So I was wondering where is the best place to document an imp project? I want to show photos, schematics, agent and device code, JQuery scripting, PHP scripting, etc. GitHub Gist is OK for code, but not for anything else. Got Imps? … I could post there, but this imp forum editor really sucks (for scripts and code). I want a site that has a good organized method to explain and present a project for anyone to see.
We all need a place to go for uploading and showing our imp projects and tutorials. The more imp projects people see, the more involved people will get. People I talk to outside of this forum have no idea what the imp can really do. I think they would be amazed by the imp … seeing actual uses for it.
I couldn’t agree more. @beardedinventor has a nice Instructable on getting started with the Electric Imp at the Instructables site. I haven’t used Instructables yet, but it looks like a good format. I referenced his tutorial in the one I wrote up for Adafruit. If you have a project that uses most or all Adafruit hardware, I’d say they might be interested in having it posted on their learning system.
I wouldn’t be opposed to hosting a site with a good CMS for tutorials if a good alternative isn’t available. Any opinions on using Instructables?
I would love to see more people post Electric Imp Instructables - it’s a great way to get more visibility for us and encourage more people to join the community Having a self hosted CMS site for project instructions is cool, but makes it more difficult for the uninitiated to find.
Sometime soon we’re going to be putting up a community curated (ie - you folks) Electric Imp wiki. A great way to have a repository of projects could be to host them on a site like Instructables, and maintain a list in the wiki (best of both worlds - easy to find for people in the community, and easier to discover for people who aren’t).
Agreed but does Indestructibles work if all we’re sharing is Agent, Parse or some other external cloud stuff. I’ve tried to find a platform like “stackoverflow for tutorials” haven’t to date.
I like the idea of using CMS may be we start by creating a wordpress template? That would at least give some coherence, common heading etc.
If you’re just sharing code, I suggest GitHub - it’s as close to a standard for sharing code as exists right now. We’ve created repos of reference code and examples, and would be happy to post (and properly attribute) your code.
Reference code is basicaly classes to do specific things (work with an IC, webservice, etc). Example code consists of complete examples.
We’re hoping to keep it centralized, so there’s a one-stop-shop for code. Here’s the link: http://github.com/electricimp
I’ve got two tutorials that I want to write up, and I’m going to give Instructables a shot. I might look around at CMS tutorial plugins though. I’m sure there are good ones for WordPress, though I’ve done very little with PHP.
I do think we should all be submitting standardized code and classes to the electricimp GitHub repository…
A good writeup on using the imp002 is probably in order… maybe even a sticky thread? I know I had a few questions on my first go around, and the same questions are being asked more often.
I have detailed photos of the project, schematic, agent code, device code, PHP scripting, and some JQuery. From what I saw in github, it didn’t seem to be very open to a “story line” with photos and step-by-step. Their style seems to be “here’s the files (coding) you need”, and that’s it. The other aspect of github and/or gist, is that it doesn’t seem to be very easy to figure out. Either I’m too “old school electronics” or I just don’t get it. It doesn’t seem intuitive to me.
It seems like some tutorials or examples will be agent and/or device code only, whereas other examples, like mine, will be more about building a project at home for parents and children, or electronic clubs, etc. Whatever method we use, has to be flexible enough to include all types of sharing (youtube video also?).
No matter what, creating a CMS is going to be an extensive project. I’m pretty good with PHP and WordPress customization. My problem is lack of ‘free time’ to work on it.
It seems like Electric Imp has hired, or is hiring more employees. This really should be led and directed by an employee … along with the imp community assistance. Now that the agents are public and the experience of the imp community is opening more doors than Monster’s Inc., this might or should become a priority for the imp staff.
That’s my rant anyhow. I’m already thinking of my next project. Inspiration comes from the things I’ve seen all of you doing. I’m learning new things each time I read the forum posts.
GitHub is great for storing source code. Instructables is great for telling a story about how to do a thing. Using both together can be really powerful. Take a look at our SnackMan instructables as an example. The SnackBot Instructables goes through all the steps required to build the hardware, and get the code running, and has a link that points to the code files on GitHub.
We are going to have some kind of a project showcase and links to projects that developers have made - but we’re not going to reinvent the wheel in terms of building a CMS for handling how to build a thing. Instructables does a killer job of this, and we would rather be focusing on our time and energy improving the impOS, hardware, and cloud services
As for GIT being difficult to use - it can be a little intimidating to start with, but it is arguably one of the largest software development community on the Internet. Take a look at GitHub’s Windows and MacOS apps, they make getting into GIT a lot easier and less intimidating
Having a self hosted CMS site for project instructions is cool, but makes it more difficult for the uninitiated to find.