Yes, we are going deep this round!

1. SOS Reference Guide 2. SOS Application Developer's Guide 3. Tip Sheets (aka Cheat Sheet, but don't like the common name) 4. HTML online Docs (The online docs will also include streaming video examples of using the features...)

This may take a few weeks to get put together in our spare time, but you will like what it adds to the mix for sure. We plan on making the guides and tips available as free PDF docs and as printed docs also.

Some very good feedback on Beta 1... on the road to release 5. This is going to be the most fantastic version we have ever released. We are building some software at SOSensible with (1) SOS v5, (2) COOP v2, (3) and CFish v3... and it is great fun.

We added an few old things forgotten by Frameworks of yesterday. One thing we thought about was that another framework of days gone by had a concept of collaboration. The way it was achieved wasn't as robust so it got replaced. We didn't actually build their features in... but once we added these two features it made me remember things I missed about the older frameworks. Soon you will be able to share them with us in the next beta... expect a soon release.

Good news... the applications we are writing with SOS now are road ready for the final release. We will not say there is NOTHING that will change but the interfaces and methodologies are pretty well locked down.

With that said, soon we will be putting some of our stuff out on streaming screen sharing. (We might even get our D2O application up for beta in a month or shortly there after running inside SOS v5.)

We it could be better put this is our first public logo. You can see it under the screen shots and don't need to come back to the blog... but we posted it here for you just the same.

First, create a database and set the dsn in the _site_config.cfm file. Now it should run.

Oh, sorry... forgot to remove some of the header links! Main and FAQ should work. Go to the site root and you will see a folder called _site and templates folder in that folder. Open the file called _default.cfm. Now modify that file and things will be good again... the extra links will be gone.

In coming posts we will talk about things like...

* How to create a new application.

* How does the application know what methodology it is built with?

* How to write a Switch based APP.

* How to build COOP based APPS.

... AND MUCH MORE.

We are using the FAQ as our introduction to SOS application. This is done with the SAT (Stand Alone Templates) application. We will put more details online... but basically the URL works like this...

http://myURL.com/index.cfm/APP/controller

APP = faq in this case

http://url.com/index.cfm/faq or http://url.com/index.cfm/faq/

should both work... the default controller is index... so this is the same

http://url.com/index.cfm/faq/index or http://url.com/index.cfm/faq/index/

That points to the "/app/faq/" folder. The "controller" in the SAT methodology is the index.cfm file in this case. If we wrote a file called askQuestion.cfm the URL would look like this.

http://url.com/index.cfm/faq/askquestion/

More goodies are to come... but we want to keep each post to the point.

The files are up for Beta 1 of version 5. I will be talking about the features here. Follow this blog for details...

Changes

* 100% code rewrite

* removed old config. file, now very thin

* updated methodologies

... SAT (Stand Alone Templates)

... Switch (similar to how FB3 worked)

..+ COOP (COOP v2) built in to SOS

* enhancing AppCall (to call other applications inline)

New

* simple convention, powerfully nice.

* nested template scheme

* dataMGR included (other ORMs still allowed)

... active schema (SQL script free data setup)

... simple data interaction for new developers

... easier to build deliverable applications

Noteworthy:

* Applications we are working on for SOS ... D2O (Web based IDE)

... Cooler (Web based presenter for code based presentations.)

... Blog

... CMS

# We are also building commercial ones, but you or anyone can release other OS free or POSS or commercial apps for this collaborative application platform.

I was urged by another CFer to delay public release of SOS until sufficient docs are completed. Ray announced that he has added WIKI to the RIAFORGE suite! Now I have a great platform to advance. Check out the wiki and let me know if more thoughts on topics are requested.

Pre Valentines Release!

We will be doing a side by side release of another two products on the same schedule. Here is a list of the beta releases.

1. SOS version 4 beta
2. SOS Forms 2.0 beta
3. SOS Blog 1.0 beta

Our goal isn't to build the 100% competitor killer apps. Rather we are seeking to build a platform for holistic collaboration. What does it take to achieve that goal? Well, the truth is web application frameworks should be more than just the methodology restated as the framework. (Granted that is a narrow definition of frameworks.) We are seeking to broaden the definition to dealing with the major persona groups that use web sites. (Owners, Managers, Users, Affiliates, DBAs, Developers, Designers, Marketing)

With that holistic approach we are looking to provide a few core applications that will allow someone to install SOS and actually use it in the real world. To deploy a web site it helps to have a solid code base, sharp presentation and a foundation of applications. We hope to be adding a simple CMS shortly to the list of applications for the public.

Note: Some my ask why we are releasing a form library. Well in order to distribute applications so we can share the platform we need to make sure that you can have solid options where the end user can download complete applications rather than complex license restrictions. It's hard to get people to consider solutions when the installations are complicated by having to purchase separate packages from multiple vendors and locations each with it's own installation instructions. Hopefully you will see the passion we put into providing something that aggressively provides the features you need to make quality user experiences happen.

P.S. We have a new blog on our home company site also... you can see the blog running there. It's a beta work in progress... hope you enjoy. SOSensible Blog running on SOS Blog