I need to know the plans for panda3dprojects.com.
Basically, panda3d needs a site for hosting projects, and it needs it darn soon. I have a team working for me this semester, and normally, I would ask my team to create a portal site. However, I’d like to avoid duplicate work, depending on what panda3dprojects is going to be. Could somebody fill me in, and give me an ETA?
I’m not the guy to respond to this really but I’ll say what I know.
bigfoot29 and prorsoft are working on a portal that will be transfered to panda3dprojects.com when it is complete- right now it’s on a different site (perhaps even different server) I’ve seen it because bigfoot29 sent me a link when I asked him about it. That portal is under construction and as far as I can tell the timestamps showed it hadn’t been edited since sometime in June.
The current panda3dprojects.com is basically empty space on a standard server with .PHP installed. Right now there isn’t any over-arching connection between the various projects- it’s mostly just disk space right now that people in the forums are using and posting links.
I think Legion has a central .html index file that he’s using to access the various files in his project and I have my index file up- but it’s all of 2 days old right now.
Eventually, I’d like to see a central portal with links/gallery to the various projects and the ability to access that central portal through this site. I don’t know how long that would take.
Heya… that happens if you let someone get a sneak peak preview… 
Well, pro-rsoft is working on getting stuff ready. What is missing atm is an visual integration into the panda3d-theme itself.
The portal itself consists of 2 things:
A Wiki-Style portal where the users can place their websites at - or comment changes/news/whatever. This portal has another function. It can create a webspace (more or less automatically - it needs just an admin approval) where the users have access for some more ressources. (including but not limited to a mysql table, some email accounts if they like them, on request CGI-Access (thus the ability to use even Panda3D as CGI) and of course the mandatory FTP upload(s)
I agree with you, that the Projects site should go online rather soon… my problem is, that I don’t have too much clue about the Wiki-Style portal pro-rsoft is working at. He worked on it today if I am right - and as soon as I am home I am trying to get a part of my stuff ready.
A timestamp is hard to give since I don’t have an overview about what still has to be done at the Wiki-Frontend. The backend is up and working. Its just waiting for the domain to be transferred from its current server to its final destination.
Hope, that helped a bit…
Regards, Bigfoot29
I have to admit, I still don’t have much idea what the site is going to look like. Of course, that might be because I’ve no idea what SysCP is.
i would find no use for site like that i just host my own projects (any thing to get a way form this ugly site layout)
Noone forces you in using anything from the Panda3D-Layout…
You can set up your very own website.
Its the advantage of the hybrid-concept…
You DO get the portal account plus the web account. But noone forces you to use the portal account at all.
The web account is a standard web account like the million others. - No sign if Panda3D-related styles if you don’t integrate them into your website (as you can see at mavashers page)
SysCP is a Control Panel for web administration. Here is a link:
http://syscp.org/
Regards, Bigfoot29
does site support mod_python and a sql db?
an MySQL-DB is included.
mod_python isn’t available - but fastCGI-based Python (and thus Panda3D libs) are available on request.
Regards, Bigfoot29
A few thoughts:
1.) bigfoot29: I hope I didn’t say anything you didn’t want said- I just saw the post and answered. Sorry if I messed up. 
2.) I generally think it’s best to just go with what you have as long as it’s functional and extend its functionally and asthetic quality as time goes on.
So, whatever you have I think it’s probably time to just put it up. The current portal may not look like what you want (making it look like the panda3d homepage) but you can change that later.
3.) Standardization on the central homepage gallery should be important. Maybe ask for an image of dimensions of your chosing along with a short text description from each person who has an account- visitors could see all the projects and link through to the index file for that particular project. That way each project can maintain it’s own look on it’s own homepage (which fixes Treeform’s issue) and yet still gets advertized in a central place.
4.) Whatever it is, it should be accessible from panda3d.org . New people coming to the site for the first time should be able to see active projects immediately without having to search through the forums for them (like they have to do now.)
One last thing. You keep making mention of using Panda3d for CGI. I have no idea what this means. Maybe you can explain that a little more.
Right Josh, I’m working very hard at the PHP part… I think it’s close to being finished, but we do need a website layout. I’m not that good at layout designing 
Panda3DProjects is basically a website where people can register onto, if they want webspace they can click “request webspace”, they can enter information about their project, and after an admin has approved the request, they are granted a wiki where they can quickly set-up pages, they are granted a webspace as well where they can put files on and make their own webpages. If they need more webspace they can e-mail an admin.
And uhmm… SysCP is the admin panel about the webspace they get, where they can create email accounts, subsubdomains etc at.
As I said, it’s almost done, so have patience
Don’t let those timestamps fool you. Every week I upload lots of new code - the timestamps are about the wiki pages.
Ah, an update - thanks pro-rsoft.
mavasher:
Don’t worry too much. The comment was meant to be more of a joke than anything else.
Thats the problem. Sure its no problem to create the webspaces now because the backend is working, but then everything will get messed up with the frontend (wiki/portal) because it relies on having the same user accounts and this kinda stuff.
This gallery will be one of the major problems. Since even if the projects Name is “Projects” and folks can host their projects there, (at least) the webspace account is for the user. - Not only for a single project.
As you may have noticed, your projects space is named after you - not your project. 
The idea was to be not too complicated. We don’t want to be another sourceforge and in case you start 5 projects in a week this would mean we have to approve 5 projects a week from you. Sure, I think a gallery is possible, but since thats just code, it will be an option for later - maybe users can announce their projects then in that gallery.
I agree on that. Lets see what can be done.
(5.) CGI is a mode where dynamic websites are run in a special way. Normally this is done for Perl, Ruby Python and others. - Whatever language can accept input and create html-conform output on the command line should be sufficient to create dynamic web output (I am doing some of my dynamic websites using Python). Since Panda3D is installed at P3DP you can start the Panda3D-Engine just from within a script (e.g index.py), load models, let them collide and present the new positions of the objects on the website. together with an offscreen-renderer you can show even images of what just happened.
Note that this is going to be extremely CPU-eating… so its not enabled by default.
Hope, that helped - gotta go.
Regards, Bigfoot29
Right.
The main script is done, it’s labeled beta now. We definately need the layout right now. Is anyone up to designing a layout or has an existing one? Or, Josh, do you think it is better to use the current Panda3D.org layout?
The site is looking great. I tried to register- it said it would send me an email with the password but it didn’t. How close is this?
Also, I can’t tell from the current set up but are people going to be able to navigate to each person’s account even if they don’t already know what account they want to see? I mean is there a central place to showcase the different accounts?
I’m just thinking as a newbie going to the P3DP.com for the first time, it would be good to see some screenshots-etc.
About the email - check your spam box.
Since you haven’t got the email, ill pm the password to you.
Yes, you can navigate to other person’s webspaces by clicking P3dp.com > Index in the menu bar. But Josh will create a Project Listing here at panda3d.org, he said, with links to panda3dprojects.com
Well, most of the needed stuff is done. Currently we have one “showstopper” that needs to be fixed (and according to pro-rsoft is already fixed - upload missing). Everything else is cosmetics. ^^
I (well, one of us both) will announce the “official” beta start soon. give us a little bit time…
Regards, Bigfoot29
pro-rsoft - you called it. the spam filter on gmail flagged the password message. I already registered using the password in the PM you sent me.
Right now it’s awaiting admin approval.
This is exciting. Thanks for doing this.
This looks exciting. It will be nice to see what people have done or are working on without having to wade through the forums (which is what I’m struggling to do now).
Oh, and hello folks
Heh… also hello
Yap - thanks to pro-rsoft Panda3DProjects became a bit more than planned originally. - According to Josh it might get even easier with the new layout.
Lets see what the future brings.
Regards, Bigfoot29
Ooook guys!
We are ready to go!
For the next days I want to ask ALL users that do currently use Panda3DProjects.com to go to the new portal and sign in for an account / generate the webspace.
I do suggest that you copy your old files over to the new place and then please give me a short notice that you are ready. As soon as all devs are on the new system, the domain name will just be added to the new portal and the old downloads should continue to link.
You will get your own passwords this time and your accounts are more separated then they were in the past.
This will be the closed beta we announced a few days in the past.
Currently there is only a small mod_rewrite problem left. (if there is someone who knows to handle that apache module, please send me a short PM or do a short post - thanks.)
The link for you guys is:
Everyone else is of course allowed to look - or even sign in for an account. But note that we don’t grant webspaces to folks not having an account on the old system already. Don’t get us wrong. We don’t laugh at you just because you don’t have an account already. Its just and all about bugs that might occur. Right now every file is also present at the old system and can be restored with ease if something goes wrong. If a only-new account just f***s up, we’ll DO have a problem.
Please note that the webspace activation may take some time.
I hope you will enjoy your new “home” for your Panda3D-Projects!
(And again thanks to pro-rsoft - awesome work from my point of view!)
Regards, Bigfoot29
I have some bug fixes/suggestions for the beta release.
When logged in, I can only “Create Wiki Page” on the main page-I’m assuming that would add a page to the root. I cannot create a new wiki page inside my project space.
Often after posting a slight change in my wiki page, I get an error message that the browser cannot open “doku.php” -Operation Aborted. No idea what this is about. I figure there’s a bug in the .php script. 
In the main index page for the site you have all the of the business/regulation links (This is an index over all available pages in the current project/namespace.) on top of the project links. May I suggest that you put the projects on top as the business/regulation stuff is ancillary to the projects not the other way around.
Text is great, but the advantage of this for newbies to Panda3D is that they should be able to see pictures quickly. I’ve had a terrible time trying to add screenshots/etc to the wiki page. What’s the syntax? I tried wikipedia syntax and it didn’t work.
The site is great- thanks again. These bug fixes aren’t to complain just to help you make the site better.