Lesters roadmap

Really need to allow ' in the page titles ...

Anyway at least now the page is available.

1. First item that has come up is to seriously consider webtrees as an alternative to phpgedview. The note about Postgres support is encouraging and so enabling Firebird may not be the problem it once was. 
   After a couple of false starts I have my Gedcom and media all running fine on webtrees, so I think it's a no-brainer that the phpgedview port gets it's retirement! There will obviously be a new package page for webtrees, and currently the live site is running on an sqlite database which obviously I need to look at, but one of the roadmap items that had not even been written yet was to get my father and son's deaths actually recorded on the family tree which I do not have! Much better to be adding material rather than messing around with the spanners.
   Already having second thoughts on this as the laravel framework that webtrees now uses is a nightmare compared to ADOdb, so phpgedview has had a bit of a reprieve for the moment. I still need to sort the reporting functions and may be able to pinch that from elsewhere but the important thing is to have the Caine-Humphries family tree data up to date and that does not really need printing out just yet. The on line displays are working nicely.
2. So next on the list is to battle with the old server and at least get sftp working again. I am still using it's 16Tb of disk space as backup and for the media server so being able to run BeyondCompare over sftp is essential and it has not worked since the name changes.
   All three machines are now running the current build of Tumbleweed augmented with the latest Firebird and all talking silently with one another over ssh and BeyondCompare. Did look at one of the NAS boxes to take the disks, but they all insist on wiping the disks before using them and I don't have enough space to store the material that is on them already, so I'll stick with EXT3 formated disks which I can pull and move from machine to machine if needs be.
3. One underlying area that I have been targetting for many years is on-line access to my growing library of searchable PDF files. I have documented on the medw site the processing of my paper collection of mags and converting them to searchable pdf's. The next step is to tidy the pdf import into Bitweaver so that the text layer is treated in the same was as a normal wiki page and can be searched. Having restored the highlight facility to wiki and blog entries, the display of a similar highlight while reading a pdf would be nice, but is at odds with the browsers pdf display actions. A separate second step on the roadmap.
4. A longer term project has always been animation. The modelling of things like my traction engine parts in FreeCAD gave static models, but then animating them to move around should not be a difficult step. Just been reviewing where we are today, of cause when *I* am looking for 'rigging' it is for model ships, but the first results always tend to be rigging animation models. Blender seems to be the choice of the day for this area and I've just been flicking through the documentation to see what is involved. Even found an example of modelling a dragon which could be fun ...
5. Currently waiting on some kits from Bowaters for the pairs carriages for the Isle of Man railway models and some brass etched parts from Worsley Works for the Viking Diesel Loco. All in 15mm scale. In the meantime, I've been gathering coloured images ready for painting. Need to pull all of my research together and sort out the various books, images and parts I've amassed over the years. A trip the the island to fill in any gaps would be worthwhile and I can marry that up with my genealogical research as well!

Plodding on in the background with tidying the flat. There are a new set of shelves, and although I need a few more brackets yet, I can see where the Dalek will sit while it's being constructed over the next 100 or so weeks and I've pulled a few more bits out of boxes and up on display. Slowly also removing pictures simply stuck to the walls and replacing them with properly mounted versions which are looking a lot tidier. Just found a third Christmas jigsaw and added a third picture frame ready to take it, although I will wait until end of November to put all the Christmas decorations up!