BuddyPress.org

@Modemlooper – Yes, but not this week …

@Sadr – The features you listed off were the features from three days ago, when we uploaded that release to WP. lol.

Here’s the latest list:

FEATURES IN THE UPCOMING 0.1.7 RELEASE

1) Multiple album capability based on image tags. We will be mimicking Flickr’s image tagging, sorting, and gallery functions. Users will be able to tag their images, and create albums based on the tags they apply.

There will be two classes of image tags: user tags, and admin tags. User tags can be used for sorting and grouping images, admin tags can be used by administrators to approve images for various purposes, as well as for use by other plugins on the site. For example, on a dating site that charges users to view or upload images, or a realty site that charges realtors to post property photos.

2) The ability to tag site members in photos, with the ability for the photo owner to remove unwanted tags from their photo, and the ability for a user that has been tagged in the photo by the owner to remove themselves as well. The tagging system will tie into the @mention system within BuddyPress. Support will be included for “bounding box” tags on images as is done on Flickr (face tags on FaceBook), but the function will not be activated in this release.

3) Configurable thumbnail aspect ratios. There will be a setting in the admin menu that allows the plugin to be switched between “Facebook Style” AND “Flickr Style” thumbnail display.

4) “Perfect” templates – all of the HTML will be generated IN the template and be fully editable by the template developer. Image rendering functions will accept size parameters. This will allow template developers to dramatically alter the look of the plugin.

…

#1, #3, and #4 are finished. We have also added:

5) Advanced image caching. The plugin has a 5-level cache with configurable JPG resolution and size.

6) Three different template sets, to mimic the functionality of Flickr, Facebook, and “Generic BuddyPress”.

7) EXIF data read. If the uploaded file has EXIF data, the plugin automatically imports it to the database.

We *had* to add image caching, because in testing we found that with even just a few people browsing the site, performance on a shared server would be unacceptably slow. If for example you were on a HostGator $12.95 a month shared hosting plan, it would be about TEN SECONDS per page refresh with 4 people browsing photo albums. Caching brings that down to 1 second per page refresh.

****

…Still, just a heads-up that running large social networking sites requires *serious* computing resources.

For example:

-If your site has 1,000 users, and each user has 100 images of average size from a modern digital camera, it will require 200 to 300 GIGS of storage space to hold them.

-Regenerating the image cache on a site like that would take *two days* at 100% CPU usage on a 3.2 GHz dual core machine.

-If each of those images gets viewed 10 times, you’ll go through 2.5TB of data transfer, which equals a dedicated 10 Mbit connection running at full speed, 24 hours a day for an entire month.

-So just understand what you’re getting into if you’re thinking of being the next FaceBook …lol!

****

@Travel-Junkie – I will try and get you a code snapshot later tonight so you can see what we’re doing. Thanks again for the help writing this feature!

@Modemlooper – We’ll try! After we get 0.1.7 our we’ll get everyone to shout-out the features they want and we’ll pick our targets based on popularity.

^F^

@Sadr – What is confusing you is the difference between a “release” build and a “development” build.

We are using what are called “agile software development” methods [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development ] to decide on features, build, test, and revise our plugin software all at the same time.

By using a concurrent versions system [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(software) ] every developer on the team has their own version of the plugin with the features that they are adding.

So when I say that something is “done”, I mean that it has been written and tested but has not necessarily been released yet.

Every few days, the developers merge [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merge_(revision_control) ] our code branches together, and create a “beta” release. We then post it on this forum to allow all of our stakeholders (you guys!) to test it.

After we are very, very sure that there are no bugs in the software, finally we post it as an “official” release on the WordPress plugin repository.

We must be VERY careful about the quality of official releases, because they are automatically broadcast to every current user of our plugin, and even the tiniest defect could crash *thousands and thousands* of people’s websites.

So, the version being offered on the WP plugin website is always many steps out of date.

We’re planning to do our next code merge on Saturday or Sunday and get the 0.1.7 beta out for testing on Monday night.

Considering that we’ve gone from *nothing* to this:

http://foxly.ca/admin-screen-01.jpg

http://foxly.ca/flickr-mode-01.jpg

in ten days, I think we’re doing very well!

^F^

@Modemlooper – oh now THAT is cool! …I am *so* going to use that on a couple of my sites when you get it finished!

^F^

@jivany – The functionality you’re describing is basically the BP Album+ photo widget. We’ll probably get that out in the 0.1.8 release.

^F^

@courtenayc – Thanks for the support!

It makes a long, long day of coding worth it when we know people like our work.

^F^