Website Refresh

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Amongst the various changes that I have planned for justCheckers, I have updated the website.  I hope you like the new theme, which I think is much cleaner (even if it is the default) than before.  Also I have updated the content of the website, to reflect the new changes.

Probably the most notable change is that I have taken down the Development Guide.  Many things will change with the project, as I change it into an Android app.  Many of the best practices no longer apply, now that I have transitioned over to Git.  Since at the moment I am the sole developer of justCheckers, I think it is pointless for me to keep up a Code of Conduct or Coding Style page up.  Many of the changes I will do over the next little while will be invasive, so my code will be of varying style and quality.  My many goal is to release a working version as soon as possible.

Before anyone asks: no I am not closing up the project.  The code will still remain free (as in speech).  I plan on maintaining the project indefinitely.  justCheckers is not going to disappear or suddenly become proprietary.  However I have a lot of ground I need to cover before I feel comfortable bringing on more developers.

Moving to Git

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justCheckers is getting with the times and moving over to using Git as our main revision control system. 

Git is a much more flexible system and I can manage contributions from the community. If I hesitated with giving out commit access, it was because there is far more trouble with dealing with merging code and dealing with radical changes in Subversion than in Git. So I am a lot more willing to reopening the project to a full team.

I will update the downloads page with instructions on how to access Git later this weekend. In the meantime, feel free to visit the justcheckers SourceForge project page for instructions on how to checkout the code in Git.

Solo Coding and Android Progress

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The move to using Android as a base for justCheckers is going well. I’ve already managed to setup a nice looking user interface. And the information screens work without any problems. All that remains is to build a settings screen and the game screens. This entire project is still a work in progress and so I expect many changes as the project matures.

Another thing I realized is that at the moment I do not need a team of developers to build justcheckers. At least at the moment, I can get more done without worrying about coordinating a team. I might ask for contributions at a later date, but for now I’m going to fly solo.

Behold the Android

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Just in case someone thought that this project is dead, I would to disprove them of this. I’ve resumed work on justCheckers with a slight change of direction. Over the past few months, I’ve started work as an Android developer for a media firm and I’d like to apply all that I have learned on this project. By switching over to Android, there are a lot of things that will get simplified. Especially the end product is a lot easier to deploy on Android handsets than on desktops. Does this mean that the desktop version will cease to exist? No. Rather it will be easier to the desktop version, once the existing codebase is refactored. But for now I will concentrate on the Android version, because it is easier, more fun and will easily raise the visibility of the project.

New Site

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Apologizes for the surprise website change.  However after months of silence and lots of haggling with Drupal, I just could not take it anymore.  So now the official justCheckers site runs on WordPress 3!  Yay!

This website is still a work in progress.  I still need to upload the old content from the older Drupal site.  Also while the default theme is great, it really needs some love before I can say the website is fully ready.  Hopefully before the end of next week, I’ll have most of this done.

Apologies to All Who Answered My Call for Help

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Oh my, I must apologize to everyone who has offered to help with the justCheckers project.  It seems that my Gmail spam filter likes to chuck SourceForge related e-mails into the abyss of the spam folder. And I just noticed a whole thread of people offering to help with justCheckers! I apologize for not checking earlier. I will get back to all of you who replied back to my call for help, very, very shortly. In the future I will keep an eye on my spam folder, to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Cleaned Up and Open for Business

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It took a while. A much needed upgrade, some changes to bring this site back into the larger multi-site effort I’m involved and some re-integration work back into SourceForge… and justCheckers is back! Finally there are no more blockers to getting back into coding, and hopefully moving this project forward. The plan is to finally get around to implementing the work I’ve meant to implement for so long.

So justCheckers is open for business… and is seeking new developers.

Back on SourceForge

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I tried, but I just could not wrap my head around Bazaar and Launchpad. Both are amazing technologies from one of my favourite firms: Canonical. However for this project, there was too much hassle to get started and to migrate to using Bazaar. So instead I’m reverting back to the tried and true: Subversion and SourceForge. I setup a new account for myself on SourceForge, and renewed the project’s account. I’ll setup a TaskFreak! TODO list and web analytics for the project next. And after that I’ll dive back into developing justCheckers. Also plan on recruiting developers to help out once I stabilize the source code.