Wizardry

When we first went online, many months ago, with the MVP (minimum viable product), the profile page had three or four options, and no subordinate pages. As we have added features, the members area of Rdbhost.com has grown to include six detail pages in addition to the profile page itself, the Rdbadmin utility and the log display.

For any given user, some of those options are irrelevant, and it can be confusing to have to sort through them. We have just added a wizard, which steps the user through the process of configuring everything necessary for their application.

When a user first logs in, they are shown the wizard and it guides him or her through initial configuration. All configuration options are available from the members pages, outside the wizard, or the user can rerun the wizard at any time. Whatever suits each of you.

The wizard can be as brief as four screens, or as elaborate as eleven. Configuring for use from Python can be straightforward, and use from JavaScript is necessarily more elaborate, as the browser security constraints have to be navigated around. Where we cannot do everything required (subdomain configuration, for example) for you, the wizard gives you guidance on how to do the necessary tasks.

Rdbhost, of course, is at: http://www.rdbhost.com
and the wizard is at: http://www.rdbhost.com/mbr/wizard