Changes and new features plan for 1.0

At first i would like to say thanks to all the people currently using Porter. I am really glad you find it useful. I have received literally enormous amount of feedback, much from my students and much from other users all over the world who had got hands on Porter one way or another. I received many suggestions and ideas for further Porter releases and i am proud to announce fallowing changes already being implemented in future stable right now.

First and most major change is that almost all of the server configuration and controls will be accessible using web based user interface, or pWEB module, as i like to call it. Basically every single bit of configuration will be done there. For Windows UI there will be left options such as starting and stopping the server, starting applications, creating links, updates, web port options and version switching.

And now, obviously, we came to second big change - i have received literally a bunch of requests to include Apache web server as base development server in Porter. At first i didn't find Apache to be an option for this kind of stack, but after long reconsideration about to use or not to use Apache as base server, i have came to better solution for everyone - we will have both! Yes, there will be Apache included in Porter. And yes, there will still be option to run PHP built in development server. The main reason for all this hassle is that many find it hard to develop on Porter while lacking such important options as mod_rewrite and various other great Apache modules. So i have decided to use both of them.

And there is more where this came from. As i mentioned above, there will be option to switch between server versions. And not only that. Option most useful for many developers is to have development environment as modular as possible. So i decided to provide you with such an option - every unit of the server will have an option to switch between versions, Apache, MySQL, PHP and all other components which will be included. You will be able to test You applications under multiple conditions and combinations of various server component versions. Even more - we already have UI application that allows You to download and automatically setup various server components from a special software repository I am working on right now.

Next best thing is about software too- Porter software repository will contain not only server components, but also various development software. You will be able to download and silently install various text editors, database and development tools directly from Porter software management panel.

As mentioned above, Porter will migrate all configuration to web UI. This is, indeed, true. However, it will not be another "i have to spend 2000 years to find option i need" kind of UI. Trust me when i say, i have tried many web server stacks and environments. And every single one of them which have web UI's have done it horribly, horribly wrong. Mostly by limiting the set of features or making it so unresponsive you have to beg the gods of holy Source Code to it to comply with that you are actually telling it to do. Restart server? No problem, just a year, please. Oh, You want to add non standard module or configuration option to Your conf file? Well please, Sir, you will just have to open my install directory, loop trough 10 thousand directory's and find the configuration file i am actually using in my setup. No, no that, the other one. Well, you know what i mean. We need changes and we need them fast. So it be.

And last, but not least - the command interface. Porter will have a separate command interface to give developers option to communicate with the development environment directly - start and stop applications, reload configuration and pretty much everything you dreamed about in your old environment but were afraid to ask. All the communication will be done using either PHP module or TCP/IP command interface, i am not sure about which one will be implemented, but command interface will be created one way or another. This is still a decision to make.

For now, this is it for the news. I hope you like what i am doing. You can show your appreciation by leaving a comment, or suggestion, or if You are a developer with some free time and C# or PHP skills- drop me a mail to roberts@x0.lv. I could definitely use a helping hand on this one.

And all this - for free, open sourced and portable. No setups, no confusing packs of directory's. Only one, unified development environment that lets you do your job, do your job good and does not distract you with unnecessary or slow "features", from web developer to web developer.