[Olympus] Has it failed already?

Discussion of general topics related to the new version and its place in the world. Don't discuss new features, report bugs, ask for support, et cetera. Don't use this to spam for other boards or attack those boards!
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Discussion of general topics related to the new release and its place in the world. Don't discuss new features, report bugs, ask for support, et cetera. Don't use this to spam for other boards or attack those boards!
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naderman
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by naderman »

Olympus is later than everybody hoped, that's quite sure and I think everyone agrees. But that's not a failure of the product.

bigmouth
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by bigmouth »

SHS` wrote:
danb00 wrote: RSS is a big thing same with AJAX. Everywere you look its mosty RSS and some forms of AJAX.
What im trying to ay is phpBB should of released this public test version a year ago. phpBB needs to really start pushing the project, they should of started doing this a while back. This release is WAY overdue in the terms of new technology and features.
"Everywhere", "mostly", "I'm", "say", "should have"... grief.
while i do agree with shs regarding most of his criticism, i think, in this specific topic, to mock someone for typos is a little bit ironic, seeing that the lack of any spellchecking provisions is one of the most glaring missing links in phpbb3. (and, to the best of my knowledge, some form of spell-check is available in all the leading bbs systems, including the free and open smf)
think about it: in the (somewhat funny) endless squabble about quick-reply, phpbb team constantly advocate the difference between a bb system and chat, claiming that quick-reply will push boards towards quicker and less well thought-of posts.
but taking the same logic forward, if you are serious about caring so much for the quality of the posts, a spell-checker provision is a must-have.
true, not all php installation have pspell installed, but php has a nice little function, namely function_exists(), which lets you create a feature even if it relies on an optional php module.

and, on top of not supporting spell-check, mocking a writer for typos is just not right ;) .

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cmptch
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by cmptch »

naderman wrote: Olympus is later than everybody hoped, that's quite sure and I think everyone agrees. But that's not a failure of the product.
Some dude once said, "don't count your chickens before they hatch."
It is impossible for the product to have failed, since the product has not been released to fail; I am not saying that the product will fail, I'm only stating that the product has not failed.
Along time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

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Last edited by cmptch on Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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SHS`
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by SHS` »

bigmouth wrote: while i do agree with shs regarding most of his criticism, i think, in this specific topic, to mock someone for typos is a little bit ironic, seeing that the lack of any spellchecking provisions is one of the most glaring missing links in phpbb3. (and, to the best of my knowledge, some form of spell-check is available in all the leading bbs systems, including the free and open smf)
think about it: in the (somewhat funny) endless squabble about quick-reply, phpbb team constantly advocate the difference between a bb system and chat, claiming that quick-reply will push boards towards quicker and less well thought-of posts.
but taking the same logic forward, if you are serious about caring so much for the quality of the posts, a spell-checker provision is a must-have.
true, not all php installation have pspell installed, but php has a nice little function, namely function_exists(), which lets you create a feature even if it relies on an optional php module.

and, on top of not supporting spell-check, mocking a writer for typos is just not right ;) .
Actually, why should spell check be in the BBS? It after all uses plain old HTML <textarea>'s and would be far better implement such functionality via the end user's browser natively, if only for the fact it's a good deal faster too? Firefox 2.0 Alpha3 does this rather nicely:
Firefox20a3.png
Firefox (Bon Echo) 2.0 Alpha3 in-line spell check
(112.5 KiB) Downloaded 767 times
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bonecho ... 2.0a3.html" target="_blank

Much the same could be said for rich-text editing for BBSes, though IMO that would again be something better supported by browsers natively, and the whole issue of rich-text editing to superceed <textarea> is something that is road-mapped by WhatWG's "HTML5" specification (<canvas> is supported by Opera9 Beta and Firefox 1.5):

http://whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/" target="_blank
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bigmouth
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by bigmouth »

i agree it would be nice, and probably a better technicl solution for spellcheck and rtf to be handle by the browsers.
but reality has some weight in such matters, and the reality is that browsers, as of now, do not support spellcheck (or rtf editing).
otoh, spellcheck functionality in php is available for several years now.
maybe if olympus will only surface three or four years from now, spellcheck will not be an issue because it will be supported by most browsers.
but, if olympus is to become available this year or the next, will it either support spellcheck internally, or users will go without.

my main point though, was that (especially) since spellchecking is amongst the most glaring omissions from olympus feature-list, it was unkid of you to mock typos.

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psi29a
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by psi29a »

phpSpell is the best opensource solution I've found for handling spelling in web-based applications, specifically phpBB. Spellingcow is nice, but isn't opensource.

Spell checking should be in the hands of the writer, I typically use openoffice or ms word before posting unless it is a quick post like this where spelling isn't terribly important. The firefox "bon echo" has inline spell checking which is nice, I've used extensions to do that in the past but still a vast majority of people still use IE and last I heard IE7 will not have inline spell-checking.

php (or really any open source) spell checking solution is cumbersome and slow, however this could be a great AJAX solution in the waiting. However, spell-checking should for the time being be a add-on module for phpBB untill we can once again use feature request in hopefully 3.2.

Personally, I'm tired of the grief some of you give the phpBB crew. Those of you in the field, as a hobby or business know that projects should not be rushed. Great thing about opensource, especially phpBB is that it is entirely up to the developers when things get released.

If you don't like it, you have the following options:
1) contribute, sign up, check out the cvs show to the crew that you are willing to contribute.
2) leave, because constructive critism this thread is not.
3) you can take the source code, and go fork [it] yourself.

As a fellow software developer, my hats of to you gentlement/women for the hard work. I look forward to the next big release.
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ronoxQ
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by ronoxQ »

Things like [quick reply will not be added] and fancy slide down boxes for search AREN'T AJAX they are javascript.
NOT true, thank you very much. At least, not entirely true. vBulletin Quick Reply (and I think Invision) uses AJAX, so that THE PAGE DOESN'T REFRESH WHEN YOU POST. Same with in-line editing. It's really a neat addition to forums.
Not a quote but just a general response to people on this thread:
I know you can't blame phpBB developers for taking so long. But it's true that they are majorly behind other free programs. So don't excuse it by telling us to code it, alright? I don't want to learn to code, but I DO want a forum. So I'll take the best, and if that means non-Olympus, then I'm fine with that.

And stop waving around 3.2 as if it matters. Until 3.0 is out, don't talk about what isn't here.

For the record, those of you that say "paid" forumware is bloated: my vBulletin site uses all AJAX and DHTML features. I use forum drop-downs, spellchecking, multiple views, and a bloated postbit. Loading time for the average page: twice as fast as phpBB's main forum page on their site. It's all a matter of compression, which is easy to do.

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psi29a
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by psi29a »

I guess it is a matter of preference then, because I don't like the way vBulletin does in terms of reply-posting. The reason is that when you hit reply, traditionally it not only posts your reply, it also refreshes the page along with any new posts.

If you post with ajax, you have to hit refresh anyway to view any new posts that may have been posted while you where busy typing away.

The ajax added nothing in terms of convience, however, point conceded on inline spell checking with ajax. It burdens the server the forum is running on, but I've seen it done rather well and the effect is slick.

Problem exists that you still have to deal with the people who don't have javascript turned on, or for whatever reason, the browser you are using doesn't support (doesn't exist, or isn't doesn't function as expected) it.

However, as software development goes... no more features, period, till this cat is out the door. :P

Viva la Open Source.
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ronoxQ
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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by ronoxQ »

Usually I do a lot of forum-hopping. I jump across topics using one page, so I don't refresh anything but the main page.

I guess it is just a matter of preference, but I think at least HAVING a Quick Reply is worthwhile. I type just as thoroughly on a QR box as I do on a normal reply page, less one click and a few queries.

And the devteam saying that QR will lead to more pointless responses is just what I hate: give 'em at least the OPTION to have the box. That's what I like about the "bloated" forums: they let me pick what to bloat my page WITH. ^_^

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Re: [Olympus] Has it failed already?

Post by NeoThermic »

ronoxQ wrote: Loading time for the average page: twice as fast as phpBB's main forum page on their site.
Humour me. Does your forums serve 83 requests a second on average? Do they have ~620 users on line in a given 5 minuite period? If so then you may compare your load times to phpBB.com's forums, else apples and oranges.

As for QR, it has been said many times before that it isn't the most requested or wanted. In one of the other topics we actually list a lookup we did that showed the 5 most popular 2.0.x mods were something along the lines of Attachments (in Olympus), Cash Mod (not in olympus, for obvious reasons), subforums (here!), the UCP (here!) and something else I can't qutie recall. Have a search if you feel like finding it.

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