I don't think I'm going to do everything 'right', engineering-wise: it's still all going to be in perl, and not even great perl, and i'll probably use flatfiles for every friggin' thing, rather than a 'real' database, or even xml. at least i'll be keeping things nice and portable if i ever have to move the site.

So, I'll try to keep a kind of ongoing log here. Check back to see how progress is going: hopefully one day the changes will be pretty visible to everyone.

First and foremost: I'm going to make a user account/login system. People will have to signup and pick a password and then have to enter a valid email, and use that email address to complete the signup process.

The next step will be making a comment board that relies on the logged in user information.

Then I'll make it so submitting a poem relies on the logged in user. This will allow some other cool stuff, like author profiles (i.e. each user will probably have their own page, eventually with customizable informatin, with links to all the poems)

I think I'm going to change a lot of the internal structure of how poems are stored onsite. Right now I'm thinking that each poem will get a single file in a great big directory. (Well maybe two, one for content, one for metainfo) The poem will live there forever, at a single URL, whether it's 'new' or a front page pick or a heart on sleeve corner piece. something like loveblender.com/view.cgi?id=123 .

2001.04.23 Let's see if I can figure out what all scripts I'll need...

• signup.cgi - enter a name, password, and private e-mail, at least. this will trigger an email with a unique generated link back to
• singupconfirm.cgi - which actually enables the account
• accountview.cgi -- shows info on author.(including poems submitted) Probably has public and private versions, the private version has edit fields and submits to
• accountupdate.cgi -- which changes certain information. At this point private e-mail probably can't be changed, future versions may allow the change but you have to use something like signupconfirm.cgi
• commentadd.cgi -- like the current version but you have to enter proper user name and password. Probably try to use all the old (but relatively recent) comment code, nothing special in how the data is stored, though a version that allows some kind of moderating to occur will need a more robust system. Oh, and it might convert link codes into links to individual works.
• workadd.cgi -- kind of the same as what we have now, though I think I'll be storing the poem much differently, content in one file, metainfo in another. Plus it will show the permanent URL and link code for it.
• view.cgi -- view a work
• listnew.cgi will display links to all new works
• listheart.cgi will display heart on sleeve corner of a certain month. Or it might just build a static series of links