Re: [ginp-users] plans for ginp

[Brian B. <br...@Pi...>]

 > Thanks for you continued interest in the ginp project.  I post this
 > the the developer list as well and invite feedback...

Oh, I thought there was so little activity that it was better to post to 
the users list so anyone interested would pick up comments... I'm not 
subscribed to the developers list myself (yet).

 > Nothing has really happened on the project in the last year but I am
 > now putting some effort back into the project.  These are the tasks I
 > have done:
 >
 > - GPL to LGPL
 > -Moved ginp from CVS to Subversion.

I still use CVS - I haven't had the motivation to learn subversion yet. 
Will I still be able to run cvs commands against the subversion repository?

 > - Moved from Ant to Maven.

I'm a big ant fan and have a lot of experience with it. Does maven still 
use an ant-style build.xml? I wanted to add some ant tasks to support 
netbeans debugging and would like to have them committed to the source 
tree, rather than have to maintain my own private build.xml.

 > - Get rid of all the hibernate code that I started but did not really
 > complete.
 > - fixed the test failure of month out my one.

Was that the problem I reported in my other post?


 > I want to do:
 >
 > - Move from log4j to commons logging and supply log4j as jar and
 > sample (your sample) log4j config file and instructions how to use it.

Perhaps you've kept more up-to-date than me with logging... I've worked 
with tomcat commons logging. I'll agree it is useful for jsp code, but 
not as sophisticated as log4j for java code. I thought the jakarta 
logging team were heading in the direction of log4j and intended top 
simply provide a wrapper for existing commons logging methods? Have I 
missed something significant in the last 9 months?

 > - Publish an new ginp public Home page to sourceforge with maven.

 > - Make an ant build file that works with the new project structure.

(see above)

 > - Finish the reprogramming of the set up wizard with tag libs (not
 > Tapestry because I think it brings in more complexity for not much
 > gain) and hivemind (I do not understand hivemind yet but it looks
 > good), and a fixed location for the config file.

ginp periodically loses my ginp.xml file, even though it still exists. 
It is irritating to be randomly thrown back to the setup wizard for no 
good reason. I haven't found any helpful diagnostic messages yet. Is 
this the same issue as yours?

 > - Look again at EXIF for data storage.
 >
 > It will take me some time to release the next version because I have
 > to learn about hivemind and get into Justin's code.  I also have to
 > tidy up the mess I made with half started initiatives.  The phase now
 > is a consolidation and clean up phase rather than a feature release.
 >
 > The aim of the next release is to be a lean/clean and solid code base.
 > I would then like to see if data storage can be done with EXIF or do
 > an optional database data storage.  This will allow new features, but
 > I am not sure exactly what they should be.

I've found the webapp will not run under https. I think there is some 
explicit url logic that assumes the http protocol will be used, but 
haven't had time to investigate yet.

 > Please use the Subversion repository but the code there will be very
 > unstable at the moment.

I've been rebuilding from the latest source repository because I didn't 
want to report a problem that was already fixed. I hope to find time to 
look at the https problem using the webapp I've built... will you be 
making your "unstable" changes to the main tree, or on a branch that I 
can avoid until ready to commit a change?


 > Once I have the project cleaned up and the data storage issue solved I
 > will look again at the project and try to find answers to the what is
 > the weakest part of the project and how could it best be improved.
 > Why do people download it and what is there experience with it.

I wanted a fairly basic picture album system. I loath perl and that 
includes php. I didn't want something platform-specific written in C or 
C++ (had enough of that stuff in my own job). That meant java and 
servlets and jsp's - all technologies I use as much as possible in my 
(paid) work. Ginp was the only product that matched my profile.

I was VERY impressed with the copy-n-run war file. I could use it first 
and understand it later.

I liked the concept of minimal bloat, i.e. use other tools to manipulate 
your images.

Thanks for the useful work. I'm a fan.