Topic: Some updates on SMF 2.1

[CoreISP]

To note, you can do a automatic upgrade at all times, but with major version changes it is highly unlikely any of your custom code will be left and the same goes for mods.
So as far as the part for mods: No, not automatic. As for the normal upgrade itself: Always possible, just disregards anything you changed.

[Blackylol]

Thanks! how much time do you think It will take for a final release?. I think I'll stop the development of my site because I think it will be a waste of time after 2.1 is stable.

[emanuele]

Don't hold your breath.
Go on developing what you want. If you keep track of the changes you will be able to apply them again.

[Powerbob]

I think it would have made more sense to ask if an RC is in the pipes soon

[Kindred]

ummm....   how about we finish the alpha and make a beta release before that?

[vpn]

Is there any major improvements on performance when compared to 2.0.1?

[Joomlamz]

Great news
Thank you

[SoLoGHoST]

Just a thought...

It's getting a bit out-of-hand to have to keep building mods and upgrading them for each new version of SMF.  Is it possible that SMF 2.1 will have a better solution to mods, so that with each new version of SMF, mods won't have to be continually upgraded for it??  I mean, I like the idea of hooks, so this kind of really helps with mods not having to be upgraded for different versions of SMF, since that version of SMF will have those hooks still, so that is a huge PLUS in this department.   But, as a mod author, it gets extremely frustrating to have to rewrite mods to support different versions of SMF, as each new version comes out, an upgrade for the Mod has to be made...  I just wish there was a BULLET-PROOF process for creating a mod for SMF only 1 time and be done with it altogether, unless there are bugs within the mod itself.  Having to account for each new version of SMF that comes out, and put together an upgrade within the package-info.xml file, is just getting out-of-hand, especially when you have upgrades for 5 different versions of SMF...

Anyways, I'm hoping that SMF, in the future will have better handling than just a version emulation for when packages are installed and hooks.  Or perhaps, we could have a global hook system, with just 1 hook for everything and it will than have sub-hooks in it, which might work better!

Anyways, just a thought I'm having...

[Suki]

Hooks is the bullet proof system you want, not only does it help with updating mods but for support too, if you use hooks you pretty much forget about the silly "how can I install this on my extremely customized theme?"   questions.

You can also state a wider range on your package-info.xml, you can accept versions from 2.0.1 to 2.0.99  and if your mod uses hooks you can safely include 2.1.99 too.

Some people might say that hooks only covers a small fraction  of the entire SMF codebase but, depending on your knowledge of hooks and the codebase itself, your can use hooks in several ways and not only the way they were designed for. Besides, there are literally hundreds of new hooks to play with.

Also, why would you want to offer support for old versions?  stick to the current ones, this also help to encourage people to upgrade to a better version.

[SoLoGHoST]

Yeah, I've been pretty amazed at the SMF Hook System that you all have been implementing over time, and it's a total relief!  Definitely a step in the right direction!

Also, why would you want to offer support for old versions?  stick to the current ones, this also help to encourage people to upgrade to a better version.

I don't wish to support older versions of the SMF software at all.  The problem is, that SMF is always undergoing development to the point where a newer version keeps coming out.  I build a mod for the current version, but than later, another SMF version creeps to the public with better features and different coding... this makes it difficult when this keeps happening over and over and over again.  Cause now I have to update my old mods to support the newer version of SMF!  With Hooks, this makes it much easier (as long as you don't remove hooks in the future of SMF, but who knows...?).  So I can just use a hook and know that it will work on future versions of SMF, so there will be no need to have to keep upgrading every part of the mod to support newer versions of SMF when a newer version gets released!  It's not about supporting older versions of SMF at all, it's about keeping my mods up-to-date with the new versions of SMF when they get released!  This is a tedious task for mod developers, IMHO.  Kinda discourages mod creation a bit also.  But like I said, hooks have really helped in this department!

And on the flip-side of this, I understand that mods created for SMF do not influence the development of SMF itself, and probably should not!  It's just a thought is all...

[emanuele]

I don't wish to support older versions of the SMF software at all.  The problem is, that SMF is always undergoing development to the point where a newer version keeps coming out.

Are you kidding?

[SoLoGHoST]

Actually not really... I understand that the internet is an ever-changing environment.  But if you build something right the first time, why keep making changes to it?  If so, than all that means is that you didn't build it right.  Atleast now you are a step closer to building it right.  SMCore should really help with building it right also!

[emanuele]

Actually not really... I understand that the internet is an ever-changing environment.

SMF 1.0 is 8 years old (older than IE 7, as old as Firefox 1.0).
SMF 1.1 is 6 years old (as old as IE 7 and FF 2.0).
SMF 2.0 is 1.5 years old.
It took 4.5 years to release a new version *almost* (because certain mods are still compatible) incompatible with the previous one. And the incompatibility is very well documented by the change in the major version number.
That is not fast in any way. Think about what was the web 4.5 years ago and compare it to what is now.

Of course 2.1 aims to be as much as possible backward compatible since it's a minor release, but SMF is not exactly built with version-compatibility in mind. And the fact that mods want to change the theme is already a major issue in backward compatibility because (as we very well know since forever) is not even possible to be sure a mod would install cleanly on any other theme apart default.

But if you build something right the first time, why keep making changes to it?  If so, than all that means is that you didn't build it right.

Not sure where you read SMF is built "right".
Of course it depends what you mean with "right".
SMF works perfectly for what it wants to do: a forum.
SMF works less perfectly for what modders want to do: whatever they want.
That's something known (at least I know it, learned by myself trying to fool the system to let it do what I wanted it to do). Though it's not something easy to change without a "revolution". Is it possible to do a revolution while keep backward compatibility? No unless you want to put a lot of bloat all around (and in certain cases it would be plain impossible anyway.

[maxg]

emanuele,

I notice on the Dev site you corrected some token issue with the themes, Just wanted to know where can I find this error, in order to correct it or is that possible without over writing everything. What I'm real after is could you point me in the right direction, I have installed a xampp server on my local machine and both 2.0.3 and the 2.1 Alpha installed to start learn some before I get way to old.

And BTW the more I use the Alpha the more I'm liking it, and working with customizing themes for it is some kind of Fun lol!

but having trouble saving my work through the Current theme tweaks!

Hope I'm not out of line here!

regards,
Maxx

[emanuele]

I think I fixed just a couple of tokens issue from the time the alpha was released.
And both were connected to the changing of theme settings or editing theme files from the admin interface.
These are the two relevant commits:
https://github.com/emanuele45/playpen/commit/107d22aff566515d789e97054078c49edd21db54
https://github.com/emanuele45/playpen/commit/5f3f299846ecf0f9a3233427af0ab9ee448b10ff
but I think that there are many, more changes and you probably should take a new snapshot the release-2.1 branch if you want to play with 2.1...

[maxg]

Cool,

Thanks and I think I may do that!

regards,
Maxx

[SoLoGHoST]

SMF works less perfectly for what modders want to do: whatever they want.
That's something known (at least I know it, learned by myself trying to fool the system to let it do what I wanted it to do). Though it's not something easy to change without a "revolution".

The SMCore Project is going to be a "revolution" though and seems that you are going for SMF backwards compatible.  And yes, I understand that SMCore is not SMF.  But with the use of hooks, and SMCore together, you'll seem to achieve just this.  Hopefully, once SMCore is finished, SMF can just relax and be done with it's development (once it is finalized), and perhaps the Developers could all take a break and/or even work on other extensions for SMCore.   But that probably will never happen.

[maxg]

Cool,

Thanks and I think I may do that!

regards,
Maxx

OK on this token issue of saving current themes edits seems to have been fix with the changes you made in the sources/Themes.php..
the first save however gives an error ( sessions time out) but second save does the trick.  could be a cookie issue or even browser? some minor thing!

I noticed and tried the other fixes you did in the template file for the default, had not effect on the issue at hand, but I placed them anyway!

Note that this is the latest 2.1 installer version I'm using , xampp 1.81 package localhost!

Thanks!

regards,
Maxx

[emanuele]

Can you open a discussion in bug reports and explain exactly where the issue is and how to reproduce it?

[emanuele]

The SMCore Project is going to be a "revolution" though and seems that you are going for SMF backwards compatible.

I don't think compatibility has ever been in the plans for smCore.

And yes, I understand that SMCore is not SMF.  But with the use of hooks, and SMCore together, you'll seem to achieve just this.  Hopefully, once SMCore is finished, SMF can just relax and be done with it's development (once it is finalized), and perhaps the Developers could all take a break and/or even work on other extensions for SMCore.   But that probably will never happen.

TBH the current development of smCore is not exactly "active".