The second week of putting together Big Jump Production’s content management system and revamping their blog is almost over but I can’t wait until tomorrow to blog about it.

Yesterday, and a good portion of today, was spent porting Big Jump’s blog over from it’s current home on Blogger.com to WordPress installed on my local MAMP setup (MAC OS X, Apache web server, MySQL database server, and PHP scripting language). This is also known as the technology stack in web development circles. I also found a great design template called “Pixel” and put some of it’s features to good use.  One of the features was the listing of categories near the top of the page.  It sort of acts like a standard menu, but it’s just for categories.  This is great because Big Jump specifically asked for the ability to group blog posts by subject and link to them directly.

This WordPress blog is going to be seperate from the company’s main site, but they also wanted the ability to see a sneak peak, or teaser, of the “news” related blog posts from the main site. Through the use of something called permalinks I am able to provide a link to what is called an rss feed. Basically, this means that instead of a static link that never changes, a live link that displays the subject and a brief snippet of the body of the text is visible. The great part is that it changes as newer posts become available, all done automatically. Rss feeds are a great way of staying up to date on changing content from your favourite web sites, if they offer it. So using categories with this feature is going to make for a very powerful blog.

That was what it was like at the studio these past couple of days, but tonight was even more eventful.  Not to long ago, I discovered a web site called Meetup.com and a local meetup group for web developement. Although I have had many chances to attend various meetup events, I always found excuses not to go. Well, when I got an email reminder last week telling me that there was going to be another meetup event here in Ottawa and it was to talk about the Drupal content management system, I just couldn’t say no.

After meeting with three of the members of the web development firm, Wirespeak, and five other attendees from various related fields, I was left with a huge boost in my confidence in working on this project.  Although I have a few years experience workng with WordPress, a content management system for blogging, I have never worked with something as powerful, and versitile, as Drupal.  I know it was probably capable of doing what I need it to do at Big Jump, but I wasn’t 100% sure of this. After hearing what the Wirespeak guys had to say about it, I doubt no longer. Yes, it’s an amazingly good feeling when you spend so much time diligently researching something and find out from others with years more experience that you are right on track. That was the perfect conclusion to a hectic week, I am happy to say.

And there is still one more day left. What am I going to discover tomorrow? I can hardly wait.

I am just starting my second week on Big Jump Production’s new content management system and thanks to something called MAMP and some very well behaved children over the weekend, I’m off to a great start. At first I heard that Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.2) had an Apache web server built in, which it does.  All I had to do was install the PHP scripting language and the mySQL database and I would be all set.  As I began looking up some of the install handbooks over at drupal.org, I saw a reference to something called MAMP. MAMP is an acronym for the four pieces of software used to run Drupal, and subsequently, the WordPress blogging platform. M – MAC OS X operating system, A – Apache web server, M – MySQL database server and P – PHP for the scripting language. MAMP can be downloaded for the MAC over at www.mamp.info.  It’s awesome.

Now I am not yet a programmer, and with Drupal and WordPress, at the most, I would have to get my hands dirty with only a bit of light scripting, but I spent most of my Sunday afternoon pouring over commands in the OS X terminal window.  Fortunately, OS X is basically UNIX underneath pretty interface. Once you’ve learned a few basic commands over the years, they stay pretty much the same.  I found the documentation on getting started with MAMP on drupal.org and except for small snag around changing my default root user password on the database server, everything went well.

I was feeling pretty good once I bookmarked my Drupal and WordPress sites, both running off right off of my laptop.  How cool! I spent the last half of my day diving right into Drupal.  I Installed a few very powerful modules and started creating custom content types.  I soon realized that there are just so many options available to you, that you find yourself stuck trying to choose the one that users will find the easiest.  I did actually start with a flowchart first.  That was the majority of week one.  I still managed to make a mess of content types and menus.

With Drupal up and running, taunting me to log in and start building, I couldn’t resist. You can only read so much in books and websites, and watch so many Drupal podcasts before you just have to jump in start building. And folks, that what I did.  Sure, I inevitably painted myself into a corner by day’s end, but now I can go back to the books, sites and podcasts with a greater appreciation for all that knowledge I am shoving into my noodle. No regrets. I can’t wait to start again tomorrow.

Yesterday (Friday) marked the end of the first week of developing Big Jump Production’s new file management system.  This kind of system is better known to the web development community as a content management system, or a CMS, for short.

I am still working with the production staff to nail down the particulars of the present, all-manual system.  Once complete, the CMS will enable staff to launch a web browser on any computer connected to the internet (or the studio’s internal network), log in and immediately begin viewing messages, work assignements, notes on revisions, work that is approved and ready for invoicing, and the progress of the production as a whole. It’s a tall order and I have only 9 more weeks until the first of many modules is due to launch for users.

I am using the open source CMS, Drupal.  It’s an awesome web platform.  For community web sites, forums and blogs, it’s practically ready to go, right out of the box.  For what I am asking it to do though, there is much more customization needed.  Imagine a page dedicated to each and every character, prop, background, storyboard, or scene.  Of course, automation is necessary as there are hundreds and hundreds of pages. I still have to work out whether I can find a module to enter the plethora of information needed, or learn how to write it myself in PHP.  I am holding out for the former and not the latter. Not that I am not up for the challenge, but I don’t want to cut it too close to the deadline with custom code.  I trust I can rely on the Drupal community of developers and users to help me through it.

As an extra bonus, I will be rolling out a new blog for Big Jump, using WordPress (which I am currently using for this very blog).  I am very familiar with installing and administering it, but the first hurdle is to get it running properly on an IIS web server.  Depending on what version of the server they are using, there might be the need to install a few extras, something I have never done before.  I guess this is where I get to work with the IT department to make this all happen.

Lastly, I will be pushing forward on an old passion of mine, writing extensions for Flash.  This is something a started back when I was with PIP Animation.  Finally, I will be dusting off some old extension projects and exploring some ideas for more.  Whenever I am given the green light to share some of them, I’ll post them here.  So add this site’s rss feed to your feed aggregator and watch for a future post on these Flash extension.

Just when I thought I couldn’t diversify my skills any further, I’ve been given the project to develope and manage Big Jump Production’s content management system, or CMS, for short.

Well, I couldn’t be happier. What’s going to happen with my plans for 3D, and even 2D work? For now, they will creep into the background, not to be forgotten, for sure.

In the meantime, my past few years experience using the WordPress blogging platform will evolving into setting up much larger and more complex structures. The framework for all of this will be built using Drupal. I must say, I am both very excited and also terrified by the road ahead. But this is where I thrive. Scared silly but having fun. The same was true of my first foray into the world of 3D. It’s not worth doing if there wasn’t a real chance of failure. So far my impression of Drupal is that it quite simply rocks. I’ll save the details for a future post, and leave it at that.
So to all that follow this blog, no worries, I am still happily working in the animation industry with folks I respect and admire.