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SMF Dev Blog #42: The Blog About Life, The Universe And Everything
Posted by Aäron on July 02, 2009, 04:30:24 PM
Hi all,
The last blog post regarding SMF's development was posted about half a month ago. I felt it'd be nice to give you lot some facts and numbers with regards to RC2's development.
At the moment I write this, 595 new entries were added to the changelog since the release of RC1, effectively bringing the number of open bug reports to 123, with only a few of them being show-stoppers for RC2. Some of the entries may describe trivial changes in the language files, but most of them describe proper bug fixes or full template conversions. Here's a geeky graph to illustrate the progress that has been made over the past months:
The last release candidate (i.e. a relatively stable version, but not quite the product we have in mind) was released on in February this year, with May seeing a security update for it. This led to confusion - why didn't we release RC2?
"Curve", is the answer to that question. It's taken us considerably longer than initially anticipated to convert every single template used by SMF. Our main priority right now is to ensure our new theme base will work in RTL languages and adjusting the our default theme (now known as Core) to work with the new base theme. We're also doing our best to ease transition for themes designed for previous versions of SMF by including a compatibility stylesheet. While this probably won't make it perfectly flawless transition, it will ensure the forum is functional at the very least.
As I know most of you just are very keen to see some of the progress on Curve, I'll go ahead and give a few sneak previews. Don't tell Compuart, though!
(Click an image for a larger version.)
You may notice some non-theme related changes in these screenshots. For example, the registration section and profile fields feature recently had had a makeover.
I know most of you are eager to know when RC2 will be released. Unfortunately, I cannot say. Personally however, I am counting on a release this summer.
Aaron
The last blog post regarding SMF's development was posted about half a month ago. I felt it'd be nice to give you lot some facts and numbers with regards to RC2's development.
At the moment I write this, 595 new entries were added to the changelog since the release of RC1, effectively bringing the number of open bug reports to 123, with only a few of them being show-stoppers for RC2. Some of the entries may describe trivial changes in the language files, but most of them describe proper bug fixes or full template conversions. Here's a geeky graph to illustrate the progress that has been made over the past months:
The last release candidate (i.e. a relatively stable version, but not quite the product we have in mind) was released on in February this year, with May seeing a security update for it. This led to confusion - why didn't we release RC2?
"Curve", is the answer to that question. It's taken us considerably longer than initially anticipated to convert every single template used by SMF. Our main priority right now is to ensure our new theme base will work in RTL languages and adjusting the our default theme (now known as Core) to work with the new base theme. We're also doing our best to ease transition for themes designed for previous versions of SMF by including a compatibility stylesheet. While this probably won't make it perfectly flawless transition, it will ensure the forum is functional at the very least.
As I know most of you just are very keen to see some of the progress on Curve, I'll go ahead and give a few sneak previews. Don't tell Compuart, though!
(Click an image for a larger version.)
You may notice some non-theme related changes in these screenshots. For example, the registration section and profile fields feature recently had had a makeover.
I know most of you are eager to know when RC2 will be released. Unfortunately, I cannot say. Personally however, I am counting on a release this summer.
Aaron
I can't wait to test curve, great work guys!
Kudos to all!
we are waiting the RC2 .
Looking forward to seeing it
EDIT: And thanks for all the fish!
We are waiting the RC2..
Q: "when will be the SMF 2.0 Gold version released?"
A: 42
On a more serious note, keep up the good job! We're counting on ya!
Also, i like what you've done with the registration system, good work, can't wait for Curve
2009 ?
It's great to hear that... thanks much for the update!
Yes, he is
It looks very nice, and I'm glad to hear that the release is "near"!!
You rock guys!!
Just very curious, as this could get a bit frustrating as a MOD Developer, and sure others probably feel the same way. Since, I suppose once RC2 is released, RC1.x versions will not be able to be downloadable anymore.
So far no problems with my MODS from RC1 - RC1.2, but just wondering on RC2.
Thank You Very Much,
Solomon
Not least because Curve will be the new 'default' theme, and it has been re-written from scratch.
But even Core has had alot of improvements/changes.
Thanks & Best Regards
Without brain cracking.
is not gonna happen this year so you have time to prepare yourself
QUESTION 1: First, will it be possible to use the current theme as found in 2.0 RC1-2 if the new Curve theme is just not liked once we get it on our forums (like will we be able to go to the adm panel and just select the old one and away we go, back to what used to be in terms of theme, but with RC2's other features working in the new way)? Second, will the old theme files remain as they are, or will they be altered by the upgrade?
QUESTION 2: Will adding our copyright to Curve be as easy as in the current 2.0 RC1-2 version?
QUESTION 3: Will there be any improvements to the webinstall.php to help with the upgrade? I've never, ever been able to get the webinstall.php to work for me once (for installs or upgrades), but Filezilla works flawlessly and installing manually always works with no errors whatsoever. Neither 1.1.10 or 2.0 RC1-1 would install with webinstall, and I could not get an upgrade to RC1-2 to work either (I'm always told the folder does exist, but obviously, an already existing forum does exist, or if I use the same information that I use with Filezilla which always works, I'm told my sign-in information is wrong though it's what I use with Filezilla, or, again alternately, I'm told the folder doesn't exist, round and round -- just frustrating circles which arrive nowhere, and I don't know why but I feel I'm knowledgeably giving the information requested, but I always give up and do a manual install that always works the very first time). I know I saw comments that there may be issues with the webhost related to webinstall, but what about an alternate script being made for those of us who cannot ever seem to get traditional webinstall to download files? This alternate script (perhaps called something like insiteinstall.php) might depend on the files being uploaded by us with our own ftp program (perhaps the original downloaded zip) and then the insiteinstall.php could tuck all the files into their right places as needed (this bypasses the upload problem and it might work as an alternative for those few of us who seem to have webhost upload issues, if that's why we have problems). I bring this up here, since I read in this thread that this upgrade will be a considerable effort, and since I have a multiple of SMF forums, I don't look forward to a multiple of tedious manual upgrades (though I'm committed enough, I would rather use my time working on using my forums, instead of under the hood working with files).
QUESTION 4: Will the database be left unchanged by this upgrade?
Yes, the old default theme (Core) will still be available.
It certainly won't be any harder.
That probably has to do with the server configuration. The webinstall script retrieves a file from our servers; if your server disallows this, the script cannot be used.
It's roughly the same. A few extra were added and some field types were changed to optimise performance, but the overall structure is the same as in 2.0 RC1, as is to be expected.
Well, if the devs say that RC 2 will come this summer, then I think it will. At least I hope so, although I might say that I am a bit sceptic as well.
The relevant quote however is not so much 'he would like' but...
I'm looking forward to seeing RC2 - as I know everyone else is. Perhaps we should now stop spamming this thread and let them get on it!
you forgot the big master chief: compuart...lol..
why they have hardcoded so much stuff in the templates thus making each template
a mess of incompatibilities, patches, and bugs ?
wouldn't it be much better and linear to process the variables in the core files
and just use the template for display ?
(sort of poorman's MVC architecture, but it works fine in many other CMS)
on the other side, i agree a "micro kernel" approach with hundreds of small php includes would bog down the server.
"That probably has to do with the server configuration. The webinstall script retrieves a file from our servers; if your server disallows this, the script cannot be used."
but that didn't speak to my question, which again, was:
"...what about an alternate script being made for those of us who cannot ever seem to get traditional webinstall to download files? This alternate script (perhaps called something like insiteinstall.php) might depend on the files being uploaded by us with our own ftp program (perhaps the original downloaded zip) and then the insiteinstall.php could tuck all the files into their right places as needed (this bypasses the upload problem and it might work as an alternative for those few of us who seem to have webhost upload issues, if that's why we have problems)."
The virtue of the insiteinstall.php would be NO upload, just a manipulation of files into the correct folders, which would ease the burden of adm's in upgrades and installs both. Again, this would only be used by those who cannot seem, for whatever reason, to get the standard webinstall script to work BECAUSE it is trying to upload files over the web.
Again, the insiteinstall.php idea is that WE upload with our ftp program ALL the files, which we can already do successfully, and this would include the zip and the insiteinstall script.
Again, I bring this up here instead of in a separate webinstall thread to speak to the remark that Daydreamer made in Reply 32 that "Smf 2.0 RC2 need large upgrade, I'm afraid.", and scripts are intended to help ease that burden for us adm's I believe, and doing a multiple of upgrades on a multiple of forums is quite a burden for us.
So, how about an alternative that has US doing the uploading of the zip (instead of a script) and the insiteinstasll script doing just the placing of files into the right locations after WE upload the zip file ourselves.
I hope I'm making it clear that in this scenario this "special edition" install script does NOT upload anything (I know I've said it many times in this post).
Thanks for the feedback. Having the webinstall script detect existing archives in the same directory on the webserver sounds like a good addition to me, too. I can't make any promises though, but I'll add it to the tracker.
Things can get delayed..., last year one of the mods said that "if SMF 2.0 final won't be released until the end of the year, I will consider that the project failled" or something like that (I don't want to do a search, but you can try to find that
Just wait, that's the best you can do now.
if you're really on the cheap why not considering using a nulled copy of VB or IPB instead of whining here ?
SMF is just 3 guys with a script they develop in their spare time, take it or leave it.
i'm with SMF 1.10 and works fine, no need so far to switch to this mythical 2.0, i've installed
on a test server locally and can't see what the fuss is all about, for what i need is almost the same
as SMF 1.xx
While we have 4 official developers, we do have others who have been doing a great deal of work. Most of their work is hidden due to it being curve related though
Let me guess, some of our Customizer's
But as you can see from the first post, it's not exactly stagnant, and considering how much of a rewrite from 1.1 to 2.0, it's hardly surprising.
Sometime ago I was also angry because of the late version of SMF, now that I see that they are really working I would rather wait then complain, if I can't help I just wait.
Yes, SMF 2.0 was a HUGE mistake, a huge step that lead us to a long wait, but I am pretty sure they have learned the lesson, but now just wait.
When I say that was a mistake is that they could have done a more progressive work, some of the new features could have been added in SMF 2.1, 2.2, etc instead of ALL at once! That was the mistake in my opinion because that lead them to a HUGE delay.
If we are talking about the final product, I am more than happy! I am using SMF 2.0 RC1-2 and I am loving it!
About the theme, that wasn't a mistake, was a need. Unfortunately they had to do it.
As regards the other features, what would you have removed from 2.0 and put into 2.1 etc?
actually 90% of the mods exists because SMF wasnt designed in a flexible manner but just as a fork of YABBse in php.
SMF is great but it should be rewritten from scratch and i can't see how the 2.0 is going in the right direction.
it's not an excuse, it's the real situation.
people is getting used to have it all for free and they complain too if you don't give 'em fixes and patches and support and next they'll ask you also for a beer or a coffee.
so in short they want a bug free forum full of mods and features, they plan on making money with it, and they come here ranting and raving while giving nothing back not even one single f-ucking euro to the developers.
VB and IPB are pretty happy of dealing with paying customers while leaving the crooks on SMF, phpBB, etc
SMF is free, and if it takes 5 years to get the 2.0 so be it ... you get what you pay for ... you nothing therefore you wait.
and dont joke yourself ... after 2.0 there will be a plethora of patches and bugfixes so a final and rock solid 2.0 is very far at the horizon unless proven otherwise.
if you're serious on your business stay away from free open source cms and forums.
the house must be built on the rocks not on the sand.
I agree there are a lot of people who want to come here, get the software for free then complain about it. Fortunately there are enough people who care here.
Oh, and 'serious about business', staying away from open source CMS and forums? Tell that to Wikipedia and WordPress which as I write are in Alexa's top 20. But both use open source CMSes.
I also know some companies that would have released SMF 2.0 RC1 as a 'final' release, so the fact that it is taking long to mature means the process is being done properly.
Mods: please close this topic. It's gone far off topic and is now rapidly becoming a rant on all sides about the delays in 2.0.
Personally, I find 2.0 much more flexible than 1.1, especially in terms of customization.
2.0 is also a stepping stone, and the beginning of a new idealism behind the development of SMF.
Heckel hit it on the nose. yes, SMF has 3 "official" developers. These people are the people responsible for ensuring the quality of the codebase and managing the fixes that
SMF has team members from nearly every team contributing to bugfixing, testing, and other side projects.
If you want to see what exactly is going on with development, give the bugtracker a good read -- that is why SMF opened it to all to see
it's still hardcoded in many ways, you still need to patch core files and template to add mods or hacks.
it's not therefore a real "modular" forum architecture, it's kept all together with duct tape and strings
which is the obvious reason it takes years to debug and release a stable version.
But what I can tell you is that any package that is very modular is also harder to customise, and usually slower, too.
exactly, and this is the drawback of writing modular code.
modular code IS slower, there's not much to do.
but the real bottleneck are all these useless features users love to add on their forums,
like wysiwig editors, avatars, smilies, icons everywhere, links everywhere, videos, ... for god's suck, it's just a forum not a light version of Facebook or Myspace !
I am working on my own little 'thing' (CMS) and one of my other friends and I talked about making a mod system which uses an API (Little to no modification of the core system) or a mod system (Much like SMF's) which allows mod creators to modify the core files.
Let me tell you this. My other friend makes modifications for friends using a forum system (MyBB) which uses an API system. When he makes modifications to MyBB, he modifies the files themselves. He doesn't use the API. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not bashing MyBB in any way. But having callbacks and hooks and whatever for modification systems may work, but it limits what a developer can do.
Because a developer might need to edit a specific piece of code, while using hooks, which are done every so often can only be placed every so often. I mean the developers of the system aren't going to put hooks in every nook and cranny of the system as that would be, well insane.
By allowing mod creators to modify the core files, it can be hazardous for the fact that anyone can do just about anything, but that can be solved by having a team like SMF has to review the modifications before putting them up for people to download.
Both ways have plus and minuses, but if you want to get a big and active developing community, and you want elaborate modifications, you need to allow them to develop the core files, otherwise, you won't end up with good modifications. You will end up with simple modifications, which are okay, but you should also be able to offer modifications which can change the whole functioning of the system.
Hope I made sense
karlbenson - Developer
Any news? This is the last month of the summer
for anything else im sorry but the whole software world went modular a very long time ago and rightfully never looked back.
p.s.
why not implementing a sort of "template overrides" like joomla 1.5.xx ?
Which would you rather have: performance or modularity? How often do you modify the code to SMF? Personally as a mod author I find it is modular enough already.
Same thing with this "modular" thing. Would you rather have the whole thing in insanely small pieces with hooks and callbacks all over the place, or use a system that allows you do change anything anywhere? If I want to change the karma system to send 2 karma instead of 1, how would I use a hook to do that? It's a core edit, plain and simple.
As for RC2 during summer, yes, it's still summer
I am looking forward to RC2 as well, to see some good changes
Summer Starts-June 21st
Fall Starts-September 21st
Winter Starts-December 21st
1) The hook/callback you are using was moved to a different place or no longer exists
2) If there was a major update, you would have to update your hooks and callbacks because of the major updates, the code would not be the same, and not do what is expected.
trust me, by all means it's cheaper to pay for a faster server than wasting hours or days or even weeks hacking into the hardcoded core files.
there's a very good reason why any medium or big sized projects are ALL modular and not hardcoded.
and modular doesn't mean extremes like microkernel and 1000s of files, you can fine tune the whole thing in order to retain a decent speed.
i mean, Twitter is written in RUBY ON RAILS, one of the slowest scriptings ever, and yet they manage to run millions of users at once, the coder himself complained about the slowness of Ruby but guess what the fix was buying more server power and problem solved.
FACEBOOK is written in PHP an works fine but it scales like s-hit facing millions of users at once.
The fix was more server power and a partial rewrite in C++ in the most cpu-intensive scripts.
yet, without being modular there could be NO facebook nor wikipedia nor any big php project
unless you're so crazy to make it all hardcoded and waste a few years of your life debugging the whole
beast.
you see, the issue with OSS and general "free" projects is they have this tendency to reinvent the wheel.
one day they wake up and announce the next version will be rewritten from scratch thus destroying any compatibility nor usually providing any decent migrator script, that's what they did for joomla 1.5 for instance and same will be with 1.6
on the other side UNIX can still run and compile crap written in the '70s, and Windows 7 can do the same with apps for DOS and Win 3.11 with some tweaks and emulation.
it's all a matter of wanting to do things right in the first place.
of course modular programming sucks if you change mind every other major release.
the only possible drawback against modular is speed, anything else is bad programming.
i mean why for instance SMF doesnt store xxx custom fields for user profiles, so just who knows
in future releases they might get handy ?
no, they dont, and then you need mods and hacks to add a damn custom field.
and this is just the tip of the iceberg, dont let me talk about templates, the guys running SMF
seems to think you either use their default template or you'll be doomed with 100s of patches
and hacks and wasted time to run a damn forum the way it should be by default and with no
questions asked.
for all this reasons i stick with 1.1.xx as there's no real gain in getting crazy patching and fixing
the 2.0.xx , i'll wait till it stable, maybe in 2010.
and that's why CSS exists.
in any "normal' CMS you can get 90% of what you need just editing the CSS files, and
the rest with very small hacks in template overrides.
with SMF (and most of the other forums too) you're screwed.
even moving the avatar up or down will take 1 hour if you don't know SMF.
i don't know about you but time is money and clients aren't impressed to hear
you need hours to move an image up or down or make a custom field
or whatever other easy task that elsewhere takes 5 minutes in CSS.
The fundamental problem you cannot avoid with forums is that the display and data are intrinsically connected. Making it more modular will not help with that. So, yes, moving the avatar up and down will take an hour if you don't know SMF. Doing a similar small change will take an hour if you don't know MyBB, phpBB or whatever -- you mentioned Wikipedia. That's nice and modular. Ever try modding it? Good luck with that unless it's reasonably simple and restricted to purely CSS. (My first mod for Wikipedia took me three FULL days to figure out and it was a very simple function that ideally should have been a template but was actually easier to figure out how to put into the core code in the end)
But in fact your fundamental argument about CSS... guess what RC2 will bring? Curve: a tableless theme that should be a ton easier to configure purely with CSS.
No-one here is asking you to use SMF. If you don't like the way it is developed, please by all means go use something else. But the fuller feature set an app has, no matter if it's the most modular thing on Earth, or the least, the harder work it is to modify something.
If you want to make a bigger discussion, here is not the place. There is a proper board for discussing SMF coding, please go there.
I'm not saying that rewriting everything for every version is bad, but I am not saying its good either.
Just a point here. Curve is not completely tableless. It has a lot less tables than 1.1.x (and halle-bloody-lujah for that) and a distinct lack of horribly nested tables anywhere (and there was great rejoicing) but it does still use some tables where appropriate.
Like everyone has said, I agree that tables have their place... Especially since all browsers output tables almost the same
Tables nowadays (using <th>, <thead> for headers, scope atrributes, ids, <tbody>, <caption>, etc) can be made *very* accessible. Hence if you have tabulated data, they are the *only* think you should consider using since for a screen reader user, they are the only chance that the screen reader user has of being able to understand their content.
I know this thread isn't suggesting SMF scraps tables or anything, but just thought I'd insert this mini-post rant (
People who insist that you can never use any tables, even for tabular data, are just as bad as the people that insist in doing all their layout using tables. Both are ignoring the point that you should use the most appropriate markup for the job.
As for gonemental, it seems you stopped following SMF development back in the early 1.1 days. While some of your points are valid, many of them are since resolved in 2.0. As for abstracting things and not hard-coding them, SMF does its best to keep display logic in the templates and program logic in the source files.
We are looking to eventually be a bit more abstract and maybe even clean up the way packages are handled, but we hope to be more evolutionary in that goal rather than tossing everything out. Unless there is a darn good reason to go breaking something, that is.
Summer is almost over, at least since school is starting in my neck of the woods, will RC2 be release soon?
Thanks
Definitely no!! For example me , i wait to curve and some solved bugs (speacially Wysivg and sha1 login problem bug.).
People are tired of x.1 versions now..
Guys leave the devs alone, i'm ready to wait till when the script is well bake.
2.x feature list has made people go crazy
2.x will show how simple is SMF. It will define the simplicity.
hmm..
my summer is gone, and the next one is due 7 months
@karlbenson,
Which or how much bugs marked "will resolved" in RC3 ? =)
Quick answer, as many as possible. Sadly most of the remaining ones are stubborn little insects. The team, beta testers, and even non-teamies have been very helpful in debugging some bugs, and even offering solutions/fixes.
Hopefully RC3 will be a much faster turn around then rc1 (aka beta5 within some circles
yeah baby!
Here's hoping both RC2's Curve and Core have the long-awaited solutions to the problems we've reported in RC1's default Theme (soon to be renamed Core, I understand).
The database will remain the same, right?
It's always been named Core, even in the 1.1 releases. All that is changing is that it's being moved out of the default position. It's also being re-based to clean up a lot of those issues in RC1.
I don't believe there have been any structural changes, but some columns have changed type for performance reasons (we're trying to eliminate as many slow queries as practically possible). The upgrade script will make the necessary changes when you run it.
Many forums are going to crash during the upgrades
The support team should be ready for a massive support.
Wow, I also wanna say I count the days to fall, waiting for the long awaited update to rc2 and curve!
Pls animate also many writers of addons and costumize tools to write their addons also for the rc2 and not to wait for finals ... for example a file tool
I'm one of those people who can't seem to get the install or upgrade tools to work through my webhost because of failed uploads, but I can always do the manual approach just fine by first downloading to my home computer and then, second, ftp-ing all the files to my website.
QUESTION: Will the upgrade tool allow me to ftp the upgrade ZIP file myself to my forum folder along with the upgrade.php and, then, will the upgrade.php be able to process the ZIP (or unzipped) files since they'll already be uploaded there together in the same initial forum folder?
Again, the upgrade.php doesn't seem to be able to get through my webhost to upload files, so this way I'll put the ZIP file there for the upgrade tool to use myself with my ftp which always works, and the problem (actually, for many of us who have this problem) of uploading files with the upgrade tool will be bypassed and solved.
You missed my point entirely. I know how a manual upgrade works and I don't need to read any documentation. I've manually upgraded and installed four forums because of failure of the upgrade program not being able to upload files from SMF. I always have to manually upgrade because the upgrade.php and install programs don't work for me since my webhost seems to interfere with the download process these programs need.
I was suggesting a way to get around this difficulty that a variety of us have with the upgrade tool not working with our webhosts.
He said "Thanks for the feedback. Having the webinstall script detect existing archives in the same directory on the webserver sounds like a good addition to me".
Since there will be changes to the database too with RC2 which the upgrade tool should take care of, I don't look forward to a manual upgrade on four forums!
This is for those few of us who seem to have this difficulty and can't seem to resolve the webhost issue. I've read repeatedly information about this in the forum and what I've suggested may be a way to resolve it for those few of us who can't seem to get the upgrade program to operate the file upload part (and of course, it stops if it can't upload the files itself from SMF). But, we can put the files there for it ourselves by downloading them first to our home computer and then uploading them to each of our forum sites along with the upgrade tool. This bypasses the webhosting issue whenever that's the problem for a few of us! All the upgrade tool would need to do is assess whether the archive is already in place to be manipulated and then no further uploading of files would be needed (since we did the heavy lifting with our own ftp program for the upgrade tool already). I know this is not what the upgrade program currently does, but it could include this process, at least Aäron said he thought it would work! Please see the link in the first sentence above.
That's where you had me confused. The webinstall script does its own thing, and is different from the upgrade and install process. You were talking about webinstall, I was thinking of the manual upgrade archive.
I thought the update tool failed for me for the same reason though when I went from RC1-1 to RC1-2 on my first forum, though I now see the update ZIP has all the files within it -- oops! At the same time I was updating my first RC1-1 forum to RC1-2, I was also establishing fresh installs of RC1-2 on three other sites by trying to use webinstall which wouldn't work as I've explained -- and since it all occurred in the same timeframe, it all blended together in my memory.
I wonder if my webhost considers an ftp upload one thing that is safe, but if a program within a site tries to upload files, it might be a virus or some other unsafe thing so they deliberately blocks it. I know I gave webinstall the same information I gave to Filezilla, but only Filezilla works reliably and anything working from within any site generates errors (and I'll bet this is my webhost's work! -- because they're being overly cautious I suppose).
It looks like the update/upgrade tool will work just fine as long as it has all the files in the archive within which it comes. Sorry for the confusion! I'm relieved the update/upgrade tool will work for me too.
Only few days until the long awaitet and for summer promised update to RC2!
Countdown??
Smf released for charter = > day x
Smf released for all => x+20
Even if smf 2.0 released today, we will wait 25+ days.
I believe historically the time is 7 days preview, and I don't believe this would be any different.
This is why we don't say anything related to dates. It gets turned into an expectation that is then criticised if it is failed to be met. I think we can say that the lesson has been learned, and nobody will say anything about a date ever again, stated personal goal or not.
Ok now I know how real or how to interprete the first post ... thats what I wanted
+1 definitely
However, I'd still like to see some kind of official status update. Just to know where SMF 2.0 is at, what's new since RC1, what's left before RC2 can be released, etc. No need to state any kind of dates.
I think, I am not sure if it was this forum and this project, I have seen somewhere a tracker of bugs/topics left until release. So people could watch how progress is going on. Just to see not what, but that something is going on in background.
Maybe also only for charter membership?
http://dev.simplemachines.org/mantis/
Yes that was I ment ... but it is hard to find this site, no link anywhere to this site?
There is a link in the Bug Reports board.
Thanks (:
I'm surprised people still use IE, let alone IE 6. I believe it will be supported.
Actually, I do. I'm a developer.
Look :
http://www.somut.net/genel/tarayici-kullanim-istatistikleri-ie7-ie6-firefox-3-ie8-opera-chrome.html
&
http://www.sayyac.com/globals.php
Turkey sayyac.com Stats : (Türkiye Sayyac.com istatistikleri)
Browser (Tarayıcılar)
MSIE 7 42.78%
MSIE 6 38.21%
Firefox 3 9.65%
MSIE 8 5.24%
The former are the corporate crowd for the most part who have fantastically complex intranets that don't work on other browsers - even IE7/8, either because they are horribly broken in terms of layout/rendering or because they depend on ActiveX controls that haven't been updated.
The latter is, by and large, the non-technical user with the years-old computer that checks emails once a week kind of thing and doesn't realise it needs updating.
It's a nice statistics...
I wonder if one of the reasons some folks stay with IE6 is that they refuse to upgrade from XP, and IE6 is the default for XP. I use Linux, so what I'm about to say is from friends who primarily use XP, and they say if they try to upgrade IE from 6 given XP as their base that Microsoft gets more involved with their computer than they want (they may be just paranoid here). I keep a copy of XP in a bootable partition so I can test my webpages with IE6 in it (and I don't upgrade it or else I couldn't use it for testing), but otherwise all the rest of the browsers in Window$ and Linux(free!) work pretty much alike for me in terms of programming (except IE6!).
I liked the Much Ado About IE6 and appreciated the link! Much To Think About!
You might find it easier to use conditional comments and a special IE stylesheet. Generally, I find most well-thought pages just need a few special IE-only CSS rules to trip hasLayout or adjust some box model quirks.
According to the Digg poll and confirmed in my experience, the majority reason is either because they can't update because they are on an old release of Windows (Windows 2000 and 98/Me can only support up to IE 6 - well, Microsoft put in that restriction) or are unable to because of a policy or permission restriction (business computers with intranet sites that only support 6).
Windows XP can run IE 8 just fine, Microsoft allows this. In fact, Microsoft pushed IE 7 on XP as a critical update through both Windows Update and Automatic Update. I believe they have done the same with 8 (it's pushed, but I don't know if it is marked at the status that causes an automatic install).
I had more than stylesheet problems with IE6, etc. I couldn't get some fun javascript functions to operate at all with IE6, but IE7+ and all other browsers had no problems, and there were just too many instances, so I found the separate version quite a bit simpler (and it "looks" simpler too in the IE6 version, since it just doesn't have the multiple javascript animations which are otherwise kind of eye-catching -- not essential, but neat!).
My paranoid XP friends won't even do the critical updates on XP, saying "I've got all my data backed up on USB drives that are turned off the majority of the time, and if something gets me because I'm vulnerable, I'll just format and reinstall XP and my programs again"...and, you know what, they've never had a problem (which I don't really understand -- so, who's really the paranoid one's: my friends or those who do the critical updates out of fear). Again, I use Linux, so it's not my battle anymore (but I've got XP on dual boots with my Linux partition like I said, and I've never done any critical updates to XP at all for years and I've not had any problems either; so, gee!). Is it our firewalls on our routers that protect us? Anyway, that's why my friends have IE6 on their original XP installations, but they all use Firefox and non-M$ email programs too (so IE is simply unimportant, irrelevant and unused by them)! They're kind of radical bunch. These are all home users by the way (at work, they do what they're told!).
In terms of our forums and the front pages we usually write ourselves, it'd be nice to see IE6 be put to bed, but since a few out there use it and they may be important to us, I guess we keep on accommodating.
To get new version several days earlier is a good reason to be a charter member ... also if for private the amount not so less. but I think this software is quuite worth it, so I did it just several minutes ago!
Hope that other will follow!
I also follow every day the bug tracker, not so many entries now more ... whenn all is green it is ready?
Because many mod developers have abandoned development of 1.1.x versions of their mods, leaving them to feature and bug rot. If they've even bothered making 1.1.x versions of the mods to begin with.
So we've had many months of features, functionality, and bug-fixes dangled in-front of us but only obtainable if we're willing to run beta software in a production environment... something we're told we shouldn't do.
Drop IE6 support, I say. Good riddance. Put up a notice that warns of limited/buggy functionality when they visit the forum due to their use of an ancient, outdated and severely-flawed web browser.
A lot of these luddites are never going to budge unless they're forced to. I see no reason to waste excess effort due to their stubbornness/laziness.
Were SMF to drop IE6 support, it would actually lose a lot of users; IE6 still accounts for a frightening percentage of users, of people who more often can't rather than won't upgrade, e.g. business users. SMF is trying to push corporate use as well, remember.
For the record you are cautioned on running the RCs on a production environment but it isn't "you must not". This site does. I do on my sites, and I don't have a problem.
But I know: "SMF has no control over mod developers". Been down that discussion already.
Give them reason/motivation, and they will change. There is no "can't". The software was written... it can be modified.
Potential loss of business hasn't stopped sites like Youtube from moving forward in eliminating IE6 support. We need some inertia going here.
And since SMF is free, SMF has no money to be lost by loss of some corporate users working for companies that made bad business decisions in regards to developing core applications locked to a specific version of a proprietary web technology.
I am not trying to rush the devs and am all about "release it when it's ready/done."
Cheers...
It''s more like 2 years now.
IE6 is transitioned from "web browser" to "that special legacy thing needed to run legacy apps A, B and C"
and Firefox becomes the "web browser" for everything else (all normal web browsing activity).
Corporate environments are used to such situations... heck, the one I'm in now has core functionality spread across multiple icons/apps, and some apps are run via special Citrix icons.
What's we're faced with is not a technology problem, but a management problem. There's nothing technically preventing any corp like you mention from installing a proper web browser alongside IE6 and just using IE6 for legacy apps they're insisting on keeping.
I still don't think it's SMF's position to be wasting resources catering to business' management problems, stubbornness, etc. There are enough hurdles holding up SMF2's release without wasting time supporting a antiquated browser almost a decade old, 2 major versions behind, and one that even the company making it has said to leave[1].
[1]: "Friends don't let friends use IE6 ... It's certainly part of our approach to consumers to get them to upgrade to IE8" -Amy Bazdukas, Microsoft's general manager for Internet Explorer
Have you worked at a large company before? Most companies like to centrally manage things. Items like software updates, security configuration, etc. No other browser currently supports those corporate "needs" for their Windows desktops. There is a technical issue, and it's that Firefox can't be deployed via MSI, can't be controled on when and how updates are done, and mostly ignores deskop policy settings. The only browser that listens to those Windows policies is IE.
Microsoft decided long ago to tie IE in as a single-version-only product, so the companies have to choose between updating and breaking many of their corporate apps, some developed by outside vendors or staying with an old version that Microsoft has pledged to support until 2012.
A quick check in AD shows approximately 10,000 employees.
And Firefox is part of our standard system image.
But this is kind of drifting off-topic...
Summer is gone. Autumn is here and still no RC2 (the bugtracker is nearly empty as well!)
Not yet, but we're getting there. A few bugs that could occur on rare occasions were brought to our attention, so we wanted to take care of those first.
We're really getting there, though. Expect a release real soon.
There's still 126 bugs left to resolve in the bug tracker. Not all of those will be fixed in RC2, since some of them aren't real bugs per se, but I wouldn't equal 126 open bugs to empty, if I were you, still. The universe might implode.
One thing Aaron forgot to mention - almost all of the Curve-related bugs are "private", meaning only team members and beta testers can see them.
There are 51 bugs tagged for 2.0 RC2, 12 bugs of which involve the new theme, Curve. And there are 65 more bugs tagged for 2.0 RC3, which will happen before 2.0 Final is released. Of course there may be an RC4, etc.
We're still finding more bugs. There have been about 115 bugs open for the last few weeks, but most of the new ones are fairly minor things.
Of course
Yes, this is good news
We all hope so
As far as I can see 103 Bugs ... one more as yesterday
If you can write patches to the bugs, I'm sure the dev team will consider them
Anyway, I'm really excited seeing Curve.
It's really slick. They've done an awesome job. It's beautiful.
You can really awake desire!!
Honestly speaking, the same can be applied for me, I need to work harder...actually i need to work....