Well my updates to SiteUploader seem to be working quite well. It now correctly uploads only those files that have been updated. This saves me a TON of time in uploading now, and things will only get better. There is one concern: I realized that while it will upload anything, things are never deleted. That means that if I wanted to get rid of something, I’d have to do it manually. I’ll have to put that in later (shouldn’t be hard at all).
Next is to make it so that SiteMaker only updates pages that actually need it. That will take some major surgery but should be worth it. While not that important (after all, CPU time is cheap) it would improve performance as my site grows larger (I have ideas for a few new sections, see below) it would be nice. But the REAL benefit is that it wouldn’t replace pages that never change, which would save some uploading. They are uploaded because their date stamp changed, even though they contain the EXACT same text. That will be more complicated.
After that, I need to make it so that SiteMaker leaves a little file (lastupdate.txt?) that tells when the contents of a directory were last changed. By using this, I could save even MORE time when uploading because I wouldn’t have to needlessly switch into and out of directories just to find that nothing has changed. If the server isn’t snappy (mine can seem pokey sometimes), that can take up some time. Plus all of this would reduce the load on the server, which is always nice. No one seems to mind that I’ve been doing these tests, which is good. Because I have to connect to the server to test these things. But my mistakes have been like uploading things when they don’t need it, or just not uploading something when they need it. I haven’t had any problems causing half the contents of my hard drive to be uploaded.
After all that? I’ve got to update SiteBlogger at some point, but the next step is to SiteMaker so that it’s output is configurable. That would allow me to do things like parse the output as SiteBlogger is having things uploaded and show a real progress bar, instead of just freezing until it’s done. Also, I’ve got to move to being object-oriented which would allow me to add and edit things easier. I also need to make it so that… I can’t remember. You know that is the FOURTH TIME in writing this that particular feature has popped into my mind and I’ve forgotten it by the time I was going to write it down. Dang. (Edit 5 mins later:) I need to make it so SiteMaker can be in a different folder than the one where all the content is stored. That would be very easy to do, I just haven’t gotten around to it. After that, the Pie-In-The-Sky™ stuff is things like being able to add/delete/change sections and such from inside SiteBlogger, but that is a ways away. After getting the rest of the stuff mentioned above done, I think I’ll release it so that people can use it.
So what was that about new sections? The two I’ve been thinking of are Evil Companies, and Things to Get. The first is for companies that make me mad or I advise people against, so that others can find that information. The latter is just neat stuff that I find that I want to buy (even though often I never will due to expense or uselessness). You never know what kind of interesting stuff you’ll find on a list like that. Goodbye, cruel internet world.
