Puppy WiFi Assistant is completed!!!!!

Message

can8v · #61 Post by **can8v** » Sun 08 Jun 2008, 05:56

Okay,
Urban Soul and Aitch, both bring up good points on this issue, but I had already thought about this before I started development of this project in earnest. Here is what I came up with.
First of all I agree with urban soul that it is the kernel that is really important, but I don't really know (or more specifically don't have any assurances) that the zdrv_***.sfs file will include the same exact drivers from version to version. Certainly some drivers could be considered NOT crucial and taken out for a specific version or some other driver that was previously NOT considered crucial may be added in the future.
Second, Aitch's point of users not knowing what kernel their version they are using is also valid. Erikson is correct in saying that uname -r from rxvt is a simple way to find out the kernel being used, but command line scares the hell out of many people and while it is helpful for the user trying to find a WiFi card that will work with his version of Puppy, it is useless for the user that is trying to figure out which version of Puppy they need to get their existing WiFi adapter working.
Third, I had considered Aitch's question of should the application popup and say, which kernel the user has, based on their entry of puppy version, but I decided a better approach would be to simply (and automatically) append a list of all other Puppy version(s) that use the same kernel. Ultimately I decided against even doing this because of the first reason listed in this post (I have no assurance that all that the same drivers will be retained in the zdrv_***.sfs file, even between Puppies using the same kernel). Of all the options available this is the only option I can see myself being persuaded to adopt, primarily because of reason number two. Anyone trying to figure out which Puppy they need to make their existing WiFi work, would need Puppy versions listed, not kernel versions (you cannot use uname -r on a Puppy you don't have installed).
This is a sticky situation with no real great way to handle it and each of you have brought up good points and I thank you for the input. I would be willing to consider more input on the issue, as I acknowledge that even the solution I settled on is not great. The solution I settled on makes for redundant information in the db. It is something I am willing to live with if a better solution doesn't present itself, but hey maybe someone else will present a better solution.
Kind regards,
can8v

can8v · #62 Post by **can8v** » Mon 09 Jun 2008, 04:20

I have uploaded all of the changes mentioned in my previous post and some additional validation. I have a few more validation functions I would like to add, but I would like to get some user feedback on the new form for adding WiFi adapters to the db first. Also a couple of the features are not totally cross-browser compatible yet, such as that maintaining variables when using the browsers back button (not losing all of the form data). I will eventually add a JavaScript to auto-redirect back to the form with all of the form data in place, so users with JavaScript enabled won't have to click anything to get back to the form for making corrections. This should all get done in the next couple of days, if I get some user feedback fairly soon, however; there are only two testers so far, so this may take a little while. The edit adapter function will be relatively easy, so I hope to have it completed by the end of the week as well. That means, when school gets out for summer at the end of this next week I will have only the user registration system to complete. This will definitely be one of the most elaborate functions in the whole application. I still have not sorted out all of the details and I am even open to basic suggestions for how registration should take place. I am hoping to come up with a system that is not too elaborate and can be completed within a week (even on my tight schedule). That would give me a target release date of June 20, 2008. Of course the system will not be very practical until users input a substantial amount of data.
Kind regards,
can8v

urban soul · #63 Post by **urban soul** » Mon 09 Jun 2008, 20:31

.
what is the 'search by date' for ? cant understand. It is the first thing I see...
.

can8v · #64 Post by **can8v** » Tue 10 Jun 2008, 00:12

urban soul,
The search by date enables one to search the database by when the adapters were added to the database. For example if you are a moderator or if you are following the progress, waiting to see if anyone is going to added data for a particular card you own, you don't want to look at all of the old post. Perhaps you would like to just look at the last few days or weeks. Anyway simply input the start date and the end date of the range you would like to look in and the system returns all adapters that were entered into the database during that time.
regards,
can8v
p.s. I thought that feature was pretty self expanatory, but apparently not. Perhaps you could recommend a more easily understood label for this feature. Maybe I will also move it below the search by manufacturer function, which will obviously get more use.

urban soul · #65 Post by **urban soul** » Tue 10 Jun 2008, 16:02

first, the db is not for moderators.

second how do i know the date format. it leaves me with a insecure feeling about what to do and why. (If it is a good php db you can sort it the way you want.) It looks like before I can use the db I have to enter two valid dates. 23.1.2008 -> correct format ?

third it is not important to the enduser WHEN the data was entered.
Can you hide these fields somewhere at the bottom of the page, so you have it still available?

Another thing: How do I enter data e.g.?

Urban

can8v · #66 Post by **can8v** » Tue 10 Jun 2008, 17:13

urban soul,

The search by date range is a feature that was requested by Aitch (a user), so apparently it is important to at least one user. I agree that it will see much less use than the search by manufacturer function, so I will place it beneath the search by manufacturer.
Also regarding the date range search, it is JavaScript enabled. As soon as you click it a calendar popup appears and you simply click the date you want and it automatically enters the date in the correct format. This site will eventually have JavaScript disabled alternatives, but will never function as gracefully as it does with JavaScript enabled. There simply is not enough users with JavaScript disabled to be too concerned about it.
Data entry at this time is for register users who are loged in only. Once the registered user is logged in it is quite obvious how to enter data. Right now there is no automated registration process. I have manually registered a few users who have volunteered to help out. In the next week or so the application will be completed including automated registration.

Regards,
can8v

urban soul · #67 Post by **urban soul** » Tue 10 Jun 2008, 19:40

ok, you are right i had javascript disabled. (php and javascript on a public server oh my god). In this case Aitch is not an enduser but ok he will have his reasons.

bye

can8v · #68 Post by **can8v** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 00:21

Thanks to the testers who have input the data for more adapters. I look forward to your feedback.
can8v

can8v · #69 Post by **can8v** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 19:23

Thank you Mark2 for your contribution of the T-Link and Belkin adapters, and the positive feedback. I will implement the chanages tomorrow.
can8v
P.S. I like how you linked to the forum post for the dot pups you referenced in your setup notes. That will prove extra helpful to someone someday, I am sure of it.

carolus · #70 Post by **carolus** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 20:28

Am sending this note just to express interest and gratitude. It looks like desktop computers are on their way out (except at the workplace), and a portable without wifi is not very useful.

mark2 · #71 Post by **mark2** » Wed 11 Jun 2008, 20:57

after adding another version of cards that use the BCM43xx chipsets I realised that the pci ids may be helpful too, a bit late I know

can8v · #72 Post by **can8v** » Thu 12 Jun 2008, 13:54

@carolus
Your quite welcome, I am simply doing my best to help out where I can. This community has been so helpful to me over the past couple years, that it is the least I could do.

@mark2
Not to worry I just made the modifications to the search functions that have been floated around this thread and added to the description for the driver location per your earlier suggestion. Next on the agenda is to add the editing function, which is already partially completed. I should be uploading this changes in the next day or two. I will PM you when it is uploaded and you can login, test the edit feature by adding your pci designation, then send me some feedback to let me know if I need to fine tune anything.

Kind regards,
can8v

can8v · #73 Post by **can8v** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 07:41

I have moved the serarch by manufacturer above the search by date range, added some better descriptions of some of the form fields, added a user field to all of the tables in the db for tracking who has added or updated what, lengthened the field that houses the Puppy version for longer version names, and added the edit entry function.

@mark2
This means you can go into the db and add the pci designation to the adapter you were concerned about. I have also done a little bit of editing in some of the entries to test out the edit entry function, such as taking periods out of Puppy version numbers and other minor things. Please poke around and send me some feedback.

can8v · #74 Post by **can8v** » Fri 13 Jun 2008, 07:49

I added a function to check to see if the visitor is logged in or not. If the user is logged in a logout link is presented and if the user is logged out a login link is presented.
This should shorten the steps for those of you who volunteered to help test.

mark2 · #75 Post by **mark2** » Sat 14 Jun 2008, 15:00

No problem editing any fields, it's an excellent job.

can8v · #76 Post by **can8v** » Sat 14 Jun 2008, 23:55

I have included a db table to retain all versions of Puppy Linux ever released. When adding or editing an entry for a WiFi adapter in the db this list of possible Puppy version is pulled from the db then inserted as options in a select list, so that only one Puppy version can be selected and the syntax will be entered the exact same way as every other user. This means one user will not be inputing 2.15ce, another user inputing 2.15CE, and yet another user inputing 215ce. You get the idea I am sure. What may not seem so obvious is, that they all need to be exactly the same in order for the search filtering to function correctly. Anyway even with only approximately 50 entries in the db entered by 4 people this was already beginning to cause problems with the search filtering. Hopefully this will normalize the data entered by all users. I may need to implement something similar with other form fields in the future, but I will not be sure until I see a bit more data in the db.
Are there any more volunteers to input some data?
I also added a FAQ page linked in the main menu if any of you could review it and suggest possible questions for the page. Perhaps questions that you have seen asked over and over again in the forum or that would be particularly useful for someone using this application.
Kind regards,
can8v

can8v · #77 Post by **can8v** » Mon 16 Jun 2008, 06:28

The remaining functions have all been completed. I have added a registration function and link. Registration is not fully automated yet and proved more difficult than I anticipated. Nevertheless there is a fully functional registration system. On the other hand unregistered visitors are able to post new WiFi adapters to the db, but they cannot edit the db and their post will not be viewable on the website until they have been moderated. When a registered user adds a device to the db it is available on the website immediately and will be moderated at a later time.
As Aitch suggested I have changed the error handling and validation to send users back to the input form if they did not include all of the required data, however the data they did enter is now retained and it is not necessary to use the browsers back button.
I made a whole mess of changes under the hood as well, but that is about all that the end user will notice.
After about a month of use I will update the application based on suggestions received over that month. Presently my only plans are to fully automate the registration system and modify one of the administration functions.
Anyway, I hope this application helps the community. If it does I would be happy to create similar applications for other types of hardware and possibly even host them under their own domain name (ie. PuppyHardwareAssistant.com or PuppyHWA.com). The application would have to prove quite useful however, because this was quite a lot of work.
Kindest regards,
can8v

urban soul · #78 Post by **urban soul** » Mon 16 Jun 2008, 12:54

great !

cool - the add entry solution without logging in... very cool. Minor prob: if db search string not found ('Belkin') a senseless err is thrown back, never mind.

May this wireless bible be filled with lots of entries and meaningfull lines ...

can8v · #79 Post by **can8v** » Mon 16 Jun 2008, 20:59

urban soul wrote:great !

cool - the add entry solution without logging in... very cool. Minor prob: if db search string not found ('Belkin') a senseless err is thrown back, never mind.

May this wireless bible be filled with lots of entries and meaningfull lines ...

urban soul,
Did this error actually occur and if so what led up to the error? Anyway thanks for the well wishing. I forgot to mention also that the registration process does not require an e-mail address, but rather the username and password are send in a PM on this forum. If figure any user in good standing on this forum will not require moderation. The reason for 100% moderation for unregistered users is to keep visitors who are not actually Puppy users or worse bots from posting links to porn sites and such. I am glad you approve of the compromise I came up with more time was spent deliberating on the solution to this problem than actually programming a solution.
Part of the issue for me was that my webhost take 2-5 days to send mail out to yahoo.com e-mail addresses when I use PHP send mail. The issue is that some of the other sites hosted with them have sent so much spam through yahoos servers that Yahoo has throttled mail coming from them. This means that I had to either send alerts to my regular e-mail which is not as available or create a webmail account with google for the purposes of receiving alerts from this application when a post requires moderation.
It became more complicated that I had hoped for, but in the end I decided that this solution would produce the most in depth and helpful database.
I installed google analytics seven days ago and to my surprise there has already been 171 unique visitors from 33 countries. In seven days there was 642 visits and over 2800 page views. I filtered myself out of course, so that my visiting the site for development purposes would be counted in the statistics. This makes me wonder how much traffic the application will see now that it is completed or when the db is populated with many more WiFi adapters.
About a third of the people found the site by a link on the forum and a little more than a third found it via google. The search terms used varied widely. Most people were apparently searching for the application as the search term used was "Puppy WiFi" or "Puppy WiFi Assistant", these were obviously returning users. To my surprise however, many people found the application by searching for the part number for their specific WiFi adapter. This I think could win many people over to Puppy or at least get them to try it. I know WiFi was a huge factor when I was first selecting a Linux Distribution. Anyway I am very positive about this; I think it will be good for Puppy and for Puppy users.
Regards,
can8v

mark2 · #80 Post by **mark2** » Mon 16 Jun 2008, 21:11

getting an error myself

Code: Select all

!Error! Could not execute the query for: Agere / 2Wire
1052 : Column 'user' in where clause is ambiguous

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Puppy WiFi Assistant is completed!!!!!

pci ids

editing

problem