newcster68 wrote:Ptirhiik - RPGnet-fr wrote:So just drop it directly to the trash : that is very fine with me . But maybe people have managed to install and use it simply reading this very topic and the mods install instructions ?...
...and ooh yeah.. users shouldnt have to thumb through 15 pages of threads to find and error on the mod when you should simply then correct it yourself in the install txt.
that is my one beef about mods..we shouldnt have to search through 50-100 pages to find out why soething is not working especially when it pertains to an error on the mod itself.
@Ptirhiik - don't take this personally, as it's not addressed to you specifically...
@newcster68 - couldn't agree with you more.
as a fairly new user of phpBB, i've run into this same problem with several MODs now and it's very annoying. i run a production site and i have better things to do than read through 100+ pg MOD topics to correct issues that should have been corrected by the MOD author as an update. obviously the MOD dev's are under no obligation to maintain their MODs, and that's fine. however it is my opinion that the phpBB team ought to have some sort of policy in place that requires MOD dev's, at the very minimum, to clearly state what version of phpBB their MOD was tested with and make darn sure that it works with a vanilla install of the phpBB version for which it was developed. this info should be included in the MOD database search results, as well as in the install script(s). i think that 100, even 200+ pages being returned for MOD support ought to bolster my opinion.
and i really have trouble grasping why an author will waste their time fiddling around with multiple support requests for the same issue rather than simply updating the script! especially when it's simple syntax issues.
i realize that it's unrealistic to ask dev's to keep their work updated to be complaint with the latest phpBB version, and i'm not suggesting that at all. however i don't think it's unrealistic to require the dev's to fix glaring bugs, such as syntax errors, etc., with the penality being their MOD getting dropped from the database if they don't.
i also think that all MODs should be updated to be EM complaint because, at the very least, EM does some error checking and more could be implemented. this could eliminate/reduce the possibility of users simply copying and pasting errors, or creating new ones, when doing a manual install. less errors = less 100+ pg support topics.
regarding EM, i wonder if it's not possible to integrate MODs differently? at this point, EM injects all the code directly into the original files (as well as copying new ones). i wonder if it would be possible for EM to inject nothing more than something like "include begin: [mod id]" and "include end: [mod id]". this could potentially have several benefits:
1) you wouldn't have to uninstall MODs in reverse order to get at the one you actually want to uninstall because EM could just remove the include begin/end, mod id statements for a particular MOD.
2) you could potentially use EM to reorder the include statements if multiple statements for multiple MODs are right next to each other.
3) if multiple MODs modify the same line of code, it becomes trivial to disable any or all of them with EM without having to manually copy files.
4) all MOD code would be stored in separate files and called with the include statements leaving the original files in tact, except for the include statements of course.
5) the drain on the phpBB team and MOD dev's could be greatly reduced.