Greetings everyone! It has been a long while since there has been much activity on the BoltWire newslist. I hope it is because everyone is satisfied with the software and everything is working fine for you. I know my main site is humming along quite well with a very large, active, and happy community. Mission accomplished!
At the same time, I have been wanting to do a major rewrite of the software for some time, and relaunch it under a 4.xx series. I have been making excellent progress on that the last month or so, and am getting close to a beta release. Here are just a few of the features of the new software: * Improved form handling. Now you can put various parameters in input fields to filter and/or transform user input in a whole new way. And parameters can go in command fields (formerly 'sessions') to control how they function--just like we do in BoltWire functions. This was actually the major goal for this upgrade and it is working beautifully. It adds amazing new capabilities to commands that were either difficult or impossible to do before. In fact, I'd describe it as a major conceptual breakthrough. * Improved boxes. Added some major flexibility to these--including among other things a "rules" parameter which allows you to control which markups can be processed in comment boxes for example. Great idea! * Info var arrays. Now you store info arrays like field: var1::var2::var3 and either retrieve the entire field or any of the sub-elements. This is a fast and efficient way to store and extract discrete sets of information. I've been really wanting this feature myself for awhile. And it's working perfectly now. * Improved code commenting. Having done little developing for over a year, and coming back to the code cold--I definitely see the value of comments in the core! I'm adding lots of notes here and there. * Streamlined code. Even with all the comments I've managed to cut out 20% of the code by removing some config options, and moving some rarely used features to plugins. I've also rewritten major sections to simplify the code. I'm going through the entire code base little by little. I'm surprized at how much simpler the code can be--while enhancing functionality! And speed should get a boost too... Anyway, wanted to find out if there is anyone interested in testing out the new software. It won't be ready for prime time release anytime soon, but getting a few hands to take a look at things would help speed up development. BoltWire 4.xx will not be an easy upgrade--but if you have time to play around or are considering developing a new site--it might be worth a try. I need to also set up a 4.xx site to start posting new documentation. Ok, looking forward to hearing back from some of you. I should be putting out a final 3.xx release sometime soon with a few fixes and tweaks from the last year or so and then that strand should come to a close. Moving forward, my focus is definitely going to be getting my live site switched over to BoltWire 4.xx. Cheers, Dan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BoltWire" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/boltwire?hl=en.
