Just Journal Developer Blog

Spell check functionality is about half done. The backend code is done, and part of the integration. The view is where i'm stuck.

I just got a new hard drive for my iMac so i will need to reinstall my machine before i can work on jj more.

Several software packages have been upgraded on the server recently as well as several operating system upgrades. Things seem very fast.

I am in the process of adding a few dozen moods today. Eventually, I want to add an "other" field too.

LJ Friends now displays user pictures, and the title of their journal as opposed to the username. I also improved the formatting slightly on the lj friends page. I am considering a similar layout for regular journals in the future. (tweaked a bit though)

Friends pages now have usernames listed as hyperlinks (owner of entry).

There are a few bugs with the new data access object integration for journal updates and adds. When the bugs are worked out, the "keep login after post" check box will function on the update page.

Last night I got the calendar code working. You can now view entries for this year, month, and days. I will add a viewer for single entries later.

Also i setup the following url structure for this feature:

/users/mysusername/year/month/day

for example:

to view all the entries for 2003 for jjsite:

/users/jjsite/2003

to view all the entries for september:

/users/jjsite/2003/09

to view all the entries for today:
/users/jjsite/2003/09/15


Its very important that you have the 0 prefixing days or months smaller than 10 (2 digit dates). The matching code looks for 2 integers there.

Also, the code should work in the future. If you pass in 2004 it will correctly access the entries (if they existed). If someone forward dates an entry, it should be visible.

There are two flaws, the software does not print out all the years that are applicable (which isn't a problem till 2004) and specific entries are not viewable by themselves (which i already discussed).

The first problem is easily fixed, I'm working on adding a signup year field (since) that allows jj to know where to start counting from. Existing accounts have this field setup, but new accounts do not have it set yet. (new account code is really behind)

I'm working on several other new features as well including user pics. this is a very popular feature on LJ and i think it would work great on jj as well. Initially, i will only allow one picture to be uploaded locally to the server (no seperate hosting crap). I have the storage system setup, but have not written the distrubition system. Also, i must write a servlet to allow users to upload images. (the most important part)

Once i have the system working, i will let users email me images to post in PNG format. Finally, i'll add the upload servlet.

Another requested feature has been the profile system. The backend has been done for about two months now. I just haven't had time to rewrite the preferences system. I'm testing several frameworks that might aide in building the prefs system in the future.

I plan to get back to adding one feature a week. The beauty is that each feature seems bigger than the last.

Also, i've been tweaking the website design lately. Its getting better, but still needs work. :)

I am in the process of transitioning the site look and feel to a refined version. It will take several more days of work to finish. I think the new look will simplify using this website.

Over the last two days, I sucessfully upgraded several pieces of software including FreeBSD and Tomcat for this website. File I/O seems much faster, and I am pleased with the progress so far.

I've corrected serveral bugs on Just Journal today.

Typing an incorrect password now displays an error message instead of a blank screen.

Creating an account now sets up records in all user tables instead of just inserting in two. Style, preferences, and other information will be editable for new users.

Most users now have their records created for all the new features. There are still 5 to check that may or may not have them setup correctly.

The live journal friends test code was sped up. I think I can put that feature into production soon. Basically i just need to add a few links and the related preferences pages.

I've been standardizing commenting across all the servlets. Most of my early code was not commented well and not sharing code.

All servlets use the new Connection Pool. So far no errors in the logs in regards to connections not being let go. Jsp pages still need to use the pool, although i want to implement beans for their code anyway or switch away from them.

The calendar page will act oddly for a few days. I'm working on that feature actively. Initially, I will try to mimic the behavior of live journal and then extend it later. Some of the loops are very complicated.

I just altered the database tables for entries. Now the entire table is not locked when someone is inserting a new entry. That should make the site much faster. I'll investigate changing table types for other tables as well. User prefernces might be a canidate as well.

Slashdot uses Inno DB tables as well.

RSS content feeds work provided that characters important in xml are not used in the journal. For example, less than or greater than marks or ampersand signs. I will filter those characters out in the next release to fix the problem.

If you want to use RSS, simply type in the following
http://www.justjournal.com/users/jjjsite/rss

(note that you would replace jjsite with your username or the person you want to watch)

FeedReader for windows works with the RSS generated on this site. (i'm sure others do as well)

The friends code has been working for quite some time now. The output when you submit is weak, but that will be fixed later.

RSS update: The first version of the code was published tonight. I completely rewrote the users servlet to implement it. Quite a bit of code is not executed now unless needed. Much faster. RSS output seems to be incomplete though. I will debug it soon.

RSS .91 will be supported soon.

Caryn wrote the remove friend code today. She has the add friend code partially done. I expect Friends should be working by next week sometime.

The add and view comment code is now in place. You can add comments to journals provided that you have an account on JJ.

Would anyone be interested in RSS feeds for user journals? Many blogging sites including LiveJournal have this feature. My question is: Are people using it?

Reply to Luke@FoolishGames.com

I haven't forgotten about jj. I have been playing around with several java frameworks for web development including struts and tapestry. I want to find a new way to write code besides servlets.. or at least an enhancement. I like them except that output formatting is annoying.. println() kind of stuff.

If I don't find a framework soon, I will simply write my own libraries. XSLT support would be very good for users as well as me.

Here is a breakdown of upcomming features that are partially done:

Friends (add/remove)

Comments (no nesting)

Preferences including Custom style sheets for journals.

This journal will log the progress on JustJournal.com. I will include information on server upgrades, new features, etc.