As posted to C.O.L.A.
Hey all, This is the second alpha release of MOT-2 and the first release that I've widely announced. MOT-2 is a generally useful web database that can be used to create web-based databases without writing a single line of code (sql, php, or html!). It is my hope that MOT-2 will be used to create anything from job and project tracking systems, to inventories, to catalogues and pretty much any other relatively simple, web-based databases. Best of all, MOT-2 is free software, released under the GPL. Check out the MOT home page or download the package directly: http://tomato.nvgc.vt.edu/~hroberts/mot ftp://tomato.nvgc.vt.edu/pub/mot/mot-2.0.a2.tar.gz Here's the rest of the pertinent info from the README file: FEATURES Except for a couple of features (see the NOTES file), MOT-2 has all of its major functionality in place. To demonstrate MOT-2, I have rewritten its predecessor MOT-1, a job and equipment tracking system, entirely in MOT-2. However, MOT-2 should not be considered a production ready system at this point, mainly because it has not been tested on any system but my own. Also, there are a couple things left to implement (most importantly the ability to save and load -- and therefore share -- database schemas) before the system can be considered fully functional. Nonetheless, MOT-2 is quite powerful already, and I encourage you to download it and play with it, or even use it for simple datbases (todo and address lists, for example). MOT-2's features include: * The ability to create and modify databases, tables, fields, and permissions, all from a point and click, web interface. * Support for links between tables. Jobs may be linked to users, equipment, and software. People may be linked to department, companies, contacts, and machines. * Support for multiple users and read, add, and modify permissions for each user for each table. * Support for sorting and restricting every table to a fully configurable set of fields (sort a list of jobs by priority, close date, or tech, or restrict the same list of jobs to a specified contact). * Support for actions, which are custom scripts automatically fired by specified database actions (adds, modifications, etc.). This is immensely helpful for implementing things like email notification and timestamping. * Basic support for writing custom sql queries. This will eventually include a custom query page but is very helpful now in the creation of actions. A sample mot_sql query that joins three tables together and grabs a value from the third table looks like: ** select {People}.[email] from {Jobs} where {Jobs}.[id] = $row_id ** WEB PAGE The official MOT web page is at http://tomato.nvgc.vt.edu/~hroberts/mot There's not much there right now, since I've been spending all of my free time coding. I'll eventually spruce it up a bit, but I'd love someone to volunteer some help ... DOCUMENTATION There is none, yet. As you can see from the NOTES file, it's on my list of stuff to do. Of course, I'd be eternally grateful if anyone wanted to jump in and volunteer ... INSTALLATION See the install file for instruction on how to install MOT-2. HISTORY MOT-2 is an outgrowth of MOT-1, a web based job and equipment tracking system. Basically, I started thinking about how to make more MOT-1 more configurable and ended up generalizing the whole thing, until it became a generally useful database instead of just a configurable job tracking system. TODO See the NOTES file for notes on what I'm working on. CREDITS Most of the credit for MOT-2 should go to the wizards who created the tools upon which it is based - mysql, php, apache, linux, and the usual gang of free software tools that I used in its development. All I've really done is cobble together other people's hard work. --hal hroberts@storystreet.com 2/14/99 ..