Peoplink CatGen web catalog generator / News: Recent posts

[Note: Unfortunately, PEOPLink will not be releasing future versions of CatGen (the new Delphi client and J2EE hosting software) under GPL. We had to make this decision in order to cover much increased development costs that come with a re-write of the software. The old (java) version of CatGen and CatGen-server are still open-source. We are keeping these files on SourceForge for their possible usefulness to other projects. The java version of the client is a pretty cool app but we had to abandon it for performance reasons]... read more

Peoplink CatGen news - January 31/2001

Following my trip to India to lead a workshop on the CatGen software in November, the important decision was taken to re-write the CatGen client into a Windows-native format, for reasons of speed, stability and user-friendliness. The Java CatGen client was very nice, but it was difficult to imagine it working in a real environment with perhaps thousands of products. Thanks to our dedicated team in Novokuznetsk (Western Siberia) I am very happy to say that we have just finished the first prototype, which is very impressive, see http://catgen.com/catgenexp.html for details. It does everything the previous version did, including two-way synchronization of local and remote database, generation of home pages, global product search, stories, etc.... read more

Catgen v0.92 is ready to download at http://catgen.com/install.

It contains bug fixes to earlier version (stories and images were broken, broken link in account approval, etc) but also:
- Automatic software update (with any luck this will be last time a full download is necessary)
- "Recover data from host": it is now possible to re-create local catalog from host copy, which effectively serves as a data backup.... read more

The first beta release of CatGen software (v0.90) is now available for download at http://catgen.com/install (Windows and Linux). It has all core functionality including local web catalog and ability to create web sites. Notably missing in this release are user documentation, html templates for the home pages, and the ability to create sites via ftp. See Release notes for more information http://catgen.com/developer/doc/readme.html... read more

Catgen is progressing rapidly in time for our Sept. 18 beta launch, thanks to our new contractors Eugene Bortsov and Alexey Cholokov from Russia who are churning out code 7 days a week, Vasian Cepa who works in internet cafes when his phone is out because he can't stand to miss a day of work, and myself, at my post 18 hours a day during this period. Special thanks also to Kurt Kincaid, Venu Nair, Jason Campbell, Matthew Dunn, Shengfang Liao, Brendan Plant-Weir, Ming Tian and James Howison for offers of assistance - and to Vadim Kovalchuk in Ukraine, our newest contractor.... read more

First, I want to welcome to the team Eugene Bortsov and Alexey Cholokov, both from Western Siberia. They are very experienced and hard-working and I'm delighted to have them. They are working full-time on converting the jsp files from the old system to the new IOB framework in time for our September 18 beta launch. Vasian has nearly finished database synchronization code, and has also completed the framework for internationaliation, a very important feature of this application of course. In addition, Kurt Kincaid of Springfield Illinois, who is a very experienced web designer, is working on a framework for the on-line help. We're looking at an applet with expanding/collapsing menu structure that should be as good as any Windows help system. Finally, Joe Coyle of Media, Pennsylvania, Ted Johnson of Peoplink, and Greg Schnippel of Kensington Maryland, have offered to assist in creating the help system content. Jason Campbell has also offered assistance. I will try and get in touch with everybody else within the next week, but if you are hot to do something, don't wait for me to call!... read more

New features in Catgen v0.63:

- First installer that works (InstallAnywhere)
- New html templates and snazzy javascript pull-downs (thanks to Megan)
- Jikes compiler problems fixed (thanks to Vasian)
- Company code virtually complete
- Database design finalized (both server and client)
- Simplified procedure for getting development environment (just install and overwrite with "cvs co catgen")... read more

Catgen v0.62 is available for download. It contains most of the code for the Company menu and demonstrates use of IOB. I have put the demo up on the web site http://64.71.129.22/catgen/edit_company.jsp?TPCode=ECDEMO however there is a currently a bug in IOB under Tomcat - use it only to get a feel for the application. To take it for a real spin you currently have to download catgen-v0.62.zip (or get it from cvs).... read more

Dear catgen team,

First, if you are still interested in contributing remember to add yourself to catgen-announce and catgen-developer lists, located at http://sourceforge.net/projects/catgen/. This mail list will cease to exist shortly.

I would like to welcome the following people to the team:

* Jason Campbell is just finishing up a project that implements an e-commerce
solution using JSP, Servlets, and EJB's (session and entity) on Weblogic 5.1 app server. ... read more

This is going to be a long one, as we have some things to catch-up on. Bear with me.

First administrative things. If you have not sent me your sourceforge userid so I can add you to developer list, do so now. Second, go to the catgen page on sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/catgen/ and subscribe to the mailing list catgen-announce, and if you wish, catgen-developer. Third, if you don't know how to access sourceforge cvs repository through ssh, read instructions at http://b5000.com/developer/cvs.html and see if you can "cvs checkout cvstest". Tonight, if I can, I will put both catgen and catgen-server, as they are, into cvs. You will find instructions on setting up development environments for both products at the new (as yet very small) developer reference manual at http://b5000.com/developer/manual.... read more