Auto-link to CellarTracker

[DavidG]

Can we ask Eric Levine to set up an automatic link for TNs to be sent from CT?

[JScott]

I do think that'd be a great idea, for a variety of reasons.

[JimHow]

Sounds good to me.

[DavidG]

WLDG uses similar software and has a security issue with auto-posts from CT, but that may be something that WLDS set up rather than something inherent in the BB software.

I've e-mailed Eric - let's see what he says.

[michael]

I'll be curious to see what he says, he's a nice guy. If he doesn't want to take on the work, if he explains his interface Phil or I could probably handle the rest.

[DavidG]

Eric's reply to my query about auto-posting from CellarTracker:

I have found that phpBB seems to defy any attempts at external posting. No one who has a phpBB has ever been able to tell me if there is any kind of “whitelist” feature to allow cross-posting from specific IP’s or referrers.

So it sounds like cut-and-paste will have to do.

[DavidG]

...in light of which, we might want to eliminate the "CellarTracker" forum, and just let TNs post to the main forum.

I think it's best to have TNs mixed in with the other discussions. Keeping them in separate forums tends to reduce page views because it requires extra clicks to go between TNs and general discussion.

[JimHow]

I definitely think TNs should be in the general discussion. Too bad we can't set up something with cellartracker, but i think we should have a link to the site here somewhere.

[PhilR]

I wouldn't rule this out just yet, there should be a way to do this.

David, could you send me Eric's email address? Or send him mine and ask him to contact me about this, thanks.

[PhilR]

Thanks Jim, I wouldn't recommend posting his email address here though, it's likely to get picked up by Spam Bots and he won't thank you for that!

I'll send him an email and report back

[Rieslingfan]

Eric, Robin Garr and I spent a lot of time trying to find a workaround for CellarTracker with this software. We never found it.

[cellartracker]

Phil has me working on a solution that looks quite promising. I should have more info tonight when I get a chance to exercise it a bit.

[JimHow]

Welcome to BWE Eric, I hope we can do the auto link!

[Rick]

I recently loaded my cellar into CT and am real happy I did

nice to see Eric knows we are here

[Rieslingfan]

If it works here it might work on WLDG...hopefully Eric can share any solution (for non-Bordeaux tasting notes of course!).

[cellartracker]

Phil did the real work. If he is willing to share there are a lot of other phpBB boards (WLDG, FTLOP, Wine Berserker and more) who all want to integrate similarly.

[DavidG]

Phil did the real work. If he is willing to share there are a lot of other phpBB boards (WLDG, FTLOP, Wine Berserker and more) who all want to integrate similarly.

Does this mean we will be able to post directly from CT? If so, that's great news! When will this feature be turned on? I assume it will post to this main forum, not a separate forum for TNs...

[PhilR]

I've just heard back from Eric and he's got it working his end, just needs to set it up so CT users can use it from their accounts.

The idea is it'll post straight to this forum with the "TN: " prepended to the subject.

Nice.

[Rieslingfan]

FYI - based on being involved (though not on the programming end) with another site using this same software, I think you need three letters to cue the search system, so TN won't work. THat's why (elsewhere) we went to WTN. It's not a big deal, but useful in trying to narrow searches.

[PhilR]

I see. I think this board won't return searches if you enter a word that's too common though (try searching for "TN") I could always change the coding to allow it though. I think we should discuss this later once we've got the remote posts up and running.

[JimHow]

That's some great work there, Phil!

[michael]

Thanks Phil/Eric for getting the CT integration worked up. The CT community is large, I know lots of BWErs use it, so the ability to enter notes there for record keeping and have them show up here for commentary is going to be a big plus for our group. Plus, maybe some people will stumble upon us through CT.

[cellartracker]

One change that would be nice is growing the default title from 60 characters to 85 characters. A number of wines names get truncated as a consequence of the current limit. I should have my end of the auto-posting code working tonight and then Phil will move it to post to this main forum instead of the test forum which I am currently using as a playground. Unless I hit an unexpected snag this should all be up and running tomorrow.

[JimHow]

Sounds good, I'm very excited about this feature.

[JScott]

Wow. Honestly, how lucky are we to have Phil in our midst? I'm completely genuine about this. Knowing what a great programmer Eric is (as a user of CellarTracker), I'm floored by the fact that Phil stepped in to solve the problem. Three cheers to both Phil and Eric and can't wait to see it rolling. Bravo gentlemen!!!!

[Roberto]

This is really impressive. I like to post notes directly from CT. Some pretty talented programing work I must say Phil!

Roberto

[JimHow]

Phil Reeve, as Manny Ramirez would say, has "brought us to another level."

This guy is really something!

[cellartracker]

I got a little bogged down tonight trying to make the BWE integration a bit more slick--and hit a deadend. Still not quite done but quite close.

[PhilR]

Thanks Scott and Roberto and Jim. It's nice to do some work for something I'm interested in rather than just something I have to do "to get money". Eric's having to put quite some time in to this as well though so it's a joint effort.

I'm going to extend the post title to 85 chars based on what Eric's said above, I wouldn't have thought anyone would have a problem with this?

[JimHow]

Sounds good, I think I barely got that Rhone title in.

[JimHow]

The cellartracker feature is now working!

Outstanding work Phil and Eric!

[William P]

So how does the auto link work?

Bill

[cellartracker]

So how does the auto link work?

Bill

In CellarTracker write your tasting notes or grouped set of notes (currently known as a TASTING EVENT within CellarTracker). Click TASTING NOTES at the top and then MY UNPOSTED NOTES at the upper left. Click the checkbox to the left of one or more notes and then click the PUBLISH TASTING NOTES button at the top of the screen. You will then be able to pick the destination board on a subsequent screen and BWE is amidst those choices. Pick that and click PUBLISH. An post form will come up. If you have only chosen one note it will have a pre-populated subject, otherwise enter one. The body of the post will be nicely UBB-formatted. For BWE you also have to enter your username and password for this board (the only way we could get it to work) and then when you click the final POST button it will pop up a new window either with an error (incorrect password etc.) or the newly created post.

[JimHow]

It's pretty easy, Bill, even I was able to figure it out on my own in a couple minutes.
It's a great new feature!