What have you found hard to use with SMF?

Started by Jade Elizabeth, May 25, 2015, 10:03:18 PM

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Jade Elizabeth

Just a little curious what people have been struggling with when it comes to learning and running SMF? It's just for my own curiosity and perhaps if I can help then of course I will :).

Have you/your users had issues with anything in particular? :)
Once proud Documentation Writer and Help Squad Leader | Check out my new adult coloring career: Color With Jade/Patreon.

JBlaze

Learning the massive scope and usage of $context.
Jason Clemons
Former Team Member 2009 - 2012

Jade Elizabeth

Once proud Documentation Writer and Help Squad Leader | Check out my new adult coloring career: Color With Jade/Patreon.

margarett

Quote from: zilladotexe on May 26, 2015, 02:46:45 AM
Learning the massive scope and usage of $context.
print_r($context);
;D ;D ;D ;D

For me is the massive permissions system.
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Illori

Quote from: margarett on May 26, 2015, 05:06:35 AM
For me is the massive permissions system.

i think that is a major one for many. especially the permissions profiles and deny/disallow.

Irisado

Permissions is definitely the most difficult one for me too.  Trying to get the explanation correct in wiki documents is a major problem too.
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Jade Elizabeth

For me it's not the deny/disallow stuff, it's the damn board prems and beyond lol. I feel like there's 20 layers of perms in there ha ha.
Once proud Documentation Writer and Help Squad Leader | Check out my new adult coloring career: Color With Jade/Patreon.


vbgamer45

I agree on the the permissions. Always seemed confusing.

Also i think the entire part where users can have post group permissions, and secondary level permissions is a little messy. As a mod creator always thinking what should override which.
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Kindred

really?   I always found the permissions system to be fairly logical  - not uncomplicated, true... but not overly so...
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not overly so... <-- That's not how I'd put it... LOL

To those that worked a lot with them, it may be more or less true.
But for new people, and those not used to the way the permissions system works, I'd say it can be really difficult.

Antechinus

Yup. IMO it would have been better to keep the 1.1.x permissions system and just add a bit more flexibility to that, rather than throwing the whole thing out and implementing something completely different.

If the 2.0.x system is fairly logical and not overly complicated, why does it pose so many recurring problems for the SMF team when trying to run this site? I know this is the case, from my time on the team. Permissions here are an administrative nightmare.

Illori

in 2.0 there were 2 "types" of permissions layout, in 2.1 this has been reduced back to only 1 just like 1.1.* had.

Jade Elizabeth

Quote from: Kindred on May 26, 2015, 11:28:29 AM
really?   I always found the permissions system to be fairly logical  - not uncomplicated, true... but not overly so...

They were until 2.0 changed them LOL.

Quote from: Antechinus on May 26, 2015, 05:33:30 PM
Yup. IMO it would have been better to keep the 1.1.x permissions system and just add a bit more flexibility to that, rather than throwing the whole thing out and implementing something completely different.

If the 2.0.x system is fairly logical and not overly complicated, why does it pose so many recurring problems for the SMF team when trying to run this site? I know this is the case, from my time on the team. Permissions here are an administrative nightmare.

Yes, I actually need to go over mine and I'm damn afraid to incase I really screw it up....it's a bit of a nightmare for admins.

Quote from: Illori on May 26, 2015, 05:44:43 PM
in 2.0 there were 2 "types" of permissions layout, in 2.1 this has been reduced back to only 1 just like 1.1.* had.

Ooo that's good news, I hope it's nice and easy to understand :D.
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Antechinus

Quote from: Illori on May 26, 2015, 05:44:43 PM
in 2.0 there were 2 "types" of permissions layout, in 2.1 this has been reduced back to only 1 just like 1.1.* had.

That's not true, Illori. Remember that you're talking to an ex-dev, so I'm familiar with what went on. In 2.0.x there were two different presentations of the same (new) system, which was an entirely different system to the 1.1.x system.

One of these presentations has been removed from 2.1, which is good, but the system is still the same as it was in 2.0.x. So no, it is still not at all like the 1.1.x system. It is still just as much of a PITA as the 2.0.x system was.

ETA: In fact the two different presentations in 2.0.x make the relevant point, namely that the way the 2.0.x system worked was recognised to be such a brain frier that it was thought necessary to add a second, simplified presentation with reduced options. In practice that turned out to be a bad idea, because it meant that people could mistakenly select choices without having a full idea of what they would do. That, apart from just the general bloat, was the main reason for wanting to drop the "simple" presentation option from 2.1, and just keep the "classic" option (ie: the one that actually showed you what you were doing).

Kindred

Well, I have never used the "simplified" view, so I dunno about that...  But I find the permissions system very straightforward.

what makes this site so bloody complicated is the number of membergroups, not the permissions system itself.  On any site I was setting up, I would never have nearly as many groups as we have here, just because of the potential for permisions overlap that happens here...   But the permissions themselves are clear, when used with a reasonable set of groups. ;)
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Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Illori

Quote from: Antechinus on May 26, 2015, 08:19:07 PM
Quote from: Illori on May 26, 2015, 05:44:43 PM
in 2.0 there were 2 "types" of permissions layout, in 2.1 this has been reduced back to only 1 just like 1.1.* had.

That's not true, Illori. Remember that you're talking to an ex-dev, so I'm familiar with what went on. In 2.0.x there were two different presentations of the same (new) system, which was an entirely different system to the 1.1.x system.

if you use the "classic" permissions to me it looks identical to what was in 1.1. that is what is left in 2.1 currently.

Jade Elizabeth

Well it's very muddy when you get into profiles, etc. You can't just view a group and change it for all the profiles at once. It's very tough to keep track, even with the reporting feature.
Once proud Documentation Writer and Help Squad Leader | Check out my new adult coloring career: Color With Jade/Patreon.

Antechinus

Quote from: Illori on May 26, 2015, 08:53:20 PM
Quote from: Antechinus on May 26, 2015, 08:19:07 PM
Quote from: Illori on May 26, 2015, 05:44:43 PM
in 2.0 there were 2 "types" of permissions layout, in 2.1 this has been reduced back to only 1 just like 1.1.* had.

That's not true, Illori. Remember that you're talking to an ex-dev, so I'm familiar with what went on. In 2.0.x there were two different presentations of the same (new) system, which was an entirely different system to the 1.1.x system.

if you use the "classic" permissions to me it looks identical to what was in 1.1. that is what is left in 2.1 currently.

The presentation is similar to 1.1.x, but the underlying system is different. Briefly, like Jade says, the 2.0.x system is based on creating profiles, then assigning those profiles to membergroups. The 1.1.x system was based assigning permissions directly to membergroups. This gets rid of an extra step, and is easier for most people to get their heads around. Any useful permissions system is going to have to be fairly complex, but adding extra hoops to jump through doesn't help matters. The result may still be "logical", for certain definitions of the term, but that doesn't mean it's equally user-friendly.

Not that it matters now anyway, because it is what it is and that's that.

JBlaze

Permissions are easy as a modder though. Simple checks with isAllowedTo() and allowedTo() make life so much easier.
Jason Clemons
Former Team Member 2009 - 2012

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