Forum OpenACS Development: Status and more ...

Ben's hacked the new file storage system so we can all add documents
to the various folders he set up.  I re-added my change to only view
the last version of a file by default.  Ben also modified permissions
so they're file, not version based - you'll no longer run into new
versions being defaulted to "invisible".
<p>
I've uploaded new versions of
<ul>
<li>The query extractor (it works very nicely now, thanks to some
additional work by SteveW)
<li>Status report (no Critical Path items blocking general porting!)
<li>Volunteers (updated a few days ago)
</ul>
In addition I e-mailed volunteers privately asking for more
information as to how much they can help and when, as well as package
preferences.  I've only gotten about 5-6 responses so far so ...
PLEASE, if you're serious about helping get back to me.

Furfly sponsored a port of ecommerce 3.x to the 4.x environment by ex-aD'er Walter McGinnis recently.

It's in our tree already and that will be our starting point, as the aD work wasn't even close to completion when the ax fell on the Tcl version.  Also the existing OpenACS 3.x ecommerce port should be a useful reference for PL/SQL->PL/pgSQL porting, many or most functions can probably be used directly.

Civilution (ErikR and co-workers) are going to work on porting it, and Walter McGinnis is available to help with questions/issues regarding his earlier port effort (Walter's going to port the photo album stuff).

Ecommerce is a big package - why not e-mail Erik and see if they think  they could use help in a productive way?  They'll have two or three people working part-time on it so splitting it up further might not be  practical, but it doesn't hurt to ask, right?

The plugins for alternatives to cybercash for settlment are interesting, I don't believe they're planning to do anything other than cybercash, so that's certainly an area where you could pitch in (mention it to them).  Walter did pretty much a straight-across port so abstracting out the settlement process so we can plug various types in would be good.  The fourth method folks with  smaller businesses have expressed interest in is PGP-encoded e-mailing of orders for hand verification by the shipping organization.  Folks who do low-volume mail-order are already used to doing stuff this way.

Unless there is a seriously good reason not to, I am going to start trying to work on the CMS this week.

Hello Don:

I see how much you look at this forum, so I will just put my OpenACS goals here.

1. I have Oracle. I would rather use Oracle (I know, it sounds stupid!). I have installed and used 8.1.6 lots of times and I am pretty familiar with it. I have not tried 8.1.7 yet, but I do want to try it out soon. I could start by installing the core of OA 4.x.

2. I do not know a specific number of hours per week yet. I am pretty busy all of the time with my job, a volunteer center where I am helping them with ACS and my other interests. But I am pretty technical, and working on this has synergy with my other tasks.

3. After the 3rd week of May, it could be 10 hours (with some overlap with other ACS-related effort). If we made a schedule, even a tentative one, I could more easily specify which components/dates I would try to make. From looking at the component list, I am interested in faq, portal and one of the ticket-tracker items (probably lite). Of course, being interested and signing up for a date are two different things. At the end of next week, I will try to install OA and Oracle to get started.

4. I have installed, used and done cursory customization of ACS3Tcl and ACS4Tcl. I have not run any of these in a big site yet. Also, I have never written an ACS package of my own, or made changes to its internal architecture (although I do not consider any of that beyond my skill/background).

Regards..Roger