I’ve been wanting to try and extend what I do with PHP development for a while. I’ve been coding in it for a while, and I think its time that I put something out for others to look at and use. I’ve been working on an application to manage tasks and projects, thinking a lot about what I need the app to do, and building a framework in which I can develop the code to deliver the functionality. This is ready to go - more on this in another post.
This is all well and good, but the process has been long and the changes very many. Not something that I could put together and write up as great example of developing and delivering software. My idea is to push through and build some of the other apps I’ve been thinking about and keeping a journal here to document my thoughts and processes. I’m doing the work in quite small chunks on the train which gives me a good amount of stuff to write up each day.
The project
The first app I’m building is a tool to help birders keep tick lists and journal entries. I’ve had a look at software available and there doesn’t seem to be anything available online, and the installable software seems to be mainly for PC (not suitable for me as a strictly Mac/Linux user). The core features need to be:
- All British birds are maintained in a database with details on names, categories and other non-changeable (or rarely-changeable) data
- lists for users to keep a record of which birds they’ve seen - life lists, year lists, garden lists, county lists, etc. - some already in place but users can add their own. Each record can be linked to dates so that the user can build up a picture over the years of migration patterns for birds in their areas of interest
- main page will show the list of birds with ticks to show which have been seen on which list
- Detailed pages for each bird will allow users to upload their own photos, notes and audio to build their own record of information for each species
- Journal allows users to record detail for individual birding trips, with links to bird species pages where applicable
These will form the basis of the design spec and screen layout, and I’ll build the architecture in such a way that I can easily extend and add features once it is all up and running.
Watch this space…
Post script: Anyone reading this who wants to have a look at my task management application and give me some feedback - please drop me a line!