CDMS

News

24th October 1999

CDMS - The future

Okay, this is a fairly lengthy item so please bear with me while I clarify a few points before I really get started *grin*

With the sudden interest in CDMS again becoming THE topic, I've again started receiving Emails asking for accounts. These I won't issue (or give forgotten passwords out to anyone who may have asked for them). There is one simple reason for this, CDMS in its current form is just too rigid and the newv version will require new user accounts and an entirely new database structure to work. So first things first, could everyone please refrain from asking for accounts. They will not be acted upon. Interest is high and I'll try and keep momentum going as much as I can. However, a complete rewrite is required IMO for this application to evolve (again!).

Interest appears to be high again (from the Clan and from a few third parties if the truth be known) so resurrecting CDMS seems like a good idea at the mo. However, this may change. I'm still making no promises as time is simply far far too limited for me presently for me to even provide the roughest of estimates. This is gonna be a Quake III timeline I'm afraid. "It will be finished when its finished". However, to counter a little of the negative vibes in the above two paragraphs, I'm pretty excited with what could become a pretty useful product.

Okay then, where does CDMS go from here?

For the older members of the clan, CDMS was used quite heavily at the beginning of this year and albeit from a few teething problems, the general concensus from that it performed a useful service. However, general operational issues and issues regarding its use and reason for being were raised by a few members. These issues included: -

1. No Web Front-End. Why should you have to download a Win32 application to update your database information when a simple set of web forms (implemented either via cgi scripts or ASP) would do the job perfectly well?
2. Making changes to the 'games' we played was hard to implement and the games we 'were' playing were changing all the time. This led to the "active game" part of the application becoming a little out of date. Okay, a generic "I am playing" input box got around most of these issues, but with the advent of more online RPG's (all with multiple servers), this needs to be re-thought.
3. Sometimes, the executing of the cgi scripts that performed the actual maintenance of the online users were horrifically slow (for no apparent reason). However, as a slight defence to cgi scripts, they are now recognised to be the least preferable way of implementing web applications (with the main reason being speed; every single aysnchronous connection needs to create a new process for it's appropriate cgi script in memory). CGI scripts will always be slower that the internal facilities provided by run-time scripting engines like Active Server Pages (ASP).
4. Getting new accounts was practically impossible. This is purely my fault. My spare time literally vanished once I left my permanent job and set up on my own. Emails went unanswered and I apologise for this. I should have had the decency to at least email you all or post a message here informing you all of my current inability to perform any type of 'input' to the Clan. No excuses I'm afraid. It simply shouldn't have happened. It did and I'm sorry.
5. There was a distinct lack of adminstration tools available for the day to day management of the CDMS database which resulted in the day to day running of the system falling to me.
6. The application needed to be aware of an active Internet connection and start automatically. Users simply kept forgetting to start it. This issue has now been fixed. CDMSConnect now correctly polls for an internet connection, only starting CDMS when a connection is established. Once CDMS is 'running' again, CDMSConnect will be an integral part of the installation of CDMS.
7. The Messaging engine needs a lot of work (and to be fair, I'm not surprised. It was a 'quick job' and only took me around 30 minutes to code!).

From the above list (and discussions I've had with various people over the last year and a half), the following areas that need to be worked on are as follows: -

1. The system need to be generic enough to allow for any type of information to be stored against any type of entity. And, this information should be configurable by the administrators of the organisation that is using CDMS. As an example of this, I am currently coding a data mining application for the worlds largest supplier of data mining software. This application is truly generic (the entire repository is created by the DBA's and can contain anything. And is an absolutely nightmare to code against. 'Genericness' adds a lot of time to development :-( ).
2. Ditch CGI scripts as the backend and utilise something more efficient to process and return the data to the client (ASP).
3. The transfer of data between the Client and Server was not too efficient. A more generic (that word again!) way of transferring data from the client to server (and back again) need to be implemented. XML is really the only way to go with this (IMO).
4. A Suite of adminstration tools needs to be written. This will allow operations such as creating the initial 'repository', creating/removing user accounts, obtaining email lists and Member information easily etc.
5. Provide a web front-end to the database for organisations that do not require CDMS's Online Status feature (who is online and doing 'what').
6. Decide what the hell to do with the messaging system. DO we remove it (and use a more established Net Messenger service instead?) or invest more time in getting this aspect of the application working properly. The jury's still out on this one.

So, 6 items need resolving. Unfortunately, as any of the current members who has used CDMS will potentially recognise, the 6 items above basically requires an entire rewrite of the application (with perhaps only the GUI front-ends staying in some sort of recognisable state).

So, is this good news or back news?

Well, it''s a good question. The above is a hell of a lot of work that's for sure. However, you'll notice ClanUK (as an entity) is not mentioned anywhere in the problem domains above. This is intentional as the aim is to create a system architecture that is not set in stone, thus allowing for easier configuration (and erm....easier for me to sell on!). If CDMS is rewritten to be the generic monster as above, the advantages will be enormous. Consider the following: -

1. Practically no member database maintenance tasks for webmasters of specific GameZone's. Simply access your relevant information from the database.
2. The ability to provide instant up to the minute information about your members (okay, we can get this now, but only by going through a lot of people).
3. If the decision to store more information about members is approved/required (or another game needs to be shown on the 'games' list), it would be but a small job to start the Administrator application, perform the change and upload it to the database.

To summarise then:

1. CDMS is to be rewritten from scratch to allow for the full configuration of the data it will be required to store.
2. All of the back-end scripts are to be rewritten to utilise ASP talking to a more efficent SQL Engine (most probably MS Access initially).
3. CDMS Central will stay. However, the communication between the server and client will be rewritten to use XML as opposed to the fudged hybrid markup language I devised myself for CDMS. The key here is 'extensible'. This will utilise the IE 5.0 browser control to perform the parsing of the XML. Therefore IE 5.0 will now be a requirement for CDMS Central. I may well alienate more users by doing it this way, however IE 5.0 is a far more efficent browser than IE 4.0 and performs a service no other Win 32 App yet does well (XML). Plus, I may need these skills for a job I'm quoting for. It's good practice :-)
4. A web front-end into the database is to be developed to allow for users who do not wish to use CDMS Central to update their details. Online information however will only be available through CDMS Central. There is a reason for this, the web is stateless and managing the connection information otherwise will be practically impossible.
5. The entire application will be able to be manage without my intervention. I really do not have to time to commit to weekly/daily updates of data. Fortunately, Piper has already agreed to perform some issues of the administrative duties involved in managing CDMS.

I will be starting the design of the initial architecture probably within the next week or so. Also my companies web page will probably contain a forum purely for CDMS issues (and its development). This should hopefully be going up with the next couple of weeks. However for the time being, I would suggest we concetrate our discussions within the private "ClanUK Topics for Debate" forum.

Baltir

10th May 1999

The main members database has been repaired today after significant corruption (I can only think that this was caused by noise on the line while uploading the file a couple of weeks ago). I will hopefully be updating all members over the next few days so all accounts are active. Remember all, if you could login and now can't, your record has probably been deleted in the repair (sorry) so please email me to get a new account setup.

I am however still encountering performance issues with CDMS that weren't there before. After looking at the tables within the database I may have found a problem and will be looking into it over the next week or so. The internal Access Key table is a little bigger than I'd really like so hopefully this can be fixed by a quick change to the CGI scripts.

20th April 1999

21:30 - CDMS is finally up and running again. I had to depend on old DOS ftp to finally get the files uploaded. All other means for some reason failed??? very weird. The database will now be updated shortly so could everyone please refrain from updating their membership details for a little while longer. Apologies again for the downtime recently.

22:50 - Database is now updated with trial members who had requested an account from me. The following members can now login to CDMS. All of your initial passwords are LETMEIN. All ops know the password to the zip file.

Craig
[UK]Nads
Tiswas
Maniac
Brie
Vidar
Sephiroth
Humakt
Sadsurfer
Swordsman

Apologies again for the delay in you being added.

18th April 1999

After trying all evening to upload the new executables (and failing due to time-outs and the Server closing my connection) I've given up. Will try again hopefully tomorrow evening.

Apologies again.

17th April 1999

No it isn't!! No it isn't!!. Due to Interdev insisting it updates changed data automatically when I connect, CDMS is now currently down until I'm able to recompile the CDMS CGI Executables. This will hopefully be done this evening.

My sincere apologies for this.

7th April 1999

It's alive!! Its alive!!!!

This page will be updated shortly (to probably use ASP to make my life easier) as will be the database so all new members will have logons. I again, cannot apologise enough the lack of updates recently but RL has just had to come first.

4th March 1999, 23:50

Apologies for the lack on contact or CDMS news over the last couple of weeks, my new job is not leaving me too much time to do much and time in the evening in currently a little short.

I'm also in the unfortunate position of not having my NT Server running at home at the moment (which has my database,  the database drivers and IIS on) so development at the moment is pretty much impossible.

The interim build of CDMS was actually finished last week however I simply never had enough time to completely test it and release it. Please bear with me, I should be back to normal again soon.

I'm also under the impression some of you are still awaiting your logins for CDMS. If  you're one on these people, please contact me again via email (baltir@clanuk.com) and give me a 'nudge'. However, please be warned, without my NT Server being up I can't update your details as the administratrion scripts are not yet finished (that allow remote maintenance of the database).

22 February 1999 13:50

Database update is complete, new members added:

Thrudd (welcome back!!!)
Wolfie
Mauler
SwiftNick

22 February 1999 13: 45

Another update to the database is being performed, please refrain from updating your details until informed it is safe to do so.

11th February 1999 14:30

An update to the database has now been finished. Total members now within CDMS is 64.

The update to the CDMS Client has been delayed due to work pressures, this should be available hopefully by the beginning on next week.

4th February 1999  16:50

Another update to the database, Flaming June and Ferdy are now back with us :-). This takes the number of full members to have registered for use of CDMS to 53.

I'm currently working on a new build of CDMS that fixes a few known problems (and also some that I've found myself!). This will probably be available sometime early next week. Fixes in this version will include:-

1. Fixes the bug that causes an Access Violation when sending a message to yourself . This is caused when the Send Message form is closed before the actual Messages themselves.
   
   The fix is achieved by not allowing you to send a message to yourself (to be honest, I can't actually work out why this is causes the Access Violation it does (it really really crashes CDMS (and even Delphi in Debug mode, thats why I can't track it down!)). I believe its something to do with the IP Port being open by two processes and them not getting closed down in the right order).
   
   
2. The 'Snap to Desktop Borders' option on the CDMS Central Window disappears when you toggle the 'Stay on Top' option.
   
   
3. Sending Mail is now possible without MAPI Services being installed on the PC. This option should now open up your default Internet Email Client.
   

And now for something completely different...

I'm not too happy with how the chat system works. It's functional but not exactly a great implementation so I'm currently looking into rewriting it. For this, I've just started looking into utilising DirectPlay (part of DirectX 6.0).

If this is implemented to code a 'chat' engine the advantages are going to be pretty big (if I can get the hang of DirectX that is).

One facility that would definitely be possible would then be a Chat Room type interface (with more than two people simply exchanging messages. It would also teach me DirectX (which can't be a bad thing for the old CV!).

The disadvantages...well only one I can think of. It would not work on Windows NT (which is only at version 3.0 of DirectX). Windows 2000 will incorporate DirectX 6.1 (or 7.0 if Microsoft don't get their act together).

Oh, The 'server' or Chat Room would also have to reside on the machine that initiated the chat as we don't have the facility to run Server Side applications (apart from CGI Scripts).

Be warned though, this is a LONG term plan (and may not even happen) so please don't hold your breath. As I've said, I'm just looking into other ideas at the moment.

Any comments regarding this, other suggestions for CDMS or bug reports, please post onto the HelpDesk BBS. This way all users should be able to keep track of the current state of the application.

3rd February 1999, 14:00

The database update is now complete. All mail received by me from Clan Ops has now been processed. Keep those requests coming people...

3rd February 1999, 12:15

The online members count should now be fixed and should accurately reflect the number of Clan Members online at that time.

Another manual update to the database will be made shortly so please, no remote updates via CDMS until stated.

2nd February 1999, 16:30

The online members counter has appeared to have got broken and insists on saying six members are online.

Clicking the link though to display currently displayed users will display the correct information however. I shall be looking into this shortly.

2nd February 1999, 14:20

The database has been uploaded with all current details I've received. Everyone who has send your details to me is now present (although all of your details are blank...please update your membershipdetails yourself).Your initial password (who has not been part of the beta-test) is "LETMEIN".

Once logged in, please CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD!

2nd February 1999, 13:26

The Members database is currently being edited locally to incorporate all current full member details I've received through a Clan Op.

DO NOT edit your membership details until this page informs you that the database is uploaded again.

1st February 1999

Version 3.0 of CDMS is now available for download by all full members. The database has not yet been cleared down so all non current beta-test users will not be able to log in until the cleardown has been performed (hopefully this evening or early tomorrow morning).

Download CDMS Version 3.0 here

This zip file is password protected to enable only Full Members to access the software. All Ops and ClanUK Adminstrators know the password (which is the same as the previous CDMS zip files).

 

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