Speed and Features

Thanks for any that gave wurblr a whirl.  I tweaked the display speed today.  I’m thinking in today’s society, folks don’t want to wait those extra few seconds for the next set of messages .  Let me know if you think it’s too fast or too slow.

Also, if there’s other features you would like to see.  If it gets popular enough, there will certainly be some sort of mobile version.  Though I don’t entirely know how well jquery is supported on the major mobile platforms.  But, something will be created, so we can share with each other even when we’re sitting on that grassy knoll.

We’ll get more into the code stuff soon, but at moment I have a call out for anyone and everyone to help us out and give wurblr a whirl .  We want folks from all over sharing and caring.

Let us know what you think, and any problems you may have.  Make sure to mention your OS and Browser (including version).  Muchas Gracias!  Just shoot us a note through the Contact link above on this blog.

First things first, go to CodeIgniter and download the latest stable version.  When setting up the directory structure, I came across another blog (sorry, I’d link it, if I could remember which one it was) that provided a good base layout.

I took the ‘System’ directory and pulled out the ‘Application’ directory from it and placed that in the root of my site.  Then renamed ‘System’ to something else, like ‘_codeigniter’ to know it’s not part of my code.  I also created an ‘Assets’ directory in the root of my site, and placed my ‘css’, ‘js’, and ‘img’ directories inside there.

Inside your ‘Application’ directory, under the ‘config’ directory open up ‘config.php’.

• Set your ‘base_url’ to your blog url.
• Set ‘index_page’ to empty string, since we’ll be using pretty URLs.
• I also set my Session variables, since I’ll be storing session data in the database.  See here for setting up the database sessions table, if you want to do the same.
• For my non-complex site, I also set ‘global_xss_filtering’ to TRUE.  You may want to do that on a case by case basis for your site.

Inside your ‘Application’ directory, under the ‘config’ directory open up ‘database.php’.  Here you will setup your database related information.  This is pretty self-explanatory.

To setup pretty URLs, we’ll be using Apache’s mod_rewrite module.  If you’re using Ubuntu, you may need to first enable that module, by running the following command…

sudo a2enmod rewrite

…Then restart apache.  If you’re on a web host, most likely ‘.htaccess’ override files are allowed.  But, if you’re running your own setup for development and haven’t already allowed for overrides, you will need to tell Apache to allow for them.  Inside your Apache virtual host config, you need to change ‘AllowOverRide None’ to ‘AllowOverRide All’, to allow for the use of ‘.htaccess’ files.

For the ‘.htaccess’ file content itself, we’ll be following the CodeIgniter Wiki on mod_rewrite.

• First step is to create a file in the root of your site called ‘.htaccess’.
• Then copy and paste the ‘.htaccess’ code from the wiki page into your ‘.htaccess’ file.
• Now, if you are running on a directory under your web root, which is most likely the case if you are testing on localhost, we’ll need to make a couple changes to the ‘.htaccess’ file.
• If you access your site like, ‘localhost/wurblr.com’, then we’ll make the following changes…
  Change RewriteBase line to : RewriteBase /wurblr.com/
  Change both RewriteRule lines to : RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /wurblr.com/index.php?/$1 [L]

Your ‘.htaccess’ file should now be setup.  Before we test things though, one very important step that made me kick myself for about a half-hour – remove the ‘index.html’ from the root of your site.  Otherwise the browser will just try to load that instead of your CodeIgniter site .

Now, if all went well, we should be able to go to your site’s base URL and see the CodeIgniter welcome code page.

Just like people are picky about their choice of coffee (still don’t quite how folks drink that Starbucks stuff), so are developers about their environment.  I’ve had a nice setup for awhile now that seems to work quite well for me. Here’s the lowdown…

• Development OS : Ubuntu 9.10 x64 (with a Mint style theme and Slight font hinting – nice and smooth)
• Webserver : Apache 2
• Browser : Firefox with Firebug
• Editor : Geany with a dark style and Monospace 10 font
• PHP Framework : CodeIgniter (this was mainly picked for earlier projects do to the need for PHP4 support – yes, still)
• Javascript Framework : JQuery and it’s vast plugins

Next, onto CodeIgniter setup and removing CodeIgniter’s ‘index.php’ URL.

There are now over 207 million websites according to Netcraft.  So why in this great wonderful world of ours should we add to that mass of 0’s and 1’s.  For the simple reason that many of us may need to follow more often – why not?  In the extreme unlikely hood that the 0’s and 1’s on this particular little site ever get processed by another human, I will delve into the reasons behind Wurblr.com a little deeper than ‘Why not?”.

Wurlblr.com got it’s start after a night of little sleep after spending time with my son on an overnight scouting trip.  The next day with a beautiful bottle of Guinness in hand, I decided it was time to start a project.  A project using two things I wanted to pursue a little further, that is CodeIgniter and JQuery.  I have used both fleetingly, but wanted to get further into them and do a full project with them.

Well then, what project?  I’m a huge fan of minimalism (I thank the theme creator for this blog for her minimalist sense ).  I also enjoy the idea that we now live in a world where communication across it has become so much more evolved even my own youth.  With the Commodore 64 and modem as a kid and having people from far away places, like Chicago call me it was such a nerdly thrill.  When Gopher came about, I remember how even more incredibly exciting it was to think I’m talking to a computer in Australia.  I love to know the story behind what people are thinking at this moment in every corner of the world.  I want an easy way to share that.

We take the world and the people’s thoughts and ideas and mix it with minimalism to just get the sharing out – and you end up with Wurblr.com.  Wurblr = Word Blur

So, for that one person out there that may be reading this, there’s more to come.  Wurblr.com will continue to evolve and hopefully we will follow it’s growing up like a proud papa.