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  • Michael

    Babble 3.0.0 Preview

    By Michael, in General,

    I'll be releasing Babble 3.0.0 preview this week, ONLY UPGRADE if you are wanting to test it out. this will be a post beta release, but it might still have bugs in it.
    You will also need to have IPS 4.5 installed, as 3.0.0 has been designed around to work best with it. It might work with 4.4, but there is no guarantee that it will. 
    I will be releasing the self hosted preview tomorrow, but the chat service version will come a few days later. 
    Once i move from preview to the release, there will be a 30 day period in which babble 2.x will continue to operate on the service, after this, i will be shutting down the 2.x chat service servers.  Self hosted will not be effected by this, so if you wish to continue to run the 2.x branch, you can, but no updates/bug fixes or improvements will be made to it after the 30 days.
    Regards,
    Michael
  • Michael
    There are two terms you will often hear in the FOSS world, you might think they mean the same thing but you they do not.
    Free as in beer and Free as in speech/freedom. 
    They sound like they are saying the same thing but they really don't. 
    Free as in beer, is getting something without payment. That is all it really means, you could try to find a deeper meaning in it, but you would be hard pressed to find one. This is what it means in the FOSS world too, if some one says 'Try Ubuntu, its free as in beer', they just mean it doesn't have a monetary cost. I chose these words very carefully too, it might not have a monetary cost, but it does cost you something. It will cost you your time while you learn it, it could even cost you your sanity, cause it might not be easy to use or to get use to. It will eventually cost you something, but it is still free of payment. 
    Free as in speech/freedom. This one is a bit more abstract than the one before it, you could spend hours finding deeper meaning in this one. In the United States, our founders decided that Free Speech was a inalienable right (meaning it isn't something that is given to us, its inherit/natural state. you just have it. Trying to take it away, would be like cutting off your arm or removing an eye, it is often why many american's do not see the "free speech" in other countries around the world is the same as what we have here in the states, as often times that "speech" is given to you by your government, its free as in beer, but what is given, can be taken too.). Any way back to FOSS, in FOSS however, it simple means you have liberty and not just the ability to get the software for free. In FOSS you have 4 rights that are granted under it:
    run the software however you would like. you as the user decide how the software is to be used/run, the creator/owner of the code doesn't dictate this (this is why it is ironic when you hear about people in FOSS trying to forbid use of their code under a FOSS type license, due to them disagreeing with you on some level. they gave up the right to have a say in how the software is used and by who, when they birthed it into the opensource world).  seeing how the software actually works. this is where the opensource part comes into play, you have the right to get the source code, to see for yourself what makes it tick. This would be like knowing the secret recipe that the "free as in beer" is made of. redistribution, you have the right to give the software away any way you want. you could burn cd's of it, give it away on flash drives, install it on their computer/device when they aren't looking, setting up a mirror to host a download of it, etc. you as the user can redistribute it the way you see fit, this also includes, not redistributing, its not a requirement, but a right you could exercise if you see fit.  improvement, assuming you possess the skills, you could improve/alter the software to fit your needs better. You also have the right to give those improvements back if you so desire.  So that is it really, these 2 terms explained, so if you ever come across them, you will know which is which and what they mean. Now this doesn't mean the person who are using them knows what they mean, as many think they are interchangeable due to them sounding similar. There is plenty of "free as in beer" software out there, that you don't have any liberty with.
  • Michael
    A breakdown of features of the devtoolbox for IPS.
    Repository link:
    https://github.com/codingjungle/toolbox/tree/dev
    clone the dev repository to get the latest features and fixes, the xp branch is for new features that might not be stable or complete.
     
     
  • Michael

    Babble 3.0 Beta

    By Michael, in General,

    Babble 3.0 Beta is now available, contact me if you wish to be apart of the beta. Below is the video showing off babble 3.0 and its abilities and differences. Babble 3.0 is also currently running on my site here.  (video is still uploading, so it might take some time before its available for viewing).
     
  • Michael

    Absence

    By Michael, in General,

    I am alive, I don't mean to disappoint anyone if you are  
    I had a chance to use my talents to help a few local schools out with their IT dilemma (mostly fixing their old and donated computers to hand out to children who don't have one).  So i was busy with this for a bit, and then i got sick (not with covid19, at least they told me it wasn't it, but it kicked my butt for about 5 days), but i am back now. I have a few things to get thru for a few clients, and then i will start working my way thru the backlog. 
    hope everyone is staying safe and well  
  • Michael

    Babble 2.9/3.0?

    By Michael, in General,

    since i have some free time for the next several weeks, i thought i'd jump on in on babble 2.9/3.0 (more than likely be 3.0 finally).
    but here is a quick video on the new look for babble. if you have followed the babble saga for the awhile, you will know i've never been quite happy with the layout of babble. it was archaic imho, mostly due to the original spec that babble was written under. i experimented with a "slack" like layout, but i wasn't too happy with that one either, that is why the original 3.0 was always being "delayed". also there are other chats out there and i think i need to really set babble apart from the others. 
    i thought about trying to keep both designs, but i've done that in the past with other apps of mine, and it really isn't a good thing. it delays development and can potentially add in bugs. 
    planned features:
    private rooms (this will replace the current "whispers", you will create a private room and invite a person or people to it instead). multiple rooms on the same page. globally placement of the "chatbar" (it will show up on everypage, i will more than likely give an option to limit it to specific apps). new design this isn't an exhaustive list, i have more, but they aren't well defined yet.
    features possibly being removed:
    reverse ordering...this has been the bane of my existence. this was something that was in the original spec, that i just sorta got straddled with when i made it public. i think it is time for it to die, as it has made coding around it very difficult, in a lot of regards i think it has actually held babble back in some ways. i honestly don't think i can be talked out of this, i think it will die. the order i'll be keeping is the new messages at the bottom (which i would consider to be the "natural" order, cause that is how they come out of the database and that is how most chat apps work to begin with). widget/landing page/menu - i will be removing the widget/landing page and menu navigation as it will no longer be needed.  popout - the pop out feature where you could have it open up in its own separate window, as it doesn't fit in with the new  archive - i'm really not sure how much this one is used, its made a mess of the code in some places, so i might consider moving messages into the search index, or at least giving people the option to turn it on, cause that was original the whole point of the archive was in the first place, i just don't think it is needed any longer tbh.  okay i will have more info in the coming days, maybe more videos, but as you can see in the video, its still quite buggy
  • Michael

    Babble 2.9

    By Michael, in General,

    I will begin work on babble 2.9 in the next few weeks. what features would you like to see in babble 2.9?
    https://codingjungle.com/stratagem/projects/4-babble/
  • Michael

    Babble 2.8

    By Michael, in General,

    I've released babble 2.8 today. please upgrade asap. I will only be keeping the old chat service open till the end of this month (maybe sooner if everyone upgrades before then). 
    If you run into any problems (like it not connecting) it might be a domain propagation issue, only thing that can resolve that is time. also check to verify your license key and email are correct. if you continue to have issues, feel free to send me a PM. 
    Regards,
    Michael
  • Michael
    I know babble 3.0.0 has probably seemed like vaporware for awhile now. well today i am announcing i'm suspending its development for a few reasons.
    overly ambitious: babble v3 had a lot of features and changes being made to the core of babble. this was overly ambitious move, considering how much work was involved, to make changes that a lot of people were "luke warm" too.  feature creep: i kept adding new and more features, instead of refining the ones already there. no market: babble has never been a stellar selling app, its been "modest" to put it simply. i've gotten busier in my business and have to make some concessions. i don't bring in enough to hire additional developers and babble doesn't perform well enough to warrant many hours to rewrite the application. so v3 is suspended for now. however i have began work on v2.8, which will be combining features from v3 that were done that can be backported to v2.8
    new features and improvements:
    message template: this has been updated to be more "streamlined". avatars are always visible now, with username above the message, same with the time/date. this frees up the horizontal space, to allow better responsiveness. commands: commands have been improved with room restrictions. you can now enable which groups can use commands, and then which rooms the commands are available in. editor: with my work with stratagem, i've become quite intimidate with the CKEditor, so since the legwork was already done in that application that allows me to overcome a lot of the limitations i originally had with it when i began work with babble years ago. command list editor plugin: this will be automatically loaded fore babble, this will give a list of available commands for the room based on the user group. bots: bots have been changed around, they are now independent of "rooms". you can create one and share them among rooms. you can also limit the bot to groups.  connections: several improvements to the node.js have been introduce that should help with receiving messages specifically targeted to your, your group and your room.  removal of guest messaging: this code was bulky and actually was the cause of several bugs, so i've completely removed it. sorry to anyone who actually used it. guest will still be able to view the room, they just wont be able to see the online list or participate in the conversation. chat service activation: this process has been troublesome, some servers wont send the required information to activate properly, so i've streamlined this process a bit, so instead of having to activate, i've made some changes to allow easier activation. hopefully activation problems will be a thing of the past. message dialog: commands can now open up dialog boxes to display their info instead of showing in the chat window like they use too. this ability can be extended to custom commands. these are the major changes, there are minor changes that are too numerous to mention here. hopeful these changes will be welcomed . these are the major changes for v2.8, there will be other v3 features that will be brought into babble, but at a later date. 
    here is a video of some of the new features and improvements (there are bugs still and missing styling )
     
    Self Hosted:
    I had announced that i would be getting rid of self hosted, but that was for v3. I've decided to repeal that decision, and continue to make a self hosted and a chat service version. i will also begin selling the self hosted again when i launch v2.8. self hosted and chat service will continue to be feature parity to each other, so the only difference will be the the user limit.
    New Chat Service Pricing:
    I've lowered the buy in prices for the babble chat service, but have kept the renewal terms the same. 
    New Chat Service Server:
    with v2.8 i will be opening up a new server, the old servers will continue to run for 1 month after v2.8 release and the new server will not be backwards compatible with older versions. there will also only be one server. Europe started out as an experiment to see if i could improve latency, it does improve latency, but the costs of running dual servers is prohibitive. the NA server is a much more powerful machine and handles about 90% of the traffic for the chat service, so the amount of sites on the European server are in the single digits. if the demand is there, i will considering coming out with "European" packages, that cost a bit more, that will have a europe based server. sorry for any inconvenience this might cause.
     
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