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1
Plugins / Re: Lang. files?
ftab4me « on January 13th, 2014, 08:27 PM »
I think you should have at the languages in the same folder. It makes things in the long run a hell of a lot easier. Think about it for a minute, you have a new translation, you ftp it to the Languages folder and it instantly becomes available for use by Wedge just like English, English-UK and French.  Also for any mods, all language files are in the one directory were authors do not have to add or remember directory names for each language.

Plus you would have to predefine in advance each language directory name and add code to link the directory. Also the language tree consists of one directory instead of many which is less messy.

Just my thoughts.


John
2
Features / Re: One theme to rule them all?
Nao « on January 9th, 2014, 06:48 PM »
I'm getting plenty of likes on my latest thought, but no actually feedback, so I guess I'll have to choose by myself...

My current structure is thus:

Code: [Select]
/core
  /javascript
  /languages
  /plugins
  /skins
  /sources
  /templates

I thought 'core' made sense as the root folder. 'javascript' is a conscious choice to make it clearer that 'scripts' are 'JavaScript', not 'PHP scripts'.
languages will have French and English US at its root, and German and English UK in sub-folders, to match the future official languages repo. You'll probably need to move the folder contents to the languages folder though, if you want to have them enabled. Not sure yet.
Plugins are part of the rest, because that makes it easier to update them, and they're most likely to be uploaded by FTP, so I'm *hoping* we won't be getting problems with file permissions. (At worst, I could simply create that folder at runtime, so that Wedge can be sure it can manipulate its contents without filesystem problems.)
skins are the CSS folders, sources is the original Sources folder (meaning core is technically empty, which I'm not too happy with, but the alternative would be to have /core/media and /core/notifiers and /core/captcha in addition to the files above, and I'm not sure I want that), and templates are /Themes/default.

Everyone happy with this..?
3
Features / Re: New revs
Nao « on December 15th, 2013, 11:12 PM »
rev 2345 -- this huge commit is NOT pushed to master yet; I'm pushing it to the byebye-themes branch, mainly to test branching. I may rebase my stuff, although I'll try to avoid that.
 185 files changed, 1939 insertions(+), 2828 deletions(-), 169.14 KiB (record beaten! And unlikely to be beaten again :P The actual diff patch size is 717KB, and I'm going to go through it again, yay.)

 delete mode 100644 Themes/default/languages/Settings.english-uk.php
 delete mode 100644 Themes/default/languages/Settings.english.php
 delete mode 100644 Themes/default/languages/Settings.french.php
 delete mode 100644 Themes/default/languages/Settings.german.php

@ The previous commit, despite its size, was a joke compared to this one. Removing theme support (while keeping support for 99% of its features with intelligent skinning) saves a surprising amount of code. Most files get a few kilobytes shaved off their size. Everything done by hand (and triple-checked!), but I'm still expecting many things to be broken for a few days/weeks. I'll fix as bug reports come.

* Renamed all $theme variables to $settings equivalents. $theme, the equivalent of SMF's $settings, is gone. Forever. (There are 120 files or something in this commit, I'm not going to list them all.)

* Replaced $scripturl with SCRIPT and 'theme_url/theme_dir' with TEMPLATES/TEMPLATES_DIR everywhere. Lots of fun. Same with images_url/dir and ASSETS/ASSETS_DIR.

* And more importantly, renamed we::$id to MID most everywhere. This is about twice faster, and, I guess, easier to type and remember.

- Removed theme support from a lot of places. Again-- not listing these all. Basically, many areas will now consider there's only one theme, and that's all there is to say. They'll usually accept multiple skins, of course.

- Removed a suspicious $theme['smileys_url'] I couldn't find used anywhere. (Class-Editor.php)

- Removed theme settings page entirely, phew. (Admin.php Themes.php and Themes.template.php, ManageSettings.php, ManageSettings.language.php, and a few others.)

- Removed unused globals as found by the new version of my fix-globals script. (Class-Skeleton.php, Class-String.php, Notifications.php, and maybe a couple others.)

- This $theme['smileys_url'] alias hadn't been used for years. (Class-Editor.php)

- THEMEURL and DEFAULT_THEMEURL have never been used as variables in email templates. Time to go. (Subs-Post.php)

* Replaced $settings['images_aeva'] with just a hardlink to the /aeva assets folder.

* Renamed show_avatars and show_signatures user options to hide_* equivalents, as it used to be in SMF; this was partly motivated by the fact that most user options have a more sensible 'off' default (except for return to post and quick reply, where it makes more sense to enable these), but mostly because it was buggy and I had to fix it.

* Renamed reloadSettings() to loadSettings(). It's never called more than once... (index.php, Load.php)

* Renamed a few variables to use $context instead of a setting. For instance, if you want to play with templates to be loaded, you should now do it with $context['theme_templates']. Although this one will probably go at some point, too. Or be renamed. Or whatever. Also, $theme['output_buffers'] is now in $context. (Load.php, Subs-Template.php)

* Moved path settings from Server to basic settings. Seriously, this never had anything to do with 'database settings', why mix them up together..? (Admin.php, ManageServer.php, ManageSettings.php)

* Rewrote the $boardurl hack for url_parts(). Thus making $boardurl non-changing across the page lifetime. (Subs-Auth.php)

! News sender was incorrectly interpreting {$board_url} as the script URL, i.e. with 'index.php' in default situations. (ManageNews.php)

! Fixed query viewer not redirecting to the correct URL. (ViewQuery.php)

! Fixed thoughts being refreshed (after an Ajax post) in non-mobile mode even when posting from a mobile skin. (Ajax.php, Load.php, Subs-Cache.php)

! Fixed main menu showing error when the login process failed. (Subs.php)

! Fixed a Pete bug in loadEssentialThemeData stuff. Then removed all code related to the bug, including the fix. Because if you've been reading this changelog, I'm sure you won't mind reading an extra useless line. (ScheduledTasks.php)

* Harmonized member table column lists in loadMemberData; this saves something like 3KB, which is that less data the PHP parser has to load every page load. (Load.php)

* Slightly faster JS/CSS cache purging. (Subs-Cache.php)

Now, go ahead, Like like you've never liked a commit before!! Because that means I'm getting closer to a public release :P
4
The Pub / Re: Not So Mixed Signals
Nao « on September 13th, 2013, 10:39 AM »
Guess I'll have to reply this, at some point...
Quote from Arantor on September 6th, 2013, 02:20 AM
Pick a CLA, if the terms aren't unpleasant, I'll sign it. E.g. the Apache CLA will be fine.
Sure, why not. But as the Apache CLA only applies to future contributions, I suppose you'll have to pre-date it..?
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The reality is that I'm just not the same as you, and as I've said before I can't live up to your standards.
But my standards are mine, and only apply to myself. What you should say is, you can't live with the idea that I'm modifying your code. Except that sometimes I have to (oversights, bugs...), and other times... Well, it's just cosmetic. What should you be proud of? How you indent your code, or how it does something awesome or innovative..?
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If you remove themes, 1) it absolutely prevents themers adding their own language strings
Hmm, not really..?
Although I have yet to figure this one out, I had in mind something really, really simple...
/wedge/
/wedge/sources/
/wedge/skins/my_skin/
/wedge/languages/my_skin/
You just upload multiple folders to your site.
The skins folder contains your CSS and PHP stuff, and in your PHP code, you can simply declare a loadLanguage()...
It may not be super-practical, but it's no more unusable than the SMF way, I'd say.
And, knowing myself-- I'll probably even add a setting allowing for skins to load some language files automatically on every page. I already have a <language> setting IIRC (determining what languages the skin accounts for in the CSS files), so I'll just have to add a new one like <loadLanguage>, or something. As long as it's in beta, I can still change that kind of thing, and update all skin files manually...
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and 2) it absolutely prevents replacing templates on a large scale. Sure, there are some nods made in the other direction with <we:cat> and <we:title> but a themer simply isn't going to be able to go to town and really change up the look.
If it's absolutely needed, then they'll tell me what I should change into a macro.
If it's not, then it's unlikely they'll simply update all template files for the sake of updating all template files.
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I see from the changelog you've made some more strides, but let me ask you this. You've seen Crossing Overland, with the menu down the side, with the other stuff that's in the theme. The ONLY thing managed by the sources code is the extra subtitle on the menu, everything else is in a custom theme.

Can that be recreated with just skins?
Can't see why not..?
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Answer: no because the JavaScript would have to be reworked to make the menu work differently.
And here, I can't see what JS is needed exactly to make it work. I don't see any JS at hand here...
And even then-- <script include="mycustomskin">, and you're done... (??)
If someone needs an object method to be rewritable, I can declare it outside the scope, so that it can be redefined/overloaded/prototyped.
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That's the point I was getting at: killing off themes and pushing it to skins means a designer can only change the markup they're given, they can't really go to town with new markup which is a considerable hit on flexibility.
Macros
Custom JS
Custom PHP
Custom CSS
Final HTML raw replacement
Dunno what can be done with themes, that skins could not do.
Of course, it's another way of handling things. And it needs documenting. That's where skins are weak. There's a basic documentation in Warm/skin.xml (the only thing I actually really worked on documenting, unlike Wess!), but it could be better, I suppose. I'll improve it as questions come and go.
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We did some good stuff. And I'd love to see some good stuff from this project in the future because you don't need me. You never needed me, not really.
I needed your expertise on many domains that I'm very weak at (database, security, UI, JS, and so on -- and yes, I got a bit better at UI, and I quickly realized I wasn't as bad at JS as I feared), and quite simply, I needed your enthusiasm. Two people is better than one. Oh, just a simple example... These days, Milady and I try to jog at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. We started slow with 12mn rounds, and now we're at 30mn rounds. We're still bad at this, but we're still doing it, because what matters is that we try. Milady told me today, after our jogging session, that she enjoyed running with me, because she did 45mn sessions many years ago, and stopped after a year because she was fucking bored. I told her, "you need me because you feel better when you're so tired and you see that I'm in an even worse shape; and you need me because you want to encourage me to keep you with you when you're feeling better." She agreed with that entirely. Sometimes, being two just means that when someone is not at their best, they can count on someone else to fill up their job, and when they're at their best, they're happy that someone is encouraging them.
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You have the power to take Wedge in any direction you choose now, whatever works for where you want to take it, and for those who will undoubtedly follow you.
Sure. Removing themes would be a bold move, one in the likes of your own past bold moves, so I guess it's like the name change-- a way to make it clear it's "mine" from now on. However, all I want, at this point, is to finish the dozen or so features I want to finish (better privacy settings, better UI for blogs, etc.), and then release it to the world. I think that's what's going to make it clear that it's mine: I've always been willing to release it, because I am confident people will love it, as flawed as it is. ;)

Anyway!
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I'm free to go away and think about what I want to say, and how to say it. I've read this post half a dozen times this evening before I replied to it.
Ah, well, I tend to reply as I'm reading. I didn't read this post until now (I did read your previous long post entirely before replying, but that's more an exception), because I will usually be discouraged to reply after I've read. "Too many things to say, will take me hours to reply..."
So, I guess my posts tend to be seen as hot-headed, more spontaneous, unlike yours. Figures.
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Firstly, accept the notion that you're going in a direction where you're loading stuff only on demand. In my world, primarily a CMS, I don't need a censor all the time. Inside the forum, perhaps, but not more generally. So I can hive it off somewhere else. And then only load it when I actually need it.
Okay, so, the censor code... It's less than 5KB, including all of the fancy scramble stuff. Or just 1.2KB for the core function. I don't see autoloading it as being very helpful for performance...? Heck, at worst I could simply have it in a Subs-Censor.php file, and loadSource it from within Subs-BBC if needed...
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Keeping the files a bit smaller, then, is a major difference. Especially when you typically already consume 10MB per page load just in general approach.
But it certainly doesn't make a project more manageable... Functions should be categorized by themes, not by size. I'd rather maintain a 100KB file for some Aeva feature, than have to deal with ten 10KB files with the same code, because every time I want to make a more global change, I have to search all of these files for relevant code, when in a single file, I can just do a quick search... Things like that.
Look, the best example is skin CSS... Originally, I only had suffixes. Got plenty of files for each browser or action or whatever. Then I added @if support. Suddenly I removed most of those extra files, because it was much easier to maintain similarly themed CSS in the same file, rather than in multiple index.ie6.css-whatever files. Made my life easier...
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This last year we've both had stuff going on that has made it hard to focus. I'm sorry I wasn't more forthcoming either, because this might have ended a little differently otherwise.
We both have blame to share.
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Eh, I don't know that they'll love it. They'll deal with it, simple as that.
Better than waiting until 2015 or 2016 for a release you'd finally deem suitable.
Having a release out means that we can start considering things like whether to keep maintaining it. If it's a success (generating buzz, even negative buzz), then great. If it's a failure, then we stop, simple as that.

Okay, this post is so long, I'm gonna have to finish it another day, because... Because! I'm really tired.
Posted: September 13th, 2013, 12:12 AM
Quote from Arantor on September 6th, 2013, 02:20 AM
Firstly, there is evidence to suggest that themers don't like having to deal with specific CSS variations for a given system due to preparsers - like XenForo discovered - but I think Wess is strong enough that it'll overcome the issues.
Dunno. I guess I can be convinced to switch to an all-bracket version of Wess by default (in index files etc), if people feel better about not having to deal with indentation, but I think it'd be a loss. One of the main advantages, though, would be the fact that Notepad2 would be better at providing syntax highlighting for it... :P
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I was against the idea for reasons I'd explained multiple times, including earlier in this post. I'm skeptical of the claim that you can do 'pretty much everything skin-less themes could do' because there are an awful lot of things that just aren't covered in that.
Well, for now it's not removed; but I just have one thing to add: in the three years we worked on Wedge, none of us ever tried to make a non-default theme, even just to 'see' if it would work... I made so many changes to the internals, I'm not sure it'd work at all; it might be fixable and everything, but because my focus has been on making sure anyone can make a very minimal pseudo-theme (a skin) with just color changes or whatever with only a text editor and a FTP client (no admin manipulation, no database handling or anything), I'm hoping that once they get the feel of it, they'll want to add more features, which they can do while remaining in the same environment, as opposed to having to go through theme handling, which is more complicated, and more importantly, forces you to update your templates as Wedge or SMF is being updated.
(If the theme system is removed, I'll probably be even more aggressive in splitting important templates into more functions and macros.)
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See, that's the problem... I don't like face to face meetings. I much, much prefer online communication. I'm rather inept socially in person,
I don't have the feeling that Louis had a problem with that, since he invited you for a long road trip together, one year after meeting you...
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because my brain thinks faster than my mouth and I trip up on words so much.
And as a French speaking English like a Spanish cow (French expression :P), you don't think I would trip up on words as much as you do..? :P
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Heck, I'm not even on Skype.
Me neither, but I was willing to be for you...
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That said, I think it might be nice to let this stuff go, and in a while when it's all settled and we're doing what we're doing, to just meet up, shoot the breeze. Not as would-be/wannabe/former partners in crime, but two geeks that are just friends, you know?
Well, it never was about Wedge anyway. It was about putting a real person in front of the online contact whom I've been talking to for all these years. What did SMF call that..? A meeting of the minds...

Anyway, I might be coming back to London within the next few months; nothing set in stone, but my girlfriend discussed the possibility of staying at her brother's over there, as he's expecting a new kid soon.
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Seriously though, there has been a mass defection to Facebook and Google+ over the last few years. All the forum packages are in decline, I've even heard from phpBB and MyBB folks that are seeing a decline in users for this very reason.
It's not about the number of users (you realize we'd have been thrilled to even have 1% of SMF's current user base, don't you..?), it's about filling a void, and making life better for at least one person. A success story, if you will, case by case, one at a time. I may have sold thousands of copies of my game, but what really pushed me to continue working on it at the time was these little stories where people were telling me they were successfully using KMJ as a tool for their physiotherapy. It happened several times, I have no idea why. I even once had an hospital ask me for a group order of copies for their reeducation unit; I told them they didn't have to buy them, of course.
That was a factor for me, more than the salary that came out of it.
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For a lot of discussions, a group or page on Facebook will be enough, especially in response to something like a band or similar because they'll already have a presence on FB and don't really need to open up a forum for anything else.
Absolutely... And it's also much easier to set up than a forum, but once your community outgrows the facilities offered by Facebook, it happens from time to time that you'll want to go serious with it. In fact, to me, Facebook didn't replace forums... It simply replaced mailing lists (partly), and free hosted forums that sucked so much. You know, these slow websites that were filled with spam and messages from people asking 'when are you going to use a real forum anyway...?', things like that.
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I can register on a forum and be effectively anonymous should I choose. It's not a single overarching thing where my family, my friends, my professional acquaintances and whatnot all get smushed together unlike Facebook.
Absolutely, that's one of the important points. There are some forums where I'm registered, where I wouldn't want to tell people my real name.
Not that you CAN'T hide your identity on FB. One of my best friends has 'Yeo Wren' as his FB account, and that's actually his nickname. He never gave away his real name on FB, even though he's very active on it, and all of his RL friends are linked to his account. It's not that he's hiding his name... He just doesn't like revealing himself to anyone he doesn't know.
That's why I still have in my to-do list this item that says, lemme find it, "per-item privacy in profiles, e.g. real name". That means applying the usual privacy flag (contacts, members...) to individual entries in your profile area. For instance, you could put your real name in it, but only have it available for your conatcts. Or your e-mail address, etc.
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Getting back on track though, more and more requests on sm.org are about bridging to WP or using it alongside an existing site, rather than it being the site as a whole.
Oh, that... Pete, I've always, always been against board index as the homepage for a forum. You'll remember I did rewrite the homepage early in the Wedge timespan, and even allowed for the ability to push a blog homepage as the main homepage of the forum. That is, to me, it's ALREADY a CMS per-se, although it's not really advertised as such.
(Possibly because I don't think saying "CMS" is gonna help make Wedge popular. If you'll look at cmsmatrix.org, they have over 1200 CMS systems listed... And they're almost all dead. To most people, CMS = what?! (and to them, WordPress is just a blog platform, only web developers/designers would really think of calling it a CMS); to a minority of them, CMS = WordPress (.net and Web Designer Magazine readerships :lol:); and to some of them, CMS = Drupal/Joomla/ExpressionEngine/SilverStripe/whatever CMS had a relative amount of popularity at one point or another. Doing a great CMS won't really help, as there are so many CMSes around already. What is going to help, though, is getting at least ONE great/popular website to use Wedge, and then popularize it by actually keeping using it. Again: one by one...
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As for people coming back to forums, I've been saying since 2011 that there's going to be a shift back towards forums as people start to reclaim their privacy. While I didn't predict PRISM, since 2011 I was speculating 2014 as the time when forums would reclaim some of the lost ground. While the PRISM stuff has died down a touch now, there is a swing back towards forums. I'm just expecting it more en masse next year.
I didn't even know what PRISM was... I googled it, and was surprised by the amount of detail... So, that's what the Snowden story was about, uh..? Interesting. The media in France, I don't remember them talking about that at all... They only covered Snowden's escape, and I followed that a bit because it reminded of that amusing movie I saw a few months ago, Terminal.
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Oh, I've never doubted that the software needs to exist. I'm just challenging the notion that it has to be the primary focus of the software.
Again and again: to me, it's a CMS all right, but CMS meaning "community management system", not "content management system". SMF, to me, like other good forum systems, excel in making users feel that they can set up a real identity on a website, and manage everything from one place. Call it a social network or whatever you like, but to me, it's just what the Web is about... Tim Berners-Lee himself said that the Web had always been about connecting people. Facebook didn't invent it, SMF didn't invent it.
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I'm asserting the notion that a piece of software that allows you to run a website should allow for a forum but not be a forum with some other stuff integrated in to it.
You can very much work on hiding forum contents from a website, for sure, and still have the forum power your user management.
Well, if anything, there are already plenty SMF forums that do exactly that. It's not new -- it's just not really advertised, is all.
Bloc is focused on doing that with Protendo, too. Noisen.com has done that from day one, of course -- I'm not really hiding the forum, but if you tell someone your blog's address, they don't really have a reason to go outside of it, so...
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The point where I suggested it, I forget where it was but it was on this site, and you were very hostile to the idea of having a CMS with 'the best forum plugin' and would much rather have the forum as the core and content stuff around it. At least, that's how it seemed, and after that I just dropped the idea.
What I was against, as I remember it (and I'm old, so my memory is fuzzy), was that you suggested stripping the forum entirely from the software, and adding it back as a plugin of sorts. The idea was already floating in the air for SMF 3.0, and I hated that. I hated the idea that a CMS would have to be ashamed of its origins so much, when it should be proud that it skyrocketed in popularity, even if it typecast(ed?) it a bit.
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A blog is a very different beast from a forum. A forum is essentially a democratic concept, where anyone in the community can have a say and speak their mind, whereas a blog only allows for the privileged few to speak their mind and let everyone else comment. True, a forum board can be used as a blog, and that becomes mostly a matter of permissions and UI juggling, but it's a very different beast to market and to work with as a whole.
Just look at noisen.com, it's come naturally really... Most of the users are just forum users. Most of the most active users have their own blog, where they can do whatever the fuck they want, without my intervention. A few less active users have a blog, but they usually drop it after a few months of inactivity; whether it's because they're intimidated by user comments or simply because they're not really talkative or just wanted to 'try out' the platform, I don't know, and I don't care... I just provide the tools, and I'm happy that a few people (including me up to 2010) are or have been using it. Even a dead blog is something to be proud of; I know that everytime I go back to nao.noisen.com, I have this 'wow!' factor when it comes to the contents of it, same can be said of cynagames.com though, KMJ is not dead, it's still played by hundreds of thousands in the world, that's just the way it is. It will possibly even outlast me, as a retro game of sorts... :lol:
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Messages are what a forum is *made* of. It's not what a forum is *about*. There are other components to a community, where messages don't necessarily make a huge difference. I look at the site I use to discuss development; the shoutbox has nearly 400,000 entries, while the forum has barely 3,000 posts, mostly which just summarise and formalise what the shoutbox had in it at the time.
And that's just great for them. That still makes it a forum... They just don't use the messages table as much as their equivalent thoughts table, I'd say... ;)
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The main reason I didn't want to run a release at this stage was simply because of how much stuff I felt was unfinished - not 'waiting for perfect'. The permissions stuff is still a mess.
It will be fixed over time.
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The media area still needs a serious (IMHO) overhaul,
It will be fixed over time.
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and to me that seemed like it needed to be done before 1.0 but I didn't know what to do with it. I just knew I didn't like it.
I understand that you woudn't like it. Heck, I'd be lying if I said I liked it. But the reality isn't that. The reality is, there are dozen of people who would be thrilled to use Wedge right now, and adopt it, even if it's not ready yet.
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It was a good idea in a lot of ways, but I'm sure it would have failed for the reason above, we would have tried to keep things in step enough to be able to reuse each other's work and we would both have been hamstrung by it in time.
I'm pretty sure I'd have been the 'weaker one' in that relationship, i.e. adopting more of your changes than you'd adopt mine, because I'd really, really strive to keep repos in sync as much as possible, and globally, even though I may have sent 'mixed signals' myself, I'm really happy with most of the changes you made. Even if they destabilize me, overall I know that they're for the better, and they're good for Wedge, for its future popularity. Software reviewers are gonna like the visuals, but they'll be absolutely thrilled by the admin area, I think.
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It would have gone one of two ways, either it would have meant a complete separation much as we're at now, or it would have ended up diverging and converging after a while and a ton of work to bring them back under one roof (which would invariably have lead to a lot of rewrites)
Well, I wouldn't see any of us as doing that merge; maybe by someone else if both of our projects had collapsed, but that may simply have been seen as a 'fork from multiple sources', I don't know...
The idea was simply to find a solution to the issue where we were drifting apart, and to allow you to focus on your other software projects, while giving me free reign to make decisions when you wouldn't be available for advice, that's pretty much it...
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Oh, I know that. At least, I think I know that. But my self esteem doesn't really care *why* it's being pulled apart, simply that the end result is a B-minus grade.
I can't help you here, I'm afraid...
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I couldn't really find a better analogy, and I did want to make some kind of a meta reference, knowing one of the largest topics in the private board. It made me smile a little to make a private reference.
Hmm, I don't think I caught that one... :^^;:
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Oh, it required team work, but I didn't entirely feel like I was doing good at being in a team.
Neither of us are really team material; we're most likely 'alpha devs', meaning we should both be lead dev, which is why we shared that credit, and it worked... For many years; and to me, that's already quite a feat. FWIW.
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But therein lies the problem. Committing something subpar was wrong
Nope...
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and trying to commit perfection meant I committed nothing while trying to make it perfect. My best just isn't the same level as yours, ultimately.
Have you ever seen how many times I rewrote so many parts of my code...? Just this week-- Zoomedia. I not only added hardware acceleration (which was way harder than I expected, because the real bottleneck in performance was not due to the software resizing, but rather to the constant layout reflow inside the popup, even if it just had a single image in it...), but I had to rewrite many things to make it work again, because it had become an unmovable stone, perfected to death over the months. It was as short as you could hope for, and yet I left this feat aside and decided to give priority to making it work. As a result, my final big commit didn't even mention the large increase in size -- something in the likes of 300+ bytes, rather it focused on the fact that it worked better, ah ah...
Maybe it was a homage to you, I don't know... :P
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To a point. Certainly when working alone I don't have the feelings of inadequacy. I can just enjoy working on code for its own sake and it doesn't matter if I don't commit it, and it doesn't matter if I don't finish it and it doesn't matter if I abandon it.
To me, committing has a special feeling: it's like I can leave that part of me aside, and focus on new things. As long as I don't commit, I have tons of ugly, dirty code lying around, and sometimes it just feels great to just revert that code, instead of keeping work on it, because some pieces of code need time to prove their worth, and when they don't, I just tell them good bye.
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Let me show you something. This wasn't public knowledge. Some months ago I made a mod of some of the anti spam stuff in Wedge and released it to sm.org.
Went to see it, and indeed, there it was in all its glory... Because it's available for anyone to download, yes it's public knowledge. Not popular knowledge, but it's there. There's a mod out there at sm.org that publicly accuses me of wrongdoings.
I'm above that, but... Well, I prefer when people who have something serious to tell you, do it in front of me, rather than vent on the side.
If you already had a problem with me back in April, then you should have told me, because there's no reason I wouldn't have worked on this on my side, or at least talked you into understanding what I'm doing has never been against you, rather I was just trying to contribute.
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Interestingly the commit log from 21/4 (r2066) does actually mention that I was AWOL and had been for a day or so at least... This would have been in the middle of the thousands of lines of warning system rewrite that as I tried to tell people was close to giving me a breakdown all on its own.
Anyone would have a breakdown over such a comprehensive rewrite, really...!
Why do you think I never took it upon myself to do a complete overhaul of AeMe... :P
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That comment wasn't actually directed at you, but everyone else who seems to say that I should just man up and accept that this is how it should be.
Well... I know it won't do me any favours as I've been doing my best to stay as neutral as possible in this, and to be understanding of your position and the difficulties you experienced in the last three years; but to be brutally honest Pete, yet, a part of me also screams 'man up!', and considers you a bit of a drama queen. We got together because we were both branded drama queens by the SMF team after all, and they weren't completely wrong. I've just learnt to be more philosophical about these things in the last year or so. I haven't been in a flame war for something like two years. The trick is losing interest. Looking back, I think it was a drug, coming as much from a sense of disbelief at the injustices around me (for some reason, any injustice around *me* seemed to be even worse), as a simple need for attention. As hard as it is to admit it, I did many things out of a need for attention, because of low self-esteem and a need to prove myself that I was a worthy guy, not by self-confidence, but by looking back and thinking, "okay, I made a few nice things". I'm sure today's youth are the same.

But then I just slowly drifted into the world of the adults (mostly due to real life) -- where nothing ever happens because you fear you have more to lose than to earn. I just played the Passion game with myself for so long... I can still be angry at injustice, but the difference is that now I realize I can't do much about these. Last time I saw one, I started a fork. Look where I am, three years later... The only thing that remains of the initial spark is the passion for building something so incredible. The anger, itself, is completely dead. Not that I love the SMF team or anything-- I just don't feel anything when I think of these stories, I see these things as childish. Childish that I played into the game of joining the SMF dev team, and especially childish that they themselves played with me and were frightened of losing control over me. Seriously-- this is free software we're talking about. Nobody should ever give a shit about having 'power' over something. What matters is what they bring to the project, not the aura they get out of it. Being happy with what you did in the past, is better for your karma than some irrational idea of being important. So, yes, everyone was being childish at that point, and I should have seen that. It wouldn't even have stopped me from starting Wedge, actually. Just... In a different state of mind, I guess.

Oh well, I'm seriously drifting off-topic. Sorry, I was typing as I thought it up.
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It is slightly ironic that Wedge itself was founded on the notion that we shouldn't just accept how things are being on the wrong end of a team relationship that wasn't working, but that's what I'm being asked to accept 'for the good of the project'.
I just think, you should embrace our differences. I can accept that you'd leave the project over not being able to accept my quirks, such as these compulsive modifications on your code. But I don't think you should feel betrayed by me, or anything. You should accept that I'm different. I accept that you're different, and I accept that it doesn't work for you, in the end. Just don't turn this into drama. Nobody died here. The worst that happened, is that some things you wrote very passionately are going to be left aside for the time being, maybe forever, but you can always come back and keep contributing to it. It's your decision, in the end, whether you contribute or not. I decided I'd get the 'final cut' on the software because most successful project have a single decision-taking leader, but that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge how crucial you've been to the project, and its future success. And it's going to stay that way-- anyone, especially me, would be outraged to see your name removed from the Wedge credits, even 10 years after your last contribution. I learned a lot in your company (I also missed out on a lot of opportunities to learn more from you, but... I'm just not up to the task). You've shaped Wedge in your own way, and that's good. Well, what can I add to that..? Not much. My post is already so long, and I can't expect anyone to read it entirely. If anything, I'm hoping you don't reply more than one-liners to it... :^^;:
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The last few days have been very interesting. There are people that believe I should go and be lead developer for SMF in the hopes of rescuing it but I don't really see that working for much the same reasons, and I feel bad about working on my own project in light of the comments made here, but I still love the idea of doing different things with the forum and CMS concept. I guess I'll just have to bend over and accept something in the end :(
I see you're also trying to contribute to Elk, at least trying to convince them to adopt some of your Wedge changes. I just have to say-- make up your mind already! :P

PS: I wanted to use the word "short of...", but I couldn't find any place. Any suggestions where I could have put it, short of here..? Oh, good, I managed to use it, yay!
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The Pub / Re: Not So Mixed Signals
Spr1te « on September 3rd, 2013, 01:56 AM »
This is a lovers quarrel guys!

Its a well known fact that two people cannot co-exist without argument @ some time or other. The key is communication and ones ability to air any grievences as they arise and clearly, so the other half fully understands where he or she is coming from. The need to sit down and discuss matters in an attempt to resolve issues and to reach compromise is the only way. Absorbing the brunt of ill feeling or maintaining a distance doesnt cut it on its own merit. One must go the extra mile and spell out whats on their mind if the status quo is sought.

From an outsiders perspective the communicae between you has been considerable, but neither have really attempted to delve further when you sensed something had possibly gone wrong. What happened?.. a grey area was allowed to fester because of a lack of REAL communication between the pair of you. And to this day there is still is no resolve. Sure you appear to have gone your separate ways but deep down is that what you REALLY want?

A great project and one in which both your hearts and souls were put into. You've suffered grief in your personal lives which is testiment that life is not always a bed of roses but oh what a feeling when things comes together. The triumphant sense of completness and fullfillment that is unparalleled to anything you have experienced before.

The common denominator in this is WEDGE and it is on the verge of becoming something worthy of your talents. Creating the benchmark software you dreamt of would be some feat and theres no denying it. Would be a crying shame to see it end this way.

The community appeals to you to try and raise above what has happened. Think of how far youve come and attempt to move forward as an invigorated new team hell bent on proving that 2 guys can succeed doing it alone. This after all was you prime motivation that spurred this project into what it is today and how it could be should both of you follow it through.

Show each other a greater level of compassion and understanding so that you may rejoin forces for the greater good.
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Off-topic / Re: The sites looking
Nao « on April 7th, 2013, 04:49 PM »
Thanks!
Doing my best to finish a public version ASAP... But sometimes, hurrying up is not the 'solution'.
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Off-topic / Re: The sites looking
« on April 7th, 2013, 04:52 PM »
I know your doing fine by me! no rush!!!!

regards,
Maxx
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Off-topic / The sites looking
« on April 7th, 2013, 04:22 PM »
Real Good / fast and yet solid, You Guys are doing a great job as far as I can tell, all things are lined up nice and looking good!

Thanks you for all you do here and thanks 4 keeping this Going! I'm able to wait, But I can't wait till you get there! it's real nice finding a place where things are progressing lol!

regards,
Maxx
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Off-topic / Re: Happy New Years
Nao « on January 4th, 2013, 07:41 PM »
* Nao starts coding...