Top X Stats

[Arantor]

Not sure what you mean by "style", but unless the dev copied proprietary code or you're an advocate of Apple's "we have patended round corners" I'm not sure what the problem is. In any case, I still think this is not the place to discuss it. This is the support topic for the mod, no?

The style used at the top of this mod is the normal category bar of SMF, but it's shortened and then instead of the normal roundframe style containers underneath, it uses only part of that.

On a good many custom themes, it doesn't look right.

There's no proprietary code, simply that by trying to use a style that we tried 3 years ago (and learned that it broken on custom themes), I was trying to explain why it shouldn't be used, citing where it had been learned. The developer of this mod is an SMF developer and also a SimpleDesk developer, but had not apparently read the bug tracker entry in SD that actually covers this very issue.

(And I'm also annoyed that yet again Labradoodle is making himself out to sound better than he is with comments like 'using it WAY before SD' and doesn't like it when I'm calling him out on his exaggerations. Mind you, 3 years ago he couldn't even write a DB query, so he's come an awful long way.)

[Gryzor]

Ah, understood. It's a functionality issue, apologies.

But then again I've run into quite a few mods that are not compatible with themes I've installed, so I've learned to think that's the norm...

[Skaty]

Any screen would be great, thank you for the mod.

Thanks for screen.

Maybe there can be a another block for ''Today's Favorite Topic''. Admin choose a topic and there is showed right there. i'm using kind of like this with simple portal.

[Gryzor]

Hmmm that's an interesting proposition - a promoted topic... nice. I don't think I've seen such a mod...

[Skaty]

Hmmm that's an interesting proposition - a promoted topic... nice. I don't think I've seen such a mod...

i can do this with simple portal/articles. you can choose posts as article and the can show them in side block. it is very usefull actually, but it would be nice to see it with something like this top list.

[Gryzor]

Yeah, but Simple Portal is a totally different beast... Well, maybe it's time I gave it a shot

[yasarus]

this modification gives a error in a forum that has a clear or new database. Gryzor has mentioned about this error before
in his or her site
validator w3

Code Select Expand

   Line 27, Column 58: character "/" is not allowed in the value of attribute "id"

...eet" type="text/css" id="topxstats_css/main_css" href="http://www.cpcwiki.eu/f...


It is possible that you violated the naming convention for this attribute. For example, id and name attributes must begin with a letter, not a digit.

[Matthew K.]

This is not a bug with my modification, more with SMF 2.0.x itself. It is resolved in SMF 2.1.

[Matthew K.]

Note that if you absolutely NEED to get your site completely valid, it would be possible to workaround this and still fix it, but I am not going to include the fix for THIS modification because it's not my job to fix.

[Arantor]

Seems to me it could be fixed by editing topxstats_source/resources/main.php if my memory of how SMF works isn't totally eroded over time. I haven't tested this either.

Code (find) Select Expand

global $topxstats, $modSettings;
if ($call_template == true)
{
loadTemplate('topxstats_templates/main', array('topxstats_css/main'));
return true;
}

Code (replace) Select Expand

global $topxstats, $modSettings, $context, $settings;
if ($call_template == true)
{
loadTemplate('topxstats_templates/main');
if (empty($context['html_headers']))
$context['html_headers'] = '';
$context['html_headers'] = '<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="' . $settings['default_theme_url'] . '/css/topxstats_css/main.css" />';
return true;
}

It might not be 'your bug to fix' however this IS against the terms of the mod guidelines (must generate valid XHTML) and given that it's not a big thing to fix.

Though, honestly, I've seen too many developers say how things aren't their bugs to fix. Why not take some responsibility, do the right thing and fix it for your users even though it's not 'your bug'? Shrugging it off just looks unprofessional when you have the power to fix it yourself in your mod.

[Matthew K.]

Yeah, you're right. I'm going to release a modification that patches loadTemplate to actually work right, and then I'll throw in this readme and description that to use this modification and have valid XHTML, to install the patch.

[Arantor]

Or you could just spend four lines in your own mod instead of spending one, which I've even written for you.

You are an SMF *developer* now. You have responsibilities. Live up to them.

[Matthew K.]

Here's the difference...if I put it in a patch / modification, other people can benefit from it and use it themselves too. If it I put it in my modification, only THIS specific modification benefits from it, and I have to use the same patch in every modification. Why? Because I want to use loadTemplate(); to load my CSS files in 98% of cases, and I put my files in separate directories.

Furthermore, my responsibilities as an SMF Developer to not stretch to my personal modifications.

This is something that I wrote back in August based on something cicka was working on. I had no intention on releasing it, but as it appears that's not been around since August 2012, and in her last message she wanted it submitted, I decided to throw it on the mod site in case someone could use it.

[Arantor]

And you increase the support issues with people having to install another mod just to get this one.

Seriously, fix this in your own mod and be done with it, people having to install another mod to SMF because you're too lazy to use 4 lines of code instead of 1 is not the way to do this. Or you could avoid code changes and just drop the CSS files directly in to the CSS directory, which is equally viable, it just offends your sensibilities as a developer - I get that, probably better than most.

And actually, it does speak of your responsibilities as an SMF developer, because if this is how you act with this, I can just imagine you reacting the same way with more serious bugs - for example, would you refuse to fix an SMF bug because of a common hosting configuration issue, because it's not your bug? Your attitude here suggests that you would.

[Gryzor]

Too much souring, name-calling and too much in public. Seriously, I don't think this is the place for it, I'm sure there are ways to do it out of the public eye.

[Arantor]

Mostly it isn't, but when the fix is publicly documented, not applying it is lazy.

I'd be more amenable to doing this in private if it would provoke something approaching positive movement, but in private it can and will be ignored. Calling it out publicly might mean he'll condescend to fix it.

[Gryzor]

Still, apart from the technical issue in which you may be right, this is more of a fight, and it certainly does not belong in public. At least not this thread?

[Arantor]

It's about this mod and the developer's reluctance to fix issues about it. Everything else is explaining why that is the case.

And the very real fear that he'll do exactly the same with bigger and more important things. So, no, I think this is the perfect place - because he's demonstrating very bad form about fixing a valid bug.

[Gryzor]

Well, you went again off-track after the first sentence. The mod's shortcomings are one thing. Whether he's the worst dev in here, lazy, arrogant, smells bad etc etc is (for) another topic and, as a user, it makes me feel quite awkward and uncomfortable to see this kind of exchange in a support thread...

[Arantor]

I'm sorry that it makes you feel uncomfortable. Imagine how uncomfortable it makes ME feel to see this sort of behaviour.

It's not a huge bug, the solution is already posted so it's not like he has to do any work to fix it.