pyrogyra developer blog

Its been a while since I've worked on Pyrogyra (work got in the way, and the holidays, and I went on a medical science research binge, and then I finished off the 1st draft of my screenplay - all of which you can read about here if you want). Oh, and I put together a quick website for my friends over at Pontevecchio Italian Bistro in Seattle, which you can find at www.pontevecchioitalianbistro.com, or alternatively at www.aplaceforlovers.com.

*phew*

So how far have I gotten?

Well, here's the database design so far:

I'm using MicroOlap Database Designer for MySql which is frankly quite awesome, and a steal at the price. (It even has a 31 day full-feature evaluation period). If you're doing MySql database design, I can highly recommend it - it'll make doing this kind of thing much easier than hacking it together by hand.

I've still got to figure out my foreign key relationships a little better, and I need to figure out triggers at some point soon, but other than that, it's starting to shape up nicely.

Turquoise is reviews, gold is user account info, red is friendship status, light blue (hard to tell) is the inbox implementation, and the rest is... well... classified right now :)

Most of the tables are done... I still need to add 4 or 5, and then I'll be ready to start pushing data into it, and starting to make the ASP side live.

Left to do: Tables for thumbnail management, Foreign Key constraints, and a bit of decision making on how many more features I want ready to roll when the site goes live.

Labels: site implementation

The site design is now mostly fleshed out. I've got an ASP.NET menu up and running, with a master page and skin.

I wrote my own wrapper for Google AdSense (so you can just drop the controls on a page) (I might make that publicly available as a free download at some point - the main reason for doing it was to refresh my memory of how ASP.NET controls are written).

User authentication is currently implemented using the standard ASP.NET membership framework, talking to a SQL Server database (although I may spend a little time and write a custom provider so that it works with MySql). The login page and "unauthenticated user" handling is all up and working on my home test bed.

So what am I waiting for?

Right now I'm writing the MySql schema for the site. Which means relearning a lot of SQL. But I'm rapidly getting there :)

End of update... we should be doing a public beta at some point in the future

Labels: site design, site implementation

... well, most of it anyway.

I went for a clean look in with blues for the majority of the negative space, dark red for section headers, and white for content zones (as well as a lighter blue for the sidebar, once I figure out what I'm going to do with that).

It's coming along nicely... of course, the scary part's coming up now - user authentication! Dan dan darrrrrn...

Time to build me a MySql database and get cracking on the ASP.Net.

Labels: site design

Hello and welcome to the pyrogyra developer blog. I'm Simon Cooke, and I'll be your pilot for this evening. Please put your tray tables in their upright and locked positions, and prepare for takeoff.

Let's get a few obvious questions out of the way.

What is pyrogyra?

No one can be told what pyrogyra is... you need to experience it for yourself.

No, I mean, seriously!

Well... damnit... okay then. pyrogyra is a web 2.0-ified social media networking site. Does that help any?

Not really.

See, here's the problem. We can't really tell you what it's for yet. I promise that unlike most other social networking sites like facebook, myspace, et al, this one actually has a useful purpose other than sending your friends cute pictures of someone else's cat with a caption on it.

So why blog about it?

To be completely honest? To build a bit of enigma about it, and keep a record for posterity. We'll announce what it's for when we're ready to get things going and the site actually has more than just a logo and a front page. In other words, when we go beta.

You're doing that beta thing? It's so... so... well, so GMail.

Yah, I knows that. But seriously, it's going to need some testing as it goes up, so I'm going to keep it to a select group of friends at first and then expand it in stages. For now though, it's just the folks who can put up with me erasing all their data when I screw up.

So what have you done so far?

The history of pyrogyra so far:

• Came up with the idea (today)
• Bought the website to claim a name and a space, designed a quick logo, and put it up to claim the space, after going through at least 100 name combinations and then settling on one I like that resonates with cool concepts, like burning wildfire.
• Started writing up my concept doc and listing all the features I want to put in.
• Installed MySql on my laptop, added ASP.NET 2.0 to the site, and created a MySql database on my host for the.. erm... data.
• Sat down with a large cup of coffee, tried to get remote access to MySql (alas, GoDaddy doesn't allow this), decided to plan it all out in Access first (so I can rapidly iterate on the back-end database design), and built about 30 different tables that will be needed for different site features from the get go.
• Oh, and posted on the blog.

So yeah, it's early days yet. This site may actually become a huge testament to my ability to start all kinds of projects and never finish them. But you never know, it may become something quite quite cool. And useful. Don't forget the useful part.

And no, this isn't a jump on the social media site bandwagon. If I can find 1000 people who find it really useful, and can cover the bandwidth/hosting costs, then it may just stay up forever. And you know what? I'd be happy with that. I mean, after all, this is going to be a social site that actually has a core use for me, and solves one of my annoying niggles.

But what if it gets bigger?

That would be really cool. Let's not worry about that right now. One step at a time.