Prehistory of QetriX

QX Logo

In 2001 my best friend Pavel (Paul) came up with an idea to create an online discussion website / Internet forum and suggested name "QX", eventually we named it QeX and registered qex.cz domain. It costed 1600 CZK = ~90 USD at the time, half of the amount was registration fee and half one year prepayment (in fact it was 43 USD, but exchange rate between USD and CZK was the worst ever that year).

1.x

QeX Logo

Pavel was also creator of the first version, using vlibTemplate engine, which he customized for QeX. The first version was mostly for us to learn PHP and MySQL. We wanted a little more, than just a discussion server, so we called QeX a "Multiportal".

After signing in, user stepped into "Gate" - home page, where all important stuff resided. From Gate he could go to list of "clubs" (chat rooms), or directly into particular club, where he discussed.

Early logo of QX/QeX we used later as "helper" (like Clippy in MS Office) and appeared in what one day should be a learning center or help center. This logo and the following one were both entirely Pavel's work. Next and final logo contained "e" as well, not just Q and X, and all those three letters were combined together into a head of hedgehog, or maybe a fox.

The only picture of QeX v1 I found, as part of our promotion banner. (2001)

2.x

Version 2 was like a typical Internet forum. We had discussion clubs about certain topics, where users can write their posts. Any user was eligible to create own club and manage it afterwards. Each club might contain a poll, a "home" (separated HTML text page attached to club via link) and a "minihome" (HTML text above posts, limited size).

Pavel introduced a concept of "sheets". Service status, charts, daily info, news, weather, currency exchange rates... It was nice and small, sometimes even smaller, than the text itself, with HTML tags around. And this way we were able to use gradients and everything looked exactly alike in all web browsers - we're talking about IE 5/6 and Netscape Navigator here... :) Everything was in table layout with very little of basic CSS.

Pavel also introduced "visit-cards", containing all important info about user, like nick, profile picture, current online status and timestamp of last activity. Those cards were like a widget, which people can put into their websites.

On Gate there was also a bulletin board and system news. We had a tiny IFRAME, that reloads every minute and checked for new stuff (like incoming mail or friends online), no global support for XMLHttpRequest (later better known as AJAX) those days... :)

QeX v2 - Gate. See sheets on the right. (2002)

3.x

3rd version was released in 2003 and unlike previous 2 versions, this one was almost entirely my work. I recreated the whole engine from scratch, but still using vlibTemplate with Pavel's customizations.

Instead of clubs we had modules with various interfaces now. Module was just a shell around its data and interface determined how to interpret the content (data). We had interfaces, like section (list of child modules), discussion, monologue (form of discussion, where only owner can post), chat, gallery, game, plugin, book (one long post per page) etc.

Users could store desired posts to personal memo and post private messages to other users. We didn't need home/minihome any more, because if required, user was able to create child text module for his discussion module with tight link in between. System went from "clubs are managed by admin" to "modules are managed by the user-creator and his fellows". User was able to customize the Gate as well. We opened modules for anonymous users as well, in read-only mode.

Modules were categorized into a tree. We had no tags or anything though, everything was managed by hand. But I created a smart method for drag'n'drop (in 2003 on web it was really something special), so it was quick'n'easy.

Pavel's most significant idea later was to have a type of every piece of content, instead of having different interfaces. It would allow us to have posts, pictures, games, polls, tables... side by side in one module. In 2004 it was for us quite hard to achieve, not only because of hardware issues, but mostly because of lack of our skills.

QeX v3 - Gate, registered user (2003)

QeX v3 - Section, anonymous user (2003)

QeX v3 - Module "Discussion"

Version 3 has features, like in-browser games, where users could compete among each other (in pseudo real time or turn based) and beat others' high scores.

Technically, users and modules have been merged into modules. In database we kept table "users", which contains auth info (username, password) and user's module ID. We put email into "module" table, so user was able to insert content into module by e-mail.

As a side project we created "WiH" - "Where is He". Because there were many websites, like QeX, in order to be able to contact particular user it would require to know, on which server is he on right now.

Retrospectively I think v3.2 was the most advanced version of QeX. And influenced QetriX at most. Too bad later Pavel held back in development and I was ending just by myself. He was more underground and I was more commercial, so maybe he realized we missed the right time for such underground project and lost a motivation.

Unfortunately we experienced a major system outage with database crash. It took some time to restore it and I decided it was time for another reengineering. We lost most of our users anyway.

4.x

In v4 I split major sections into 3rd level domains and created true multiportal - each of those domains acted like separate website with unique look. The module system concept was brilliant, there was no need to change it.

I have to admit there were some great new ideas for v4. We put homogenous data in modules into "windows" and we enhanced terminology from "module" to "node".

User had been able to specify permanent windows, block unwanted windows, define own windows or even call windows from other nodes. Windows had position and state, user was able e.g. to rellocate or minimize them. I designed an amazing desktop-like interface for our new "windows" concept.

For the first time the user interface was much cleaner, no system lists or menus. Everything was up to the user, because of windows.

QeX v4 - Gate (2005) with the concept of windows

Aftermath

After the outage of v3 we had no regular users, so we kind of let the original idea die. I started to focus on money-making projects, like my CMS, and kept alive only my personal website on QeX. And because the "www" domain was empty and abandoned, I created a web portfolio on it.

In the years after I used QeX in various different ways, but none of them went to reincarnation of QeX. Nevertheless I often realized our (well, mostly Pavel's ;-) ideas for QeX are a goldmine, so from time to time I go thru documents "ideas for v4" and look for anything I'd be able to use today. Like my CMS used the module system and in fact, QetriX uses it too - entity is a module, entity type is an interface :)

I still think I may resurrect QeX one day again. After I graduated I became an employee, so portfolio website is not valid and the domain is available for something new once again. The only downside is it's .cz and no other TLD is available. So maybe something with just local ambitions.