In the realm of Bitscape's Lounge, THIS is what we call a content drought. Or at least the closest we've seen in recent memory.

Hmmm... after a drought this long, it's almost hard to figure out where to begin. Well, this thing STILL isn't going to appear on Rage right away. The new engine, while close, isn't quite there yet. Maybe by the end of the night. Maybe.

(Am I implying what I think I think I'm implying? I guess I am. Work in the morning, but a fest-like experience seems inevitable tonight. Even if I wanted to sleep, it's doubtful that I would be able to. My somatic system is now nearly fully acclimated to its natural nocturnal state. On days like tomorrow, caffeine will be my friend.)

So, given a couple floating holidays that must be used by the end of the year or forfeited, what does yours truly do with them? Isn't it obvious? Barricade oneself inside the lair, making sure to include a sufficient quantity of soda, junk food, and DVDs. Then, in between naps, movies, X Files episodes, and slashdot reloads, proceed to commence with yet another total restructuring of the Lounge engine code. What better way could there be to spend time off of work? :)

On that note, let's have a quick review. Things that have been done:

• Database code, common scripts, htmlobj modules, collective code, and the lounge-specific code have all been decoupled and separated into a nicely organized hierarchy,
• A more sane and consistent methed for organizing graphics into the source xcf.gz files and the resulting png/jpegs has been divised. There are now designated separate directories for storage of graphics file sources and outputs, structured identically across packages. (As opposed to the "stick anything anywhere" scheme I had used previously.) So when I come across a file named arrow_left.png, and wonder whether it belongs to main lounge, content collective, or some abandoned test script, it should be slightly easier to figure out without having to open it and look. Of course, only time will tell how well this new system truly works.
• The lounge perl modules have been moved. Um... there was a lot of cruft in there. There is still a fair amount, but nothing compared to the mess that was previously. Simpler, cleaner, more elegant. That's how I like it.
• A new, dynamically generated "cover" page. I like it a lot better than the "Enter or Serve in Satan's Evil Empire" thing.
• On rage. rm -rf ~/public_html/*. lol. After making a backup archive, of course. There was some wierd old shit in there. And those gaping security hole CGI rambling/movielog submit scripts of yesteryear. Then the screenshot_this_that_theother.png from ages past. All gone.
• acquarium.pl. When you read this, you'll know what I'm talking about.
• Better indexes for navigating legacy content. That code is in.

What needs to be done:

• Finish up acquarium.pl. Get the time-synced content solutions and other boxes coded up. I don't anticipate much difficulty here. It's just a matter of throwing the modules together appropriately.
• Title and menubar graphics to fit acquarium.pl. Need 'em. That's where gimp comes in.
• acquarium stylesheet(s). Right now, it's all just plain white default text. Boring.
• Odds and ends. Get the site quotes into acquarium. Couple lines of code there, plus a few minutes to smoothing the quotethang.pm module into the new structure. Easy.
• Upload it all to rage and make sure everything works there. If my plan is correct, this should be pretty simple, because most of the compatiblity grunt work was done with the restructuring. Of course, there's always a surprise or two to deal with.
• Put GPL headers at the top of all files, tar them up, and post the complete site source for anyone brave/insane enough to look inside.
• Import it all into a new cvs tree.

Summary: I've gone through the code, gotten rid of the ugly old hacks, and proceeded to replace them with a spiffy, shiny set of ugly new hacks.

And in the non web coding realm, what has happened this vacation? Um.... good question. The Christmas holiday, of course. Exchanged gifts with the family. As far a Xmases go, it was fairly routine I suppose. Not the magical time it always was as a kid. Still a fun day though.

Oh yeah, and in what seems like ages ago, Jaeger, bouncing, and myself enjoyed some home cinema on Saturday night here at the compound. Jaeger brought a rental of Alien: Resurrection, which we watched, followed by my copy of Princess Mononoke. Jaeger departed, and bouncing and I watched a late night showing of Dark City. That was Saturday. Sunday morning, if you want to get technical.

Right now, I can feel the state of consciousness that is best conducive to a coding trance coming on. So, I think I'll ride that wave, and attempt to get a postable version of the new lounge online ready this evening. Here goes...