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The growing issue of over simplification.

2

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  • Once someone has decided to go with the "Who's online" approach, we'll figure out the performance issues and their solutions. We'll probably have caching by then, so that won't be a problem. And yes, it could be the "10 minutes in the past" approach.

    Personally, I like the extended profiles, making the forum more of a social place to go, but that's a personal opinion :-)

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  • But they must be highly customisable :-)

    I think that main motto for Vanilla must be plug&play approach, and not simplicity only
  • we still have way to many plugins to operate a basic forum. I have 11 enabled plugins and thats just for one application. I have around 20 total plugins. Im at the point where i almost need a second page to display my plugins, thats bad. That and a plugin to manage my plugins actually appeals to me.. however wrong that is.

    what about the embed, debug, and statistics plugins. These are all plugins developed by the core dev team, and are not directly effecting the end users. These plugins could be incorporated into the core vanilla forums application and be removed as plugins. Yes, they could be disabled from the admin dashboard. But these look like they are going to be plugins included in cor anyways.

    I purpose a process to examine plugins on vanilla installs (not just for forums but for future applications also) With non identifying information which can be disabled in the admin dashboard we should look at how many plugins the user has installed, how many enabled, and what plugins. But at some point, someone has to make the decision as to how many plugins is appropriate. Then they have to determine what features should be included in core.

    is it fair for users operating a basic forum to have 10 plugins enabled?
    Also, when doing benchmarking for the application, server load tests, im assuming they are testing without all these plugins we use enabled. Which can be deceiving and not display any performance issues.
  • on second thought, im not sure of a solution for this issue. I recognize that different users have different needs. And that having everything as a plugin has its benefits. the plugins i want may not be the plugins you want. And when we start to include plugins into the core app we open the door for a bloated core app that has junk in it not everyone wants. Is this an issue? I think so, i just cant figure out a viable solution. Where are the core devs at ?
  • UnderDogUnderDog MVP
    edited February 2011
    Some of the core devs are at a conference in ... Montreal?
    You're right about the choice between many plugins and making the script bloated or few plugins (10 is few in my eyes) and making the script too slim.

    I for myself have approx 30 plugins running and I haven't even downloaded / looked at all the other plugins.

    Let's see what @Mark has to say.

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  • I think once a plugin install method from within the dashboard has been fully established, so single click download/installs, having more functionality in plugins will be a blessing rather than a curse.
  • @Mark, I don't think that everyone here wants something different.
    And some plugins really slow application down or add to amazing amount of JS and CSS files.
    But I generally agree that core developers must focus on improving core features.
    May be good compromise will be to allow much tighter integration between plugins and core source code.
    And also work on adding comments and writing documentation for developers.

    I just thing that voting and tagging are core features of Vanilla. :-)

  • LincLinc Detroit Admin
    May be good compromise will be to allow much tighter integration between plugins and core source code.
    How in the world could it be tighter than being able to extend and override existing classes on the fly?
    And also work on adding comments and writing documentation for developers.
    We have been. So far I've reworked the inline doc for the entire Vanilla app, the Conversations app, and I'm currently working on the Dashboard app. Others are working on the docs here on vf.org. If you care to help with the inline docs, you know how.
    I just thing that voting and tagging are core features of Vanilla. :-)
    I don't. :)

  • LincLinc Detroit Admin
    edited February 2011
    is it fair for users operating a basic forum to have 10 plugins enabled?
    Why wouldn't it be? I don't see what problem you're identifying. Double-digit numbers of plugins installed makes you feel funny?
    Where are the core devs at ?
    Coding. :D
  • I personally love this forum software. I've taken a stab at writing a plugin and for the most part it was pretty straight forward. @Lincoln I have some doc corrections for you, if you have time...

    I'd love to see more magic methods in Vanilla. Most things I see are done by eventing, and looking through the controllers and models, there are almost no magic methods (despite the stated preference for them in the online html docs)

    All in all, I would rather have many plugins than a bloated forum, but that said, the plugin api here is only really well-known to the devs. I'd love to help but I think I need a serious sit-down with a few of them to wrap my head around some stuff.

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  • I'd love to help but I think I need a serious sit-down with a few of them to wrap my head around some stuff.
    Same here. Maybe we can do something during a web conference and record it and make videos of it.

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  • Vanilla is Vanilla.
    :)

  • LincLinc Detroit Admin
    @ddumont Sure, you can send pull requests if it's inline or shoot 'em to me via email (lincolnwebs at gmail). It typically takes me a while to get around to things but it'll definitely get looked at.
  • edited February 2011
    How in the world could it be tighter than being able to extend and override existing classes on the fly?
    Ideally I want to be able to replace any method of existing classes (and I mean any class). And for large mthods, especially related to views, I want to be able to replace any part of the method (see my proposal about condition check between events).
    We have been. So far I've reworked the inline doc for the entire Vanilla app, the Conversations app, and I'm currently working on the Dashboard app. Others are working on the docs here on vf.org. If you care to help with the inline docs, you know how.
    Do we need separate Conversations storage ?
    For me, each conversations do not differ from normal thread, just with specially restricted access.
    I don't. :)
    It is really sad to hear.
    As you used many ideas from StackOverflow approach, but really do not get their idea.
    Voting and tagging, being significantly improved must become main advantage of Vanilla.
    They add other dimensions to information that you have.

    I think that good thing is to make special online conference between core developers, plugins and themes developers and owners of most popular forums running Vanilla, to help us understand proper direction.
  • I get the impression that Vanilla's whole thing is specifically not being every other forum package. If you find that it's too far from your needs, then it might not be the right forum package for your purposes.
  • Well... see... Vanilla might not be built like every other forum package, but by using plugins you can have the same functionality as every other forum package.
    The point is, should we use 30+ plugins to do that.
    Is using plugins 30+ a problem or should we look at the problem that using 30+ plugins creates, lots and lots of javascript and CSS files.

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  • ddumontddumont ✭✭
    edited February 2011
    @UnderDog One does not necessitate the other. I'm sure we could find a way to concatenate needed css and js files at render time (minify attempts this).

    Basically you'll run into the problem that all web developers end up facing... How do you minimize transactions and download size without busting the crap out of the browser cache mechanism. It's not an easy problem to solve.

    With Vanilla's page transition model it may be a good idea to have a core aggregation feature where a plugin can specify "I need to be on every page" or "I need to be on some pages". The ones on every page can be included with the main css and js, while the sparse ones can be downloaded as needed.

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  • Main problem is that today plugins add JS and CSS to controller.
    So, if this is discussions controller, they'll add JS and CSS to it (if they check $Sender, of course).
    Voting plugin sometimes go to wrong places completely, like Post controller, and all categories view.
    Most of plugins need rechecking add adding conditionals to prevens CSS and JS pollution.
  • @tester13 then suggest the fix for the plugin, or offer a patch to them.
    The Vanilla team is only so big. Part of the reason for making it highly extensible was to allow others to add functionality while they work on other things.

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