[Phpslash-devel] embracing the future
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From: Mike G. <mi...@op...> - 2003-10-28 01:09:58
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Hi Luis, Message: 1 "Luis M" <le...@ho...>: > >I know nothing about the phpslash-dev site, but I am quite interested in > >offering what Back-End has learned/used for adding/editing documents. > People should really start trying phpslash-dev module from the cvs. It's > pretty much "stable" enough right now to be used in replacement of > phpslash-ft. I downloaded it, was impressed. Only bug was that phpMyAdmin couldn't incorporate the sql.. I think because of the -- comments rather than ## > But, remember that's the "experimentation" module. We should > probably freeze it as it is right now and do a minor release based on it so > that people can try it and we can get an idea of how the migration will be > from -ft (current stable release) to -dev. From then on it will be downhill > with -dev. Sounds excellent! > Remember that -dev is fully modularized. Everything, every block, story, > header behaves in this manner... Great level of "granularity" and also a > scary thought that if something goes wrong, it might be hard to know from > where the error is coming... that's why we need testing, to improve it to > the point that we know for sure we are not missing anything and start > replacing our own sites (first) with the minor release (fingers crossed) and > deal with possible pitfalls. Yup.. Big upgrades can be a bit scary... ... > >Back-End has added a wiki text editor mode and an implementation of > >htmlArea3 to psl's present options. Giving users options is a good > >thing. Adding an option for phorum-like syntax could be a useful option > >too. For the wiki text we added an extra column for both the parsed > >html as well as the original wiki content. > I really don't know much about what BackEnd is. I guess I jumped in late in > the phpslash-* discussions and didn't get the whole scope of it. I keep > reading your posts relating to it, but I don't know anything about it. > Besides the backend.php script in phpslash which I use for my syndicated > news and Mozilla tabs. Sorry.. It's another CMS built on PSL.. http://sourceforge.net/projects/back-end It's a bit confusing with the Back-End.org & backend.php.. Rather unfortunate for us. We've extended PSL to move from a news/slash focus to a hierarchy/cms focus. It's also multi-lingual. A couple examples of the code: http://www.learningpartnership.org/ http://www.cupe.ca/ http://www.fairvotecanada.org/ I've been on the psl development list for a while because often I have questions about psl code & because I'm interested in the direction that BE is going. I'd also like to be able to contribute some of what we've learned back to psl. > >htmlArea3 is pretty good.. There's even a spell check module. The best > >thing is that it works in Mozilla & IE so I can actually test it. > Sounds like htmlArea3 is the way to go then... Giving users choices is > great, but if we could simplify things and at least choose htmlArea3 to be > the default and let users turn it off as they get better in using the > phpslash interface. I've set up some scripts to turn it off for scripts like Galeon too. I work in Linux and sometimes like to use Mozilla, but still prefer Galeon. It' just defaults to html in a text area box.. > Powerusers should be able to go to their own profiles > and turn on or off what they want or don't want. My concern is to make > things super clear and super simple for those users who don't have the > notion of how computer programs work -- or web interfaces for that manner. The ongoing challenge.. > Users who simply have not been exposed to those conventions might not find > certain things too intituitive when they first see it. I think, for > instance, that php Phorum achieves this instantly. Once you install it and > use it, you don't have to know how to do anything (i.e. read any manuals or > help), so, users start instantly interacting with others in the site. As an > example of this. I setup a Forum using Phorum (redundant sound uh?) here: > http://foro.latinomixed.com. In my regular site, dealing with news and howto > articles in general, users rarely register as new users or for the mailing > list or anything. Whereas within days of activating the forum I got about 27 > users registered (and counting). In my case, my site aims at those who need > help (non-power users) who are looking for ways to improve their computer > knowledge. In reality, even power users benefit from having things simpler; > that's why Linux users buy Mac laptops with MacOS X on them :-D It's nice when things just work! I think you meant phpBB & not Phorum.. Phorum was another project, not sure how active it now is. But phpBB is plenty active: http://phpbb.com/ I took a look at an install I had. Like htmlarea3 it looks like it is javacript and css that could be easily integrated in psl or BE. I'm not sure at this point if it stores the text as html or in the phorum markup [b]bold this[/b] > >I also like the idea of being able to just upload the html of a story > >rather than having to copy/paste it. > That has already been added to phpslash-dev and it works fine. I ported that > from my own site which was based on phpslash-0.6.x and updated the code so > that it works with php 4.1 and up -- the reason for this is that I'm using > the _FILES array to avoid having users specifically changing their php.ini's > or anything else. It works perfectly for as long as you have file upload on > in php.ini (of course). Very cool! > Read the comments in > include/modules/story/Story_base.class of the phpslash-dev cvs module. > NOTE: that makes me wonder if there is a way to use Oxygen to generate > documentation for php source code the same way that it's used for C++? We > should have documentation for the developers as well as for regular users... > just a thought... We've been trying to use: http://phpdocu.sourceforge.net/ Which can theoretically generate both from inline code. Trick is in trying to consistently put in the function headers. > >Would be also useful to allow folks to turn on/off modules through the > >web interface rather than through the config.ini.php > Wonderful idea. The problem would be where to put the config.ini.php then so > that it's writeable by the user that runs the webserver or in the database > itself. Maybe we should get rid of the file config.ini.php altogether and > put this whole file in a compressed format into a record in the database... > gzip compression is done on the fly these days, why not take advantage of > that. We could even use jp_cache to cache it for X number of minutes... Joe? Or store it in the sessions... It's been discussed.. > >Also, we had talked about an installer in the past for psl/be.. > >Wondered if you had a chance to check out Back-End's new installer > >script. Makes an installation pretty quick. > The script is written in php and runs as a cgi? or is it a Perl script? It's just PHP. Runs through the browser. It's presently set up so that if it can't find functions.inc from the info in the config.ini.php that it redirects the file to config_setup.php > I > did a setup.php script for parsing the config-dist.ini.php file so that > users can edit it in their browsers and save this file to a file in their > workstations for then uploading that to whatever server they will use... > long procedure uh? but works. This doesn't give them access to all the variables in the config.ini.php, but makes the install a 2 minute process. Pretty critical to get new folks to test out their code. When you're testing out code it's easy to have a short attention span. Message: 2 "Luis M" <le...@ho...>: > >Back-End has added a wiki text editor mode and an implementation of > >htmlArea3 to psl's present options. Giving users options is a good > >thing. Adding an option for phorum-like syntax could be a useful option > >too. For the wiki text we added an extra column for both the parsed > >html as well as the original wiki content. > Ok, I check the htmlarea3 site and I have to admit that it is impressive, > but, maybe overkill. Also, it only works on IE and Mozilla version X and > up... and to top it all off under BSD license... It's a modified BSD license so it is GPL compatible. And although there are lots of features that you'd never want to use in a slash site, you can turn them off. The formatting stuff isn't all that important for a slash site. fonts & what not.. But the spell checker would be a total plus! > I meant something simple like phpBB that only uses standard features. A way > to turn of JavaScript should be somewhere in the users profile. Ideally advanced users would be able to specify the default editing type. > But, you > don't need the javascript part to edit with phpBB, that's just to make your > life simpler. That way I could use Opera/Camino/Konqueror/Netscape 3/4/6/7 > and others from any computer without worrying about having different > interfaces to edit the text. If you don't have a browser that can handle the javascript enhancements, it should come up in html so that anyone can edit it, right? > Just my opinion. I respect people who would use htmlArea -- maybe they come > from a Windows background and that interface is intuitive for them; however, > for the majority of us, I think that interface is overkill -- bloated. The majority of the world is more familiar with Windows than any other Operating System.. That will change with China/India.. But most users will still be Windows users, and of those most will use IE.. Mike -- Mike Gifford, OpenConcept Consulting Free Software for Social Change -> http://www.openconcept.ca Beads of Hope Campaign - http://uc.openconcept.ca/petition.php Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals - Aldo Leopold |