Theme approval guidelines [Outdated]

Started by Gwenwyfar, July 08, 2018, 10:25:29 AM

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Antechinus

Ok, in that case I won't bother with a credits link. :D

Skhilled

Hi, I'd like to take over Crip's themes from the Crip Zone. I am the Admin/Coder there and have been since Maxx's passing. I was also a long time beta tester for TinyPortal and a friend of Jeff's. Maxx's site as well as the Crip Zone are hosted on my server.

There's about 72 themes there and I'd like to update them all to SMF 2.1 after it is released. So far, I've only updated a few themes for RC1 and RC2. I have no plans to update a lot of them until after 2.1 becomes official.

I've noticed and have been informed by others that the current themes for 2.0.x need updating for the session time out issue. So, I'm sure the ones here will need to be updated as well.

Please keep in mind...I'm no coding guru but have learned a LOT since taking over the site. However, I'll be glad to help users of those themes any way I can.

Illori

this is something the team would have to discuss. since the owner is no longer able to approve the transfer it is a bit complicated to handle.

Arantor

For whatever it's worth, I'd support this.

Also 2.0.16 should fix the session issue across the board.

Skhilled

Quote from: Illori on October 28, 2019, 05:37:42 AM
this is something the team would have to discuss. since the owner is no longer able to approve the transfer it is a bit complicated to handle.

I understand, thanks.

Quote from: Arantor on October 28, 2019, 05:57:19 AM
For whatever it's worth, I'd support this.

Also 2.0.16 should fix the session issue across the board.

Thanks, and yes, I've heard about that but have no idea when it will be available and a few people are still having problems now. However, they can still come to the CZ site as I'll be updating the 2.0 themes that they need for now.

GigaWatt

Quote from: Skhilled on October 28, 2019, 06:07:37 AM
Thanks, and yes, I've heard about that but have no idea when it will be available and a few people are still having problems now. However, they can still come to the CZ site as I'll be updating the 2.0 themes that they need for now.

I've fixed the login issue for one of his themes ;).

https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?msg=3963205

And also added a search button in the Search bar in the upper right corner ;).

https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?msg=3965982
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

Skhilled

Yes! I did see that and meant to say something about that but was so busy yesterday that I forgot. Did you updated the theme in the downloads here to include the search bar and the session issue?

The theme I updated came from the CZ site's files and was never even put in the downloads there! However, that one does already have the search bar on it. So, Jeff may have added it himself but just never added it to the downloads.

I haven't downloaded the one from here nor any of the others on this site. There's about 72 themes in the /Themes folder on his site. However, when I moved the site to my server I started noticing a TON of other themes in various folder across the site! Some are even with folders of other themes and do several layers deep...multiple themes within themes! It may take me forever to sort those all out, if I ever get around to it. Maxx estimated that he did about 500 or so themes but I've never seen them all. But I think I've found a lot of them and they may never even been finished or released.

Illori

a lot of them were removed but Crip had submitted 294 themes on the theme site. seems many are for SMF 1.1.*.

Skhilled

#28
Ah! I totally forgot about SMF 1.1. themes. LOL Anyhow, I'm not even going to attempt to sort through all of the others. The 72+ ones I've got will keep me busy forever. LOL

Thanks to both of you.
EDIT: If I am not approved, will I be able to post new and upcoming themes in the Theme Site Themes board and the Theme Previews board?

GigaWatt

Quote from: Skhilled on October 29, 2019, 09:24:19 AM
Yes! I did see that and meant to say something about that but was so busy yesterday that I forgot. Did you updated the theme in the downloads here to include the search bar and the session issue?

No, I'm not allowed to do that since it's not my theme ;).

Quote from: Skhilled on October 29, 2019, 09:24:19 AM
The theme I updated came from the CZ site's files and was never even put in the downloads there! However, that one does already have the search bar on it. So, Jeff may have added it himself but just never added it to the downloads.

That may be possible ;).
"This is really a generic concept about human thinking - when faced with large tasks we're naturally inclined to try to break them down into a bunch of smaller tasks that together make up the whole."

"A 500 error loosely translates to the webserver saying, "WTF?"..."

Antechinus

Got a question about building in support for some mods.

This new thing I've come up with is all groovily responsive and all that, but some mods are going to be a bit of a nuisance to install due to the markup changes I've had to make to rationalise things.

Back in the 1.1.x days it was not uncommon for custom themes to include built-in support for a selected range of mods. The relevant functions where just coded in to the relevant templates, with a condition set in the PHP so the function wasn't called unless the support was enabled in admin (with the relevant setting obviously being added to Settings.template.php).

This is all pretty straightforward stuff, and allows beginners to install the mods in question on a custom theme without having to deal with manual edits. The only caveat is they have to make sure they don't enable support for the mod until it is actually installed on the default theme, and have to make sure they disable support for the mod before they uninstall it, but apart from that it will all work.

So, if I wanted to do a bit of this trickery how does it affect theme approval?

SychO

I added mod support in my own themes as well, however I did not use a user editable setting, because most of the time users can hardly even find their way to the current theme settings (even though in my themes I added a button in the header to directly go to that page), but most importantly if the user enables support for a mod using that setting and the mod is actually not installed, that can lead to him getting locked out of the forum because of an internal server error where the theme calls for a mod function that actually doesn't exist in the code base.

If you want to add support for other mods, I would highly suggest you try what I did, for example vbgamer45's Like posts mod has a "LikePosts" php class, so what I did was test if the class exists or not to tell if the mod is installed using the class_exists() php function, the same can be done to mods adding new functions, you can use function_exists() but only if you're certain that if the mod was installed that function/class would be accessible from the page you're testing it from. Also when using this method you should also make sure whatever function/class name you're using to test isn't used by some other mod.

It may be a little complicated but at least it's better than having a setting that may mess the forum up if enabled.

This is just my opinion, I'm not saying that it is not allowed as I haven't had the chance to hear the other's opinions about it.
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Potato  •  Ackerman  •  SunRise  •  NightBreeze

Antechinus

Those sound like sensible precautions. :)

This basically requires nicking some mod code to add to the template. Do I have to get permission from the mod author? Or is it just assumed they won't mind people supporting their mod?

SychO

Most mods have open licenses, I'd say just add a comment before the piece of code for the mod support that mentions the mod's name and author, and give the mod's license a read in case it doesn't allow it.
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Potato  •  Ackerman  •  SunRise  •  NightBreeze

Antechinus

I'm currently thinking of the Ad Management mod, just because quite a few people seem to want it. That doesn't actually come with any license as such. I'll ask in the mod's support thread. Seems the easiest way of doing it.

vbgamer45

It's fine with me to ad support for any of my mods in your own themes. I used do it myself in old SMF 1.0.x themes with buttons.
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Antechinus

Ok cool. As it turns out I thought I had enough on my plate at the moment, so decided to skip it for now.
I can always write a patch for the theme later, once it's all sorted in default form, if anyone has trouble installing a particular mod.

addlife

Quote from: SychO on February 19, 2020, 04:52:06 PM
I added mod support in my own themes as well, however I did not use a user editable setting, because most of the time users can hardly even find their way to the current theme settings (even though in my themes I added a button in the header to directly go to that page), but most importantly if the user enables support for a mod using that setting and the mod is actually not installed, that can lead to him getting locked out of the forum because of an internal server error where the theme calls for a mod function that actually doesn't exist in the code base.

If you want to add support for other mods, I would highly suggest you try what I did, for example vbgamer45's Like posts mod has a "LikePosts" php class, so what I did was test if the class exists or not to tell if the mod is installed using the class_exists() php function, the same can be done to mods adding new functions, you can use function_exists() but only if you're certain that if the mod was installed that function/class would be accessible from the page you're testing it from. Also when using this method you should also make sure whatever function/class name you're using to test isn't used by some other mod.

It may be a little complicated but at least it's better than having a setting that may mess the forum up if enabled.

This is just my opinion, I'm not saying that it is not allowed as I haven't had the chance to hear the other's opinions about it.
Correct me if I'm understanding wrong. The themes that you're referring to will work with the like posts mod without manual edits even if it's installed after the like posts mod?

I saw somewhere in the code of Sunrise that it mentions vbgamers mod in a comment. Is that the part of code that you did whatever you posted above?

SychO

Quote from: addlife on May 03, 2020, 06:05:37 PM
Correct me if I'm understanding wrong. The themes that you're referring to will work with the like posts mod without manual edits even if it's installed after the like posts mod?

I saw somewhere in the code of Sunrise that it mentions vbgamers mod in a comment. Is that the part of code that you did whatever you posted above?

Yes & Yes, that's the purpose of adding mod support.
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Potato  •  Ackerman  •  SunRise  •  NightBreeze

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