m.stenta

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In 50 characters or less... Posted by Post date Last comment Number of Comments # of Comments new to you
Overview m.stenta Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 11:20am Wednesday, May 20, 2015 - 4:48pm 2
Discuss possible platform collaboration? m.stenta Friday, February 21, 2014 - 3:17pm Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - 8:28pm 2

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m.stenta's picture

Thanks Matt! It would be great to have you involved! I do most of the planning/task management on the drupal.org issue queues (they work really well for maintaining Drupal modules), but the repos are also mirrored on github.com/farmOS. I'm also usually hanging out in IRC #farmOS on freenode. Love to have you in the discussion!

m.stenta's picture

Hi! FarmOS is a web application, so it needs to be installed on a web server. It is a distribution of Drupal, so you basically follow the normal Drupal installation instructions

But instead of downloading the normal "Drupal" package, you download the farmOS one... which is essentially Drupal plus all the farmOS modules included. Alternatively, you can set up a normal Drupal website, and download/enable individual farmOS modules to suit your needs. In that way it's very flexible.

Do you have any experience with websites or Drupal already? If not, it may be more trouble than it's worth for you. Alternatively, I can set you up with a pre-built and hosted system through Farmier.com. Or if you're just interested in trying it out, I set up a demo for Farm Hackers - I can give you a login for that if you'd like to poke around.

FarmOS is still in "beta"... and there's a lot of things to do before I'm going to really start recommending it to people. So the main audience right now would be tech-savy users who can see past the tedious UI that it currently has. Knowing Drupal and how it is built is helpful in that regard... because I have been designing the system from the ground up using standard Drupal practices, to ensure that it can benefit from the shared development of the rest of the Drupal community.

m.stenta's picture

I created a new feature request in the Farm Log project on drupal.org: https://www.drupal.org/node/2360771

We can use both for discussion and planning. I prefer to use drupal.org for Drupal module project management, so that is probably where I will start building the roadmap and specific tasks. I linked back to this discussion from there as well.

m.stenta's picture

Continuing the list from the last comment:

  • Milking log (for cows/goats/etc)
  • Sheering log (for sheep)
  • Slaughter log
  • Birth log (does this need to be different from "Breeding" above?)
  • ...

The key will be narrowing the list down to the most general set of log types, which can be used broadly. More log types is more to manage, so if we can keep things general it will be easier to maintain. For example, in the crop management that is already in FarmOS, "Input" is used to represent ANY kind of input to a crop or field. So we don't need different log types for every type of input.

Just some thoughts to get the ball rolling... :-)

m.stenta's picture

To continue this thought process...

FarmOS is built around the concept of "Log Types". A log type is essentially a type of record. Think of it like a bunch of composition notebooks, each with a particular purpose. In vegetable production, you have a set of "Planting" logs, which keep track of plantings that have been seeded/transplanted/etc, what they are, where they are etc. You also have "Input" logs for keeping track of fertilizations, amendments, etc. Also: "Harvest" logs to record what was harvested.

So for livestock management, the first step is to define the various Log Types that will be needed. Here are a few I can think of off the top of my head (and keep in mind I don't have any experience with livestock myself, so this is just a start to the brainstorm):

  • Feeding log
  • Rotation log
  • Breeding log
  • Medicine/health care log
  • ... others?
m.stenta's picture

Not yet, no. But that is something I've been eager to start putting together. The building blocks are in place... the only thing we need to do is define the different data types and relationships. I come from a vegetable background, and I don't have much experience raising and managing livestock. So I am open to ideas and insights about how best to build a tool for animal management.

Perhaps we can start some brainstorms! If you have any relevant links to resources from the USDA/NRCS, please share!