Wedge
Public area => Off-topic => The Pub => Other software => Topic started by: eolith on February 25th, 2013, 03:54 AM
-
I have been running an SMF forum (www.exile-tor.com/forum) since 2009 and have been watching Wedge like a hawk. I see a beta has been released and I plan on submitting myself for beta usage. I'm planning on moving my community to a new URL and I figure that's a perfect time to switch to Wedge, and start getting the members used to it.
In doing so, I'd REALLY like to be able to bring over all the old threads to Wedge, and keep it searchable. I don't mind if they're not fully integrated and in a "Legacy" section, as long as they're searchable, we can start new threads (we're not a giant community by any means).
I searched and didn't find anything about importing SMF data, so I apologize if there's a thread out there already.
Thanks Wedgies! (my term for all you Wedge devs/supporters :P)
-
Yes, there is a converter. We used it to import to here originally from 2.0 RC4 ;)
-
Awesome! Excellent news. Is there a version limitation to the converter? Does it create a whole new set of tables, or does it modify the existing?
-
Currently it is a 2.0 only importer - note that it is an importer, not a converter as such.
You install Wedge, fire up the importer and point it at your old DB. Hasn't been tested lately, may be broken, may need some refinements, not sure yet.
-
I'd be happy to test that :angel:
-
Well, when Nao gets up in the morning, he'll have a read of the post in the other thread and we'll see what happens.
What I will say is that we've had some people who joined as beta testers whose participation was... unexciting and uneventful.
-
Understood. I imagine it's a lot like MMO beta testers who are only there to get what they want out of it.
Is there a list of standards/expectations for beta testers that you could point to (beyond the thread I posted in)? I could give you a better idea of how well I'd fit that bill and potentially save you some time. I'm sure you're busy enough as it is.
-
The real standard and expectation is that you try it out and give us feedback. Even if it's just things you like/don't like/wished it had, it lets us know you're trying it out. Especially if you've come from SMF, there are a *lot* of changes to see and get a feel for.
There's also a lot of things that are rough around the edges right now and I've forgotten half of them ;)
-
Well that I can do. It'll obviously take me some time to dig into how things work, and I've received comments on how well I document stuff, so I'm sure I'll be at least marginally helpful :P
Anyhow, starting the new job in the morning, so off to bed. Thanks for the fast replies.
-
I think that what Pete forgot to tell you, is that (1) we never distributed the import tool to begin with, because (2) right now it's an *alpha*, not beta, and that as such, there's little to no chance we'll accept to see it run live on another website than this one.
Really -- keeping Wedge up to date here already takes me a lot of time -- and I'm one of the developers! Back in the day, when I was just an SMF user, I left most of my forums at version 1.x because the 2.0 converter wouldn't work on them or I'd simply made too many custom edits to make it easily upgradable. I think that when it goes public, Wedge will have gone through more internal changes that make it harder to keep up.
Of course, the goal in Wedge is to avoid all file edits. I've written a complicated system to ensure that users can easily mod the CSS, some HTML, etc, without any file changes. But there are casual users who'll follow the Wedge releases and not do any custom edits (ideal situation for us), and hardcore users who'll do what they want.
We don't want casual users for alpha testing. Maybe for beta testing.
We don't want hardcore users to run a live forum, precisely because of the live edits they'll end up doing, and thus the increasing difficulty of updating to the latest and greatest versions.
All in all... I don't want you to think you can suddenly switch to Wedge overnight.
No, you can't. I'm sorry about that. I know that I wanted us to go public back in 2011 already... We aren't paid for the job, it's a full-time one, and we can't really see an end to it all. Every year we're postponing to the next. I'm confident we can release a final in 2013, but certainly not before another six months.
-
In my case, I kept having to repair what broke with the modifications that I installed as I went through the various upgrades. I, too, hesitated to continue upgrading because each upgrade inevitably brought the challenge of repairing my themes/modifications.
Oh, I had no illusions that switching to Wedge would be overnight, which is why I'm willing to make use of this transition period as a time to test Wedge, look at the data conversion issues, and provide all my feedback and lessons learned both to the devs and the community. I'm looking at it rather simplistically: selfish part is that I'd like to test Wedge, and altruistically I'd love to help support the effort because I really like the direction you're taking, and I'm tired of the aging SMF implementation. But you need meaningful feedback, and I believe I can make that happen.
Further, my forums are hardly mission critical, as it's a small, close-knit community of pc gamers, which comes with it's own elevated set of technical experiences.
So, if I can help out, great. If not, that's cool, too. I'll keep watching and waiting :)
-
and altruistically I'd love to help support the effort because I really like the direction you're taking, and I'm tired of the aging SMF implementation.
Their code won't be as tight as Wedge's for a couple more years, but they're working hard to catch up, I'd say. (It'd probably make more sense for them to work on Wedge directly instead of reinventing the wheel... :^^;:)But you need meaningful feedback, and I believe I can make that happen.
Further, my forums are hardly mission critical, as it's a small, close-knit community of pc gamers, which comes with it's own elevated set of technical experiences.
-
If you're just looking for a 'modernized' version, I hear that Elk's target is to do just that...
See, for many people, OOP == modern, and we're not thoroughly OOP, we don't have dispatchers and autoloaders and <insert other shiny language structure>, but we don't consider that we need them particularly. There are OOP aspects to Wedge, just as there were in SMF 2.0. OOP has a place as does functional programming.
-
If you're just looking for a 'modernized' version, I hear that Elk's target is to do just that...
Nah, I was mostly thinking about the graphics overhaul. They also added a dynamic minifier for JS and CSS... I'm wondering what was their inspiration for that.... :whistle:
'nyway!
-
Oh, the whole concept of a controller is fine if you're doing something where MVC separation can be useful (having the controller be absolutely unaware of how to get the data, e.g. in a multi-architecture backend), the dispatcher not so much.
But we don't have multi-architecture for databases, though I probably should update it to use MySQLi sometime.
-
What drew me to wedge in the first place was simply the focus on trying to do things properly. That's why I keep coming back and checking on your progress 18 months after I first signed up here. When I say "aging" I mean "getting bogged down in the consequences of their past decisions". With my - very limited - perspective it seems to me that's what has nearly stopped SMF in it's tracks in terms of development. As I started getting deeper into how mods work, how they're applied, and I realized their system is a code lookup/replace dealio, I was immediately cognizant of the problems that I'll end up facing the more mods I pursue. Especially as upgrades repeatedly broke even the few simple mods I had installed, leaving me to figure out how fix them myself.
While the SMF product has done what it needs to do, and the face that it's free has served me very well. However, it seems to me that it is not going to be effective in the long-term. I've already established some rather long-term friends because of my community, and I foresee that continuing long into the future.
This is not to say that I don't want some of the new whiz-bang features you guys are cooking up, it's more about the principle of a solid foundation leading to a solid experience.
Therefore, I want to get started with a system early on that I can grow with, and a system that I can respect from the beginning. Now, lest that come across as a ton of kiss-assery, I think you guys smell so bad I had to type with one hand and hold my nose with the other; and you don't even bother to shave your unibrows.
As for the particular game, Exile (the community) formed around Star Wars: The Old Republic, though most of us moved on around the time they went Free to Play, and are looking forward to Elder Scrolls Online, Destiny, and Star Citizen. This is why we're rebuilding our forums: dropping the TOR portion of the URL, and shifting into more of a gaming community than a single-game guild.
-
When I say "aging" I mean "getting bogged down in the consequences of their past decisions".
As I started getting deeper into how mods work, how they're applied, and I realized their system is a code lookup/replace dealio
But they never took it far enough in 2.0, 2.1 is better but they're too convinced of the importance of having file edits. The choice for me to disallow file edits was not entirely just a 'we're better than you because we don't need this', there is a whole host of related consequences (relatively safe plugin disabling, file permissions/FTP for uploading)Especially as upgrades repeatedly broke even the few simple mods I had installed, leaving me to figure out how fix them myself.
However, it seems to me that it is not going to be effective in the long-term
This is not to say that I don't want some of the new whiz-bang features you guys are cooking up, it's more about the principle of a solid foundation leading to a solid experience.
Therefore, I want to get started with a system early on that I can grow with, and a system that I can respect from the beginning.
For example, I got into a vB 3 review in the last week and out of it we had some interesting feedback with respect to the moderation centre. It's pretty much the first time in 2 1/2 years that anyone's really outlined that there are problems with it, that it isn't just me who feels that way.
-
However, it seems to me that it is not going to be effective in the long-term
Oh, and from a "negative criticism" point of view, I just got a position with HP as Project Quality Officer Auditor :) So, I'll have no issues giving feedback of any sort ;)
-
There are a number of nasty consequences that result out of the file editing - aside from stability with mod upgrades, the amount of support requests involving botched mod installations, as well as almost every 'I've been hacked' help request is a result of conditions arising out of the package manager.
However, even that's not really my issue. There is a larger issue at stake that some of those in the 'inner circle' are discouraging changes to these facilities and not really encouraging new blood to adopt better practices. All the time there are file edits, people are going to take them because they're easier. There is a very large culture of it being what the old guard want.
-
Yeah, that's a lot of what I see in the world I work now as an HP quality auditor hired for Fannie Mae Project Quality Office, "Well we always did it that way..." despite the obvious assessment that they are at a very low maturity model from a corporate standpoint, and they hired us to keep them in line in the first place...