Wedge

Public area => The Pub => Topic started by: Nao on December 12th, 2013, 01:30 PM

Title: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 12th, 2013, 01:30 PM: This is about the variable that gives you a link to the images folder.
In SMF and Wedge, that's in mysite/Themes/default/images/
Wedge will shortly move that folder to just mysite/assets/ or mysite/images/ (haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning towards /assets/ because it'll also have /fonts/ font files, and /aeva/ SWF files in it. Basically, anything that's not a program should be in there.)
The folder name is important (and directly related to the constant name), because it WILL show up in the links in your HTML.

What should I call the variable..?
I'll also rename $settings['theme_url'] to just TEMPLATES. The name is not up for a vote here (unless I keep the $settings thing), because that's just what the folder will have -- templates. Well, I could possibly keep all files in the /Themes/ folder and have this structure: mysite/Themes/images/, mysite/Themes/scripts/, mysite/Themes/languages/, etc, but at this point, I'm not sure it really matters a lot... (Given the lack of participation on the website these days, I have a feeling the public release will be kinda underwhelming. I guess I have Pete to thank for that.)
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Pandos on December 12th, 2013, 02:09 PM: Vote is self explaining :)

I don't believe that the public release will be underwhelming for anyone.

The problem these days: some are on holiday vacation and others don't know the way you're going with Wedge.

There are so many unfinished things. Streaming (following) and privacy for example. It's very difficult to contribute anything to Wedge if so many things are in change these days.

I believe the release of a public version will push Wedge back to life.
The reason for that is very clear: It's an really powerfull project and there's no other project with the same features like Wedge. But at this time no one has a clue of what's going on here.

So it would be really nice to have something like a roadmap for Wedge. If not then a short snippet of your ToDo list. :)

BTW: What did you think aout getting rid of the "Share this topic" stuff and transform it into a Plugin?
The request has to do with some weired legal stuff here in Germany. You can get punished by law if someone (e.g. the recipient) complains about getting notifications by you (spamming).
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 12th, 2013, 03:21 PM: Quote from Pandos on December 12th, 2013, 02:09 PM
The problem these days: some are on holiday vacation and others don't know the way you're going with Wedge.
The way I'm going..? Well, I think I explained enough of it on the blog, didn't I..?
- I'm keeping most of the stuff that Pete developed for Wedge; I may remove some of his stuff at my own discretion. (Right now, I'm only considering removing the admin homepage, I'm just trying to get the thing right in my mind before I get started on it; also, I'm removing some changes he made to the theme system and related satellites, considering I'm removing theme support altogether.)
- I'm finishing (or rather, trying to finish) the things I've been working on this year, such as privacy settings, and contact lists. (Both of these are suspended right now, as theme removal is taking more time than I'd have wanted; it affects a lot of features, and I just don't want to work on several things at the same time, my hands are full already.)
- And I'm giving up on trying to appeal to noobs, instead I want to focus on people like me who are power users and want the best product for them. Some of the changes Pete and I did, though, are definitely more noob-friendly than in SMF, but that doesn't mean Wedge is noob-friendly per se. It's just trying to help regular users, and dedicated admins, but the one area that I'm not going to focus on, is making everything 'easy' (I'd say 'cheesy') to any admin. For instance, SMF's way of doing things since SMF 2.0 has been to multiply option pages. My way of doing it, is grouping everything that matters in single pages, so if you're afraid of long pages with many options (even though there aren't more options than in SMF per se), Wedge is not for you.
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There are so many unfinished things.
So many? I don't know... Notifications need some work, that's for certain. Board types, too. And I still don't know what to do with the BBCode rewrite that pushed everything into the database. I'm not thrilled about making some UI for them, and I'm strongly considering restoring them to PHP code that people can modify/extend through plugins. In fact, it doesn't even stop the possibility of modifying them through the admin area: you can just load them from source, then check the database to retrieve any modified code. Honestly, I don't know why Pete didn't do it that way, because modifying BBCode has been a nightmare for me. (He never really touched BBCode after he made the transition, so he probably won't remember.)
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Streaming (following) and privacy for example. It's very difficult to contribute anything to Wedge if so many things are in change these days.
The problem with you (well, not with you, but in your situation) is that you're a collateral victim of Bitbucket problems. And, the fact that I'm only a Git rookie, and I still haven't found out how to best handle collaboration on git. I'd appreciate help from Wedge contributors who have experience with git, but right now they don't seem to be interested in contributing. (John, Shitiz, Thorsten..?)
Not a biggie, but that could have helped transition, I suppose.
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I believe the release of a public version will push Wedge back to life.
I'm betting on the fact that it won't. People just won't know.
Seriously, while I haven't been advertising it, I've been giving Git access to the repo to every single person who asked me for it -- that is, just you. I tried to give it to more people, including people who work on the competition and whom I trust enough (ema, Suki...), but they wouldn't want it; which I understand, but the fact is, right now, 'regular users' don't seem to be interested in Wedge.

The only reason the code isn't public right now, is that I want to be done with the folder structure change because I release it. I already have, written down, a list of 'steps' to go through to make the transition from old codebase to new codebase, and it's not pretty. If you don't have to go through it and you can start anew, then it's all for the best. But if someone's foolish enough to want to run Wedge Alpha on their live forums (which is doable, after all I'm doing it here), then I don't want them to feel overwhelmed by regular changes in the folder structure or something, which is why I'm doing things like this poll. (Which, oddly, is all about a 'variable name', when it really is about a folder name.) (And, not in the poll, but determining whether languages+scripts should be root or not, is also important to me. I'll go for root if nobody is against it, BTW.)
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The reason for that is very clear: It's an really powerfull project and there's no other project with the same features like Wedge. But at this time no one has a clue of what's going on here.
Well, there's always the 'New revs' topic, for that... Isn't here? I know some people read it, since I regularly get new 'likes' on these. (And I'm thankful for it; it helps me go on, because I really appreciate feedback, even if it's just a Like. I'm not adding support for Dislikes because frankly, a dislike should be supported with a written opinion, and people can do that by themselves on another topic. :P)
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So it would be really nice to have something like a roadmap for Wedge. If not then a short snippet of your ToDo list. :)
My to-do list is ever-increasing. It's frightening. The principle of a to-do list is that you put things in there that you want to 'defer'. I'd call it 'wish list' if I could afford it, rather than 'to-do list', because every time I read through the list, I keep finding features I think will be great, but that I don't want to write right now.
Heck, I should probably maintain a wish list AND a to-do list. That is, if I'm out of inspiration, I can get quick things to do from the to-do list, and if I'm done with a release, I can go through the wish list.

I posted my to-do list by PM to Arantor several times; there are a few features he said were good ideas, but I don't remember him ever implementing anything from that list. (Which was the original goal, right..?)

So, yeah, I could post my to-do list here, but I know myself, I'll just remove any items that may seem 'dirty', and end up making a poll of whatever feature you want me to work on, and I already know what features I want to finish first, so it's not going to be very helpful.
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BTW: What did you think aout getting rid of the "Share this topic" stuff and transform it into a Plugin?
What's 'Share this topic'..? The sendtopic action? Yeah, I don't know... I've never even used it, but I think it makes admins feel better if the option is there, see..? So I don't think it'd be a good idea to remove it. Maybe more it removable from the admin panel, I don't know.
(What 'did' I think? Is it something that was discussed before?)
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The request has to do with some weired legal stuff here in Germany. You can get punished by law if someone (e.g. the recipient) complains about getting notifications by you (spamming).
Well, AFAIK your own e-mail address is used as the source, so you can't accuse the forum itself of spamming you, just the user...
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 12th, 2013, 03:35 PM: Oh, by the way, before making this poll I'd already decided to have both IMAGES and ASSETS alias to the same folder. That is, you can use both interchangeably in your plugins, if you have a preference.
Posted: December 12th, 2013, 03:31 PM

(I've updated the poll questions to add to the folder issue to each answer.)
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: BurkeKnight on December 12th, 2013, 05:52 PM: Personally, I think images should be used.
This is due to the fact that so many people are used to using an images folder.

By the way, I loved reading this choice: :lol:
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Please stop talking to me or I'll call the police. And the folder should be called 'annoying_bastard'.
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 12th, 2013, 07:15 PM: I'm taking note!
vote leaning towards either images or assets.
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Norodo on December 13th, 2013, 12:03 AM: I'm pretty sure most software I've ever used used /public/images/*.*

But it doesn't really matter too much to me.
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 13th, 2013, 12:58 AM: Okay, I've reset votes and reformulated the poll with less options, but a combination of two options you can now choose between. ;)

Don't be influenced by my vote, it doesn't matter! I'm very bendy here, but I want to get it right the first time, because I'm not changing it again!
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: BurkeKnight on December 13th, 2013, 01:44 PM: Could do 2 folders.
One for images named images and one for fonts, etc. named assets or resources.
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 13th, 2013, 02:02 PM: Trying to make things simpler. And thus put a limit on the number of folders in the root. ;)
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 13th, 2013, 03:34 PM: Quote from Norodo on December 13th, 2013, 12:03 AM
I'm pretty sure most software I've ever used used /public/images/*.*

But it doesn't really matter too much to me.
Bit do they have non-images in these?
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: emanuele on December 14th, 2013, 11:58 AM: I'd say assets if you are going to have there css and javascript too, otherwise it would sound strange to me.

It seems you changed the poll "just" before I finished to write the two lines above (in fact I had this page open since yesterday and got the warning about new replies while posting lol).
Well, I think it's still pretty much valid: images are part of the assets I think, so...

Regarding access to the code, at the moment I'm already dealing with 3 to 4 codebases (Elk, SMF (even though I'm just following funny comments these days), WCRPG and Xanje yes, I consider that two things (that have different and sort of diverging codebases) a kind of fork too lol), so add another one would make my head explode in fancy ways LOL
Also, jumping in an almost completely different coding style from zero would be quite tricky for me and I wouldn't be able to grasp much of it in the short term, so I wouldn't be of much help anyway.
And considering we are trying to finalise the beast there is already quite a bit of things to do (I think you know as well. ;)), I even had to forget about learning a bit of Java... :(
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 14th, 2013, 07:35 PM: - No, JS and CSS are stored in other folders. Assets will hold: (1) /Themes/default/images/ (as root, i.e. /assets/), (2) /Themes/default/aeva/ (which contains at least one Flash file), and (3) /Themes/default/fonts/ (for captcha and stuff). I'm also looking into adding 'generic' avatars there.

- No problem, no problem... ;) I wanted to learn Java too, went through a couple of online tutorials and didn't absolutely hate it, but I wasn't thrilled enough to justify putting Wedge too much longer, so... It'll wait!
Title: Re: Need opinions on a variable name...
Post by: Nao on December 15th, 2013, 09:22 PM: No more poll votes since yesterday, so I'll be going for assets in both folder name and constant name! With, as promised, an alias to images.