new bodega server up

[Aaron J. Seigo]

hi everyone ...

addons.makeplaylive.com is now running an instance of the new bodega server. 
it comes with a huge number of improvements across the board, the most 
important of which is that we now also have a web app where you can log in and 
upload, edit, etc. content.

yes, this means you can finally upload applications, wallpapers, etc.

on monday i’ll blog about this in more detail as well as post user 
documentation for the management app.

we’ve been busy fixing the inevitable issues that arise when doing such a major 
upgrade. one of the new things that came with this upgrade was a move to the 
new Project Gutenberg data set ... which unfortunately changed the mimetypes 
of the books. this leads to a small problem: the currently released version of 
active-addons will not show the information for any gutenberg book nor will it 
let you install it.

this has been fixed in the master branch of active-addons and Marco will push 
an update for Plasma Active 4 that addresses this.

some notable feature improvements in the new bodega server and client:

* asset manager application (upload, create, remove, etc assets)
* updates; when you install something, when it is updated on the server you 
will get a notification and be able to update it. magic!
* ratings; you can add ratings to an asset (not just a silly 5 star system, 
eight)
* partners can have links to websites, blogs and social media
* download queueing
* MessageQueue: message queueing on the server side: generated messages are 
put into a queue and processed at intervals into emails, etc.
* all emails sent are now generated using a templating system
* Janitor: database maintenance routines that get run on startup, frequently 
and daily. this ensures the database does not get excessively clogged
* improved config.json, as the number of capabilities were growing. it is now 
also possible to run all components (node apps, redis, postgres, etc) on 
different machines and/or run multiple instances of the bodega server as part 
of one cluster
* all communication is secured via https; our deployment is using haproxy and 
node.js forever to deliver stability, security and performance
* assets have size information so you know how much you’ll be downloading
* test suite now up to 244 tests (all of which pass, of course)
* installation instructions that actually work ;)
* improved database manager: make sql, make test_data, make updates
* complete api documentation at http://apidocs.makeplaylive.com/bodega
* lots and lots of bugfixes and performance improvements

next release goals include:

* discussions; currently there is basic integration of the discourse forum 
software on the server side, where each partner gets a forum area and each of 
their assets automatically gets a forum topic. finishing this support and 
providing access to the discussions in the client remain to be done
* collections; the server currently supports collections (”My favourites..”, 
“Best games”, “Books wishlist”, whatever) and Active Add-ons supports showing 
these collections ... but there are no editing capabilities in the client.
* real-time messages in the asset manager web app, pulled from the same 
message queue that sends out emails. this way when you post an asset and it 
gets pushed into the main store (published), you can get notified in the 
manager app rather than have to obsessively reload your inbox ;)
* improved search ranking
* ability to filter a listing of assets by tags; e.g. if you search for 
‘Christmas’ you might only want to see books by ‘Dickens’
* Store collections. the server supports collections associated with stores, 
so that a store can have “editor’s pick”, “staff selection”, “featured”, etc. 
collections. there is no editing capability provided at the moment and the 
client wouldn’t show them if there was.
* donate and subscribe as payment options
* bank wire transfer for US and Europe in addition to current credit card 
support

as you can see, a number of the next goals are partially implemented already. 
still, there is a lot more to do. more hands helping us out are welcome.

for an overview of how bodega works from an operational standpoint:

	http://makeplaylive.com/~aseigo/MPL_Content_System.pdf

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo