Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Topics - Nao
151
Features / New revs - Public comments
« on July 27th, 2011, 12:20 PM »
Feel free to discuss anything interesting you see about the changelog updates!
152
The Pub / Jump box and its stupid Go button
« on July 16th, 2011, 05:22 PM »
Pete isn't the only one who gets to remove features from SMF :P
I'm currently reworking the board jump box code.
Here are two things that I've been starting to rewrite, and then figured I'd ask for opinions before committing them.
1/ I'm rewriting URLs (through Pretty URLs) before showing the board list. This allows users to jump directly to said board using its official URL, rather than see a "?board=1.0" in the URL.
Pros: well, concealing board= URLs is always nice.
Cons: the XML file you request through Ajax is a bit bigger, obviously. (Only if Pretty URLs are enabled. Otherwise it's the same.)
An alternative way of doing it, would be to have Wedge redirect to the proper board as soon as it gets an URL with '?board=' in it. Actually I thought it already did that, but apparently not... Probably due to my internal rewrite where it no longer relies on htaccess. Of course it requires an extra roundtrip to the server...
Opinions plz?
2/ I want to get rid of that stupid 'OK' button. The only (only!) point of this button is to allow you to jump directly to the current board's homepage. Thing is -- topic pages already have a link to said board, in the linktree. There's a copy at the bottom, right above the jump box... Once you click the select box, simply selecting another board will load it directly. The Go button can... go. A simple rewrite would be to have the jump box say: "Jump to: [Select board]". Then you click the "Select board" and it opens up a list of boards. The default selected board will be changed to the current one. Problem fixed, and better usability without that button IMHO.
Again: opinions plzkthx?
Thanks :)
I'm currently reworking the board jump box code.
Here are two things that I've been starting to rewrite, and then figured I'd ask for opinions before committing them.
1/ I'm rewriting URLs (through Pretty URLs) before showing the board list. This allows users to jump directly to said board using its official URL, rather than see a "?board=1.0" in the URL.
Pros: well, concealing board= URLs is always nice.
Cons: the XML file you request through Ajax is a bit bigger, obviously. (Only if Pretty URLs are enabled. Otherwise it's the same.)
An alternative way of doing it, would be to have Wedge redirect to the proper board as soon as it gets an URL with '?board=' in it. Actually I thought it already did that, but apparently not... Probably due to my internal rewrite where it no longer relies on htaccess. Of course it requires an extra roundtrip to the server...
Opinions plz?
2/ I want to get rid of that stupid 'OK' button. The only (only!) point of this button is to allow you to jump directly to the current board's homepage. Thing is -- topic pages already have a link to said board, in the linktree. There's a copy at the bottom, right above the jump box... Once you click the select box, simply selecting another board will load it directly. The Go button can... go. A simple rewrite would be to have the jump box say: "Jump to: [Select board]". Then you click the "Select board" and it opens up a list of boards. The default selected board will be changed to the current one. Problem fixed, and better usability without that button IMHO.
Again: opinions plzkthx?
Thanks :)
153
Development blog / Now with 97% more visuals!
« on July 15th, 2011, 12:35 AM »
154
And another poll...
The stylings feature is described here:
http://wedge.org/pub/feats/theming/6673/stylings/
It has been suggested that we should use 'skins' instead, as it's likely to be recognizable by more users as the proper intent of the feature.
I don't really know what else to offer in the list of choices, so let's just vote between the two.
Also, the stylings folder is called /Themes/default/styles, which doesn't match the name of the feature itself, but I thought 'stylings' was a bit long (although it doesn't have any implication over your forum's bandwidth, because stylings are cached anyway, and loaded from the /cache/ folder.) Renaming stylings to skins would imply a rename of the folder as well. Otherwise it'll just stay 'styles'.
The stylings feature is described here:
http://wedge.org/pub/feats/theming/6673/stylings/
It has been suggested that we should use 'skins' instead, as it's likely to be recognizable by more users as the proper intent of the feature.
I don't really know what else to offer in the list of choices, so let's just vote between the two.
Also, the stylings folder is called /Themes/default/styles, which doesn't match the name of the feature itself, but I thought 'stylings' was a bit long (although it doesn't have any implication over your forum's bandwidth, because stylings are cached anyway, and loaded from the /cache/ folder.) Renaming stylings to skins would imply a rename of the folder as well. Otherwise it'll just stay 'styles'.
155
Considering the number of upcoming changes in the package system (and the fact that no single 'package' will work on SMF without a serious rewrite), we decided last year to rename the feature.
We settled on Add-ons, but a recent discussion made us reconsider the question. It is apparent that many, if not most SMF users call packages 'mods' and will continue to do so under Wedge. So it might make sense to use 'mods' to begin with.
Feel free to chip in!
We settled on Add-ons, but a recent discussion made us reconsider the question. It is apparent that many, if not most SMF users call packages 'mods' and will continue to do so under Wedge. So it might make sense to use 'mods' to begin with.
Feel free to chip in!
156
Development blog / A wedge in the hand is worth two in the wild
« on July 8th, 2011, 05:40 PM »
The unlucky streak had to come to an end, so it seems like my life is relatively back on track. I was at least able to devote way more time to Wedge this week, and hopefully can keep doing so in the coming weeks (and months.) And because good news come in pairs, Pete is back to work as well.
In the ten days or so since my last post, we made a total of 26 commits (at least another coming from me later tonight), some of which are, as usual, really huge with dozens of changes.
The most interesting one (in my humble bastard's opinion) is another redesign of the default theme, urged by the upcoming day when I'll release the first official screenshots. See, it's interesting to give oneself a target release date for something, because then you start wondering whether you'll be happy with it on that day. And when you decide you won't, you get back to work and try to fix that. As a result, Wine has evolved even more, most notably in the choice of fonts. You'll have to trust me when you see it: Wine used to be okay, but not exciting. Now I think it is. As least those who could see it seem to agree I'm on the right track. One day, mastery of web design will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine. So... Screenshots, eh? Not today mates! But soon, very soon. Hopefully next w... uh, I mean when we reach 100 Likes on our Facebook page.[1]
Pete committed, among other things, his first version of the new admin homepage.
It's certainly a good start for finding motivation to strip even more things away from the old SMF codebase. Bad menu structure. Options that have been there for years and that nobody ever used. Chocobos and Peruvian pan flute players.
Discussions are still ongoing on many more features. We're active and excited again. Well, when I say "excited", we always were, we were just tired -- working on a secret project for a year was never gonna be easy, it turned out to be even harder. And when I say "active", I mean in comparison to last month. I mean, I now spend about 8 to 12 hours a day on Wedge, when I used to work only 4 to 8 hours on it, mostly because of my computer troubles. What a slacker really!
My to-do list is still filling up faster than I can actually empty it, but I'm used to that now -- my to-do list for Kyodai Mahjongg was miles long when I stopped working on it. There just wasn't anything on it that was worthy of the time I'd have spent on it. So, just like in the good old times, my to-do list is mostly there as a reminder of what I can do if I find myself out of new ideas. Which usually never lasts more than a few minutes. And believe me, the ideas I regularly get and put into my to-do are pretty good overall. I keep thinking, "hopefully I won't have to be the one implementing them... But I'll do them, even if it costs me years. And my social life."
So... Screenshots next week, and hopefully an alpha at the end of the month. Although I wouldn't hold my breath for a public release by then -- a private release is likely, but others will probably have to wait until late August. And yes, that does mean I get to spend my entire Summer working like crazy on Wedge. Isn't that cool? What do you mean pathetic? Oh, now you flatter me. Two sugars dear, please.
In the ten days or so since my last post, we made a total of 26 commits (at least another coming from me later tonight), some of which are, as usual, really huge with dozens of changes.
The most interesting one (in my humble bastard's opinion) is another redesign of the default theme, urged by the upcoming day when I'll release the first official screenshots. See, it's interesting to give oneself a target release date for something, because then you start wondering whether you'll be happy with it on that day. And when you decide you won't, you get back to work and try to fix that. As a result, Wine has evolved even more, most notably in the choice of fonts. You'll have to trust me when you see it: Wine used to be okay, but not exciting. Now I think it is. As least those who could see it seem to agree I'm on the right track. One day, mastery of web design will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine. So... Screenshots, eh? Not today mates! But soon, very soon. Hopefully next w... uh, I mean when we reach 100 Likes on our Facebook page.[1]
Pete committed, among other things, his first version of the new admin homepage.
It's certainly a good start for finding motivation to strip even more things away from the old SMF codebase. Bad menu structure. Options that have been there for years and that nobody ever used. Chocobos and Peruvian pan flute players.
Discussions are still ongoing on many more features. We're active and excited again. Well, when I say "excited", we always were, we were just tired -- working on a secret project for a year was never gonna be easy, it turned out to be even harder. And when I say "active", I mean in comparison to last month. I mean, I now spend about 8 to 12 hours a day on Wedge, when I used to work only 4 to 8 hours on it, mostly because of my computer troubles. What a slacker really!
My to-do list is still filling up faster than I can actually empty it, but I'm used to that now -- my to-do list for Kyodai Mahjongg was miles long when I stopped working on it. There just wasn't anything on it that was worthy of the time I'd have spent on it. So, just like in the good old times, my to-do list is mostly there as a reminder of what I can do if I find myself out of new ideas. Which usually never lasts more than a few minutes. And believe me, the ideas I regularly get and put into my to-do are pretty good overall. I keep thinking, "hopefully I won't have to be the one implementing them... But I'll do them, even if it costs me years. And my social life."
So... Screenshots next week, and hopefully an alpha at the end of the month. Although I wouldn't hold my breath for a public release by then -- a private release is likely, but others will probably have to wait until late August. And yes, that does mean I get to spend my entire Summer working like crazy on Wedge. Isn't that cool? What do you mean pathetic? Oh, now you flatter me. Two sugars dear, please.
| 1. | Apparently, that's how people do it. I think we'll release Wedge Gold when we reach one million fans. Hopefully that's in less than 5 years. Would be fun to have you wait to get a product that's been ready for years. Would be like SMF 2. |
157
Development blog / « Just when I think I'm back in... »
« on June 27th, 2011, 04:46 PM »
The last few days were interesting, to say the least.
I don't exactly know what's going on in the irony department up there, but it feels like someone's determined to make me waste my time. Apart from the usual real-life issues (including but not exclusively, my driving license, of which you can see a picture on my Facebook page because, yes, I'm that shallow), and from the PC apocalypse I told you about in my last post, I also faced two new problems this week-end.
First of all -- the new computer I bought has the Intel P67 bug with the SATA interface. Meaning half of my SATA ports are not usable. One of them was being used by a hard drive so I just moved it to a safe port, but it now means all 4 of my safe ports are taken (plus my only eSata port), and I can't add any other hard drive. Thankfully I didn't exactly plan to do that either, as I already have USB3 ports which will come in handy in the future.
The only question then, is whether or not I should bring back my computer to the shop. I mean they're not supposed to sell me a buggy motherboard when Intel recognized the bug and everyone recalled their motherboards months ago already. I'm definitely unlucky these days.
Also in the let's have fun category, my ISP apparently decided to go play with my Interwebs cables, and overnight my download rate went from about 4 Mbps to under 10 Kbps. Yes, I'm talking about bits per seconds, not bytes. See, I've been on the Internet since March 1996, at which time I had a trusted 28.8 Kbps US Robotics modem. Anyone remember these? They were the top modem makers at the time. But they still ran at 3 kilobytes a second. It wasn't funny. Well, my bandwidth was one third of that for nearly 48 hours. Back in '96, web pages were just a few kilobytes of HTML, possibly a few images, later a CSS file or two, but jQuery couldn't have even existed at the time. Even the first versions, which were very light and quick to load, would take many seconds to load on an old modem. This is one of the reason why I spent so much time working on reducing the footprint of both jQuery and general JavaScript code in Wedge, when I could just have stopped worrying and dropped the compressor. I was adamant that Wedge SHOULD be faster than SMF in every possible way, and most of the work had to be done on the final output. It took me weeks just to get to the point where, comparing stock copies of Wedge and SMF, I concluded that Wedge felt faster to load than SMF. It's a personal feeling, see, it can hardly be calculated with a stopwatch. But even reaching that point was hopeless to begin with, because we'd decided on including jQuery. So we got the best of both worlds. But I still have to fight myself to determine what version of jQuery we'll ship with in the end. I mean, we started Wedge with 1.4.4, then switched to 1.5.2 with absolutely no benefit to us, and then to 1.6 where I reported a handful of annoying bugs, and once again I don't see any benefits... I guess I'm waiting for 1.7 to determine whether it's worth upgrading. But right now, as it is, I'm actually tempted to go back to 1.4.4, and save the extra 5-6 KB that 1.6.1 uses. 5 to 6 KB may not be much to you, but it's worth a lot to others.
And somehow, after my horrible Sunday experience, I can't help but wonder: won't somebody please think of the analog modems? These days, it's all about working from home and avoid commuting. So, people can go live anywhere they want. What happens to those who happen to find a heavenly place with no DSL lines around? What happens when all of the web is optimized for broadband? Will analog users end up as the digital man's stoneman? Be viewed as disabled, maybe? WAI-ARIA to the rescue, or no future for losers?
We need to stop wasting resources. Just because a font looks cool doesn't mean you should force your user's browser to download it every time they come to your website. Interestingly, that's exactly what I did a few weeks ago. I went for PT Sans as the default header-type font in Wedge, but decided against specifically calling it from Google Fonts, as fast as the service is. I just don't see the point in doing that when you can simply tell your users to download the font and install them by themselves. Then they no longer have to download it again -- and the font can start popping up everywhere.
Install a font and save a tree!
Find your raison d'être!
To arms, my brothers!
I don't exactly know what's going on in the irony department up there, but it feels like someone's determined to make me waste my time. Apart from the usual real-life issues (including but not exclusively, my driving license, of which you can see a picture on my Facebook page because, yes, I'm that shallow), and from the PC apocalypse I told you about in my last post, I also faced two new problems this week-end.
First of all -- the new computer I bought has the Intel P67 bug with the SATA interface. Meaning half of my SATA ports are not usable. One of them was being used by a hard drive so I just moved it to a safe port, but it now means all 4 of my safe ports are taken (plus my only eSata port), and I can't add any other hard drive. Thankfully I didn't exactly plan to do that either, as I already have USB3 ports which will come in handy in the future.
The only question then, is whether or not I should bring back my computer to the shop. I mean they're not supposed to sell me a buggy motherboard when Intel recognized the bug and everyone recalled their motherboards months ago already. I'm definitely unlucky these days.
Also in the let's have fun category, my ISP apparently decided to go play with my Interwebs cables, and overnight my download rate went from about 4 Mbps to under 10 Kbps. Yes, I'm talking about bits per seconds, not bytes. See, I've been on the Internet since March 1996, at which time I had a trusted 28.8 Kbps US Robotics modem. Anyone remember these? They were the top modem makers at the time. But they still ran at 3 kilobytes a second. It wasn't funny. Well, my bandwidth was one third of that for nearly 48 hours. Back in '96, web pages were just a few kilobytes of HTML, possibly a few images, later a CSS file or two, but jQuery couldn't have even existed at the time. Even the first versions, which were very light and quick to load, would take many seconds to load on an old modem. This is one of the reason why I spent so much time working on reducing the footprint of both jQuery and general JavaScript code in Wedge, when I could just have stopped worrying and dropped the compressor. I was adamant that Wedge SHOULD be faster than SMF in every possible way, and most of the work had to be done on the final output. It took me weeks just to get to the point where, comparing stock copies of Wedge and SMF, I concluded that Wedge felt faster to load than SMF. It's a personal feeling, see, it can hardly be calculated with a stopwatch. But even reaching that point was hopeless to begin with, because we'd decided on including jQuery. So we got the best of both worlds. But I still have to fight myself to determine what version of jQuery we'll ship with in the end. I mean, we started Wedge with 1.4.4, then switched to 1.5.2 with absolutely no benefit to us, and then to 1.6 where I reported a handful of annoying bugs, and once again I don't see any benefits... I guess I'm waiting for 1.7 to determine whether it's worth upgrading. But right now, as it is, I'm actually tempted to go back to 1.4.4, and save the extra 5-6 KB that 1.6.1 uses. 5 to 6 KB may not be much to you, but it's worth a lot to others.
And somehow, after my horrible Sunday experience, I can't help but wonder: won't somebody please think of the analog modems? These days, it's all about working from home and avoid commuting. So, people can go live anywhere they want. What happens to those who happen to find a heavenly place with no DSL lines around? What happens when all of the web is optimized for broadband? Will analog users end up as the digital man's stoneman? Be viewed as disabled, maybe? WAI-ARIA to the rescue, or no future for losers?
We need to stop wasting resources. Just because a font looks cool doesn't mean you should force your user's browser to download it every time they come to your website. Interestingly, that's exactly what I did a few weeks ago. I went for PT Sans as the default header-type font in Wedge, but decided against specifically calling it from Google Fonts, as fast as the service is. I just don't see the point in doing that when you can simply tell your users to download the font and install them by themselves. Then they no longer have to download it again -- and the font can start popping up everywhere.
Install a font and save a tree!
Find your raison d'être!
To arms, my brothers!
158
Development blog / New directions
« on June 21st, 2011, 08:19 PM »
Glee! Joy! Wedge!
So, SMF 2.0 Final is out, eh?
Fantastic.
Now we're a 100% legal project. Anyone can do exactly what we're doing. Except that we're starting to know the drill -- it's been 10 months already since we started work on our custom forum system.
Obviously, we can't wait to be ready to release it. We want feedback, we want excitement, we want glee. We want to finally be able to show what we mean when we say we're going to do things differently. We're no longer linked to SMF, imagination is the limit. Well, and our lifespans, I guess. Pete and I have been plagued with real-life commitments and issues these last few months, so progress is slowing down -- but when I say it's slowing down, I mean we're only adding features slowly. Not stalling for 3 years without doing a thing, if you know what I mean.
Myself, among other things, I had to go through the death of the beloved, glorious PC I built in 2005. For the first time in ten years I've had to reinstall Windows and reset my entire development environment. It's tough, but it's something that has to happen once in a while. Although, if my PC had waited a couple more days to die on me, I'd have finished my big yearly backup... Ah, fun times.
So, now I'm back up. My driving license exam is coming this week, hopefully I won't fail it, and I'll be able to focus entirely on Wedge once again!
So, SMF 2.0 Final is out, eh?
Fantastic.
Now we're a 100% legal project. Anyone can do exactly what we're doing. Except that we're starting to know the drill -- it's been 10 months already since we started work on our custom forum system.
Obviously, we can't wait to be ready to release it. We want feedback, we want excitement, we want glee. We want to finally be able to show what we mean when we say we're going to do things differently. We're no longer linked to SMF, imagination is the limit. Well, and our lifespans, I guess. Pete and I have been plagued with real-life commitments and issues these last few months, so progress is slowing down -- but when I say it's slowing down, I mean we're only adding features slowly. Not stalling for 3 years without doing a thing, if you know what I mean.
Myself, among other things, I had to go through the death of the beloved, glorious PC I built in 2005. For the first time in ten years I've had to reinstall Windows and reset my entire development environment. It's tough, but it's something that has to happen once in a while. Although, if my PC had waited a couple more days to die on me, I'd have finished my big yearly backup... Ah, fun times.
So, now I'm back up. My driving license exam is coming this week, hopefully I won't fail it, and I'll be able to focus entirely on Wedge once again!
159
Off-topic / PC hotline
« on June 11th, 2011, 01:46 AM »
Pm Pete. I can barely post here with my iPod and no pc. Sigh.
160
Other software / SMF, yeah right. (Re: Introduction)
« on May 28th, 2011, 05:20 PM »
@billy> I read all posts. I don't have something to answer to all of them, though!Quote from live627 on May 28th, 2011, 10:38 AM As said before, they allow links and topics about competitors... Just not about *US* in particular.
I'm somehow hoping that enough people will start mentioning Wedge over there that they'll have to give up on the idea of censoring us, our signatures, etc. But OTOH I don't like marketing and stuff. So I'm kinda stuck in between two annoying places in that respect...Quote from kabo0m on May 28th, 2011, 08:44 AM These are good people. 8-)Quote 'Someone' was bound to do something... With a codebase such as SMF, many, many talented developers were extremely frustrated to see that it was being maintained by a tank full of manatees picking up hack balls and hoping they'd form a bug fix together. © Trey Parker/Matt Stone.
That codebase is a lot of WASTED potential, if you ask me. We had to take over and put it straight.
See, even when we're in a slow activity period, I still manage to commit more work than their entire dev team together on their best days. That says a lot about their internal team issues.Quote The official policy is "do whatever you want", but my own personal policy, for the record, is "please use logos and links as much as you'd like outside Wedge.org, but if you're registered here, there's a chance you're interested in our work so I'd rather we keep the logo to Pete and I's signatures..." Of course this'll never happen so, ah well.
But really, I don't see much of a point in advertising Wedge *on Wedge.org* ;)
It''s allowed here but condoned over at sm.org because they apparently don't allow links to competitors.
I'm somehow hoping that enough people will start mentioning Wedge over there that they'll have to give up on the idea of censoring us, our signatures, etc. But OTOH I don't like marketing and stuff. So I'm kinda stuck in between two annoying places in that respect...
I like to keep quiet and just read but I heard about Wedge from a few people I keep connected with because they are smart and informed and teach me a lot about keeping my forum safe.
I am so glad that someone is finally doing what I have been wishing someone would do for awhile! Thank you and I can't wait :)
That codebase is a lot of WASTED potential, if you ask me. We had to take over and put it straight.
See, even when we're in a slow activity period, I still manage to commit more work than their entire dev team together on their best days. That says a lot about their internal team issues.
By the way, I see some of you have wedge in your signature. Can anyone have that?
But really, I don't see much of a point in advertising Wedge *on Wedge.org* ;)
161
Features: Miscellaneous / Minor features
« on May 11th, 2011, 03:53 PM »
Here's a tentative list of all minor feature additions/changes that I didn't deem worthy of their own section, but could still be mentioned here... (Complainers should go through the commit log themselves. Beware though, it took me a week to do that. Don't try this at home. Or at least try and help organize this list and point out what features you feel should be expanded upon in a post of their own.)
I've sorted them by author, because that's how I went through the commit log originally -- starting with Pete's additions, and then mine. I'm not in the mood for spending more time on sorting the list by type. I'm sure no one will read it entirely anyway! :P
Additions by Arantor:
- BBC tags are now defined in the database, making it easier for mods to add their own tags. (No file edits!)
- Database-controlled topic ordering in message index.
- Modders can now register custom {variables} to queries the same way {db_query} is done, with a function call. No code modification needed.
- Cache optimization on news items.
- Unread posts area now always shows the entire list of unread posts -- this should encourage the use of the Mark All Read button in the process, which in turn helps database performance.
- Users can now move topics only into boards they could actually create topics in.
- Imperative scheduled tasks (they're given a specific execution date in the future), and source file setting for scheduled tasks (i.e. you can specify a file to load before executing a given scheduled function.)
- Added group requirements to paid subscriptions. You may now offer a specific subscription to a given group, e.g. current subscribers could get a renewal offer at a reduced price.
- The language on PayPal pages will now match the user's language choice on Wedge.
- Added proper member recount in the maintenance area.
- New permissions: View IP (own / all), Edit Website, Edit Signature. (You can now easily prevent newbie groups from adding spam in their website & sig.)
- Debug info (database and stuff) can now be shown to different user groups, can be set in the admin area.
- At install time, the first topic is now posted from the admin -- no more 'Simple Machines' guest, meaning you can actually choose to edit the post and keep it.
- Added loadSource('File') function to load 'Sources/File.php' efficiently. Also saves you the need to add $sourcedir to the list of global variables...
- All actions are now each in their very own file.
- Actions can avoid being logged in the who's online list by defining a variable at the beginning of the file.
- blankGif() outputs a blank image directly, instead of redirecting to a gif file.
- Added ability to hide all banned users' avatars.
- Allow redirect boards to be opened in a new window (or not.)
- Most of the important Source files are now properly documented in the PHPDoc format. (And the both of us are trying to document our new functions as thoroughly as possible.)
- Removed all of the code pertaining to topic participation icons. Seriously, who even noticed these icons at all? If you want to know if a topic is popular, you just look at the number of replies/views in it...
- Removed help area. (Shortly after that, SMF did the same to their help system. They're now using a Wiki. We don't know if we'll do the same though.)
- Changed 'star' denomination to 'rank' in user group ranks.
- Dropdown selector for viewing mode in PM area. (I'm sure this will help many actually notice there are other modes available.)
- Removed easter eggs. Some were funny, but they were old (and could even slow down the forum.)
- Quick Reply area now allows you to immediately show the full editor icons in a single click.
- At registration time, some default user settings were switched, for logical reasons. Also, the time offset is detected by Wedge.
- Replaced musician and actor avatar packs with xkcd avatar pack. Which is wayyyy cooler...
- Moderators checking out the who's online area will now see the error message whenever a user action results in an error.
Additions by Nao:
- Chosen auto-suggest entries are shown above the auto-suggest input, rather than below. It makes more sense.
- parse_bbc_inline() is an alias function that parses messages for inline tags only, i.e. tags that do not result in an oversized object. It's best used in areas where text parsing could end up breaking the page layout.
- Added $browser global (an alias to $context['browser']). In addition, the browser array adds 'agent' (current browser's name), and 'version' (current version number).
- New menu system. Looks great, plays great, uses CSS3 but works in IE6, uses JavaScript but works when JS is disabled. Supports separators. Icons based on the Diagona set.
- An ": edit :" smiley. It's an easy addition, but priceless when you're modifying a post and you want to draw attention on the edited part.
- Made some permission names clearer.
- Removed so many useless things from SMF that I wouldn't know where to start... Wait. Don't even get me started, actually.
- All confirm() and similar JS calls using $txt are now protected with JavaScriptEscape(), fixing an annoying SMF bug where language files could unknowingly break features.
- Modified links inside posts to show an underline. It may seem like a detail, but I've often seen people spam by hiding links into their posts. They should be more visible.
- Removed stylesheet parameter from loadTemplate. Use add_css_file('mycss', true) instead.
- The 'php' bbcode is now looking more like a 'code' bbcode with syntax coloring enabled automatically.
- Quick edit icons now show during page loading, rather than after all JS is executed. Eliminates that awkward layout change effect in SMF.
- If an image (gif/png/jpg) is requested and not found, Wedge will log the error, instead of Apache. Should make it easier to spot these errors. (This was revision 404 in the SVN server. I have a weird sense of humor.)
- The auto-suggest control should now work flawlessly in IE and Opera. I believe the SMF team gave up on fixing these glitches long ago. Actually...
- ...Wedge supports all modern, current browsers. SMF dropped official support for Opera because they couldn't/wouldn't fix related SMF bugs. Way to go.
- Set $context['bottom_linktree'] to true to automatically duplicate the linktree at the bottom of the page.
- Buttons now all sport a contextual icon where useful, such as "OK", "Cancel", "New", "Delete", "Spellcheck" or "Save".
- Three stylings so far: Wine (default), Wuthering (Curve-like) and Warm (minimal look.)
- Removed all of the JavaScript eval/string function calls, and many of the PHP ones as well. Good riddance.
- SMF enjoys deleting your work when you quick edit a message and then click the quick edit icon again by mistake. We don't.
- If you're viewing your outbox and at least one of the recipients replied to a message, Wedge will tell you how many.
- Use hideChrome() function to hide the header, footer, sidebar and top templates automatically.
- Check $context['is_ajax'] to determine whether a page is being called through Ajax -- enabling you to send different content. Chrome is automatically hidden.
- $(object).dragslide() applies a drag'n'slide effect to any DOM object. Use 'nodrag' classes inside the object to mark non-draggable areas.
- I was in charge of the French version for SMF for a long time, so obviously it's even better in Wedge, and always up to date. Go go rude people!
- Most of the icons in the default theme (including language-specific icons) are now CSS-driven, so they're easier to style.
- Wireless template gets shortened tags and class names. When it comes to some data plans, a byte saved is a buck saved.
- Made profile links not clickable if user hasn't got permission to view profiles.
- $start_time global is now a valid value in seconds. Use microtime(true), guys!
- 'Child boards' are now 'sub-boards', as often requested in the SMF community.
- Optimized UTF8-aware string functions. Just wanted to say.
- If Today/Yesterday date transformations are enabled, check for the year and remove it if it's the current one.
Additions by both:
- {query_list_board} is like {query_see_board}, but only gives users the ability to view hidden boards in board lists, but not browse them. (Okay, maybe this one should be in a feature of its own...) :P
- Android, iPhone and iPad (tablet) posting icons. Now you can actually let these silly devices add typos for you. It's not your fault anymore.
- Restructured several important templates into series of sub-templates, for easier integration.
...And these are all the things we thought might be of interest. Internally, there are hundreds more changes to the code base, all of which are documented in the SVN changelog, which we might release in the future. If anyone's interested in reading it.
I've sorted them by author, because that's how I went through the commit log originally -- starting with Pete's additions, and then mine. I'm not in the mood for spending more time on sorting the list by type. I'm sure no one will read it entirely anyway! :P
Additions by Arantor:
- BBC tags are now defined in the database, making it easier for mods to add their own tags. (No file edits!)
- Database-controlled topic ordering in message index.
- Modders can now register custom {variables} to queries the same way {db_query} is done, with a function call. No code modification needed.
- Cache optimization on news items.
- Unread posts area now always shows the entire list of unread posts -- this should encourage the use of the Mark All Read button in the process, which in turn helps database performance.
- Users can now move topics only into boards they could actually create topics in.
- Imperative scheduled tasks (they're given a specific execution date in the future), and source file setting for scheduled tasks (i.e. you can specify a file to load before executing a given scheduled function.)
- Added group requirements to paid subscriptions. You may now offer a specific subscription to a given group, e.g. current subscribers could get a renewal offer at a reduced price.
- The language on PayPal pages will now match the user's language choice on Wedge.
- Added proper member recount in the maintenance area.
- New permissions: View IP (own / all), Edit Website, Edit Signature. (You can now easily prevent newbie groups from adding spam in their website & sig.)
- Debug info (database and stuff) can now be shown to different user groups, can be set in the admin area.
- At install time, the first topic is now posted from the admin -- no more 'Simple Machines' guest, meaning you can actually choose to edit the post and keep it.
- Added loadSource('File') function to load 'Sources/File.php' efficiently. Also saves you the need to add $sourcedir to the list of global variables...
- All actions are now each in their very own file.
- Actions can avoid being logged in the who's online list by defining a variable at the beginning of the file.
- blankGif() outputs a blank image directly, instead of redirecting to a gif file.
- Added ability to hide all banned users' avatars.
- Allow redirect boards to be opened in a new window (or not.)
- Most of the important Source files are now properly documented in the PHPDoc format. (And the both of us are trying to document our new functions as thoroughly as possible.)
- Removed all of the code pertaining to topic participation icons. Seriously, who even noticed these icons at all? If you want to know if a topic is popular, you just look at the number of replies/views in it...
- Removed help area. (Shortly after that, SMF did the same to their help system. They're now using a Wiki. We don't know if we'll do the same though.)
- Changed 'star' denomination to 'rank' in user group ranks.
- Dropdown selector for viewing mode in PM area. (I'm sure this will help many actually notice there are other modes available.)
- Removed easter eggs. Some were funny, but they were old (and could even slow down the forum.)
- Quick Reply area now allows you to immediately show the full editor icons in a single click.
- At registration time, some default user settings were switched, for logical reasons. Also, the time offset is detected by Wedge.
- Replaced musician and actor avatar packs with xkcd avatar pack. Which is wayyyy cooler...
- Moderators checking out the who's online area will now see the error message whenever a user action results in an error.
Additions by Nao:
- Chosen auto-suggest entries are shown above the auto-suggest input, rather than below. It makes more sense.
- parse_bbc_inline() is an alias function that parses messages for inline tags only, i.e. tags that do not result in an oversized object. It's best used in areas where text parsing could end up breaking the page layout.
- Added $browser global (an alias to $context['browser']). In addition, the browser array adds 'agent' (current browser's name), and 'version' (current version number).
- New menu system. Looks great, plays great, uses CSS3 but works in IE6, uses JavaScript but works when JS is disabled. Supports separators. Icons based on the Diagona set.
- An ": edit :" smiley. It's an easy addition, but priceless when you're modifying a post and you want to draw attention on the edited part.
- Made some permission names clearer.
- Removed so many useless things from SMF that I wouldn't know where to start... Wait. Don't even get me started, actually.
- All confirm() and similar JS calls using $txt are now protected with JavaScriptEscape(), fixing an annoying SMF bug where language files could unknowingly break features.
- Modified links inside posts to show an underline. It may seem like a detail, but I've often seen people spam by hiding links into their posts. They should be more visible.
- Removed stylesheet parameter from loadTemplate. Use add_css_file('mycss', true) instead.
- The 'php' bbcode is now looking more like a 'code' bbcode with syntax coloring enabled automatically.
- Quick edit icons now show during page loading, rather than after all JS is executed. Eliminates that awkward layout change effect in SMF.
- If an image (gif/png/jpg) is requested and not found, Wedge will log the error, instead of Apache. Should make it easier to spot these errors. (This was revision 404 in the SVN server. I have a weird sense of humor.)
- The auto-suggest control should now work flawlessly in IE and Opera. I believe the SMF team gave up on fixing these glitches long ago. Actually...
- ...Wedge supports all modern, current browsers. SMF dropped official support for Opera because they couldn't/wouldn't fix related SMF bugs. Way to go.
- Set $context['bottom_linktree'] to true to automatically duplicate the linktree at the bottom of the page.
- Buttons now all sport a contextual icon where useful, such as "OK", "Cancel", "New", "Delete", "Spellcheck" or "Save".
- Three stylings so far: Wine (default), Wuthering (Curve-like) and Warm (minimal look.)
- Removed all of the JavaScript eval/string function calls, and many of the PHP ones as well. Good riddance.
- SMF enjoys deleting your work when you quick edit a message and then click the quick edit icon again by mistake. We don't.
- If you're viewing your outbox and at least one of the recipients replied to a message, Wedge will tell you how many.
- Use hideChrome() function to hide the header, footer, sidebar and top templates automatically.
- Check $context['is_ajax'] to determine whether a page is being called through Ajax -- enabling you to send different content. Chrome is automatically hidden.
- $(object).dragslide() applies a drag'n'slide effect to any DOM object. Use 'nodrag' classes inside the object to mark non-draggable areas.
- I was in charge of the French version for SMF for a long time, so obviously it's even better in Wedge, and always up to date. Go go rude people!
- Most of the icons in the default theme (including language-specific icons) are now CSS-driven, so they're easier to style.
- Wireless template gets shortened tags and class names. When it comes to some data plans, a byte saved is a buck saved.
- Made profile links not clickable if user hasn't got permission to view profiles.
- $start_time global is now a valid value in seconds. Use microtime(true), guys!
- 'Child boards' are now 'sub-boards', as often requested in the SMF community.
- Optimized UTF8-aware string functions. Just wanted to say.
- If Today/Yesterday date transformations are enabled, check for the year and remove it if it's the current one.
Additions by both:
- {query_list_board} is like {query_see_board}, but only gives users the ability to view hidden boards in board lists, but not browse them. (Okay, maybe this one should be in a feature of its own...) :P
- Android, iPhone and iPad (tablet) posting icons. Now you can actually let these silly devices add typos for you. It's not your fault anymore.
- Restructured several important templates into series of sub-templates, for easier integration.
...And these are all the things we thought might be of interest. Internally, there are hundreds more changes to the code base, all of which are documented in the SVN changelog, which we might release in the future. If anyone's interested in reading it.
162
Features: Upcoming / Floating topics
« on May 11th, 2011, 03:48 PM »
Area: Miscellaneous
Feature: Floating topics
Developer: Nao (main?)
Target: everyone
Status: 10% (nothing implemented in the code; planned feature, please discuss your preferences.)
Comment:
This is one of the first features I considered for Wedge (and possibly one of the things that made me want to build Wedge at all), and unfortunately so far the only one I haven't done anything on, because we need to implement blogs and other details before we can even get started on it, so it probably won't be in the public alphas -- it may not even be in the final 1.0 release. I'm actually taking a minor risk by revealing this feature before it's even implemented, because it's likely to 'inspire' the competition. But on the other hand, I'd for one wouldn't mind seeing that in other forum systems.
Basically, the idea is that topics in Wedge are not just reserved for boards. A topic can be a blog post. It can be a media item. It can even be a profile. These special places can then benefit from some of the topic features, such as commenting on them.
So, topics get a 'type' field that represents whatever they are (profile page, blog post...), and allows Wedge to filter them out when showing only a specific type of topic. Users get to comment on floating topics, and their posts can be searched through the regular search engine, read through 'Unread posts', anything you could think of.
Feature: Floating topics
Developer: Nao (main?)
Target: everyone
Status: 10% (nothing implemented in the code; planned feature, please discuss your preferences.)
Comment:
This is one of the first features I considered for Wedge (and possibly one of the things that made me want to build Wedge at all), and unfortunately so far the only one I haven't done anything on, because we need to implement blogs and other details before we can even get started on it, so it probably won't be in the public alphas -- it may not even be in the final 1.0 release. I'm actually taking a minor risk by revealing this feature before it's even implemented, because it's likely to 'inspire' the competition. But on the other hand, I'd for one wouldn't mind seeing that in other forum systems.
Basically, the idea is that topics in Wedge are not just reserved for boards. A topic can be a blog post. It can be a media item. It can even be a profile. These special places can then benefit from some of the topic features, such as commenting on them.
So, topics get a 'type' field that represents whatever they are (profile page, blog post...), and allows Wedge to filter them out when showing only a specific type of topic. Users get to comment on floating topics, and their posts can be searched through the regular search engine, read through 'Unread posts', anything you could think of.
163
Features: Upcoming / Language tags
« on May 11th, 2011, 03:41 PM »
Area: BBCode
Feature: Language tags
Developer: Nao
Target: users
Status: 10% (nothing implemented in the code; planned feature, please discuss your preferences.)
Comment:
It's easy enough. Noisen has 'fr' and 'en' tags that allow you to write your messages in both French and English, and the end user will see the text in their default language. It works well, but it may need some reworking. Should we use something like [lang=en]? Or is it too long? How would you add to add languages to the list? Things like that.
Feature: Language tags
Developer: Nao
Target: users
Status: 10% (nothing implemented in the code; planned feature, please discuss your preferences.)
Comment:
It's easy enough. Noisen has 'fr' and 'en' tags that allow you to write your messages in both French and English, and the end user will see the text in their default language. It works well, but it may need some reworking. Should we use something like [lang=en]? Or is it too long? How would you add to add languages to the list? Things like that.
164
Features: Posts & Topics / Likes
« on May 11th, 2011, 03:40 PM »
Area: Miscellaneous
Feature: Reactions (Likes)
Developer: Arantor & Nao
Target: users
Status: 95% (core functionality implemented for posts and thoughts)
Comment:
We never liked karma in SMF. We don't like the idea that people get thumbs down on the basis of a message, but they never get to know which posts got them that reputation. Plus -- it's a bit of an ego trip.
Implementing 'like' buttons on posts/topics is a better way of actually guiding people through a user's best posts. We're hoping to implement the feature in every possible feature, such as media items.
The structure already implemented allows for liking any structure in theory - even plugin-added ones, and there's already the foundation for even doing it through AJAX, just more UI work needs to be done; most of the core was added in enough time to get it on wedge.org with more to follow ;)
:edit: October 2014: added support for multiple like types; renamed to 'Reactions'.
Feature: Reactions (Likes)
Developer: Arantor & Nao
Target: users
Status: 95% (core functionality implemented for posts and thoughts)
Comment:
We never liked karma in SMF. We don't like the idea that people get thumbs down on the basis of a message, but they never get to know which posts got them that reputation. Plus -- it's a bit of an ego trip.
Implementing 'like' buttons on posts/topics is a better way of actually guiding people through a user's best posts. We're hoping to implement the feature in every possible feature, such as media items.
The structure already implemented allows for liking any structure in theory - even plugin-added ones, and there's already the foundation for even doing it through AJAX, just more UI work needs to be done; most of the core was added in enough time to get it on wedge.org with more to follow ;)
:edit: October 2014: added support for multiple like types; renamed to 'Reactions'.
165
Features: Upcoming / Blogs!
« on May 11th, 2011, 03:39 PM »
Area: Miscellaneous
Feature: Blogs!
Developer: Nao (main), Arantor
Target: everyone
Status: 70% (still a lot left to do. And even after we're done, we'll add more features in subsequent releases.)
Comment:
Adds support for creating blogs that are internally considered as special boards. Based on the blog implementation at Noisen.com. Original code by Nao, re-implemented (rewritten?) by Arantor. Create a blog over at noisen.com if you want an idea of how it all works.
Feature: Blogs!
Developer: Nao (main), Arantor
Target: everyone
Status: 70% (still a lot left to do. And even after we're done, we'll add more features in subsequent releases.)
Comment:
Adds support for creating blogs that are internally considered as special boards. Based on the blog implementation at Noisen.com. Original code by Nao, re-implemented (rewritten?) by Arantor. Create a blog over at noisen.com if you want an idea of how it all works.