Monthly Archives: December 2014

1,000 Commits

OpenFarm Blog

OpenFarm’s sofware is being written very rapidly by a dedicated team of software developers from around the world. The process of collaboration is quite interesting for those who are unfamiliar with modern software development. Here is the gist of how it works:

Our software is stored in a ‘repository’ with a service called GitHub; a repository is just a technical name for a folder – a place where you store files. Using GitHub is free for us because our software is open-source; you can see OpenFarm’s repository here. The repository holds the ‘master’ version of the software, as well as all of its history. When someone wants to change the software, add a feature, or fix a bug, they ‘fork’ the software into their personal GitHub account, which means they make a copy of it. The software developer then makes their changes on their own version and then ‘commits’ those changes – in other words, the save the changes. Then they send in a ‘Pull Request’ to the master version. Someone looks over the changes, and if they are good, the changes are ‘pulled’ into the master version. In other words, the modified version is merged with the master, which allows others to then build off of the more updated master version, and so the process repeats. Continue reading 1,000 Commits →

Search Results and Crop Pages Design

OpenFarm Blog

The design of Search Results and Crop pages on OpenFarm has changed a lot in the last 6 months. In this blog post we’re going to show you all of the different mockups we have gone through in order to get to the current design.

April, 2014

These mockups were created very early in our journey of figuring out how OpenFarm would function. We we’re mostly focused on how best to lead the user from the homepage to relevant content suited for them. We went with a categorical approach for search results, along with filter bars similar to those found on sites like Amazon and All Recipes. Upon finding a more specific plant to grow, the user would be taken to the Crop Page, where they could then use more filters to find the right Growing Instructions for them. An important difference from here to now is that the Crop is rated with the user for compatibility, whereas today the Guide is rated for compatibility.

Search April

Crop April
Continue reading Search Results and Crop Pages Design →

OpenFarm Will Launch On January 18th

OpenFarm Blog,

We’ve come a long way since beginning to work on OpenFarm just a few months ago. We’ve built a team of business minds, web developers, and community managers; wrapped up the Kickstarter campaign; redesigned the Homepage, Growing Guides, and Guide Creation Flow; began openly publishing our finances; and talked with hundreds of people through surveys, our discussion forum, and via in-person interviews.

Today we’re excited to announce that OpenFarm will launch on January 18th, 2015! We still have a lot of work to do to make sure the site is working properly and has all the features we think we need for a minimally meaningful product; but we’re on track, excited, and have our heads in the game to accomplish this. Save the date for January 18th and be sure to check back with us. We’ll be all ears for your feedback, immensely appreciative of your support, and looking forward to being a part of this budding community with you.

If you have any questions, please drop us a line in our discussion forum, email Rory, tweet at us, or help us out on GitHub. Thanks!

OpenFarm Now Lives in a Dedicated GitHub Organization

OpenFarm Blog,

As mentioned previously, OpenFarm started out as a sub-component of the FarmBot Project. Because of this, the OpenFarm repository started out as owned by the FarmBot Organization on GitHub. However, over the last few months of developing OpenFarm, we have learned that this project has a distinct life of its own, and for that it should have a distinct organization on GitHub that it lives in. We just made the move last night, and you can find the web app repo and future repos from the OpenFarm team within the new OpenFarmCC Github Organization. See you there!

OpenFarm’s Finances

OpenFarm Blog

As an open-source project that is funded by our community and in the pursuit of a more open and transparent society, we are making publicly accessible all of OpenFarm’s finances. Note that there are two sheets, one for expenditures and one for revenues, of which you can switch between using the tabs at the bottom left corner.

To date, OpenFarm has raised a total of $21,707.91 (all from Kickstarter) and we have spent $3,265.32. We’ll be posting regular financial updates to keep everyone informed of our situation.