Tech Log

Updated and re-compiled 8 custom client connectors, extensions, and pods so they continue to work with the new SkySpark v3.1 release.

BugFix: Removing a Trio file from the Folio View did not delete the actual file on the file system. Now it does!

Thanks to feedback from Ian Habermann of AFM.

The Axon Docs v0.2.2 is now fully compatible with SkySpark 3.0.29!

Fixed an error when a previously documented function could not be found.

Thanks to feedback from Simon Challet.

Updated the Haxall article to link to our new build of Haxall v3.1.1.

The code behind this TechLog page has been updated so TechLog entries may also show display images.

The rule writing section of our SkySpark Engineer course (7.6 - Assigning Spark costs) has been updated to add help on how to recompute a spark rule.

Thanks to feedback from Javier Betancourt.

With the release of Fantom 1.0.77, we have updated our Windows Installer.

Download it from the Fantom website!

The disMacros section (4.7) of our SkySpark Engineer course has been updated to give a better example and clearer instruction.

Thanks to feedback from Javier Betancourt.

Read the amazing backstory of our Alpha Colony! We've released a fun freebie comic book for you to enjoy on our MARS training platform!

We use the Alpha Colony scenario for consolidatory training techniques AND to make these boring subject matters actually enjoyable!

See our LinkedIn post for information, or go directly to our training site and create a free account to access it right now!

Our new version of this Axon eLearning course (and the accompanying Axon Journal) is designed specifically for the new open source HAXALL platform.

• Tailored and tested for the new open source HAXALL platform.
• Updated content including images and description changes

Completely agnostic of using any commercial products, learn how to use Axon as it relates to the key technology elements of Haxall, such as the Folio database.

See our news article for more details!

The new Axon Docs v0.2.0 brings continued compatibility with SkySpark 3.0.28+ !

All functions have been re-tagged to conform to the new library split in the later SkySpark versions. And tabbing out of Axon Docs and back in again doesn't loose your settings any more.

And... Axon Docs is still compatible with older SkySpark versions too!

Updated questions relating to the Energy Profile View (module 7) to give clearer answers.

Thanks to James Gessel for the feedback.

Added a fix for a ValDef validatation bug in SkySpark 3.0.29, see the SkyFoundry forum for details.

Thanks to Leroy Simms of ABI Advantage LLC for reporting.

We've re-evaluated our course acheivements; assigned more appropiate names, and designed fresh new badages for each.

The acheivements:

• Lift Off! - Correctly answer your first exercise
• Space Odysse - Successfully complete ALL the exercises
• Astro Vision - Watch any video from start to end
• Celestial Cinema - Watch ALL the videos from start to end
• Ace of Space - Pass a checkpoint with the top score of 100%
• Galaxy Brain - Pass ALL checkpoints with the top score of 100%
• Mission Accomplished - Pass the final assessment of the course
• Maximum Velocity - Pass the final assessment, first time, with a score of 100%
• Saving the Planet - A special achievement for completing ALL optional material.

More than that, we've also reallocated their XP points so harder acheivements are worth more XP. Can't say fairer than that!

Updated Pod Builder to work with the latest (3.0.29) version of SkySpark.

It sounds easy, but involved investigating and solving some backwards binary compatibility problems with the various versions of SkySpark! Phew!

Thanks to Carlos Garcia for reporting the incompatibility.

This MASSIVE boost to the SkySpark Analyst eLearning course is a refresh for SkySpark 3.0.29 and incorporates:

• A whole new module
• 5 new topics
• 20 new questions
• New acheivement badges and XP allocation
• fresh new vidoes (no more creepy hand pointer - sigh) Not to mention a complete overhaul of all the existing content, exercises, checkpoints, and an updated final assessment!

Finished development on a SkySpark Connector for FlowWorks complete with optimised HTTP 1.1 keep-alive connections!

After reviewing the general demand of our own students, we've just increased our eLearning access to 8 weeks!

See our LinkedIn Post for more details.

Added more help to the hint in Q11.2.1 of Axon Programmer.

Thanks to April Slotterback for the feedback.

This 2 minute video introduces each of our training courses, to help you choose your SkySpark learning journey!

BiqSave of Norway is now listed as a Fantom Factory eLearning distributor!

See Our Resellers for details.

Tweaked the wording around Spark Costs in section 7.6 of SkySpark Engineer.

Thanks to Jay Radia for the feedback.

Now contains Axon functions to build, install, and upload pods - allowing Pod Builder to be scripted.

Thanks to Ian Habermann of AFM for the suggestion.

Corrected a slight mis-understanding in Q6.4.4 regarding the Energy app.

Thanks to Brandon DeLorenzo for the feedback.

Reworded some question hints in "Module 5 - Connectors" to add extra help.

Thanks to Samuel Weisenberg for the feedback.

Released an updated analytics dashboard page for the Sonrai Air Quality Fantom web application.

Added an extra explanation around lambda function arguments and updated the model answer for Q8.3.2.

Thanks to Andrew Lynch for the feedback.

Re-released our Haystack Connect PitchFest presentation for all to see!

Released the FREE course companion to SkySpark Engineer.

Fantom Factory was a Silver sponsor at the 2021 Haystack Connect virtual conference, and delivered a high energy video in the PitchFest event.

If there had been votes for the best PitchFest presentation, we would have surely won!

To give potential customers the extra confidence they really are about to purchase quality eLearning, we've added an average 5 star rating to all our course summaries. The ratings are calculated real time from all our customer course reviews.

And yes, all our courses really DO average 5 out of 5 stars!

Released a FREE SkySpark extension and an external synthesised Haystack data source to complement our SkySpark Engineer training course.

After talks with SkyFoundry, we no longer facilitate sales of SkySpark 10 point licences from Active Facility Monitoring.

Instead, you must purchase licences yourself from your SkySpark resller... or Active Facility Monitoring.

Released a new dashboard and chart page for the Sonrai Air Quality Fantom web application.

Clarified questions Q4.7.3 and Q4.7.4.

Thanks to Mike Robbins for the feedback.

Thanks to John Ang for feeding back improvements:

• Altered Q2.2.1 to make it more realistic with regard to Project Haystack tags
• Explained how whitespace around values in .trio files is optional
• Fixed Q2.5.3 to follow SkySpark convensions for IO files.
• Made assessment Q8 more lenient.

Thanks to John Ang for feeding back these following improvements:

• Tweaked the puncutation in Q3.1.1 and Q3.1.2
• Fixed typo in 5.2 Get, Set, D'Oh code example
• Reworded Q5 in Checkpoint 8.4 to be a little clearer
• Fixed a typo in a code example in topic 9.3 Functions requiring lambdas
• Replaced usage of hisClear() in revision question Q11.2.1 with a more correct hisRemove()

Made various (authentication) updates to our SkySpark extension that allows SkySpark instances to report their health and status to a central monitoring station via the SkySpark Connector framework.

Desgined and released new Fantom Factory FAT Logos for situations that require a smaller aspect ratio.

In conjunction with Active Facility Monitoring we now offer SkySpark 10 point licences for sale to accompany our training courses.

We are happy to sponsor a pre-recorded talk of Fast Track COVID-19 Alternative Care Facility (ACF) by Ryan McClain of Pinnacle Engery Services Inc.

Work completes on our fantastic new short video that really showcases what our new SkySpark Engineer training looks like!

> Introducing our SkySpark Engineer eLearning course <

Axon Programmer 2.1 is released, boasting:

• Updated and tested for SkySpark 3.0.28 (from v3.0.25)
• New video giving an overview of the Axon Command Console
• Links to the new SkyFoundry documentation

Completed a major update and re-design of our internal HTTP Client library.

It now handles persistent (keep-alive) connections as defined by HTTP 1.1 making data transfer up to 3x faster!

The new connection agnostic design also paves the way for a new HTTP 2.0 implementation.

Another great company, IoT Warez, joins the ranks as a Fantom Factory eLearning distributor!

See Our Resellers for details.

Frantically updated 100s and 100s of documentation links across all our 9 courses after SkyFoundry updated their website to conform too Haystack 4.

Eeek!

The first public release of SkySpark Engineer 1.0.

Learn how to use Project Haystack (v4) Tagging, Site Builder, the Folio Database, filter expressions, Connectors, and Rules.

Create new project, site, and equip records, bind points, import and collect history, tune Connectors, set up Rules, and view Sparks.

SkySpark Engineer has it all!

Oh, and Happy Birthday Emma! :D

Released an updated Kiosk mode page for the Sonrai Air Quality Fantom web application.

Fixed a typo in Axon Journal.

Thanks to Willem Timmers for the feedback.

Fantom Factory are happy to welcome Intellastar as the latest reseller of our eLearning courses.

See Our Resellers for details.

We were estatic to be informed that Fantom Factory were shortlisted as a finalist in the 2021 Digital City Awards for the category Best Use of Technology - Education!

See Digital City Awards 2021: The Shortlist for details.

Released a mobile microsite for the Sonrai Air Quality Fantom web application.

Fantom Factory are delighted to welcome Ecosave as a reseller of our eLearning courses.

See Our Resellers for details.

Refactored the mechanism in which website Articles are loaded to accomodate a more flexible directory structure.

Course expiry dates are now shown in the dashboard - under the Course Descritption tab.

Delivered updates to our SkySpark extension that completely clones an existing SkySpark project - and updates ALL deeply nested references.

Axon Command Console updated to have an explicit "Test Code" button, making it more obvious to distinguish between "Practice" and "Answer" modes.

Updated F4 FPM Plugin to use the new version of FPM.

Manages pods and their dependencies, providing a targeted environment for building, testing, and running Fantom apps.

Heavily refactored FPM config parsing and made locating repositories more natural and linux friendly.

Courses' progress bars often displayed a higher percentage complete than they should.

They now reset themselves to what they should be, the next time they update.

Updated extension so Jobs and Logs are compatible with both SkySpark 3.0.27 and earlier 3.0 releases.

Rewrote course descriptions and added a preview of our new SkySpark Engineer course.

BuildingFit were always excited to be Fantom Factory distributor, but now they have a whole page on their website dedicated to out eLearning products!

See Fantom Factory Courses for details.

Sterling Bay's 333 N. Green St. property is the first in Chicago to receive the WELL Health & Safety Rating thanks to our development of the Sonrai Indoor Air Quality web application.

See the video report in WELL Health & Safety rating verifies workplace safety during COVID-19 by AB7 News for details.

Kira, Glitch, Leroy, and Astrid have all been re-designed by our new illustrator and now reside on Alpha Colony.

SkySpark Analyst, Axon Programmer, Watt's Up, and the Tutorial have been updated with new content and story enhancements to better show the new style and character emotions.

Training seriously doesn't get any better than this!

Enhanced form feedback of failure messages and tweaked the Google reCAPTCHA logic.

Tweaked excerise Q3.2.5 and checkpoint Q3.6.5.

Thanks to Yandre Lozano for the feedback.

Created an internal SkySpark extension to import and view all our user data in funky Fantom Views.

This helps us greatly with monitoring students, code, and fixing problems.

We're watching you!

A BSON specification implementation.

Optimised reading and writing BSON documents.

Finished adding new pages and grooming page layouts

Content has been split up into multiple pages to make finding information easy and straight forward. The new pages are:

• Why learn with us
• What is Alpha Colony
• Customer Reviews (live)
• Resellers
• FAQs
• Fantom Software Services
• Programming Portfolio
• Tech Log

Utilities and software patterns commonly associated with data objects.

Minor updates.

An IoC library for providing injectable config values.

Read config from secret.props by default.

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions

Bug fix.

Thanks to Carlos Garcia for reporting.

We are now able to offer official trial versions of our courses, with restricted course assessments and a limited access time period.

Amended the Mars Dashboard to show trial versions and display new messages.

New look and updated information for our welcome aboard instructions for courses - and extensions!

Redesigned our online course shop page, and with new Time Capsules.

This is the start of a larger piece of re-design work.

Created the first community site for the Project Haystack community to share events and ideas.

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

Bug fix.

Thanks to Carlos Garcia for reporting.

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

Records may be edited from the Folio / trio files view.

Thanks to Ian Habermann of AFM for the suggestion.

Delivered a SkySpark connector that imports history data from the Hach FS Data SOAP API.

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

Bug fixes.

Thanks to Carlos Garcia and Ian Habermann for reporting the issues.

Axon functions for making HTTP requests to REST APIs

New function for adding query parameters to Uris.

Thanks to Stephen Frank for the suggestion.

Launched our very first YouTube channel with playlists for software, eLearning and tech talks.

Redesigned the course certificates with our new styling, and to capture each certificate serial number - new feature!

Our marketing website just scored 100% across the board in Chrome's Lighthouse tool!

• 100% for Performance
• 100% for Accessibility
• 100% for Best Practices
• 100% for SEO

And we have a video of fireworks to prove it!

That was for Desktop, our lowest score on Mobile is 93%!

Worked with Lemontop creative agency to produce an updated company brand design - a new set of brand guidelines and an exciting new look!

Select a custom avatar in your user profile (with Flicking).

Encrypts and obfuscates Axon source code

Minor updates.

More questions, more story, more awesomeness!

Complete re-write of the reference material. Still FREE!

New page to host our live customer reviews from course feedback - published automatically from Mars!

Alternative and extensible Fandoc writers that provide intelligent context.

API updates.

Released lots of marketing logos, images, and PDFs for our resellers.

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

Internal optimisations.

New thumbs up / thumbs down rating feature to allow immediate feedback on course sections during training.

Added Thumbs up / Thumbs down rating sections throughout the course, across all 3 locales.

Delivered a suite of Axon functions that integrate SkySpark with Amazon Web Services S3 storage REST API.

Released our FREE mini SkySpark challenge - Watt's Up!?

New banner and public page for SkyPosium 2020.

New Course Review feature to automatically prompt and capture a course review at the end of a training course.

Released new Notifications feature to inform you of course events and achievements.

Pickles Fantom objects to and from strings

API updates.

Pickles Fantom objects to and from strings

First public release of Pickle, base code liberated from core Fantom serialisation framework.

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

Bug fix.

Thanks to Leroy Simms of ABI Advantage LLC for reporting.

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

New archive functionality for records.

Delivered a FIN (not SkySpark!) connector that synchronises and imports data from the Belimo Cloud REST API.

FIN 5 Connector for the Belimo Cloud API

First public release.

New rocket powered login page design by Chis Wade at Pixel Much.

Blast off!

Sticky sidebar to ease course navigation - no more endless scrolling to find the bottom of the menu!

Delivered a SkySpark extension that completely clones an existing SkySpark project - and updates ALL deeply nested references.

A library for creating reusable Embedded Fantom (efan) components

API updates.

Publicly released SkySpark Analyst 2.0.

More questions, more story, more awesomeness!

Updated content to be compatible with the latest SkySpark 3.0.25.

Released whole new look for the Dashboard and course pages, based on new Alpha Colony site designs from Chis Wade at Pixel Much.

Updated course to be compatible with the latest SkySpark 3.0.25.

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

Bug fixes.

Thanks to Jaap Balvers of BAM for reporting an issue.

Renamed "Induction Training" to "Tutorial".

Rewrote and simplified course to make it more of a "How to" guide.

Updated our SkySpark connector that imports data from the NL INNAX SOAP API.

New cartoon monologue images for Kira, Leroy, and Astrid, each with different expressions. Drawn by Sadun.

Something soft and comfortable to wrap your Javascript up in!

API updates.

Created an internal SkySpark app to import and view all our user data in Axon Views.

This helps us greatly with monitoring students and fixing problems.

We're watching you!

Transform your Axon functions, Views, and Apps, into custom SkySpark extensions.

First public release.

Not in a funny mood? Don't want to read about the ongoing problems at Alpha Colony?

Now you can switch off the story line and concentrate on the course.

Translated the entire course content into French to offer as an additional locale option.

Parsing Expression Grammar (PEG) for when Regular Expressions just aren't enough!

API updates.

Delivered our first public release of Sonrai IAQ, a Fantom web application for monitoring Indoor Air Quality across multiple locations.

Updated our Danfoss connector to sync data from more Danfoss sources.

Axon functions for making HTTP requests to REST APIs

Bug fix.

Thanks go to Joe Firrantello for reporting.

Delivered a SkySpark extension that allows SkySpark instances to report their health and status to a central monitoring station via the SkySpark Connector framework.

Because only Chuck Norris can parse HTML with regular expressions

API updates.

Unit test runner and assertion functions for Axon

Minor updates.

Free supplemental Axon reference course given FREE upon completion of Axon Core.

Rebranded our course product icons with updated graphics.

A pure Fantom driver for MongoDB

API updates.

Delivered a SkySpark extension that automatically provisions updated pods (and their dependancies) from StackHub to SkySpark instances.

Alternative and extensible Fandoc writers that provide intelligent context.

API updates.

An IoC service to render Google's Universal Analytics script

API updates.

Sleep safe knowing you're guarded against CSRF, XSS, and other web attacks

API updates.

The public release of the 5th generation Fantom Factory website!

Integration with Octobat and Stripe for payments, to front our new mini shop.

We realise that if you get really, really stuck on a Axon question - it can sometimes be really useful to see the actual answer to find out where you're going wrong.

So now, if you get an excerise wrong 3 times, you can reveal the correct answer. But we've disabled copy / paste so you still have to type out the correct answer your self!

Axon functions for making HTTP requests to REST APIs

API updates.

Axon assessment questions are hard, have lots of requirements, and easy to get wrong if you don't read the question very carefully.

But this is no different to coding in real life - so it seems harsh to penalise people for silly mistakes.

For this reason, Axon questions in an assessment may now be attempted 3 times before it is finally marked wrong.

A pure Fantom driver for MongoDB

Support for MongoDB 4.2.

A JSON to Fantom object mapping library

API updates.

View Axon Documentation categorised for dot operator use

Minor updates.

Training content is for the individual and should not be shared.

A library for creating reusable Embedded Fantom (efan) components

API updates.

Unit test runner and assertion functions for Axon

Minor updates.

Thanks to John MacEnri of Crawley Carbon for the pull request.

Development of news article pages, so we may incorporate a mini blog site.

Google reCAPTCHA and email integration so we may integrate a "Contact Us" page.

Updated our SkySpark Connector for Belimo Cloud to work with their new Auth0 framework and the new SkySpark v3 connector framework.

SkySpark Connector for the Belimo Cloud API

Updated to use SkySpark's new v3 connector framework and Belimo's new Auth0 authentication.

First initial code commit of a new Fantom based marketing website.

Rewrote course to cover more question types, and to focus more on Alpha Colony and less on Fantom Factory values.

Reduced the number of achievements earned.

Something for your web app to get its teeth into!

API updates.

A framework and IoC container for web applications

API updates.

Helps ease HTTP requests through a stack of middleware

API updates.

Delivered Bespoke StackHub licensing code for the Trove Tariff Extension.

Parsing Expression Grammar (PEG) for when Regular Expressions just aren't enough!

API updates.

Client and Server code to process Google reCAPTCHA responses

First public release.

Parses Markdown text into Fandoc objects

Re-wrote entire parser to use the awesome Pegger v1.1.

Delivered a SkySpark extension that integrates with Google Drive via Axon functions.

The extension provided resumable uploads for large Backup files.

Integrating with Google's horribly complicated OAuth framework was undoubtedly the hardest part of this piece of work!

Something soft and comfortable to wrap your Javascript up in!

API updates.

Because only Chuck Norris can parse HTML with regular expressions

API updates.

A headless browser for testing web sites and BedSheet applications

API updates.

Creates XML sitemaps for BedSheet Applications

Updated to use the latest BedSheet and Pillow.

View Axon Documentation categorised for dot operator use

Minor updates.

Creates XML sitemaps for BedSheet Applications

API updates.

A concise and lightweight templating language for generating HTML

Updated to use the awesome Pegger v1.1.

Platform ready for Axon-Core release!

Axon Programmer goes LIVE!

Axon Programmer gets ready for public viewing!

Translated course into American English.

Translated the whole course into American English.

Released SkySpark Analyst with a whole new American English locale.

Gotta keep the Americanz happy!

Platform ready to preview new Axon-Core course.

Allow courses to be versioned.

Axon Command Console - first revision.

This mimics the SkySpark Shell View and lets students run Axon commands from the course pages.

With most of the content drafted out, now begins the difficult task of creating the Axon questions! Exercises, Checkpoints, Assessments, etc...

Updated a SkySpark Connector for Chargepoint products to work with the new SkySpark v3 connector framework.

Course description / preview pages.

Updated a SkySpark Connector for Pelican products to work with the new SkySpark v3 connector framework.

Free mini course that introduces you to Fantom Factory and the Alpha Colony.

Added Google reCAPTCHA support to login and register pages - No SPAM for us!

Initial launch of our new eLearning platform, completely written in Fantom and hosted ourselves.

First public release of the whole new SkySpark Analyst.

A library for creating reusable Embedded Fantom (efan) components

API updates.

CSS theme support, starting with a classic and Mars theme.

Implemented final course assessments.

Renders Fantom objects as HTML forms complete with client and server side validation

API updates.

Users may now earn eXperience Points (XP).

Created Achievements and plugged them into the event engine.

A JSON to Fantom object mapping library

Support for dynamic typing via _type fields.

Implemented Course checkpoints.

Encrypts and obfuscates Axon source code

Minor updates.

Framework for rendering and sending (via MailGun) transactional emails.

Initial commit of Axon Programmer notes for use in the new Alpha Colony platform.

Axon functions for making HTTP requests to REST APIs

API updates.

Implemented client side Vimeo Player with eventing.

Implemented Drap-drop question type.

Axon functions for making HTTP requests to REST APIs

Rewritten entire code base to use an all new internal HTTP Client library from Fantom Factory.

Implemented Multiple-choice and Fill-in-the-blanks question types.

A library for creating reusable Embedded Fantom (efan) components

Re-written to use efan 2.0.

Something for your web app to get its teeth into!

API updates.

A library for rendering Embedded Fantom templates

API updates.

Initial commit of material for the new Alpha Colony platform.

Content imported over from the WordPress site.

Functionly, you may login, and then start, view, and complete a course.

Development begins on a whole new, Fantom based, application website for eLearning.

Delivered a SkySpark extension that acts as an STP Client for sending SHIP messages via Axon functions.