XSolutions

The Summary of XSolutions Project Group for Fall 2010

Sept 21

We are assigned to XSolutions project and receive a mail from Joe requesting our contact information and our available times for a web meeting.

Sept 26

We sent Joe our available times and our contact information.

Sept 27

Joe replied us telling that he would like to know our programming skills.

Oct 1

We sent our resumes which include our programming skills.

Oct 7

We had a monthly meeting with Prof. Steflik.

Oct 10

Berk was selected as the group leader and we sent a mail to Joe informing the leader selection in our group. Asked for our first online meeting.

Oct 13

Joe replied saying that we should wait for Prof Steflik's final approval before our first meeting, but in the meantime we should get familiar with the BaseCamp System and the API they offer which is an online project management system as a service. They use it to manage projects but he would like a way to easily programmatic access the data from other systems.

Oct 25

Opened a BaseCamp account https://seniorprojectxsolutions.basecamphq.com and practiced with creating new projects and got familiar the BaseCamp environment.

Oct 27- Oct 29

We informed Joe that we receive our CPT I20's and had an agreement to make our first meeting at Nov 2.

Nov 2

We had our first meeting and Joe changed the project. He wanted us to develop a universal plug in for WordPress system which he will improve it according to customers wishes. In the same day he sent the high level project description. At the same day we had a monthly meeting with Prof. Steflik.

According to Joe's project description we have 5 High Level Project goals for Semester 1.

1. Research and study the WordPress system.

2. Implement a development site where you can experiment. A virtual LAMP system would be great for this especially if you want to easily run it on your own system.

3. Research and understand the WordPress API and Plugin framework.

4. Research the best ways to develop a universal plugin that we can use for future projects.

  a. We will want constructs of all ways a Plugin can integrate within WordPress.
  b. These constructs will be used as building blocks when a new plugin is created.
  c. Extensibility is key, let's intelligently design this so we don't have to reinvent the wheel each time a new plugin is created.

5. Determine best design plan for the library.

  a. Document the plan, data structures, and classes using MS Word and Visio for diagrams.

Nov 3

We started researching and studying about WordPress system. We set up a server to the computer that Umur doesn't use and started to practice WordPress system. We created a basic development site and did some modifications on the page for learning purposes.The link that you can reach the website is http://lehmanwifispot.dyndns-server.com/wordpress/ . Moreover we created a Google group called Bu-CS485-2010-X. We use this group between the group members to make arguments and share useful links about WordPress system.

Nov 5

We cancelled our BaseCamp account since we don't need it anymore.

Nov 7

We had an agreement with Joe to have a meeting at Nov 11.

Nov 11

We asked the questions about WordPress System and the project. We also asked him to provide us licensed Microsoft Visio if it is a requirement to do the documentation. He told us it is not important to do it on Visio we can do the documentation on any software as long as it is clear. He clarified what he wants from us for that project and this meeting helped us to illustrate how we'll progress on the project.

We had a meeting with Prof. Steflik again to talk about our weekly status. He asked us to fill our part with writing about the projects progress steps in the Senior Project's wiki page by Nov 15.

Nov 12- 19

We researched and studied WordPress API and framework.

Nov 19 - 30

Umur,Cihan and Onur had extensive research about WordPress System to get ready for the planning step. Moreover , because we are not experienced in designing such big projects, Berk, Inanc and Cihan made researches about how can a good design be implemented.

Nov 27

We got contact with Joe to make a review before our presentation.

Nov 30

We made our presentation which tells what we have done in Fall Semester to the class and Prof Steflik. Since we both have sent the documents which includes our power point slides, Gannt chart and MS Word document to our employer Joe Imperato and our advisor Prof. Steflik, we didn't add them here.

Dec 2

We reported how was our presentation to Joe and sent the documents we had used in our presentation.

Dec 2 - 12

Berk, Umur and Cihan started to implement the design of the code structure.

This is what we have done so far for Fall 2010, and we are going to work on the project in our winter break. We hope both our employer Joe Imperato and our advisor Prof. Steflik are satisfied with our performance.

Dec 12 - 31

Berk, Umur and Cihan finished to implement the design of the code structure. Also, Inanc and Onur started the design of the database. We made that assignment since we assume there would be database work. In that level we did not have a big deal about database.

Berk and Inanc also write a report about implementing and the design about code and database structure and share this report with other group members.

January 1

We have started to implement code.Expected due date is 11th April.

January 10

We sent an e-mail to Joe, asking for a meeting about project specifications.

We couldn't get in touch with Joe over winter break. We researched more about wordpress inn that time.

January 27

We had our monthly meeting with Prof. Steflik. He asked us to speed up the process and we asked him to help us to communicate with Joe.

February 1

We sent an e-mail to Joe about Prof. Steflik's demand about speeding up the progress and he replied us we could meet on Friday, 4th January.

February 4

We had a meeting with Joe about further specifications. We asked what exact plugins we should develop. He asked questions about widgets and menu types in Wordpress also he asked us to develop a plugin to add menus to a website. We asked a detailed document about the assigned work.

February 17

We reminded Joe about the detailed document for expected plugins

February 22

We started to write the code which is needed to add a new menu to a the side of a webpage. The code is saved as JMenu_X_Widget under JMenu_X plugin.

February 27

We received a mail from Joe. He specified two plugins of which we have started one of them according to Joes ideas in our meetings.

First Plug-in: Jquery Main header image fade in with admin management

· Use the jQuery fade in script: http://www.serie3.info/s3slider/

· Make the plugin allow for simple implementation into any page, post or template file. Use a shortcode such as [xsfader 123], that can be placed within the content to display the selected fader (id:123)

· From the example above, you need to make the administration section so that the admin can create multiple faders with all of the different settings and configurations being independent

· Multiple faders should be able to coexist.

· In addition to managing and making all options accessible per fader you need to make an easy way to link images in from the media gallery.

· Things to look out for: if there are multiple faders on a page only one set of supporting script tags should be outputted to the final page

· Make sure all code is easy to read, understand and if properly commented in English

· Lastly: I know there are already plugins like this but this one will be used as a template to be customized for a specific’s site’s needs.

Second Plug-in: · This plugin will wrap a CSS/Javascript menu system that we use on many websites

· http://www.opencube.com/qmv7/run001.html - Use this as the link to the QuickMenu interface to get example menus

· Give options to generate menus based on Page hierarchy or by a custom defined hierarchy

· For menu we use a custom publish that generates separate pages for javascript, css, and the html menu. Have three large text boxes where the code can be pasted in and updated.

· Use a shortcode to embed the menu in the desired location on the page templates

March 1

As we had progressed some in the second plugin before receiving Joe's document, we started the first plugin.

Mach 5

We can show pictures if they are embedded into the code. You can call a slider with writing its name somewhere in the text.

March 10

The design of faders menu page is completed. Fader Name, Source , Class , Content, Order the options for a fader.

March 13

You can now insert new pictures and slider options to the database and can delete them if you want. You can search according to its fader name if you don't want a picture in the fader you can delete it.

March 15

Minor changes are done in the CSS part to show the slider.

March 17

Plugin 1 is almost done. We just need to show it to Joe and have the feedback for further updates.

Joe sent an e-mail and asked our status.

We explained how we did and show an example picture from plugin 1.

March 18

Joe replied us and told that he wants to see our actual website. Because of the Universities web restriction he is not allowed to connect a server on campus, we asked Prof Steflik that what can we do about that ?

March 21

We keep working on plugin 2

March 22

Professor Steflik replied us that he will check with the computer center to see if we can get a guest account on PODS for Joe.

March 25

Saving HTML, CSS, Javascript for menu plugin and retrieving it from database via Wordpress menu interface is accomplished.

March 28

Reminder mail to Prof Steflik is sent about Joe's reaching to the actual website.

He responded that Joe will be able to reach the website after 3/30/2011

Joe is informed about that progress

March 30

Implementing code for plugin 2 is done.

March 31

Standardization of the code and commenting

April 2

We pepared our website to show how plugins work and make easy for Joe to understand the plugins.

April 3

We sent a mail to Joe that we accomplished the two plugins and sent him the URL. We provided him a username and password to see the back end. In the mail we wrote about how the plugins work, how how can use them, and what problems we faced to.

April 4

Waiting for Joe's feedback.

April 19

We received Joe's feedback. He had some questions about our work and mentioned them in his feedback :

1. The administration screens don’t seem to work or I can’t find or understand how to use them. I see the menu items under Tools but I don’t see any useful way to administer the plug-ins.

2. I would like the ability to manage different instances of each plug-in including the menu plug-in.

3. There needs to be a slick way to edit the instances of each plug-in.

4. I would like the ability to embed the menu plug-in inside a post or template file just like the slider plug-in using [short codes]

5. Not sure if this is a result of the VPN but the admin section was totally unusable under IE8. Worked ok under FF4 but the widget section wasn’t working properly.

April 22

We requested an online meeting from Joe to discuss about the issues he mentioned in his feedback.

April 26

We had a meeting with Joe.We made a demonstration of our web-site to him and discussed the issues he mentioned to us in his e-mail. We asked him a broad description of the issues he wanted us to add.He mailed us about the basic changes he wants from us.Also he gave us the link of the website he created to upload our code.

May 6

We completed the minor changes Joe wanted has wanted from us and had an online meeting with him. We made a demonstration of our work and showed what we had done. He approved the changes we had made and said that our plug-ins are working as he wants.

May 12

We had an online meeting with Joe. We evaluated our work and our performance during Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 Semesters. Also we had a last demonstration of our work to him and uploaded our code to his website. We had a group meeting and prepared for the presentation we have on May 13.

May 13

We presented our work with other senior project groups to Professor Steflik and to Watson Faculty Staff.

May 14

We uploaded the plugins to the website that Joe created. We sent the codes, description of plugins, a manual of how to use the plugins and add/edit/delete its attributes, the presentation that we did, directly to Joe and Prof. Steflik.

May 18

Prof. Steflik asked us to put the description of our plugins, here they are.

                   WordPress  Plug-in  Development 

      WordPress Plug-in Development is a project that will be designed for the company  ‘XSolutions’ by Information and Computer Science department students Berk Ozel, Inanc Guney, Umur Aybars Ciftci, Cihan Tutal and Ismet Onur Kose  through out the 2010-2011 academic year at SUNY- Binghamton.
       The project focuses on developing two well documented plug-ins ‘XSFader’ and 'JMenu_X' for an open source Php project called ‘WordPress’. The plug-in 'XSFader' creates a fader according to shortcode posted by the user and 'JMenu_X'  generates three textboxes for manipulation of JavaScript, CSS and HTML codes separately.

              Introduction To WordPress  And The Term “Plug-in”

        WordPress is an open source project that is commonly used as a blogging platform on the web, but it has evolved over the years to become a useful content management system. Its system is built on Php and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. On account of the fact that it is an open source project, hundreds of people all over the world are working on it, and extending it through the thousands of  plug-ins, widgets and themes. More information about WordPress can be found at ‘Wordpress.org’ and ‘Wordpress.com’.
         The term “Plug-in” can be defined as an application or tool that can be added to a larger software application to enhance performance or provide added features. Plug-ins have wide area of usage, but they are commonly used in web browsers to play video, scan for viruses, and display new file types. Well-known plug-in examples are for the Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat, QuickTime and Microsoft Office 2007.

                           1st Plug-in : XSFader

The 'XSFader' plug-in creates faders so that there are some pictures in the corresponding fader and these pictures fade continuously and can be obtained from the Media Library provided by the WordPress. Also, there are sliders in the faders so that each slider shows the content of the corresponding picture. The 'XSFader' plug-in called according to the shortcodes that are posted by the user. In other words, the user's post of a simple shortcode is able to call the corresponding fader. Moreover, there is an admin screen where the admin user is able to modify or delete an existing fader or the admin user can add a new fader.

                            2nd Plug-in : JMenu_X

The 'JMenu_X' plug-in wraps a CSS/Java script menu system so that we can use it on many websites. In other words, the 'JMenu_X' plug-in generates three large text boxes for the manipulation of JavaScript, CSS and HTML codes separately and makes the administrator's job much more easy when he modifies the menu. Also, the 'JMenu_X' plug-in is called according to shortcodes that are posted by the user or through the widgets. In other words, the user can post a shortcode that corresponds to the 'JMenu_X' plug-in or the admin user can call the 'JMenu_X' plug-in through usage of the corresponding widgets.

May 15

We think we are done with our Senior Project. We are grateful to have a great semester and specify great appreciations to Joe and Prof Steflik for their help and supports.

Regards

X-Solutions Senior Project Team