Awesome, I think JSON output would be a benefit, especially considering the JavaScript community around Sitepoint.
Any UI requirements (besides table of messages)? i.e. should it look like Sitepoint Forums?
I use Notepad++ for developing. I wrote one in PHP that works with all 3 formats - Text, CSV, and XML in about 20 hours. The text format being the hardest for me.
Having it work with all 3 formats is NOT a requirement. As long as it works with one format it’s fine.
Of course mine isn’t designed very classy looking, but it’s completely functional.
My suggestion is to “sign up” here to see if it’s OK before you write any code. Once approved, take your time and do a good job at it. Use any remaining time before the closing deadline to polish it up. And submit it close to, but careful, not after, the deadline.
Do…I want to do this or not…after I come home from Nationals I’ll come see if I can whip something up and how long it’ll take me…said the same thing about the sitepoint book writing stuff and I never got around to that either :-/
Hmmmm, That sounds more like an OS app than a localhost app.
But if it works for you, no problem there.
I’ve been working on my own version that works with all 3 exported file formats.
But that is NOT required. As long as it works with at least one of them it’s fine.
This is big news… the text above made it sound like Text was required and the others were possible additions! Thanks.
I simply open the xml file in Open Office Calc, delete the ones I don’t want to keep and re-save the file. Results are comparable to most solutions that are likely to be developed.
Development time: less than 1 second.
Dependencies: Open Office or MS Excel.
Installation time: 0 - 2 minutes depending on whether open office or excel is installed.
hmmm…
I was thinking of using XSL for mostly the entire thing. Just use PHP to create “dynamic xpath” queries and inject some control and request variables into the template. I’ll see what I can dig up on enabling it though considering my approach has a heavy reliance on it.
SimpleXML and DomDocument are enabled by default - no problem there
XSLTProcessor is included but not enabled by default - easy enough for tech savvy members but it might be beyond other’s capabilities.
If you can get it to work OK without XSLTProcessor and have that as an enhancement for those that have (or can get) it enabled that would be perfect.
Otherwise if you include instructions on how to enable it - ie. a README - I think that should be OK too.
The primary intent of the Must be able to be run on a typical localhost server requirement is that the application should be easy enough so that members can upload it and run it - without any additional Installation process that might be too complicated for them to deal with.