Major update for JowettTalk

[Forumadmin]

In preparation for a major update to JowettTalk I have disabled your ability to add items or comment on anything in the Gallery. I have not disabled your ability to add items or comments into your own personal albums but anything you do from now on will be lost. This is because a copy of the JowettGallery has been taken and is being used to merge it with a new version of the JowettTalk software.
A copy of JowettTalk was also taken and this has been successfully updated to the new version, except you would now have to log on to both JowettTalk and JowettGallery, as you had to do prior to 3 years ago. My plan, however, is to remove the old Gallery2 software which was used for JowettGallery and migrate its contents into the new JowettTalk. I have tested a proof of concept but the process really needs to be automated to save me spending weeks doing it manually.
Once that is done the old links into the gallery from JT need to be changed to point to the new location of the JG items. This is not a simple task as various ways were used to do this in the previous 12 years.
Once this has been tested a fresh copy of the Forum will be taken, processed and then reloaded back to the server. How long Jowett Talk will be frozen is not easy to guess at this stage. I could keep it in a read only state for a few hours or simply switch it off.
The new JT has excellent attachment loading facilities allowing you to drag and drop into the posting window. So when I make it live your ability to contribute images and documents will be made a lot easier. Most of the content from the old JowettGallery will also be integrated so that you can add text and comment alongside pictures just like you do in the forum with no complexity of sign-on.
The ability to check on club membership has still to be implemented and may be a background process rather than at log-on as it is now.
The aim is to get some base software that will continue for another 10 years without major maintenance.

[ian Howell]

Good Luck! It all seems so simple - detailed yes, time consuming, yes, frustrating - maybe.

But SIMPLE - I don't think so!

[AmilcarJohn]

Good luck Keith -we appreciate the time you put into this!

John

[p.p.]

THANK'S KEITH !!!!

[Keith Clements]

We have had a few new members joining recently and I noticed an issue in the personal albums which I fixed by deleting some entries in a couple of tables in the Gallery database. Not something I like doing as it is very dangerous. Anyhow if you notice any issues please contact me.
This is one reason why I am trying to update the software as the old Gallery2 software cannot take advantage of the new platform software. I think problems are caused by long running processes that the shared server terminates abruptly causing database corruption.
I reiterate that as I have taken a copy last week of the Gallery on which to perform the transformation, if you do add stuff into your Personal Albums it may be lost. It really depends if I can find and recover any subsequent changes you make .
The upgrade is on hold as I am currently updating the membership secretary's replacement laptop.

The flurry of new members has also meant I had to manually update the database of club members so that these new members can view all the resources they are entitled to on the website.

Our new member in Belgium has addedTOPIC loads of pictures into his Personal Album.

and TOPIC our one in Brazil ...So I guess I will make the effort to recover them.

[ajackson]

Just giving feedback Keith,
I cannot see the photos in those albums, I'm at a loss to know why.

Thank you for your efforts in the direction of updates. All greatly appreciated.

Andy

[p.p.]

Just giving feedback Keith,
I cannot see the photos in those albums, I'm at a loss to know why.

Thank you for your efforts in the direction of updates. All greatly appreciated.

Andy

me too..... always a ? mark ...
maybe it's me....
peter

[Keith Clements]

Andy and Peter,
The most likely explanation is that your Gallery Session has timed out. Normally this can be restored by clicking on an item in the Gallery and then clicking the JowettGallery link. If this fails, logout and login again.
Can you see images in other albums such as gallery2.php?g2_itemId=11993 and gallery2.php?g2_itemId=34175 ?
The first is public, the second for club members.
These can be seen by registered users
gallery2.php?g2_itemId=38423 your album
and
gallery2.php?g2_itemId=45

There is an issue with the gallery at the moment which I am trying to sort, but please report back

[p.p.]

Andy and Peter,
The most likely explanation is that your Gallery Session has timed out. Normally this can be restored by clicking on an item in the Gallery and then clicking the JowettGallery link. If this fails, logout and login again.
Can you see images in other albums such as gallery2.php?g2_itemId=11993 and gallery2.php?g2_itemId=34175 ?
The first is public, the second for club members.
These can be seen by registered users
gallery2.php?g2_itemId=38423 your album
and
gallery2.php?g2_itemId=45

There is an issue with the gallery at the moment which I am trying to sort, but please report back

now it works.... login again made the trick...
thanks
peter

[ajackson]

Hi Keith

I can see the first public one you state but not the one
gallery2.php?g2_itemId=34175

Nor the two original albums...nor my own

I am newly logged in.

Regards
Andy

[Alf Heseltine]

When you log in, the ‘workaround ‘ should be used because of the gremlins Keith is trying to get rid of.
Log in but do not attempt to move from the page. The “Log in to on Line Services” page will appear, scroll down
to near the bottom and click on ‘Your Personal Gallery Album’, this is highlighted. You should get a clean access
to Gallery with no errors. Go back to Jowett Talk via Board Index & all the links should work.

Alf

[Keith Clements]

Those new to the Single Sign On System can find it confusing.
There are various ways you can get to the JowettTalk page where you enter your username and password, either from jowett.net or jowett.org home pages or via a JowettTalk or JowettGallery pages.
After you enter your credentials you should get what is called a splash page saying you have successfully signed in, that within 5 seconds brings up the Single Sign On system login page which checks your club membership. As Alf says you can from this page go to JowettTalk, JowettGallery or the Membership services, although the latter you now need to verify your email address before accessing.
What also happens is that this page also tries to open another tab in your browser which will only appear if you explicitly allow the browser to do this. This tab will display your personal album in the JowettGallery from which you can click 'Board Index' to get to JowettTalk forum.
A word of warning! If you click on the splash page to go directly to the forum you will not have a valid JowettGallery Session set up.
Also if you leave your JowettTalk session open, say overnight, the JowettGallery session may timeout and you will need to restart it. This is best done by logging out and logging in again but sometimes jumping around in the JowettGallery clicking on a thumbnail and then going back to the JowettGallery home page restarts the session.
Both JowettTalk and JowettGallery have extensive security measures programmed into them which means they sometimes detect, perhaps falsely, that someone is trying to hack them. If this happens, logout and login should clear the problem but occasionally the browser cache has to be cleared.

I was diverted for a couple of days fixing a problem with the automatic back-up, which I discovered quite often failed to save the Gallery database fully. Yet another problem with the shared server system breaking processes. I have now coded in error checking and split the save up so that it has more chance of completing.

The direct database changes I made did have a detrimental effect. Although it fixed the problems with Personal Album pages not doing previous and next properly, the explorer view is now not constructed properly so I am having to revert back to a back-up.

[ajackson]

Dear Keith,

Can report that the fix of Alf above fixes the problem.
I can now see the gallery.

Many thanks
Andy

[Forumadmin]

Over the past month I have been writing the routine that converts the 589 user pictures uploaded between 2006 and 2010 using the USERPIX facility into the attachment database that was added in 2010. All the posts that referenced such pictures now reference them in the attachment filesystem. The advantage is that these pictures can now also be referenced in other posts and can be managed using the standard unmodified software.

The conversion has so far only been done on the development server, so you cannot see the results yet.

The next task is to move the Gallery into the attachment database and construct the filing system. This file system will have the top level albums of the Gallery become Forums with the sub-albums being Topics. Each item in the Gallery will either be a single post in the Topic or a number of items or images will be contained within one post. Posts can be edited much more easily so that comments can be added to the images.
Once that is done all the posts that reference the Gallery will be updated so that they reference the new location.
Then the system will be moved to the test server and once tested I can freeze and convert the live system ready for upgrading to the new version of phpbb that runs the forum.

Then this will be moved back to the live system ready for you all to enjoy the more modern Forum software.


As yet I do not know how much manual work will be involved. There is a balance between reorganising what has now become a convoluted system and getting the job done. However, once converted it should be easier to do the reorganisation and simplification using the Forum administration tools that allow the movement, splitting and merging of posts.

[Forumadmin]

Since the last post tens of hours have been spent writing the code to move the Gallery.
This second part of the update process searches through 15600 albums and items . Identifies items that can be uploaded as an attachment by looking at mime type. Some will need manual processing or other means of storage.
The code then processes the tree to define albums that have albums . These become forums and albums that only have items become topics.
Albums that have no items or albums will not be transferred.
Then the titles, summaries, descriptions and keywords are parsed and some strings converted to fit into the forum description.
The forum tree of 103 forums is then constructed in JowettTalk and saved for future processing by the the topic and attachment loader (yet to be written) that will divide all the items up into manageable posts under topics that are equivalent to albums.
Some manual clean up of the forums will be done later.