Progress on Component

Well, the feedback has abated quite a lot, but views and downloads of the component are still going strong. We are at 1,327 views and 150 downloads – so far, no new complaints, but no comments either.

What does an open source developer do to get more feedback? Well, maybe start by putting out some feedback of my own. Here are a few things I’d like to see in com_weight:

First Feedback on Released Component

We’ve had 963 views and 87 downloads of the component. So far, so good, considering it has been up for just a day. In addition, I received comments and feedback from two people: one that complained the frontend didn’t work (I am trying to resolve the issue), and one that wanted to extend the component to do more things than just track weight.

I sent the first one screenshots of the interface, the second one hints as to what needs to be done, and now I am thinking: gosh, shouldn’t I post those screenshots? Shouldn’t I add an FAQ or something?

Registered Project and Released Feather

As of now, I did all the required work to register the project and release the first version on extensions.joomla.org. You should be able to download the file, com_weight.zip from there and install it on any current Joomla 1.0 instance.

A few words to go with the download:

1. This is an initial release. The component works just fine for me, and I have it running on gawd.at to track my weight – but I am extremely interested in feedback. Both improvements and bugs will be actively considered, so don’t be shy!
2. Plans for 1.5: now that the software is stable, I’ll start working on a 1.5 implementation. I’ve looked at the structure of 1.5, and it looks like it’s really 2.0 – a major rearchitecture of the underlying infrastructure. If the interfaces for components have stayed stable, though, there shouldn’t be too much work to do. Congrats, Joomla Core developers!
3. Who is this for? When I was a fitness trainer, I found that my clients had a hard time keeping their weight, losing it, or gaining it (whatever they fancied). One of the reasons was that they looked at their weight on any single day and made silly decisions based on that. If they lost a pound they’d start eating like crazy, if they gained one they’d starve until the end of the day, and then overate. Seeing the trend in the past few weeks helps a lot more.
4. Installing: in the Administrator, choose Installers → Components. There select the ZIP file and upload it. You should get something with lots of “success!!” on it. Then go to the menu manager, and add a Component menu item with the component “com_weight” in it. Place it in any menu, make sure it is published, and off you go!