The title says it all.  A few weeks back, I built the code that would put the genre tables into the database.  Okay, that helps when there’s no data in those tables, right?  Well, thanks to some excellent expertise from two forum members (ladythorne and Moss for those keeping track), I can now install SMS 3 with either sets of data.  (In the future, I’ll also be able to go in and install the other genres as well in the event that I want to test all of them.)  This is actually a really big milestone in SMS 3 M1 and means we really are moving forward toward something very awesome.

So for those of you who are curious how you’ll set your genre, we’ve had to take a slight step backwards from SMS 3 (but really, it’s a step back to take about 200 steps forward).  Genre is controlled through a PHP config file in the application.  Before you even install the system, you set your genre through the file.  Currently, you can set ENT or BSG as your genre.  The third step of the install will grab the genre file, rip through it, and create the ranks, positions, departments, and rank catalogue tables for the system.  Just like that, you’ve created a sim that has a genre of your choosing and not one that we’ve told you you need to use.

Trust me, I realize the pain it takes to modify SMS to use a different genre, but SMS 3 is going to make it a lot easier.  Plus, with this data in hand, there might even be a possibility of creating official MODs for BSG and ENT in the near future. 

I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately about things like SMS 2.6.1 and a handful about when people will start to hear more about working going in to SMS 3.  I figured now was as good a time as any to lay some of those questions to rest.

SMS 2.6

All in all, the launch of SMS 2.6 was pretty successful and I was thankful to see that there weren’t any show-stopping bugs (all the bugs could be remedied by the user if they so chose to).  It was also great to see that they were all update related bugs.  While that may seem like an odd thing to say, it means that the system core is rock-solid (save for a couple minor bugs) which makes updates a little easier.  Now, it all rests in the update scripts which are arguably the hardest part of the entire process.  So the next question is, when do we get the first update?  I’ve been working on SMS 2.6.1 since a few days after 2.6.0 was released, but a series of unfortunate events have delayed things.

First off, I fell pretty ill for over a week which took a good chunk out of development time.  Even after as I better, I was way behind at work, so things were crazy there.  At the end of catching up, I entertained a guest for several days at my apartment, so it’s been a busy two and a half weeks.  Rest assured though, I’m focusing my efforts of late on getting 2.6.1 finished up and out to everyone to fix most of the issues that are plaguing sims these days.

There is a second update planned as well, but the things being addressed in that release are relatively minor.  It was discovered after release that Firefox 3 has some display issues with SMS 2.6.  I’ll be doing some research and trying to patch those issues in all of our skins and pass along those tweaks to the entire community so that their skins don’t suffer the same way.  There’s also a bug that’s re-surfaced where SMS sites on the same domain get a weird cross-site access issue going on.  I think I finally have a solution for it, but it’ll require a hefty amount of testing just to be safe.  There’s currently no targeted release date for 2.6.2.  Also, any additional issues found from 2.6.1 will obviously be patched in that release as well.  I don’t have a timeframe for 2.6.1 yet, but I’m hoping to have everything wrapped up in the next few days.

SMS 3

So what’s going on with SMS 3 these days?  Quite a lot actually.  I’ve been working pretty steadily on getting the framework in place and ready to go for development.  The milestones have been set up and the database schema is nearly complete.  There was a development meeting on Monday and there will be a couple more in the future as we get things moving.  Talk has already begun about how we’re going to revamp the entire QA process and we’ll hopefully be making some decisions in the coming weeks and taking some more action.  The more I work on SMS 3, the more excited I get about what this release is going to mean to Anodyne and simming in general!

I’ve started working on a site for SMS 3 too.  Unlike SMS 2, we want to be more open with people about what’s happening with development.  To that end, there are probably going to be a lot more blog posts about SMS 3 in the future and the site will track development and, at the completion of a milestone, have a full-blown report on what was added and all the different things that milestone paves the way for.  I haven’t decided the format for that, but it’s coming in the next few months.  I also laid the groundwork by putting together a new section of the forums (it’s hidden right now) for SMS 3 that will be launched once the SMS 3 site launches.

Finally, just as a note on how things are moving along on SMS 3, the database schema is, so far, the biggest piece of the puzzle.  Once that’s finalized, things are really going to take off fast.  Just to give people an idea, SMS 2.6 utilitizes 26 tables (not done on purpose, I swear).  Right now, even with an incomplete schema, SMS 3 is already using 36 tables with at least another 10 just commented out and waiting to be finished.  On top of there, there’s another 4 to 6 that’ll be added later on, so we’re talking about somewhere in the ballpark of 50 to 52 database tables to run SMS 3.  That should give you an idea of how much bigger of a system this is going to be.  I’m really excited about it and I’m looking forward to sharing more information in the coming weeks and months!

Until next time.