wtrs-blog1

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“Despacito”

We launched the software at my store on the 25th July. We’re currently doing a few bug catches before sending out e-mails. (Also using this time to include a working stock management system). 

We aren’t far.

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Getting ever closer

So initially I ambitiously estimated around 3-4 weeks for development as I naively thought I could just adjust my system to work on the interwebs :P However this hasn’t been the case! 

I am chipping away at it however and hope to have something quite polished released before the 25th July! 

This blog will soon change into a changelog for updates to the software. I’m not sure how I’ll handle feature/bug requests quite yet but that’s something I really want to have ready before launch also!

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PDF invoices completed!

Invoices can now be instantly generated in the PDF format! These can also be sent directly to customers - bit of a secret to how we manage this as it’s a bit tricky.

Development is going very well though and I only have a few more features to implement before a launch. I would like to include a basic stock system which can be built on later.

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Development Progress

Hello! Been a while, around 2 weeks! Just a quick note to say development is still underway.

Managed to get a lot of the UI elements done, I need to refactor a few bits of code and add all the fun stuff like settings pages, otherwise though it’s getting pretty close!

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PHP Mail Relay & Queues

How do you send an email in PHP using mail() but NOT locking the system until the mail has been sent?

Add the e-mail to a queue? Have a script mindlessly poll the database and send emails - That’s ugly.

Our setup:

So our mail is ALL sent through Amazon SES. PHP has the SMTP details of our SES account and that’s the way we do it.

However just using a mail() command or similar in the script with the SES details will still hang the server until the connection with SES has completed - If SES is down or whatever disaster occurs, this will hang the users browser until a timeout occurs.

Our solution is pretty simple but effective! We host a local mail server which runs as a relay. PHP has the details for this local relay, connects and posts the mail - then disconnects and gets on with other tasks. As this is local the connection literally takes 0ms and has nearly no overhead.

It’s the mail servers job to ensures the mail gets delivered. Which has the added advantage of other features such as auto-retry and filtering etc.

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PHP + Redis + Node.JS/Socket.IO

So we use pusher.com currently for live notifications on our system in the shop. However they have a limit on their free version at 100 connections and their next stage is around $50 per/month which is reasonable but obviously not really viable for us.

So, I’ve started building our own live notification system for PHP. Support for PHP sockets is pretty poor as it isn’t really designed for async execution (plus I hate cron jobs that just mindlessly poll databases for changes). However Node.JS linked with socket.io is perfect for this. 

Making this stable though - MIGHT proove to be a challenge, as the more steps you add, the more stuff that can fail.

Basically though our PHP server is linked to redis - it binds certain users to certain channels (depending on which shops/resources they have access too) On a new event, we can fire over a message to the channel which is immediately picked up by the Node.JS server who’s subscribed to the channel and fire it over socket.io to the client.

The only tricky bit of design with this implementation is knowing which client is who. Haven’t figured this out just yet - but it’s likely something to do with the session_id() on login!

As for overall development - going really well, should have a core version up before the dead line!

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Thank you for taking the time to do this! Are you planning to release a stand-alone version? Best, Robbie Baldwin

Hey Robbie I recognise your name from YouTube! At this point I’m really not sure - I’ve had a lot of requests to open source this. I’m talking to a few people though. Once it’s open-source and a standalone version is out there, there really is no going back :P I just want to make sure I make the right decision. 

Thanks!

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Validation is fun

...not. Most of the day is spent writing server/client validation rules. However development is absolutely flying - I stated 2/3 weeks to completion but I really do think I might be able to smash that target - whilst even adding more features. 

On an exciting note - over 100 signups have been confirmed.  This is super motivating as only ~400 saw the original post, I’m working 8am - 2am currently to get this finished and launched. You wont be disappointed!

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cookies

So today was the first day of proper development and it’s going great! Finished the database schema which was a huge task but thankfully all done, which means I can start putting the meat on the system. 

I also managed to get the site running on the CRM today, so it really shouldn’t take me long to get an example up and working - most of the register/login/setup code is complete and it’s nearly time to start porting the all the fun stuff!

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Hello World!

Hey!

Robin here, I recently posted on reddit about the software I created for my repair shop.  It got a lot of positive feedback and so I’ve decided to build a version for all. hurray.

Hopefully I can get a version up pretty quick (~couple weeks, basically security upgrades) - I just need to implement a lot more security to the system - as developing software for your local network and the internet is a pretty different prospect.

The app will be called “wt.rs” or “wtrs” and located here: https://wt.rs (currently a holding page). If you have any questions or feature requests, feel free to e-mail me at rob (at) wt.rs, the “ask me anything” thing on here, reddit or there will be a “suggestion box” on the holding page of wt.rs later this week.

It will be free for all, until the server bills get too much - then maybe I’ll introduce a few premium plans or a donate button. I hate apps that have free tiers with limited basic functionality though - this wont happen.

The last couple of days have been waiting for cloudflare to give me an SSL certificate, but all of that’s done now and development will start tomorrow!

I’ll be sure to update this regularly, until then - I’m off to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2! woot.