We have begun randomly selecting names from the beta sign up list to come in and scope out Vokle!

In order to efficiently spot and remove bugs without overwhelming the team, we will be steadily opening up access to the website
If you receive notice that you have been selected, be sure to surf around the site and give us some feed back!  Below are several notes to help you help us in getting the Vokle experience just right.

You’ll be given a keyword and the address of our development server.  Make sure to copy the keyword before navigating away from your email, as you will need it to gain access to Vokle.

Once you are in the site and have signed up, you will notice a “feedback” button on the top right of every page.  This is there so we can note any thoughts you may have on anything from a function, to an error.  By  clicking feedback you will notice there are several basic questions we ask such as, “what happened, what did you expect to happen, what were the steps you took leading up to the problem”.  This helps us replicate the problem quickly and make adjustments to the system.

Make sure to send me a message or a private video chat request to say hello!  I look forward to hearing thoughts and opinions in the live video chats around the latest news and content!  It is definitely a fun and engaging way to hear different perspectives

I look forward to hearing and seeing all of you soon as we continue to update and open up the site!

Happy Holidays on behalf of the Vokle team!

-Edward

So whats it do?  Well essentially the same thing as the YUI compressor command line except that it will process an entire folder structure.  It also has the ability to bundle all the compressed files into one file.  It includes Thor tasks so you can use it from the command line and a ruby Yui class so you can access it programatically.

You can git it (haha, ‘git it’, git it? God damn I’m funny) from: http://github.com/coryodaniel/ruby-yui/tree/master

What using it look like, well:

require 'rubygems'
require 'ruby-yui'

yui = Yui.new "./public/javascripts"

yui.minify #=> true | false
yui.bundle #=> path to bundle or nil
yui.clobber #=> cleans up generated files

#Shortcut
Yui.compress "./public/javascripts" #=> same thing as Yui#minify
Yui.clobber "./public/javascripts" #=> cleans up generated files

Yui#initialize and Yui.compress also take params hashes:

yui = Yui.new "public/javascripts", {

# clobber files before compressing new ones
:clobber        => false,

# change the java command to run it
:java_cli       => "java -jar",

# alternate  YUI jar file
:yui_jar        => File.join(YUI_ROOT,"ext","yuicompressor-2.4.2.jar"),

# change the suffix used on the compressed file
:suffix         => "yui-min",

# change the out path; NOTE: the outpath is String#sub for the input path
# ./public/javascripts/main.js => ./my/out/path/main.js
:out_path       => nil,

# :js or :css
:type           => :js,

# YUI parameters
:charset        => nil,
:preserve_semi  => false,
:disable_opt    => false,
:nomunge        => false
}

Let’s start with a really simple User class…

class User
  include DataMapper::Resource
  belongs_to :location

  property :id, Serial
  property :name, String
  property :username, String
  property :password, String

  property :gender, String
  property :age, Integer

  property :favorite_color, String
  property :favorite_number, Integer
end

class Location
  include DataMapper::Resource

  has n, :users

  property :id, Serial
  property :name, String
  property :desc, String
end

Making your resource viewable is pretty easy, first grab the dm-is-viewable gem, then say that your resource is viewable. Views take the exact same parameters that you could pass to Resource.all. The only difference is that dm-is-viewable stores them until they are called.

class User
  include DataMapper::Resource
  is :viewable  

  #lets create some views
  create_view :legal_women, :gender => 'female', :age.gt => 18
  create_view :serial_killers, :favorite_number => 666, :favorite_color => 'black'

  #... Resource code *SNIP SNIP*
end

See the befores and afters below:

# Legal Women Before
User.all(:gender => 'female', :age.gt => 18)

# Legal Women After
User.view :legal_women

# Serial killers before
User.all(:favorite_number => 666, :favorite_color => 'black')

# Serial killers after
User.view :serial_killers

# You can also pass further limiting query parameters to #view.
# Legal Local Women Before
User.all(:gender => 'female', :age.gt => 18, User.location.name => 'Los Angeles')

# Legel Local Women After
User.view :legal_women, User.location.name => 'Los Angeles'

# Passing additional parameters FURTHERS the limitation of records, so..
User.view :legal_women, :gender => 'male'
# => Would return nil, the query would essentially be generated as:
#  SELECT * from users where gender = 'male' and gender = 'female'

Simply, clean, useful. Woot.

I got a hold of a draft of a section of Vokle for our sneak peak!  What better image to start us off than the Front Page

(Keep in mind we are constantly making adjustments based on testing, so this may not be the EXACT final product…but its close).

On this page you see the current top articles for each category based on votes, views, and rating.  If you click one of the categories, you will see more cards for just that category.  Some of the cards you see on other category pages are on their way to being the next top article for the front page, where you can discuss them live with others.

One of the coolest things to notice with navigation at Vokle, is that it is done with the persistent controller at the bottom of the page, a.k.a. the “Vo-kontroller”. This control bar is context sensitive, which means that it only displays actions that are useful to the page you are currently at.  In other words, you won’t need to see a bunch of links per page that you don’t need to see. Duh, right?

Next button over we have the create a card button, which is a very simple process in which you can create your own content card to submit a link to the community.  You’ll be amazed at how quick and fun it is to submit news to the site and create your own card.

;D

All the way to the right we have our Friend Button.  Click this button and a small menu pops up where you can view online friends.  This is where you’ll be going to setup private video chats with friends, family, or co-workers.

I’ll keep you posted as we progress through the site!  Let ’s see some comments (at least until I can literally hear them after launch)!

-Edward

Seriously though, I hope that everyone that voted to Eliminate Rights of Same-Sex couples realizes that we have taken the first step as a country in eliminating the rights of mankind in general.  Americans have been fighting inequality since we landed here, and now we’ve taken a giant step backwards.

Everyone that voted to Eliminate Rights of Same-Sex couples for the ’sake of the children’, I hope you are ok with your children being taught in their history classes about how hateful and oppressive their parents were way back in 2008.

And please remember to spread the hate this holiday season.

Andrew Jackson, Samuel Tilden, Benjamin Harrison, Al Gore.  I hope if the electoral college ignores the American people this time around there are some serious repercussions.

So we ran into some unexpected hiccups while making the final development push for Vokle’s launch, and are hard at work removing them.  It is important for us that Vokle breathe smoothly so that you can speak out and see others live, clearly.  We don’t expect it to hold us up too long, but we’ll keep you posted as we progress.  Follow us on twitter if you’d like to keep a close eye on our progress!

Hope everyone had a great weekend

-Edward