as well as cache data to avoid the issues I originally had.

If that wasn’t enough, the other problem is the transcribing interface; since mid February last year, I’ve been using a customised OpenOffice spreadsheet to build XML. It’s functional, it works reasonably well. But now I’m using a web interface, the choice of OOo is no longer a valid one.

So after a long conversation with Sophie, a strong comic transcription format has been established. No, it isn’t Oh No Robot’s format, it’s one that much better suits what WordOwl needs. There’s also a simpler version going to be available too, which is pretty neat.

It’s late, and I’m not sure I’m making one of the biggest points; it’s not an update I’m doing, it’s not a new set of features surgically implemented on top of the existing code. It’s likely to end up being a serious rewrite. As it stands, the entire back-end will be rewritten and integrated into Sphinx that much better, while the front-end will need serious patches to suit the new format.

I am also ditching some things that just aren’t needed.

To go out:

• A distinction between ‘inset’ and ‘caption’ text; the distinction is so subtle it’s not worth worrying out, so it’s going.
• A separate ‘keywords’ option on the search panel.
• The AJAX-like dynamic loader interface to the search page. Not only is it causing code duplication, the fact that it effectively breaks the ‘back button’ and that there isn’t a suitably clean solution to it means it can go. It’ll actually save some bandwidth overall too, but that’s a side issue.

To go in:

• The ability to create, edit and delete strips as listed in the database and have those changes applied very, very quickly.
• The ability for comic authors to designate transcribers for a comic and for them to edit the transcription before going live; any changes must be approved by an appropriate user and a non-admin user will not be able to approve their own changes.
• Ability to search by author as well [NB despite the number of hours on the design documents I currently have, I have not yet specified the details on how this will actually work, nor how it will look in the interface, however it is the intention for it to function as any other search option]

The thing about the admin system is not only the complexity of it, but for the first time I’m actually going to be using a proper MVC framework - CodeIgniter. Note that this won’t be rolled out to the entire site, simply the admin area; the rest of the site can rely on my more custom codebase since speed is more important there than it is on the admin area, as it is being used by many more people.

Having read the manual for CodeIgniter, it should reduce a lot of the grunt work in building what is essentially a straightforward web app. Ultimately we’re talking displaying the contents of DB tables on a form and editing them. Nothing weird there, actually, the only real weirdness is in the logic area in maintaining the state tables, since I’m having multiple tables that cache data in different ways.

I do also need to sit down and design the interface for the admin section; I’m still not even remotely sure how that’s going to look yet, though I am thinking perhaps some kind of dashboard.

Although the AJAX-interface is gone from the search page, the admin area is very likely to use more of it for the interface; it is much more suited to needing it, really.

I have to be honest, I’ve had so many thoughts about how to make this part operate it’s unreal. Being honest? I even thought about buying my own (cheap) SSL certificate for the admin area. Don’t really know why, just seemed like a good idea, though I haven’t done so because as much of a good idea it may be it’s just not practical.

I also promised in my last update a little news on Angst Tech. Well, due to hosting issues, Barry of InkTank is currently migrating all of the InkTank comics over to a new host, with a new codebase. As a result, every URL will move and need to be rewritten, so what will happen once the move is announced is that I will remove every InkTank strip from WordOwl, until I can reintroduce them unilaterally (i.e. I’ll strip out all of InkTank, Sorry We’re Open, Weak-End Warriors and Angst Tech and as I fix the URLs, I’ll re-add them)

Anyway, it’s nearly 3am and I need to go to bed.

As I write this, I have some plans for 2009. As per my plans for the end of 2008, some, all or none may come to fruition.

However, these are the plans I have for 2009. Let’s see what happens.

Review of 2008 webcomics

This one’s an easy one. Next Monday’s “Comic of the Week” article will actually look at 2008 in general for webcomics, highs and lows of the webcomic industry as I’ve seen it, so it won’t follow the usual structure of a CotW article, but hopefully it’ll be worth the read anyway.

Finish the comics I already have

I have about 650 Melonpool still to do, plus about 600 Angst Tech (it’s on hold for the moment, however for reasons that will become clear). On top of that I also have about 230 or so Cool Cat Studio strips, plus another 4,300 that have been agreed.

I’ll announce them properly once I start work on them officially, but I’m fed up of keeping it a vague surprise. (Some people know it already so, meh.)

As well as finishing Melonpool, Angst Tech, and Cool Cat Studio, it has also been agreed that Penny & Aggie and Superosity can join WordOwl. More news as it happens.

Administration system

One of the goals for 2009 is to implement an administrative system and allows me to add strips from wherever I am, rather than just when I’m at my computer. The eventual plan is also to expand it out to other authorised users to input strips (subject to approval from other authorised users, although I expect initially at least I’ll still review every added strip). The logistics of doing this are complex enough, without worrying about the user interface/management stuff. But that’s one of the plans for 2009.

WordOwl Wiki

This is already off to a start; I started playing with this back in August, but stopped while I concentrated on other things. The Wiki is, however, back on the drawing board and has allowed me to get my thang back with coding. (The holiday season always kinda wipes me out, which is why I’m so far behind with everything. I just don’t get on with it.)

So I’ve been writing up templates and parser extension functions and basically having a super-happy-fun-time with MediaWiki’s theming and template system. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing system, but I get frustrated with some of the things it does sometimes.

One preview of what it looks like has already been released into the forum for the comic that it currently supports, and no doubt more information will follow in due course.

Anyway. That’s all I have for now. I haven’t forgotten where this is all going, but maybe I can start getting back on track properly.

I said to myself - I promised myself I wouldn’t add any other comics until both Melonpool and Angst Tech were done.

Unfortunately due to needing a break from the in-transcription storylines in both strips, I needed a break, so I’ve actually added the first batch of the next comic to be joining WordOwl. I’ll make a proper announcement in a bit though.

Part of me feels glad since it was getting to the point where I was feeling like busting a gut over these two strips, and now I’ve relaxed the rule (twice!) I feel happier about doing a little more.

I’m just annoyed at myself for not having sufficient discipline to do it properly, that’s all.

First up, I’d like to wish any readers here (and this includes those who follow this on LiveJournal feed from here) a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I have a ton of things going on that will filter into 2009 so watch this space for comic goodness.

I’m going to keep this quick since I’m trying to finish up on Melonpool at least before the end of the year (next week!) and still have over 700 to do.

I got a parcel this morning. I was expecting it, but it didn’t change the fact that it was appreciated. I briefly mentioned in the Melonpool review for Comic of the Week that a new book was due out, but that at the time it was a surprise. Well, I’m extremely pleased that my copy turned up in today’s post! What I didn’t explain in the article was that Melonpool had a history even before being a webcomic; four comic books - The Melonpool Chronicles - were created way back in 1996 before it became a webcomic. Steve has arranged with ComixPress to issue the books in a single bound volume entitled “The Melonpool Chronicles Revisited”, and I gots me one!

I must be careful with it though, since it is very cool since Steve has done the 10 recipients of the pre-release edition (it’s out on general release in January) proud; not only are they numbered and signed, but there’s a sketch on the inside cover too, and there were some 1995-edition bookmarks in with it too! To me this is a real piece of comic history and is one of the corner-stones of my comic collection - Melonpool was the first webcomic I ever read and this is a look back at the prequel, if you will. Except unlike Star Wars Episode I, this is a real prequel worth reading.

So, yeah, I’m a happy chappy today and to have it here in time for Christmas is just the icing on the cake really. And I know the title for the sixth book, which also makes me happy, since it’s something I’ve been wondering for the last three years.

Now if I can only get up to my former rate of 100/day getting this done shouldn’t be a problem. But I think I’ve said that before. Perhaps I should take a leaf out of Mayberry and Ralphie’s book…

“To the time machine!”

There’s been a few things going on over the last few days that have been interesting.

As I think I might have mentioned (or maybe not, I’m not sure without checking) I’ve been off doing other things over the last few days and I’ve actually had a few days where the comics were late going up. Yesterday was actually the worst day I think I’ve had in that respect but I got the issues around it sorted out, so I’m back on the top of my game.

In fact, this morning I was so on the ball I would have been the first one over on the xkcd forum to post a thread about today’s comic, had I had anything witty enough to say about it.

Today saw a flurry of changes for Flat Feet & High Heels, where John has moved the bonus strips around (they’re set in April 2008, and now are dated April 2008 in the archives), so I moved them in WordOwl too, plus added on the story lines that are now there.

I also did another batch of Melonpool; just hit strip 1300. I had to stop though; this block of strips is one I really need to read through in the book again (it’s part of Melonpool IV: Castaway) before I can really tackle the transcriptions, as we’re going through a time travel saga again. (We’ve already been to 2182 twice before in the archive, but due to events in 2002 (in book 4), an alternate 2182 gets created. Then, to add to it, events from 2000 lurch to this alternate 2182, back to 2000 causing a new 2000 timeline to occur. So I need to work out which strips feature: Roberta, Roberta II, Roberta III or Roberta IV, plus Old Ralphie or Old Ralphie II, plus an alternate J-LB8 in droid form.)

Like I say, I need to read the book. I may even end up making notes on who’s who (which I also did during the ‘It’s Walky’ crossover)

I’ve also kicked off with 20 transcriptions for the next comic to join WordOwl. I won’t reveal it here, but the fans of the three comics joining as we move into 2009 might already know (I vaguely remember posting about it in their forums in a moment of madness). I just needed a break from getting my head round Melonpool, so I did that instead.

But for now it’s time for bed. My sleep cycle is way messed up at the moment. This is actually the earliest I’ve gone to bed for several days… hopefully I’ll get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow and dig into more.

Next milestone, wahey!

It’s weird, I didn’t intentionally stop at 8,000, that’s just where I got to with Melonpool, but now it’s 4.38am and I really have to go do some other stuff before bed.

With a little luck I should get some more Melonpool done tomorrow pushing the count over the 1300 mark.

Gah, I say, and Gah again.

Today has been a weird day. Net result is that it’s only just today that I’m doing today’s strips and still no Comic of the Week column this week. I really think as it’s almost Thursday morning that this week I should leave it and do one next week. (Note to self: start writing these ahead of the game.)

In personal news, today was punctuated with buying a Christmas tree. It’s 7ft tall, has nothing on top since it’s only an inch from my ceiling (but that’s what we wanted) and is black. Nothing like being conventional here.

In other other news, another comic is joining WordOwl - I have 4 comics sat in the queue now behind Melonpool and Angst Tech, but this fourth comic is kinda special.

Since it only has 21 strips total so far, I’m going to bend the rules and insert it today if possible. For 21 strips, I might as well let it go since it’s not a huge deal really. But I still want to finish the other two before I start the bigger comics in the queue, that’s the only way it’s fair.

That said, I am now beginning to have doubts about the New Year deadline. The last few days have been hectic with real life stuff, which has made it awkward to get on with anything substantial, and I’ve been doing some projects that are reasonably urgent which have taken up the rest of my time.

If I have a reasonably uninterrupted schedule between now and New Year and can pull off close to 100/day without too much hassle I should make it with room to spare. But this is my life and I should know by now that plans never work out as planned. (I used to work with the IT team closely at my old job. I know that’s the case that deadlines invariably miss. Or as Douglas Adams once said, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they fly by.”)

But this comic can be sneaked in before I start on the juggernaut behemoths to follow. And already 2009 is shaping up to be a great year for WordOwl; I already know I’m looking at 20 comics to be made available, and with plans to do way more cool stuff.