News: It's Offical! The 3rd Z-Net is Going to be Released!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

After seeing the votes tick up more and more, with still over 1/3 of the total voting time left, I saw that the odds were that it was going to hit 50 with time to spare. And because of that, I decided to grab the projects source code once again and look more at what I have to do with it to comfortably release it "as is". While doing that, I cleaned up some of what I wanted to, and begone work on reorganizing things, adjusting the protocol, evaluating what my prior notes said were issues, etc.

And now, the poll has reached 50. So it seems I have officially begone work on getting this project ready for a release. While I would like to get this project in the hands of users asap, as I understand perfectly well that most of the users would be zbattle refugees in need of a new home, it's best that I don't rush it, and instead put as much polish into it as I can first. Knowing that, I still can't promise a release date though. I have one in mind, but would honestly hope to release it sooner than that.

Now, just because the project is now officially on the road to being released, it doesn't mean people should stop voting. People should continue to do so, at the very least to help indicate to others the amount of other people that would be using it too, once released. Also with a significant enough amount of additional votes, I can reassess what my continued amount of focus, effort, and direction would be for this and related projects. And of course, the voting options themselves. While it has little to do with how the project will be released in the coming days/weeks, in the future this info could be vital to the direction on this projects future or Z-Bands. Right now, about %60 don't really care so long as the program works well. There's not much I can do with that knowledge as far as tailoring the design to the users, so I can ignore that in regards to this. Most of the other options however differ only by a few votes, and its hard to conclude something with so little to go off of. If there did happen to be a sizable population of users using the program when I release it, I still wouldn't have much to go on for the future direction of the project. So keep the votes coming!

On to the projects status itself.

Major things I still have to do:

• Decide on a name. Currently the names on the top of my list are Z-Net 3.0, ZNIII, ZN3, ZNI, Z-Net I, Z-Net 1.5SA (The last one is based on the fact that this project more closely resembles the first Z-Net which left off at v1.41, among other reasons. SA meaning "Stand-Alone". The "I" in the previous 2 serves dual meaning for "independent" as an alternative and more friendly term than "stand-alone", and also as a "one", starting over the numbering in a way, but differentiating it from the mIRC script.).
• Create an installer. CHECK
• Test it with another user.
• Recruit some beta testers, and have them test it.
• Empty out the 2 different "todo" lists I've been keeping on it.
• Decide if I want to use the old #Z-Net channel for this, or create a new one.

That list may not be complete, and I might edit more into it as I think of it.

If anyone has name ideas, post them in the comments or on the forums.

Lastly, I'm already ready for some beta testing on this project. If you have the time and motivation to be a good beta tester, review, sign up and post on the following thread on the forum.

Beta Tester Application Thread