HG forum migration to Google+

[bkenobi]

I just noticed the note at the head of the forum indicating that this forum will soon become a read only repository (much like the old sourceforge forum.

https://sourceforge.net/p/homegenie/discussion/

I'm all for improvements, but I must say I'm a little bewildered by how to use G+ for a forum.  I'm hoping I figure it out quickly, but at this point I may drop out if I can't.  I know most people around here are all over social media of all kinds.  I prefer to keep my personal information private and don't participate.  If that means I can't participate, I'd like to thank everyone for some really informative discussions over the last few years.

[Bounz]

Personally, I don't like Google Plus.
I don't have troubles with sharing my identity through G+ (Google already knows a lot about me), but I find it very unuseful in terms of "forum". It lacks formattings abilities, structuring discussions is also hard, no way to see new posts...
Maybe Gene will explain this decision, maybe not.
Anyway, bkenobi, thank you for your help and work here on the forum!

[raptorjr]

Personally, I don't like Google Plus.
I don't have troubles with sharing my identity through G+ (Google already knows a lot about me), but I find it very unuseful in terms of "forum". It lacks formattings abilities, structuring discussions is also hard, no way to see new posts...
Maybe Gene will explain this decision, maybe not.
Anyway, bkenobi, thank you for your help and work here on the forum!

+1 on this. I can always create a new email if I want to protect my privacy. But that isn't the biggest problem for me. I also find G+ very messy and not friendly to use. I hope that I'm missing something because how G+ is I don't know for what it can be good for?
Even though Gene has been away and development has been lacking, this forum at least kept HG alive. Even though Gene seems to be working on 1.2 I think without a good forum HG will die anyway. So I really hope that I'm missing the great thing about G+ and will learn. I still think HG is to good to die. But without users it will.

[[email protected]]

I'm in agreement, I think the forum is much better..

It just needs better sign up thingys (cant think of the term at the moment!!) (thinking captcha style)

[Gene]

I too agree that this board would have been a better option to G+. But I cannot mantain this anymore, and I am not even sure I will be able to renew all the hosting services once they'll expire, expecially those ones that require some sort of maintenance.
You users can still create your own unofficial forum board also if you'd like to. It's welcome.
HomeGenie is still free software. It's up the the community to make some value out of it if the product deserves it.
I've tried the best to provide all tools and documentation to make this project versatile and easy to be improved by other developers.
Unfortunately the interest from the developers' community was very poor, which means it's time for me to invest most of my time in something else, pheraps something that can make me earn some money for a living.
Probably none of you know that I'm jobless since 2013. I hope this will make you appreciate even more my personal dedication to this project. I believed in it and still do after all!

[bkenobi]

Knowing that the project brought in very little income, I've always appreciated your time and helpfulness.  I understand that running a project like this requires hosting and other investment, so I understand that there is a limit to how long you are willing to float the project on your own.  I have not looked around, but are there any forum providers that don't charge?  I know you started the first forum on sourceforge but moved here at some point.  Is sourceforge an option to move back to so the community can continue to contribute support?  I don't know if they charge for the forum but the project archival service is free.

Also, if you are giving up hosting for the forum, does that mean that hosting for all of the pages will lapse too?  The project has download capability that will cripple HG if it goes away and can't be redirected.

[Gene]

Hi bkenobi,

there are  a few free forum hosting services, one of them that looks nice is:

https://www.prophpbb.com

you can create HomeGenie forum there and I will be glad to link it in the HG homepage.

Next I will try to create a static copy of this forum so I can dismiss the Database Server service that is currently only used for this forum.

By the way, it's not a matter of money, since today they give you these services for really nothing.  I'm just trying to narrow down the required maintenance on my side.

Also I hope you all enjoy the new documentation site:

http://genielabs.github.io/HomeGenie/

this is also meant to limit all past questioning about basic HomeGenie configuration stuff.

The new documentation site is available on github so everyone can contribute in improving it and adding missing and useful infos.

https://github.com/genielabs/HomeGenie/tree/gh-pages

Also please help with english grammar and form mistakes that I've probably made  =) 

[bkenobi]

The documentation site looks really good from my quick scan!

[nolio]

Hi Gene,

HomeGenie is still free software. It's up the the community to make some value out of it if the product deserves it.
I've tried the best to provide all tools and documentation to make this project versatile and easy to be improved by other developers.
Unfortunately the interest from the developers' community was very poor, which means it's time for me to invest most of my time in something else, pheraps something that can make me earn some money for a living.

Perhaps, (HomeGenie) community (all of us) need to take time to "sell" the software around us (friends, blog, web site, ...). I think for now the HomeGenie community is more technical than skill in communication, and prefer to spend time to add some stuff in your automation system.
So more people come to the software more change to have more developers !

Probably none of you know that I'm jobless since 2013. I hope this will make you appreciate even more my personal dedication to this project. I believed in it and still do after all!

I appreciate all the work you did on HomeGenie :

• Become more and more reliable : I remember when you send update around 2 times a week . I was there to play, have fun, learn, and have headlock to debug problem. I hope you enjoy too this steps.
• Permit to have an home automation system that can be customize

I am a little bit surprise that a developers can't find a job (the developers are needed often in job offer) and you are a skilled one ! But in this kind of research, it still have chance factor !
I hope you will find a job soon.
Thanks again for everything you have done on HomeGenie.

[raptorjr]

I understand all the decisions but I do regret that I wasn't here in the beginning. Not that I'm a developer but I have some knowledge and would have loved to learn a lot more about HG. For now I even struggle with understand everything about git.

I think HG is really nice, and could really be a good competitor to f.ex. Domoticz that is pretty big. But even though HG works well for many of the users I think that the lack of development and support does scare away a lot of new users. Doesn't matter how good a program is, it always need to evolve and get better. Even though some users have given very good support, there is still a lot of questions beginner has that don't get answered. And if you are not a fanatic like many of us are, they move on to more active projects.

But we should be grateful for what Gene has given us, it is just unfortunate that not more people and developers got hooked and continued Genes work. I think that one good way would be to get better support for MySensors. Because users that use MySensors love to experiment and develop things, and would be a great group to target.

Don't know if there will be a 1.2 version based on Zuix before you leave us Gene?

[[email protected]]

is it worth us getting a new 'free' phpbb forum set up? there are tools for migrating from SMF to phpbb by the looks of things?

Potentially gene could then create forum.homegenie.it within the DNS as a CNAME that redirects to the forum, or however it needs setting up? (or even a redirect on the web page for /forum

[raptorjr]

I cant help much with that but I think a "real" forum is needed to try to keep HG alive. Would be great if it was possible to export everything on this forum for a easy transfer of old and new users.

[[email protected]]

Gene - would you prefer to do this so you retain ownership or are you happy for the community to do this (assuming you would be happy to help with the access / files needed for migration?)

[[email protected]]

btw created one on prophpbb to start with.. but not done anything as yet - happy to hand over to someone else though.

[bkenobi]

I've seen both approaches used.  The X10 forum is hosted on the X10 servers but no X10 staff has logged on for years.  It's a community forum for the community by the community sponsored (effectively) by the hardware manufacturer.  The hardware mfg has been very quiet with new products, but the community has spent time over the years helping new and old users get started and keep going with X10 as well as other systems.  I'd like to have something like that at a minimum (a HG forum that could be user moderated).