This topic is a place for questions about SAFEpress, a project to build web apps and dynamic websites directly on SAFEnetwork that will work in conjunction with the MaidSafe SAFE Browser Plugin. I’ve created this topic so the SAFEpress Updates thread can stay a succinct record of what we’re up to.
The best place for questions is still the SAFEpress Google group – we need the activity to help us build momentum! 
– but obviously not everyone wants to join the group just to ask a question. So by all means ask here, and I’ll also move questions from other topics here so we don’t have lots of SAFEpress threads on this forum. I wish .
As always, http://safepress.io remains the place for information about SAFEpress and access to related resources, including status, git repo, social media, project tasks and so on, and you can also follow us on twitter.
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I still have no time, but am curious if the project has been, or is going to be, broken down into modules/parts/components. If it has where can I find that list/diagram of components with (hopefully) a description of function for each.
cheers
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Great that you’re interested.
There is the list of tasks on our Trello board which over time will start to correspond to some of the partitioning, and I created a draft web app architecture diagram, but no, there isn’t and won’t be much more than this while we’re still experimenting and researching how to do this.
I almost forgot! There is an early SAFEpress Outline Design on the repo which will give you an idea of my initial thoughts about components and function but it is a brain dump and still only high level.
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Well I’m no genius on these things and I’m a ‘hack’ as a coder. So take this all with a few grains of salt. IMO, at the base of any SAFE web app would need some sort of advanced AJAX loader/unloader with a resource/query manager on top of that. So that’s basically two fundamental components. Each could be further broken-down into subcomponents. Perhaps if SAFEPress were written as a browser extension then that would save time/bandwidth loading that part of it - it would still access SAFE through the plugin of course. I’m presuming here that people understand the difference between a browser plugin and an extension.
Building SAFEPress sites would require an additional component or two to make sure everything is in the right place and provide an admin UI. So that would be a separate extension with separate components - keeping everything discreet/compartmentalized.
With most of the base installed via extensions the speed to SAFEPress would be fantastic.
Maybe use Crossrider for extension development: http://crossrider.com/developers/
Well that’s my three bits, now back to my sluggish LAMP-stack site development with wordpress … ugh.
EDIT: I’ll maybe come back and work to break down those foundation components into subcomponents as I think of them.
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Thanks @TylerAbeoJordan I’ll dig into these ideas a bit more as I’m even less of an expert at the state of web apps (how I’m the person driving SAFEpress I’m not sure ). Any chance of us taking this discussion to the SAFEpress Google group? I’d really like to keep this for simple questions and get all the technical discussions over there.
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My only thought about an extension is that it would be viable for the CMS but not for the website produced by the CMS (to avoid visitors needing to install an extension to view SAFEpress created websites), and whether that is worthwhile is something that can be worked out later. I can’t comment on AJAX. I agree a modular approach will be good practice and we could do with input from people who have experience with using, or better, building web frameworks on this.
Don’t underestimate the value your input can have - I’m the least experience person and the rest of the team has gone quiet.
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I get that it’s more trouble to install an extension. However moving bits that don’t need to move multiplied by millions of users adds up to a huge load on the network which means power and resources and hence a greater cost to the network. Locally storing all the code that doesn’t need to be moved is further reducing the burden on the network.
Are you in contact with the people developing the browser plugin for SAFE? If SAFEPress can be boiled down into an open highly reusable system of modules for pulling web content, then perhaps they would be interested in incorporating it into their plugin - meaning nothing extra to install except the mandatory plugin. There would still be an extension (or plugin) for the SAFEPress site builder, but that wouldn’t be a big issue for a developer to install.
I’m no expert on any of this, so I recommend talking to the plugin devs - they should have a lot of good insight into how any SAFEPress functionality might be optimally built.
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Yes, any generic stuff could make its way into the MaidSafe plugin but that conversation is not happening yet - I’ve put forward an RFC on how it might work (not this particular issue) which I understand will be getting some attention soon so you or I could raise that question then. Please please please join our Google group :-). These quality ideas really belong on there - it would help a lot.
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I am putting together these ideas and some new ones and will post on the google group soon. Cheers
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