Mod of the Month, October 2009

[Arantor]

On behalf of the Customization Team, I'd like to announce our pick of the Mod of the Month from all of October's mods.

This month, we picked ENotify by forsakenlad, designed to show AJAX-powered dynamic updates when your posts are replied to and when you get private messages.

Of the mods submitted this month, this particular mod stood out to us because it's a simple but very effective mod, it "just works" and adds a new level of dynamic behaviour especially on busy forums, whilst its coding is pretty clean and efficient.


Congratulations forsakenlad, and thank you for submitting such an interesting and useful mod. We hope you make more strong customizations for SMF

[Costa]

Congrats forsakenlad

[Marcus Forsberg]

Congrats and thanks, forsakenlad!

[SoLoGHoST]

Just noticed that this mod uses and older database functions for creating tables in SMF.  For Example:

Code Select Expand

$smcFunc['db_query']('', "
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS {db_prefix}log_enotify_pms (
  id_enot mediumint(8) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  enot_item_id mediumint(8) NOT NULL,
  enot_title varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  enot_time int(10) NOT NULL,
  enot_link tinytext NOT NULL,
  enot_sender varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  enot_sender_link text NOT NULL,
  id_member mediumint(8) NOT NULL,
  enot_read tinyint(3) NOT NULL default '0',
  PRIMARY KEY  (id_enot),
  UNIQUE KEY enot_item_id (enot_item_id)
)");

I thought the SMF Customization Team would not approve of mods that use this method instead of the newer database method, such as $smcFunc['db_create_table'].  Well atleast this is what I was told when I created tables in SMF using this approach   So, are we saying that it is OK to add tables to SMF this way now??

Well, anyways, Congratulations forsakenlad!

[Arantor]

I thought the SMF Customization Team would not approve of mods that use this method instead of the newer database method, such as $smcFunc['db_create_table'].  Well atleast this is what I was told when I created tables in SMF using this approach   So, are we saying that it is OK to add tables to SMF this way now??

It isn't recommended, and we generally prefer it not to do that - if nothing else it reduces support issues for multiple databases. Just seems on this case we missed it as we were concentrating on the rest of what the mod did (and we're only human after all)

[SoLoGHoST]

It's all good, I know there is so much to review when testing mods that even the smallest detail can be overlooked so easily.  Just another reason why I should be on the Team 

P.S. -> Just an idea... Maybe create a checklist of things that all mods should be checked for.  Or perhaps you already have this?

[Arantor]

We do actually have coding guidelines - http://docs.simplemachines.org/index.php?topic=218 and http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=159824

[1Chope]

This mode is not available for 1.1 , unfortunate!

[Arantor]

Nor would I expect it to be, either, to be honest. I'm seeing more and more mods for 2.0 only, to be honest.

This particular mod would be troublesome to install on 1.1, if I remember it correctly.

[MultiformeIngegno]

Useful mod!

[Afro]

Congrats , its a very effective mod