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I stopped working on the Osm Admin project, for financial reasons. Did it hurt? A lot. Was it necessary? Unfortunately, yes. This post is a short retrospection on this matter.

Before diving into what should be in the docs, let's define what you should more or less know before using Osm Admin.

There are four types of people who will read the docs: power users, developers, vendors and contributors.

Here are my thoughts on product backlog and roadmap.

Implemented in Osm Admin:

• new ALTER TABLE algorithm
• NULL to non-NULL data conversion
• new query test suite

This time, I tackled adding an explicit property to an existing table, and then making it non-nullable.

It raised the need for data conversions - additional handling of the existing data - or otherwise, the database engine fails, or the data becomes invalid.

And it made me split migrations in two parts - the one that runs before the data conversion, and the other one that runs afterwards.

While working on diff algorithm I noticed a certain pattern that I use over an over again.

Using this pattern, I implemented notification table diff.

Finally, I rearranged diff/migration code for better code readability.

Yesterday, I moved the table creation code into new schema diff migration engine.

Now, working on notification table migrations.

This time:

• I found out that the whole search index creation should be done during indexing, not migrations.
• I refactored diff algorithm and made it much easier to read.

Before digging into property diff algorithm, let's dig into how exactly it's used, and what other property-related logic is there.

Yesterday, I continued working on schema migrations:

• implemented table diff algorithm;
• took into consideration table renames.

After a system update, I've got some problem with my laptop, and one thing to check was system log files.

This got me thinking: what makes a good log for my own application? And I think that application logs are as useful as they are able to answer potential questions I may have when an application is in production.

Let's think what kind of questions I might have, and what information might be useful to answer them.

Recently, I fixed numerous issues to make the first migration tests work.

Then, I started implementing the schema diff algorithm - the basis for schema migrations.

More dots got connected in the schema migration design, see this post for details.

Then, I tried to return to TDDing it, but strange errors met me there, so I left them to be resolved in the next piece.

Schema migrations are going to be generated and executed automatically under gulp watch. It will result in lots of tiny migrations: add a column, change its type, make it not nullable, and so on.

It's convenient during development, but it might be not optimal to reapply in production. Indeed, it's better to convert a large table to new structure all at once rather than running a conversion for each of the tiny migration.

This observation contradicts the previously stated migration workflow, so let's update it.

In spirit of TDD, I started with a meaningful, but failing test that is reasonably fast. Then, I worked to make it green:

• implemented the loading of schema fixtures from the codebase;
• worked on generating migration files.

After drafting some ideas of how the schema migrations should actually work, let's start implementing it in TDD way.

The goal of the current iteration is to adjust the database schema and preserve/convert existing data according to any changes in schema classes, grids, forms or indexers.

This post presents some thoughts how it might work with class definitions.

After finishing the iteration "#17 Minimum UI", I revisited the goals and the scope of the minimum viable product, and picked the most pressing task for the next iteration - "#18 Database Schema Changes".

I implemented the last user action that is typical to a CRUD application - object deletion.

Done:

• routes responsible for creating new products, and modifying existing products
• incremental indexing
• cloning query objects
• INSERT INTO ... SELECT ... statements

This website got a completely new look. There are new blog posts diving into core Osm Framework features. Osm Framework itself offers more convenient page layout, website-wide header, footer and <head>, customizable error pages. The themes support theme-specific CSS styles and JS scripts not bound to any module. New projects come with a handy bin/install.sh script that simplifies installation on Linux. From now on, run osmh without any parameters.

From now on, this website is deployed on push, and by the way, you can easily play with the website copy locally. In the Osm framework, new Osm_Project application allows reflecting over modules and classes regardless to which application they belong. New experimental project is aimed at quick creation of the Admin UI.

After pushing changes to GitHub, osm.software website is updated without any additional manual action. On push, GitHub executes the deployment script on the production server. Most changes are done to content only, and in this case, the deployment script only updates the search index. Otherwise, with the website being on maintenance, it additionally updates Composer and Node dependencies, builds JS and CSS assets, and runs the database migrations.

Install PHP 8, MySql, Node, Gulp and ElasticSearch. Clone the project. Edit project settings. Finally, run few commands in the command line.

New Osm Framework version comes with improved, configurable and easily customizable Gulp script, modular NPM dependencies, standard page layout Blade component and brand new README. osm.software website contains an easy-to-follow new project installation instruction.

The first osm.software blog articles have been written, edited and revised. Content changes are deployed in semi-automated way. The website got some SEO improvements, and now it scores 100% in Google Lighthouse.

Today, osm.software reached an important milestone - 100% Lighthouse score.

This article explains how to manage and assign blog categories.

Osm Framework introduced production mode and maintenance mode. osm.software website went live.

Osm Framework introduced JS controllers, and JS unit tests. osmcommerce.com website project was renamed to osm.software, it finalized the post rendering, and introduced a tool for checking broken links.

This article explains how to write and publish blog posts.