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Messages - Dragooon
871
Plugins / Re: Plugin hooks
« on March 31st, 2011, 05:31 PM »
Quote from Nao/Gilles on March 31st, 2011, 03:41 PM
Dragooon, hooks aren't a sad practice. They're actually one of the most practical solutions to the problem of customizability... The only point is that we have to be careful how fast execution of empty points is.
Basically, in Wedge, it's as fast as en empty() test. At this rate, we could very well set hooks every other line in the code without it becoming significantly slower. (We will, instead, stick to adding hooks where it seems reasonable enough. We will probably add more hooks during the alpha and beta sessions at the request of modders.)
TBH manually positioning every hook in every bit of template is a very impractical practice, it may seem workable in theory but I don't see it actually working out. Hooks in actual workflow is a lot more sensible and practical thing.
Quote from Bloc on March 31st, 2011, 05:22 PM
I do hope PHP in Wedge's templates isn't taken out, since thats whats currently keeps my interest lmao. :)(not that I expect Wedge to stop because of me though ;) )

I have spoken in favor of TOXG before, but I just don't see the kind of freedom with it that PHP templates providest, sorry to say. If anything it seems more cumbersome to MIMIC using PHP than just use PHP right away.. The mod/theme problem is VERY well solved by it though..but if there won't be a problem why use it then?


As for templates not being allowed to use PHP, because its "dangerous" or "not to be trusted"..wake up I'd say. One of most widespread scripts around use PHP in their templates(and not only WP either) and they haven't wreaked havoc yet! I would imagine that for those that seldom make templates or just change a color here and there, the idea of using nice formatted HTML that fit just right into Dreamweaver, is a must-have.

For everyone else though, the benefits are very clear. And last I checked it was the actual CONTENT that was considered risky allowing too much freedom for - not the design.
The thing is, Tox-G adds a lot of possibilities otherwise which I consider to be quite hard doing with pure PHP without actually limiting a designer. I haven't encountered a thing that I can't do with pure TOX-G. But to each it's own, PHP got its own advantages. One of my main motives of  advocating TOX-G is because of it's hookable nature, I am not against PHP, it's just that a template engine is a better option and TOX-G seems to be the best one at them for a forum software.
872
Plugins / Re: Plugin hooks
« on March 31st, 2011, 09:40 AM »
Quote from Nao/Gilles on March 31st, 2011, 08:39 AM
Dragooon, I thought you said you had a PHP template hook in mind?
The first thing I would not do is that. PHP template hook are very difficult to achieve and are a sad sad practice.
873
Plugins / Re: Plugin hooks
« on March 30th, 2011, 07:10 PM »
Quote from Nao/Gilles on March 30th, 2011, 05:32 PM
So... Dragooon, what do you think we could do, either by adopting ToxG or by using a purely PHP solution?
As in what advantage it would bear or how should it be adopted? If you're looking for advantages then they are(From top of my head) :

- A mod can modify the output without actually altering the templates, by proper implementation of template one gets a powerful template hook system free. Something which is virtually impossible in a pure PHP scenario regardless of how you look at it.
- The templates can be systematically broken down into less confusing pieces, for example(This is taken from vBulletin), a user's online list item would be an individual template. A single child board listing would be its own individual template, this gives a lot of power to not only themers but also moders while maintain sanity.
- No PHP-fu in between templates(If you enforce TOX-G that is). Keeps logic and template separate
- One can code up a strong admin panel for modifying templates which can be easy for the end-user.
- It is not slower than pure PHP by more than 4-5%.

Advantages of PHP over TOX-G :
- Unlimited possibility of syntax.
- Very marginally faster
- Already in place, no need to bang heads converting code
874
Plugins / Re: Plugin hooks
« on March 30th, 2011, 12:02 PM »
Quote from Arantor on March 30th, 2011, 11:59 AM
Yeah, modifying the output isn't the same as modifying the template. Anything that's fragile enough to require editing the template itself is going to hit problems sooner or later.
In that case ToxG really solves those problems when compared to a simple PHP engine, although since I know you guys don't need another advertisement I'd leave it at that.
875
Plugins / Re: Plugin hooks
« on March 30th, 2011, 11:55 AM »
Quote from Bloc on March 30th, 2011, 10:35 AM
Quote from Nao/Gilles on March 30th, 2011, 12:14 AM
I think we already established that ToxG, as excellent as it is (given that it was made by talented people!), would be a no-no for as long as it can't allow mixing (if only temporarily) PHP templates with tox templates... :^^;:
Good call.

As much as I love the mod/template solving of ToxG, its something that shouldn't be needed in the first place(mods modifying templates) and I really like to keep the PHP parts. :)
Mods *need* to modify the output in one way or the another, although modifying a template is not a good idea, I'd agree with that. Is that what you're trying to say?
876
The Pub / Re: Why wedge?
« on March 30th, 2011, 08:27 AM »
It also signifies people's(*cough*) mentality to beat the crap out of someone with a wedge
877
Plugins / Re: Plugin hooks
« on March 30th, 2011, 08:23 AM »
Quote from Nao/Gilles on March 30th, 2011, 12:14 AM
I think we already established that ToxG, as excellent as it is (given that it was made by talented people!), would be a no-no for as long as it can't allow mixing (if only temporarily) PHP templates with tox templates... :^^;:
I was talking about the plugin system, and not ToxG. But FWIW, it *is* possible to do so and I've told you my theory, you guys just never came to the decision to use it.
878
Off-topic / Total War Shogun 2
« on March 29th, 2011, 03:29 PM »
I've been mostly absent due to my exams(Which are going quite good) and because I've been playing this lovely game that came out a day before my exams started, for any kind of strategy fans it is one very nice game to check out. I really recommend it. Its basically a hybrid game of TBS on a grand campaign map where you govern your empire, recruit units, manage cities and diplomacy etc and a RTS part where you can fight real time battles. The game's timeline is set in real 16th century Japan. I even wrote an extensive (official) review for it on Total War Center if anyone's interested.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=435978
879
Plugins / Re: Plugin hooks
« on March 29th, 2011, 03:22 PM »
A plugin and module system would be nice, and no, I haven't been keeping up with this site or any other as a matter of fact. The reasons are same as using a proper template engine as opposed to PHP based one.
880
Off-topic / Re: Happy Birthday Nao!
« on March 23rd, 2011, 10:39 AM »
Happy birthday! Sorry I missed to wish you.
881
Other software / Re: Well the deed is done
« on March 12th, 2011, 11:02 AM »
vBulletin is darn impressive so far, vBulletin 4's style manager is amazing, one can specify the colours and it'll automatically generate the associated gradients and give it a very nice look. I had one nice looking style up within 2 or 3 hours. I basically am one of the 3 technical staff(Me being a new one, other 2 being full on administrators) at http://twcenter.net/forums (Huge forum, 100k members with 8.5million posts) and am working on getting the forum up to vB 4.1.2 and it's fun. Although vB has some very strange design decisions(Internally) that can really screw up(For example they cache the entire forum list along with each membergroup's permission in them as a serialized array and unserialize it on every page, normally this isn't a problem but on that forum it became a 3.5MB Array and screwed around until we fixed it).
882
Features / Re: Recycling board by default (PLEASE READ THE FEB. 15 POSTS EVERYONE!)
« on February 17th, 2011, 11:28 AM »
Quote from Arantor on February 16th, 2011, 11:51 PM
I am coming round to it but before we start implementing anything like it, I need to know what we're going to do with posts from users you're ignoring because right now, they're pretty similar stylistically.
I'd say rather than showing the whole post only show the subject and the poster's name in smalltext. Would be cool IMO.
883
Features / Re: Recycling board by default (PLEASE READ THE FEB. 15 POSTS EVERYONE!)
« on February 16th, 2011, 03:28 PM »
Quote from Arantor on February 16th, 2011, 03:25 PM
That's inline - sorta. The normal process for 'inline' is to throw a different background on it, like moderated posts currently do, and what SimpleDesk does - and that's wrong to me.

What XF does is nicer, much nicer, but it's still a bit close to "You are ignoring this user" for my liking.
That is honestly my favourite way of doing things.
884
Features / Re: Recycling board by default (PLEASE READ THE FEB. 15 POSTS EVERYONE!)
« on February 15th, 2011, 08:13 PM »
Keep the IDs(For restoring you can just insert the whole row as is) and don't display it? I mean you can create another section for just the moderation.

Or rather, set the id_board in messages or topics to 0, that way you don't set up a new board and you get the ability to enable it by default. Have another field id_old_board and do some special php-fu to display it inside the topic.
885
Features / Re: Recycling board by default (PLEASE READ THE FEB. 15 POSTS EVERYONE!)
« on February 15th, 2011, 07:45 PM »
Quote from Arantor on February 15th, 2011, 07:19 PM
I don't mean performance, I mean, I did it in SimpleDesk and it's not a killer - but it always felt so wrong to use.

To me, if you delete a post, you want rid of it, out of the thread entirely. I just can't see how it would be the way to do it in a forum. I think we need to look for plan C.
I didn't mean performance either, by a billion queries I was referring to the checks you'd need to add, had they not been there I don't see a problem. Perhaps create a copy of messages and topics table to store the deleted posts and topics?