[NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

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DavidIQ
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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by DavidIQ »

mrgtb wrote: Thu May 17, 2018 12:45 pm You can argue the same thing if somebody decides to use a custom theme, that many extensions might not work with it.
No you can't. A custom style might break extensions for maybe a handful of people whereas changing the core style will break extensions for everyone so definitely not the same thing, not even close.
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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by mrgtb »

XenForo (a bit off topic I know). But when they released XenForo 2 not long ago, they was faced with the exact same problem. That not one of the mods free or paid for XenForo 1, would work with XF2. Every single mod had to be re-written. Now that was a big thing for them because they depend big time of mods to sell their paid forum software. But they did it to move forwards, it had to be done unless they wanted to stay stuck in the past using outdated things.

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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by CHItA »

mrgtb wrote: Thu May 17, 2018 12:45 pm I understand that most extensions use proSilver style. But at the end of the day you cannot let that hold you back from not implementing a more modern and up-to-date style. You can argue the same thing if somebody decides to use a custom theme, that many extensions might not work with it. But people are still going to install a custom theme because ProSilver is too old looking. So the extension side of things shouldn't stop you, and you had the same thing anyway when you moved from 3.1 to 3.2, that all extensions had to be redone for 3.2

So it's not like you haven't already faced the problem of extensions having all be redone again by authors, it was needed with 3.2 release
What is stopping us is having the free time to do it.

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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by david63 »

mrgtb wrote: Thu May 17, 2018 12:45 pm you had the same thing anyway when you moved from 3.1 to 3.2, that all extensions had to be redone for 3.2
That is untrue - some extensions had to be slightly modified - not all.

Out of interest how many extensions have you created? How many styles have you created?
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hanakin
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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by hanakin »

As the only person(Front-end Developer) working on this, I can tell you that you have no clue just how much is involved in creating a new theme from scratch for an application of this scale given the issues it currently faces. Its not comparable to modifying a theme in anyway. We do not want to run into the same problem we are in now, which is with a theme that is not maintainable and upgradeable. This requires not only a lot of coding but a lot of design work as well as a lot of careful and well thought out engineering to solve each problem we currently face.

Factor into that the fact that I have job and life responsibilities that leave me with if I am lucky a couple hours currently a week to dedicate to working on this.

Keep in mind that all the css/html/js need to be fully re-written from scratch not to mention a lot of the core needs to be modified to support the some of the modern approaches.

In relation to BC/extensions etc.. Its a moot point the concept was never to update or overhaul prosilver but to create a new interface which will lead to a major version release of the software as it will require 100% of any extensions to be re-written.

3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 are minor versions which means they require BC but that is untrue of say a version 4.0 which is what happened with XenForo. They went from 1.0 to 2.0.

They also are paid for the work as well. Which means more manpower/resources.

I have asked several times for community assistance here on these forums to help speed up the development. We will also be announcing the same shortly on .com as well.

As for the conversation on here, https://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopi ... 31&t=50381 is the overarching topic. I do agree that it is lost as it does need stickied. But given the fact that I am the only one working on the theme I tend to spend my time on the theme development rather than keeping the conversation on here update
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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by david63 »

hanakin wrote: Thu May 17, 2018 9:42 pm In relation to BC/extensions etc.. Its a moot point the concept was never to update or overhaul prosilver but to create a new interface which will lead to a major version release of the software as it will require 100% of any extensions to be re-written.
I find that comment somewhat alarming. Not only are you going to antagonise the majority (if not all) style designers you are now also going to antagonise extension developers who will have to learn a new format in order for their extensions to work. The knock on effect of this is that users will not have the features that they currently have and you run the risk of alienating many of them.

If this come to fruition I can see many style/extension developers "walking away" - and I may very well be one of them.

In my view prosilver should continue being supported for a period of time in the same way that subsilver2 was supported when prosilver was introduced - in that way at least boards will be able to continue running until such time as style/extension developers can migrate their styles/extensions.
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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by CHItA »

david63 wrote: Fri May 18, 2018 10:38 am I find that comment somewhat alarming. Not only are you going to antagonise the majority (if not all) style designers you are now also going to antagonise extension developers who will have to learn a new format in order for their extensions to work. The knock on effect of this is that users will not have the features that they currently have and you run the risk of alienating many of them.

If this come to fruition I can see many style/extension developers "walking away" - and I may very well be one of them.

In my view prosilver should continue being supported for a period of time in the same way that subsilver2 was supported when prosilver was introduced - in that way at least boards will be able to continue running until such time as style/extension developers can migrate their styles/extensions.
I don't think that prosilver would be supported in the new version. However, probably the last release line of 3.x will have a longer support and maintenance period when 4.0 is released. Also, extension authors don't have to rewrite their extensions completly, just the template parts. You cannot really change the style without this being neccessary so there's no reason to panic.

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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by GanstaZ »

If only changes are based on twig inheritance & some changes in html based on new theme, then it should be fast/easy. If i understand it correctly, then developing/maintaining styles should be easier with new theme.

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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by david63 »

CHItA wrote: Fri May 18, 2018 11:54 am extension authors don't have to rewrite their extensions completly,
That is not what hanakin said
hanakin wrote: Thu May 17, 2018 9:42 pm which will lead to a major version release of the software as it will require 100% of any extensions to be re-written.
GanstaZ wrote: Fri May 18, 2018 1:27 pm If only changes are based on twig inheritance & some changes in html based on new theme, then it should be fast/easy. If i understand it correctly, then developing/maintaining styles should be easier with new theme.
As I understand it there will be more to it that just a few changes in html. The whole concept will change and will require learning as well as the possible jQuery replacement.

The whole ethos of phpBB 3.1 and above was that in general extensions would be useable on all future version (subject to minor adjustments) and this has proven not to be the case. The development team appear to totally ignore the existence of extensions (which is something that they introduced) when moving to a new version, be it minor or major.
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Re: [NEW THEME] 4. JS frameworks & approach

Post by hanakin »

You should not have to change anything related to the php side of your extension but the front-end aspects will need re-written, however, it will be far easy to do so as we will introduce far better docs/standards and frameworks to simplify the process for style/extension authors. That is one of the core concepts of the new theme.
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