RebDev - r3n/rebol-wiki GitHub Wiki
RebDev is the developmental project name for the DevBase forum system.
In a nutshell, RebDev is a fast, efficient communication system aimed at accelerating Rebol development and focusing discussions.
It supports messages, topics, alerts, threads, banners, comments, submissions, and also includes user ranking and private messages. A wide range of client programs allow access from any environment, including shells, GUIs, web browsers, cell phones, and email.
Note that RebDev is just our project name for it. Once it is integrated with DevBase (file sharing and source management), it will just be called DevBase, and this page will be renamed.
Want to quickly find out how to use it? See RebDev Quick Start.
Why did we build RebDev? The requirements of the system were documented in Better Developer Communications on 20-Nov-2008.
To meet these requirements, the system was designed with the features below.
We want users to be able to access the message system from anywhere. That includes:
- Rebol CLI - command line interface - so even users on remote server shells can see messages.
- Rebol GUI - graphical user interface - the easiest to use.
- Web - as a normal HTML web page - so people anywhere can view it, and also find it in Google.
- Web Mobile - light-styled for cell phones - for rebolers-on-the-go.
- Email - as a subscription/publication list - for people who find email convenient.
Headings provide the main structure for postings and navigation by subject.
New headings at any level can be added as needed.
Messages can be attached to anything, not just headings.
For example, a message can be attached to a file submission so users can discuss issues related to the submission and keep them within the context of the file itself.
Another example: a messages can be attached to an alert, for example to provide additional information or conditions.
In the future, messages will be allowed for projects, tasks, calendar events, and more (all using the same general mechanism).
Alerts and banners are special messages designed to get the attention of users.
An alert is a message of urgent importance and will "popup" to be sure that the user sees it. In the CLI client, it will be shown automatically.
A banner is a message that labels or defines a section, such as a heading. It's main purpose is to help keep a discussion on a defined topic. For example, a heading called "Button Shapes" in a GUI section may have a banner that says "This section explains how to make different button shapes."
Private messages are those that can be read only by specific users.
Note that private messages can be posted in any discussion thread, even in public discussions. This allows users to make comments to other users, but keep them within the context of the discussion.
For example, in the Button Shapes discussion above, Mario might privately tell Luke: "I prefer to make buttons with rounded corners." Only Mario and Luke will see that message.
Special tags can be attached to messages.
Tags are often used to indicate messages that are important in some way. Maybe they need a resolution, an expert reply, or an official decision.
With tags, the message base is easily searched for those important messages.
Also, a message can have any number of tags, tags also include the user who issued the tag, and the date it was issued.
The ability to see all new messages regardless of heading or type.
This provides a simple way to say, "show me everything that's been posted recently". You will see not only messages, but new headings, new users, new alerts, new files, etc.
Selecting an item (message or heading) from the list will automatically locate you to that context directly (under the relevant headings.)
Any message, heading, alert, and everything else is referenced by a unique number.
For example, you can tell a user to "please read message #1020" or "go to heading #320".
In addition, these numbers provide each entry a unique URL address, allowing it to be referenced throughout the Internet.
This is a trust mechanism to help reduce chaos and limit abuse.
For example, not every new user can create a heading or post an alert. Doing so requires specific ranks.
All users begin with low rank (untrusted) and advance via higher other ranked users.
In addition to the above features, there were also a few technology requirements:
- HTTP Gateway - to allow access even from subnets that restrict direct port connections (due to bandwidth or security concerns).
- Lightweight DB - use of a very lightweight homogeneous database model that can associate via tagging any record with any other record.
- Super-lean server - requires only an HTTP server running CGI (as a proxy). No other special packages, modules, or databases are necessary.
- Server logs - server logs all events and actions, and auto-generates user-viewable messages for primary events like user creation.
- Rebol-based technology - drink our own wine.
Note: RebDev is a fast and flexible system. The ease of which code modifications can be made, means that changes could be frequent; especially during early usage as optimization patterns emerge.
- Messages are posted under headings.
- Headings can have sub-headings.
- Every message and heading has a unique id number.
- The prompt indicates current user and heading.
- Type new-user to add an account.
- Type h to see all headings.
- Type n to update new messages from the server.
- Enter the number of the heading you want to view.
- Press enter to view next message.
Here are some of the main commands. (Subject to change)
- ?: General help information.
- ??: Show all commands and their parse rules.
- c: Check for changes. In V0.1 you must do this or n (below) in order to fetch new messages from the server.
- n integer: Show newest messages. This is a quick way to see what's happened recently. You can also ask to see just the N more recent messages.
- l: List messages in the current heading section. The current heading is set by entering the number of the heading or the number of a message in that heading.
- h: Show all headings. This is a master list of all headings and subheadings. The dates indicate last posting for each heading.
- a: Show all alerts. Alerts are urgent messages that you need to read.
- users: Show all users. The date indicates when the user was last active.
- who: Show users who have logged in recently.
- t: Show all tags. Tags are special markers for messages. See document.
- p: Post a message into the current heading. You can write short messages as a string, or enter line edit mode.
- pp: Post a private message that can only be seen by a specific user.
- b: Go back to parent header.
- f string: Search all messages and headers for the given string.
- g: Goto embedded #msg or browse to embedded URL.
Goto RebDev Quick Start
Default ranks for specific server commands (roughly similar to the client commands, but not identical). Some exceptions exist for modification commands if user did not post the original message.
| info: | 1 |
| get: | 5 |
| users: | 5 |
| logout: | 1 |
| pass: | 1 |
| post: | 10 |
| head: | 50 |
| banner: | 50 |
| alert: | 65 |
| move: | 10 |
| remove: | 10 |
| tag: | 50 |
| name: | 50 |
| rename: | 50 |
| submit: | 20 |
| accept: | 70 |
| deny: | 70 |
| rank: | 50 |
| log: | 50 |
| stats: | 30 |
| quit: | admin |
| sessions: | admin |
| errors: | admin |
This section describes the design of file sharing.
Note that these features are under development, and are not released yet.
Just like messages, files are stored to headings. This keeps files and their related discussion messages together.
For example, the official file collection for the Rebol 3.0 mezzanine functions is in r3/mezzanines. That's where you'll find mezz-funcs.r and mezz-help.r, etc.
However, during development, you may want to work on files outside of the primary file collections. For example, if you and others are working together on LOAD, you would want to share your changes in r3/mezzanines/load until you've concluded your work, tested it, and are ready to submit it back to r3/mezzanines as a contributed improvement to the system.
Here is the example structure:
r3/ <-- don't put files here
mezzanines/ <-- for official mezzanine files (releases)
load/ <-- for development work, experiments, etc.
save/ <-- for development work, experiments, etc.
To reduce the load on the submissions acceptance process, it is advised that you develop code like this. It also takes less space and network bandwidth.
File sharing uses a name, submit, status mechanism.
- Name is a file name. It is not a file; it has no contents, it is only a label to which one or more file submissions are attached.
- Submit is the file contents. It is attached to a name, as its "parent". As changes to a file are made, they are submitted to the same name. This is how versioning is done.
- Status tags that a previous submit was accepted or denied. It is only a tag, attached to a submit (as it's parent), and should include a comment (a reason for it).
File listing commands:
new-files (nf): list all new file changes (similar to n for messages) list-files (lf): list files in current heading (detailed format) ls: list just the file names (short format)
Most other file commands use the id number for the file. Use of the id avoids problems when there are multiple versions of the same filename. However, some commands, such as get and put will also accept a file name or * (for all files).
get: fetch files in current heading put: submit one or more files with a comment more: view contents of a file edit: open editor with given file (external app) diff, df: show differences in file (uses external app)
These commands currently require very high ranking:
accept: accepts a submission, requires comment deny: deny a submission, requires comment rename: rename a file (note: changes name, not location)
First, goto a topic section that has files.
>> 26 R3/Mezzanines:
Now type:
ls
To list files in column view, or:
lf
To list files in detail, showing the status of each submission and comment. Note that a single file can have multiple entries in the list, one for each change submitted.
Use commands like:
lf submit lf accept lf deny
To see files with specific status.
To download all the files for a topic section into a work dir. Go to the topic section, then
get *
The files will download into a directory that matches the path name of the section. So, r3/mezzanine files are in a different location than r2/mezzanine files.
To get just the most recently accepted files:
get * accept
To download a specific file submission, use:
get 2345
Or you can get it by name, but it's always the most recent submission (accepted or not):
get mezz-help.r
Once files have been downloaded you can use:
ll
to view the local listing.
You can submit a specific file from your work dir:
put mezz-help.r
Or you can open a requestor to select a file:
put
To submit an entire directory (but with care!):
put *
The files will be listed first, and you can add a comment for all of them.
To open the current topic work folder (on your local system):
open-dir
or just
od
To see file differences between a given submission (accepted or not) and change you've made in your local work dir:
diff 2345
The first time, you will be requested to specify the diff application (for example WinMerge).