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FeedReader extension: comments and questions

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    MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    Dont some of marks classes already let you make settings panels pretty easily? I'd be amazed if they didnt...
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    follettofolletto
    edited July 2006
    Dont some of marks classes already let you make settings panels pretty easily? I'd be amazed if they didnt...

    Depends what is the meaning you give to "easy". ;)

    Mark did an excellent work (apart from the capitalization gh :D) but adding a panel means something like 300 lines of code, looking at his own Style extension.

    Since adding a panel I think should be something like: one line for the init, one line for a panel and then the content, I'm wrapping all the working/framework code inside a class to make everything straight.

    At this time I have one line for the init and one class with a function for each "PostBackAction". Simple to understand, simple to implement, does right what you expect to.

    I still have to get a few details on the Vanilla workings for the Settings Panel and the wrapper class is ready for anyone that wants to add a configuration panel with just its code. :)

    Take a look at the Mark's code on the Style extension and my code on the FeedReader extension and you'll notice a huge difference. :)

    ~

    Context: I'm a user interface and user experience designer and before that a developer... and I've got a big concern on how the "developer" side needs to get a user-centric mind. It's quite crazy if you think that very little has changed since text editors to write code, for example. Now the "world" is trying -with many difficulties- to understand what means "user centric" for the final product... but still I think that there should be a sort of "developer centric" development, if you forgive me the word joke. :)

    In this case, it's not a Mark's fault, since the project IS BIG, just I think that to make extensions development easier there should be an easier way to create a configuration panel. With this I mean that a developer should have a choice: the "core" Mark's classes and a "simple" alternative for an easier implementation, that on a not-time-critical task like the settings panel could handle a little overhead and simplification.


    Mmmm... I made myself clear? :)

    ~

    To define better my position: I think that Vanilla is one of the projects around with the best source code, well designed and parametrized, with an excellent architecture and good modules support... and of course, a class-based estensions system. Ode to Mark for this. :)
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    MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    Oh dont get me wrong i'm certainly not complaining about your desire to make adding panels as easy as possible; i was just surprised mark hadnt already catered for this. As you say this is a huge project for 1 man and he has a lot on his plate so if your classes are successful he might even want to use your classes anyway i dunno. Sounds pretty neat though.
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    follettofolletto
    edited July 2006
    Sorry, I've been (and I am) a little lenghty, but I prefer to write too much and being unread than writing less and missing something important. :)

    On the other side, I enjoy to write a "good" architecture so it isn't a problem at all for me to wrap a class instead of writing plain code... It isn't a loss of time at all, even if I will be the only one using it. :)
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    0bvious0bvious
    Not sure why, but after a few days of successful use I get this message with feedreader:<blockquote>Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/content/d/a/n/danrourke/html/forum/extensions/FeedReader/default.php on line 131</blockquote>Is it failing because the feed is failing perhaps? This would be fine if it just brought up an error message in the sidebar, as it is the whole forum is disabled.
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    Mr KMr K
    have you updated to the new version? I'd recommend that and see if it fixes it
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    follettofolletto
    Yes, please upgrade: the line pointed by that error message quite clearly is from the 0.1 release. :)

    If the problem happens also with the 0.2 paste the error here. :)
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    0bvious0bvious
    OK, so I just got the same type of error in the new version, this time alluding to line 176... The feed I use comes from a delicious account, and I know that delicious sometimes has a moment or two of frozen time issues. If it was possible to display the errors message for the ext in the sidebar instead, or either revert to a 'default' feed if the main one isn't working. The main problem with this error coming up is that if you have just typed and posted a message it will be lost completely. VERY annoying for forum users who like to type long posts
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    bloggywoodbloggywood
    Foletto, i hade some trouble eralier with the feed reader. I just wanted to tell you that when i upgraded it, it worked just fine!

    I have a small problem thou... It seems like it's shortening the title on my feeds.
    For example:
    I have a post with the title: "Fearless premiär i USA skjuts upp"
    But in the feed-panel it reads as: "är i USA skjuts upp"
    It cuts the first letters every time a swedish extended letter appears. For example the letters Å Ä Ö and å ä ö.

    Here is my forum: http://bloggywood.se/forum

    //Daniel
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    follettofolletto
    edited July 2006
    Ok, thankyou again.

    I'll check the error issue on line 176 and the parser problem on - as it seems - non-ascii chars. :)

    [EDIT]
    At a first look, it seems an encoding problem, maybe related to UTF-8 and mb php strings.

    Could you please check if your feed is encoded UTF-8?
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    bloggywoodbloggywood
    Hi folletto!
    According to the cache-file the feed is encoded with UTF-8.
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    strawberriesstrawberries New
    altho it looked excellent for me and most others, one of my regulars reported that the rss feed pushed my discussion threads half way down th epage.ie he had to scroll to see the threads and comments. I took the rssfeeder extension off yesterday and he says it now looks perfect. Great shame, because I loved the extension.
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    follettofolletto
    Uhm, the problem here could be related to something taken by the feed that "widens" the side panel, pushing everythhing down.

    Are you using a custom theme or the Vanilla classic?
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    strawberriesstrawberries New
    i am using the jazzman style/theme.....i think it relies/needs th evanilla theme to work http://www.love2escape.com/chat PS - i ended up also taking down the google adsense extension today because a regular poster reported that it was also pushing threads one quarter down the page on one of his pc's.
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    strawberriesstrawberries New
    PS - I will enable the rss extension now and let you see it in operation. I and every other didn't see any problem.
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    strawberriesstrawberries New
    edited July 2006
    breaking news - turned the rss feed extension back on again - and now the poster who had the problems says look sfine. So it may well have been the google adsense extension (sat at the top of each page) that was pushing everything down the page.
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    follettofolletto
    Ok!
    Keep me informed: still since I'm using the default Vanilla function calls to render the Panel, problems like that should be CSS-dependant... :)
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    strawberriesstrawberries New
    folletto, again many many thanks for this extension. I love it.
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    follettofolletto
    New release! Now 0.3.

    Changes:
    • The length of the list is configurable (MaxItems)
    • Now should be more stable in case of problems with the feed
    Please give me feedback on the second point, since I'm unable to get a "real" test case. :)
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    strawberriesstrawberries New
    brought my site down, folletto. :( Thus I had to disable the extension. the error was: Fatal error: Call to undefined function: mb_strtolower() in /home/mysitename/public_html/chat/extensions/FeedReader/XMLPlainParser.class.inc on line 209
This discussion has been closed.