Topic: Ripper Report - Coding (Page 1 of 1)

OK here is a new thread to disucss the PHP/MySQL and JavaScript aspects of the coding.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

OK What we will need:

1. Simple template system

2. Forum

3. Rollovers (this can wait until the graphics are more sorted).

4. Some kind private area (I presume you can make use of the forum identification system).

[edit: 5. A contact page were people could send us more private communications and pos. upload screenshot of potential rips.]

Anything else?

[edit: OK most of those things will have to follow on from decisions made by the graphics people but the priority for the moment is getting the forum up and running as it will allow you to use it for user authentication and it will give the graphics people a chance to provide customised buttons, etc.).

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

PhpBB? anyone have something else they would rather use? I can set that up in a couple of minutes...

Accessing the phpMyAdmin is difficult (emps you didn't give me the username for that area only the PW), and I can't read Deutch(?).

But once I figure out how to get around it shouldn't be a problem.

WarMage: PHPBB is fine by me. As I said in the other thread - would it be possible to have the private/work area as part of the forum possibly hidden unless you are authorised or would it need a separate forum. Or something else?

As WS didn't send me a specific username so I assumed it must be the same one that is used elsewhere (i.e. try the stats username).

There are German inmates around if you need anything translated.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

The way I interperate it is that they are really hidden.
http://www.phpbb.com/guide/phpBB_Users_Guide.html#section3_1_2_1

I recommend invision board (http://www.invisionboard.com)

I can set this up if need be.


-James-

You can set the language to English (there is a language 'box'...just look for it). And Emps is right for the logon.

Keep up the good work, people!

mjv: Thanks for the tip - what are the advantages over other forum scripts? I think WarMage is comfortable with phpBB so we'll be going with that but I'd be interested to hear other recommendations.

WarMage: Private[Hidden] looks to be just what we are looking for.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Before I can move forward I am going to need a difinitive answer on the MySQL username and password (i.e. How will I access the MySQL database).

I am imagine ("localhost","username","password") but I could be wrong...

WarMage: Unless I've misunderstood the question then that seems fine.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Yep you misunderstood. I need to know the host username and password information for MySQL.

WarMage: I did send you what you needed but it wasn't clear (at least to me I just did some lucky guessing) so I'll email you with the stuff again.

[edit: I'm not sure if this is the case but some of my emails have been truncated somehow and so the information may have been cut out of the previous email - let me know if that happens this time and I'll send everything as an attached text file. I'm working on the problem now]

[edit2: There seems to have been a glitch I'm fixing it and sending again in a minute...]

[edit3: OK problem fixed and email is away - let me know if it doesn't show or there are problems]

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

OK thats done (somehow hosting companies do make it difficult to work out what the details are - which I suppose is probably a good thing in the long run).

The bare bones of the forum is here:
www.ripperreport.com/forum/

it is quite clear that it needs plenty of customising so once we have the logo/layout looking more concrete some of the graphics/HTML people might want to give some thought to the customisation of the forum.

WS & Beekay - you are the content guys so you might want to put some thought into the forums and remember there will be public ones and hidden private ones for 'work'.

If people would like to sign themselves up we can get a few permission things going to help move things along.

Always good to have something working like this to help give people focus Nice job WM.

Oh and the users guide is here:
www.phpbb.com/guide/phpBB_Users_Guide.html

Anyone with any thoughts and tips (pos. from customising their own board) can throw them in here (we may need to spin a board specific thread off so that the different groups can co-ordinate their efforts better).

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Ok...I'm at work again...so any mails, please use my work mail...

Still waiting for BeeKay to contact me so we can go ahaed with the content...

BTW...the forum works! Coolness! *gets excited* Yeehoo!

WS: You are now a forum admin (and I've emailed you the various MySQL details as you might need to store them away for future reference).

Once colours and things are sorted out I'll make ZOX and admin so we can look at what needs customising - the basic stuff looks pretty straightforward but we may want to really dig into the code and make some changes there so we can control the various buttons and other stuff too.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

OK there is anow a specific thread for the discussion of the forum:
www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum15/HTML/000101.html

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Thanks Emps...kudos, good work.

Okey dokie then.

Apparently I'm coder numbah 2! Yay me.... Thanks for the FTP and MySQL login's Emps.

Seems like WM has a handle on things although I do have a couple of questions...

> Are we linking the forum's userbase to any other area of the website?
> What exactly is going to be done in the backend?
> Has anyone done any data maps or flow chards as to how this will all work?

Anyone seen the nifty tracking system they user over at MoboCop?
- I always thought a system like this would suit the "Reporting A Rip" section. That way it can be monitored, commented on and updated when the rip is resolved. We could even make each new "case" rest in a special place untill there is some validated "evidence" to prove it and then the case becomes active. Nifty stuff like that. If we can think of each rip as a "Case" then managing it becomes clearer, well, it does to me at least.

Anything else I'm missing....?? Oh yah, other grunt work stuff...
- We need Browser Sniffers?
- Who's doing the Meta Data?
- How we dealing with browser caching?
- JS, Libs? Rollovers? Popups? Sniffers? DHTML?
- We gonna need to add any extensions to PHP?

Who's hosting this site?
What's the bandwidth limit?
Sponsors?
Am I asking too many questions?

I am the site owner, and the 'host' (if I am understanding this right) is www.hosteurope.de The bandwidth should be findable under the KISS section...it's pretty high for this baby...I kinda figured that it may become high, so I took one of the 'bigger' webpacks...costs a bit more, but...I am also 'footing' the bills...

Well, I am still waiting on some direction here.

I am not sure how this is all going to be played out. I am used to recieving the UML and making it work at the code level.

I am not sure how the content system is going to be working, nor do I know exactly how the rip reporting will be handled.

Until we can get the head gurus over here feeding us the information I think we are sitting here and twiddling.

WM & Dracusis: The situation isn't ideal - we haven't finalised a layout and I don't have time to write up a longer document but what I've said above stands - as things stand we will be wanting to keep things fairly simple so no major DHTML or browser sniffing or PHP extensions.

Most of the contact will be through the forum but I think it would be better to have a page where people can contact us privately.

Anyway the coding is on hold until the layout/colour scheme is finalised but throw your ideas and thoughts in there as it will speed things along. I'll let you know when we are ready to move on this front and we should have a better idea of things by then.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

The above doesn't mean you boys should sit around twiddling your thumbs As we have the 'client' on the team you might want to grill him about how he envisions running the site.

On the PHP extensions - we have GD available and as we aren't going to be doing anything too sophisticated do you envision us needing anything else.

Anyway there are issues that we can kick around but quizzing WS would be a good idea.

[Drac: I like that idea of tracking users but I think we should try and keep things clean and simple - however, I do like that idea a lot ]

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Tracking Users?

I was more thinking along the lines of a system for tracking the rip.

Example:

_________________________________

Some poor sod get's his site ripped. Comes to rippers-report and fills out the report-a-rip form.

This opens a 'case file' with an ID that we can use to refer to that particular case and will be a central point for linking in other data and collating evidence and hosting discussions (if any). Although this case file isn't activated (Viewabul by the public) untill one of the site admins verifies that the claim is valid.

This then acts as a central point where we can store any related materials be it evidence (screen shots, GD lib may be handy for these), email addresses, names ect ect. The case file could also have a 'status' to show which stage the case is in. Has the evidence been proven? Has the origional copyright holder been notified? Has the offended been notified? so on and so on. Up untill the case has been solved.

One the case has been solved or resolved in one way or another it get's closed by an admin but all the information stays there.

This would all be database driven so that we can generate pages for "Solved Cases" and so on. We could also have a small section on the front page displaying the newest reported rips and the longest running unsolved cases.

_________________________________

It's just an idea and we'd need to do a lot of work on paper and spend a lot of time with the content generators figuring out how it should all work and progress but I think it could work well.

Like/Dislike?

Should I throw this in the content section or will WS be dropping by here at some point?

Dracusis: Sorry it was late and I got the wrong end of the stick there. It makes sense (as long as it wasn't open to the public) but I was wondering if this could be handled easily through the private[hidden] forums. Anyway I'm sure WS will stick his head in and we can kick this idea around more.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

*pokes head in*

Great idea Drac...I absolutely love it! This is a very professional way of dealing with the actual 'Report' process...could you set something up that we could look at? I'm mighty curious to see how it would (or could) work...

I really like the idea of keeping the 'prelimenary' work out of the public eye for Rip reports...that way we would have a stress-free hand to deal with each case in question...and stop any 'witch-hunt/false reports' before they reach the actual public eye...which is very important for the site as a whole (esp. from the legal standpoint). Not only would that be a big help for the sites over-all image, but also would add some protection for the suspected ripper...which is a critical point. Nobody should have their good name 'run' through the mud if they are indeed innocent. That must be avoided at all costs...and such a system would help greatly, to support this.

So we will need a way to make the 'in process' reports secure...so that only authorized members (mods?) could see and work on them...

OK If that is seen as being a good idea here are a few suggestions:

1. These files are for private use only but if a Ripper Report needs to be written these would be the basis of them - how about the Ripper Files to make the distinction?

2. A user starts a Ripper File by filling out some details (there identity would be logged automatically as they would have had to have signed themselves up via the foum):

a) Address of offending site page.

b) Link(s) to where the alleged rip has taken place.

c) Screenshots.

d) Comments about what the problem is, etc.

3. If possible an automated message is sent to one of the 'work' forums to alert people to the the new file.

4. As we follow up there should be a system whereby we report on action taken - like contacting the people who's work has been supposedly taken.

5. Could we use timestamp and/or something else to make sure we can actually show people the DB in case we need to rely on these files for legal reasons?

6. Only those privy to the 'work' forum and the person who has submitted the file should have access to the file (and we should have the ability to add those who have had content removed if they feel that they want to take this further and need our assisstance to do so).

Any other ideas?

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Ok then, I'll start hacking togther some stuff in my free time tommorow and over the weekend but it'll likely be about 2-3 days before I have anything to show.

I was also thinking this should link into the same userbase that the UBB Forum uses but I've never used that forum before let alone poked around in the code for it. It might prove a rather lengthy job but arr... Maybe WM has some ideas no how we could go about that.

To be honest I'm betting he's a stronger PHP coder than me but I'll get cracking on this none the less...

For the meantime if anyone wants to dump their thought as to how they forsee this little app working then please do. I don't want to miss any vital steps.

For mucking around in the forum.

I don't think you should have much trouble with that. What I found are 2 main Tables:

phpbb_posts
--------------
post_id mediumint(8) UNSIGNED No auto_increment
topic_id mediumint(8) UNSIGNED No 0
forum_id smallint(5) UNSIGNED No 0
poster_id mediumint(8) No 0
post_time int(11) No 0
poster_ip varchar(8) No
post_username varchar(25) Yes NULL
enable_bbcode tinyint(1) No 1
enable_html tinyint(1) No 0
enable_smilies tinyint(1) No 1
enable_sig tinyint(1) No 1
post_edit_time int(11) Yes NULL
post_edit_count


phpbb_posts_text
--------------------
post_id mediumint(8) UNSIGNED No 0
bbcode_uid varchar(10) No
post_subject varchar(60) Yes NULL
post_text text Yes NULL

By Executing a few different SQL statements I am sure you would easily be able to add a new post to a board of your choice.

The SQL might be a little bit rough at times. This would be because you would need to

Set up and determine the private forum details. I have set up a private forum that you prolly will not see unless you are "forum god" but you can check the phpMyAdmin and see how it all works and what constants you would need to set and such.

Get the next available user ID for the posts. Prolly work as:
"SELECT MAX(post_id) AS post_id FROM phpbb_posts"

Then you would need to add an entry to that database using the new ID.

Finally you would go to the phpbb_posts_text and add the actual post content.

For the other stuff. I think you would want to draft up a fairly complete database for this. I don't really think we would want to use Images as why have ourselves accused of what we are trying to protect. However links are good. Time Stamps are good. Contact information is good.

I am thinking that we would generate a private ID for each incident. Something as easy as an Auto-increment field.

From there we could have a couple of different tables "reporting_[tablename]". Something for site orrigional owners contact information, rippers contact information, general site information(links etc), reporter's information.

I don't think we would want to work with a lot of values that can't handle null either. When someone is reporting this they probabally did not go through all of the hassel of coming up with all kinds of personal information, newbie amature web surfers don't know what WHOIS is.

Ok, a big sorry to everyone for dissapearing for so long. I've been bed bound and horribly ill recently. Then 2nd semester started and I was still ill so I haven't had much time beyond crawling to lectures then comming how to pass out.

It's also likely to be about 2 to 3 weeks before I get this lil system running so maybe we could just use the forum to handle rip reporting in the meantime. Or, if that's not gonna be soon enough maybe WM could do this bit, if he has the time that is.

I'm sorry. I should have gotten back to ya'll earlier about this. So sorry.

Dracusis no problems, the main thing is to get ye health back together so take ya time

okay things seem to have gotten very quiet here and elsewhere so can people give me a heads up as to how thjings are going


thanks tom

Nope, not really haven't heard a peep about this in a while.

Sorry guys...been gone for awhile, was very busy...now I've got a little more time on my hands.

Right bumping this area too.

Where do we stand?

Dracusis' schedule has got in the way of his being #2 here (sorry about the project dragging on so it interfered with things) but I can pitch in and help out here.

As well as other things mentioned above I have offered to install a site search engine - I'd also be happy to look at the rollovers if no-one else interested (although the rollover code generator at the Gn seems to be working fine so that shouldn't be too much hassle).

Are we still in favou of having a server-side reporting system as described by Dracusis? If so we can start giving that some more thought.

So thoughts?

Anything else we've missed?

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

OK Synax has spread his magic over the layout and created a HTML version of the layout:
www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum15/HTML/000114.html

So next we need this carved into includes.

WarMage you are in charge so if you want to do it then cool - I have offered to pitch in to keep things rolling so if you want me to do it then let me know.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

If I've not heard anything different I'll create the includes later this afternoon so the content guys can start slotting things in and we can look at the site structure and such like.

Synax: If you have any further updates then we can slot them in once things are up and running.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

OK I have grabbed Synax's zip and will work on the includes.

Dracusis: Your ideas on the report sounded really good and we will go for something like that - if there is anyhing extra you can add then throw it in.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Yah sure thing.

I'll get banging on it in a month. Sorry I can't start sooner, I've got 2 massive director projects and a huge flash site to build in the meantime.

OK cool - I wasn't suggesting you got busy but if you are still in then we can wait

[This message has been edited by Emperor (edited 09-24-2002).]

OK all RR business will now take place at the Ripper Report forums. I'll shut these down and then archive them in a few days so we can refer back to them.

I'd recommend that inmates register over there and give us their thoughts and input.

Thanks to the Doc for allowing us the space to get things rolling

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor