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Feature Requests and Issues / Re: Please Help With Downloading Mission data and maps
« on: June 24, 2014, 09:56:06 PM »
Also, what operating system?
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Based upon what you said above, I'm not sure that you are following my proposed solution. My proposed solution for an offline database has one machine hosting the database in a multi-access format such as MySQL. Other computers access this data from the host machine across a local network. This simulates how MM is set up now, just moving the database location from the cloud to a local machine. This is rather straightforward and not uber-complex to set up. It would require some sort of guide, though, to ensure setups were uniform. IMO, the biggest challenge in this setup would be support for those who tried it but were not experienced enough.You're correct that I hadn't considered that you were wanting a completely offline solution. I would suspect the only potential option for running it purely on your own network would be to have a database dump from the source DB, which would include relationships and permissions, in addition to the complete source code to the site itself. Having that would allow you to setup your own installation of MM. The code would have to be altered to facilitate the change in computer names, userids/passwords, and relative paths to the various web and db "services". Since MM is a web based, you'd need a properly configured LAMP or WAMP stack (assuming it's been created on that platform) for it to work. One thing I'm not sure of is whether all organizations are contained in a single DB or whether each gets its own DB, but that could be a consideration as far as data security goes.
My proposed solution places the data permanently offline. An awesome next step would be to make a method to synch from the local database (offline) to the cloud database (online). This increase the complexity is exponential over just keeping a separation between offline and online. The only possibility that comes to mind is some sort of massive CSV export/import, but that is over my head in knowing how it would work. Don't get me wrong, it's a pipe dream. But it would certainly be the absolute best possible scenario because in essence you would have a cloud backup of your offline data should you lose it.
Oh. In re-reading your post before submitting, I think your concern is about the second half of what I talked about - synching from local to cloud. In proposing my offline solution, I was completely discounting this as an option, initially. I figured start to finish the offline solution would be used. So all data would be built out in the offline/local database. Does that make sense?
I'm not saying that the solution is simple. (Although I disagree with TARSAR that it needs to be that complex.) I am saying that it needs to be seriously investigated and remedied in order for MM to live up to its real potential.While you may disagree, the fundamental is and has been the database not so much the client code. Yes I'm simplifying it, but that's the toughest part. How to you take a cloud based database, likely residing in MySQL, PostrgreSQL, MS Sql Server, etc, and make it "portable"? That's the key. Setting computers up to share resources like printers, simple. Sharing a database residing on a computer, pretty simple depending on the platform, but ultimately relies on the database engine residing on the "host" machine. When I implied that it was complex, it is especially when one considers that EVERYTHING currently being done on MM is being developed, hosted, and maintained at the expense of the person(s) that created it. While I'm no programmer, and certainly don't claim to know all things computer, I've been building, repairing, and networking computers for a minimum of 20 years professionally. I don't think I'm overstating the complexity involved in downloading database content to a local machine, sharing that data, and then syncing it back to the host database. Can it be done? Absolutely! Is it a reasonable expectation now? Not really. Should there be a sudden influx of capital and technological resources, no doubt it could be done. We should be thankful that our gracious host puts his time, talents, and money out there for us to use at no cost.