Re: [Dynapi-Dev] improvements, widgets and stuff

[Scott A. L. <sc...@sc...>]

(Warning: constructive criticism ahead ;-)

One of the reasons I didn't use the patch manager is because I wasn't
sure my patches would be reviewed by anyone. That's why I asked :-)  

Rob was kind enough to put a ZIP of my mods up on sourceforge. You can
grab them at http://dynapi.sourceforge.net/users/scottandrew/

If it makes it any easier for anyone , I can paste my changes into the
patch manager.  But the ZIP file contains documentation as to *why* I
made the changes.

As for maintenance, I have following notes/thoughts:

- We should CHECK RIGHT NOW to make sure that the current release is in
fact stable and not missing anything (see Jack's getDocument() thread.)

- If you make ANY mods/patches or widgets, you should be sure to
download the latest build and work from that.  This is especially
important if several months have passed since you downloaded the core. 
You should make sure that your new mods/widgets work with the "official"
release first.

- We really should have a "benchmark" file in the distribution for
testing.  For example, a single HTML page that creates a single
DynLayer, a DynLayer with 1 or more children, a simple widget (like a
label) and a complex widget (like a DynWindow).  When you make
modifications, you should use this page to check that your code does not
break anything in the page, from a simple DynLayer to a huge widget.

This would have come in really handy when I was making my changes; I was
getting ready to submit them when at the last minute I decided to check
if nested DynLayers still worked.  It didn't! And I was able to uncover
a bug that would have seriously broken widgets.  If we had a test file
like I described, we could see immediately what breaks.

- I know that everyone likes to tweak their own copy distribution, and
that's fine.  But make sure your tweaks don't end up in the sourceforge
code unless you follow the patch submission rules.

- Pascal's correct: we need a "point man" to maintain the release.

And, Pascal, I know you maintain a completely separate release at your
site, but I don't think it's clear enough to new users that yours is not
the 'official' release.  Would you consider naming it something else
besides "DynAPI?"  I'm concerned that people will still confuse it with
the SourceForge distribution and then wonder why the widget they grabbed
from SourceForge doesn't work.  I think your distribution is
sufficiently different enough to merit it's own name, and would also
give you license to really do your own thing.  I think that should apply
to anyone who wants to take DynAPI2 and go their own way with it.

Anyway, these are all just my feelings.  We should have a discussion
about some of these issues, because people are starting to discover the
potential of DynAPI2 and we should really get on the same page and get
the distribution up to speed.