Pudding Launching Soon

I've fixed the last known bug for the release version of Pudding. I've got to do some more testing, write a few "help" items, and get the marketing site completed. I'm hoping I can launch on Friday!

Round 3 of Beta!!! Radical New Permission Setup - Easier, More Collaborative!

I'm so tired I'm about to pass out at the keyboard. I've been coding like a crazy person for the last 2 weeks!

The new version of Pudding is on the server, and the beta invites went out.

Check out the new web site for Pudding, with a MUCH better URL:
http://www.projectpudding.com

If you want to get in on the beta, please sign up at ataraxissoftware.com.

THANKS!

Attention Beta Testers!

I wasn't going to do another round of beta testing, but I've made some significant changes to how Pudding operates and I want to do another round of testing. The bad news is when I deploy the next round I'll have to blow away the old database and images. The changes I made were signficant enough to warrant a "do over" on the DB schema.

Look for a new invite email this week.

I've got some more news in the cooker, but I can't announce anything yet. After I launch I'll give everyone the scoop! :)

Tastier Pudding

I've just finished my plan for a looser version of Pudding. It's going to take me at least a week to get everything fully implemented, but I think it's going to be well worth it. Especially from the simplification standpoint.

My original version of Pudding had 2 distinct types of users. "Clients" and "Designers". Which makes sense, but comes with a lot of extra baggage (at least how I implemented it anyway). All the Designers in your account would see all of the active projects, and Clients would only see the projects that were associated with thier "Client Organization". What I found during my beta was that when people were jumping into Pudding they would need an explaination of how to get started. Not good in my book. I would have to explain to them that you need to create a Client Organization, and then you need to add Clients. Then you need to associate the Client Organization with a Project. (I've already lost the person by this point.) Not only is it a lot of mental "associations" to keep track of, but it only allows for 1 Client Organization to be associated with a Project.

So the rigidity came from only having Designers that could see all projects, which is bad if there is more than one creative agency involved. Additionally, each project could only have 1 Client Organization associated, and no-one outside of your account could upload stuff to the project. You could always add an external person to as a Designer, but then they could access all your projects.

It was collaborative inside of the account, but too restrictive for the dynamic world of media-centric creative projects.

I'm implementing a much easier to use system. (and UI)

I'm switching to the concept of "Contributors" and "Reviewers", and each user has either "All Projects" or "Restricted" access. This way the Administrator of the account can mix and match what people can do.

Let's say you're a creative agency, and you're collaborating with another agency for a joint media event for Pepsi Co. & Apple.

The people in your agency are already setup as Contributors with access to all your projects. You would then setup the other agency people as Contributor's, the Nike & Apple people as Reviewers, and using the Restricted access option give them access to only the projects related to this venture.

I've been pretty bored with the last month of Pudding development. I've been working on nothing but billing stuff. Planning this out, and starting the implementation has really gotten me excited again!

I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing (reading) this, but I'm almost done!!! ;)

Pudding, changing taste buds

I'm almost done with my original vision for Pudding. I've literally got some server config to do, and another night's worth of code tweaking.

I've been thinking a lot about what Pudding does, how it does it, who it's competitor's are, and how they work.

Pudding is built around the simple idea of a design group and a client organization. The design group can see all the projects, and "clients" can only see projects that are associated with their "client organization". Only people in the design group can upload, and only people in the client organization can click the "approve" button.

I had a pretty rigid workflow in my head when I made these decisions. But after a lot of thought, and trying to demonstrate Pudding to people, I'm starting to think it's too brittle.

Design projects, teams, and the work they're doing are more fluid and unpredictable.

I was planning on launching in the next day or three.

This sounds crazy, but I want to take the time now to loosen up the app a bit. I've got some ideas and I think I'll have to make some data-model changes. I'd hate to launch it and have to make these changes with people already signed up.

I'm hoping I can implement what I'm thinking of in less than 5 working sessions. That means Pudding can still launch before the end of the month.

Wish me luck! :)

The next release

I've been coding away on the next release of Pudding. The next release will be a private (as in me only) release candidate. I'm implementing all the account management features (payments, upgrade/downgrade, cancelation, etc...) so I can't have anyone in the system.

If I'm lucky the next "release" I put on the server will be the final code base that is used for the launch of Pudding!

If all the stars align I'll be live next Monday. Worst case, I'll be live May, 14th 2008. (It can't much longer than that, can it? ;) )

FYI - Server Maintenance

4/29 - Server Maintenance

Round 2 of Beta

The beta invites for the second round of testing just went out!

Thanks to the bug reports and feedback I received from the first round I was able to make approximately 26 bug fixes and improvements. I also got a couple ideas for some post 1.0 launch features!

I won't be able to launch off of the Round 2 code base. I still have to integrate the site with my credit card gateway. (I finally got everything setup with the bank and the payment processor.)

If I keep progressing at my present clip, I could have that stuff implemented by the end of next week!

Thanks again to everyone who is participating in the beta!

If you'd like to get involved, please feel free to sign up via the form on the main Ataraxis Software web site. (I'll contact you via email within 24 hours of you signing up.)

(Did I hit my exclamation point quota for the day? ;) )

IE Bug under control

Background post

Reading this made me understand what the problem was/is, and what a fix looks like.

Reading this made me understand why it's affecting me.

Reading this let me make it only appear to IE browsers.

"div" tags do not "have layout" by default. (It's an IE thang.) Thus they freak out under certain circumstances. This is how you fix them...

Put this in a file called, "ieisincrediblyghetto.css":
div { height: 0.01%; }

Then put this in your HTML right after all your other style sheets:
<!--[if lte IE 7]>
<link href="/stylesheets/ieisincrediblyghetto.css" media="screen" rel="Stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->

Since this is actually applying a specific height to all div's, make sure you check your web site throughly for any side affects.

IE is the devil's work

I spent the whole night messing around with my HTML tags and CSS in an attempt to get this under control.

NOTHING is working. It's happening consistently to about 3 pages.

So I started doing some googling, and came across this page on Channel which lists a ton of IE bugs. Check out this one,

Sometimes IE fails to draw some actual text correctly, but selecting the text shows it. Clicking outside the selection sometimes then shows the text properly, but sometimes text that had been displayed correctly before selection and was included in the selection also disappears when clicking outside the selection. I've often seen this on blogs.msdn.com.

WHAT?!?!?!

I found a few links that may give me a chance at fixing this problem:
http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/peekaboo.html
http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/ie7-dehacker.html
http://www.satzansatz.de/cssd/onhavinglayout.html

I'm going to read them tomorrow and hopefully get past this stupid bug.

I JUST WANT TO REMIND THE IE TEAM THAT THIS IS HAPPENING IN VERSION 7 OF YOUR BROWSER.

Yes, version 7! It took you (Microsoft) 5 years to go from version 6 to 7, and these are the kinds of bugs I'm dealing with?!?!? Paul Graham is right. You've been a joke for years, and you've just put the last nail in your coffin. Vista + IE7 is a total train wreck.

....deep breath....

This may very well be the last HTML application I ever build. The Flex compiler is (finally) free. I think this guy was right when he said,

I'm done with it.

(UPDATE! IT'S WORKING NOW.)

Crazy IE Rendering Bug

I was about to push out a new version of Pudding last night, but then I came across this bizarre rendering bug in IE. I've been spot checking Pudding in IE during it's development, but I don't think I've ever hit this screen before.

Does anyone have a clue as to why IE would act like this? (Other than the fact that's a POS. :) )

The bug appears in IE6 & 7. Here is a little comparison between Safari and IE. (It looks as-expected in Firefox.) I've got the doctype tag set to XHTML Strict.

Great First Round

I want to thank everyone who's been involved with the first round of beta testing for Pudding. 2 extra special thanks to Brian LeGros and Maxim Porges. These guys came through with some HUGE feedback.

Max wrote a total of 29 Microsoft Word pages of bugs and feedback. He included screen shots and some hilarious suggestions for upgrade/downgrade offers. (Pudding's tiers are named after flavors, so he was playing up on that angle. I'm so using them!)

I hope to be ready for the second round sometime next week. Stay tuned!

Still Working Toward Completion

I've got the beta in full swing, but there is still programming work left to do.

• Purchase secure certificate, set it up, and code the site to do the sensistive stuff over SSL.
• Implement the communication to the credit card processor.
• Fix bugs! :)
  

BETA!

Finally! I just sent out the URL to the people who've signed up for my beta program! This is such a huge milestone for this project.

If you're interested in participating in the beta (or you're just damn curious to see Pudding in action), sign up here.

Beta Signup Form, live

Please head over to the main Ataraxis Software web site to sign up for the Pudding beta.

Now that I've figured out how to configure everything (including Capistrano) to run one rails site, getting Pudding up and running should only take another day or two.