Topic: Some updates on SMF 2.1

[AllanD]

I replied at github, fix didn't work. Thank you though.

[Labradoodle-360]

When I tested it...$_POST['reg_mode'] was most definitely available. Maybe it was not tested thoroughly enough, but it also could possibly be something else...

[Arantor]

Available to what, exactly?

The original code makes use of the value of $_POST['reg_mode'] during ForumSettings(), which means it's shown to the user at the previous stage. Only trouble is, ForumSettings() is only for populating Settings.php and the database doesn't yet contain the settings table, so putting in the insert at that point is guaranteed to fail.

The update moves the population step into DatabasePopulation() but still relies on $_POST['reg_mode']. Since that's requested from the user two steps back and originally applied in ForumSettings(), there is no reason for ForumSettings() to push it back to the form for submission through into DatabasePopulation().

Edit: I suppose one of these days I'll actually try to install SMF 2.1 again, haven't installed it in months (and didn't for this, after seeing two people report it failing, I just looked at it)

[Labradoodle-360]

You should definitely take a peak at it after that registration thing is fixed then.

[Kindred]

Where can we get support if needed.

Please do note, there is no actual "support" for alpha versions.
If there is a bug, we will attempt to fix it - but, at this point, the only folks who should really be running the software are folks who are knowledgeable about coding, etc and ones who can help track down the details behind reported issues.
(which is not to say that you or anyone else is not such a person... but there are people who will install alphas and betas and expect full production level support)

[AllanD]

Where can we get support if needed.

Please do note, there is no actual "support" for alpha versions.
If there is a bug, we will attempt to fix it - but, at this point, the only folks who should really be running the software are folks who are knowledgeable about coding, etc and ones who can help track down the details behind reported issues.
(which is not to say that you or anyone else is not such a person... but there are people who will install alphas and betas and expect full production level support)

Ok so then the common user shouldn't have any say. Sorry I don't know much about mysql. Talking about turning away interested members.

[Arantor]

You should definitely take a peak at it after that registration thing is fixed then.

I should definitely climb a mountain after that registration thing is fixed? Unless you mean 'peek' which is a different thing entirely.

I just find it all a bit sad that people would report it elsewhere in the hopes I'd be able to give them a better answer than they would if they had posted here.


@Allan: What Kindred is trying to say is that alpha grade software is still under active development and that things can and will change, to the point where only competent developers will be able to investigate.

Take this very bug. There are, what, half a dozen reports of it now? And yet there are only 3 people who might actually be able to fix it, at least that are actively involved in the discussion.

This is the thing I raised with my comment on the Wedge FB page and why I don't really want to give out alphas to people who don't understand what 'alpha' really means.

[AllanD]

 understand about that, I wanted to play around with making a themes on it.

[Arantor]

Making a theme for a moving target is just that: a moving target. Which means the only people who can really help you are the people writing the code themselves.

[Kindred]

I am not turning away anyone...and, of curse, "common users" can have input.

However,
Alpha and beta software is in a state of flux.
As arantor said there is a certain level of debugging that s expected from people who are running test versions...   And it would be useless to try and develop a theme for 2.1 yet, since, in alpha it is possible to completely drop or rewrite anything.

As much as I like the availability of the code on github, it does present a problem because general users will nstalled it and expect support. However, there is no support for alpha and only limited for beta software.

[emanuele]

The only problem I see with that is that I'm not sure $_POST['reg_mode'] is still available at that precise moment in time; if it's set for ForumSettings() to read it, IIRC it won't be passed through for DatabasePopulation() to handle it.

Yep, it's still there (it's the same mechanism used for $enableCompressedOutput and $databaseSession_enable) because DatabasePopulation is run in the loop just after ForumSettings has returned true.

I should definitely climb a mountain after that registration thing is fixed? Unless you mean 'peek' which is a different thing entirely.

Mountains in summer are nice! (Especially if there are trees around with some shadow )

Take this very bug. There are, what, half a dozen reports of it now? And yet there are only 3 people who might actually be able to fix it, at least that are actively involved in the discussion.

I agree that's sad that people report issues on other forums. I don't know why they do, but for those involved here (or at least for me) becomes a bit more tricky to even know they have been reported (anyway yes, I was aware of the report at Wedge, and I didn't answer because I was doing other things...and also because I felt a bit uncomfortable doing debug on SMF on the board of another software, then when I "woke up" (yeah, difficult morning and early afternoon yesterday) there was the issue open, the time to have a look and test it and I sent the PR with the fix).

A topic in bug reports or a message in this same topic would have been quite nice to have...I usually don't kill people reporting bugs... usually. (maybe someone else does, in that case feel free to shoot him/her )

[emanuele]

However,
Alpha and beta software is in a state of flux.
As arantor said there is a certain level of debugging that s expected from people who are running test versions...   And it would be useless to try and develop a theme for 2.1 yet, since, in alpha it is possible to completely drop or rewrite anything.

Well, I always considered 2.1 quite "stable" theme-side because we really didn't change much of the background (of course in the early steps we changed few things, but nothing that would require a total rebuild of the theme, rewrite of certain things, but not completely. Of course it may become a bit tricky to keep track of changes if you are not using a local repo...that's true. And of course it all depends on what you want to obtain from your theme, if you just want to tweak the css it's one thing, if you want to redo it almost entirely it's another and the two options require different approaches).

As much as I like the availability of the code on github, it does present a problem because general users will nstalled it and expect support. However, there is no support for alpha and only limited for beta software.

What you are missing here is that we are supporting our product.
We are not giving support to the users of our product.
In that phase it's SMF that needs support and feedback from people installing it and using it, this is support that *we* need.

Building a new theme may let AllanD discover a bug somewhere, or may allow him to suggest some trick to the template that would improve the theming experience, or whatever.
Have users that create mods for devel versions provides feedback to improve some aspect (we introduced tons of hooks, but do we really know if they are *really* useful? No.). Of course is a possible waste of time, but that's part of the game (all the time we "developers" are putting into our code is potentially a huge waste of time, but we nevertheless continue to do it).

We have warned people (at least I think), so as long as they are aware of that, play with a development version (and anyway the current 2.1 doesn't receive many commits) is fine. And if they don't know or don't understand that, they will learn at some point.

[ziycon]

As much as I like the availability of the code on github, it does present a problem because general users will nstalled it and expect support. However, there is no support for alpha and only limited for beta software.

Make a point of saying that, update the git repos so that the installer has a very prominent message saying that it wont be supported as it's an alpha or put a banner at the top of the installer/installed forum to this regard for anything on git.

[AllanD]

Thanks emanuele, but I got it working last night the was an ) that was left out.

[emanuele]

Where exactly?
The missing parenthesis is something broken in the code?

[AllanD]

It was on line 1750 on the install_2-1_mysql.sql. Could have been something I did when editing.

[emanuele]

Okay, good, thanks.

Just to be sure the Allan at github it's you, right?

[AllanD]

Yeppers, one in the same.