Refactoring Hubzilla and Third Party Addons & Themes

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 22:57:35 -0600 last edited: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 22:58:58 -0600

adminsforum@hubzilla.org

Scott M. Stolz wrote the following post Mon, 11 Nov 2024 22:57:45 -0600

Refactoring Hubzilla and Third Party Addons & Themes

I know you are working on refactoring Hubzilla, and that is great, but please do not remove features just because Redbasic or core addons do not use it.

For example, pagination may not be needed for Redbasic, but I need it. That "unused" code in Hubzilla is very useful to me for the themes I am developing.

So, before you delete stuff you think is unused, it might not actually be unused.

show all 12 comments

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 01:34:02 -0600

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

@Scott M. Stolz That's probably mostly me :)

I try to deprecate old stuff when I replace them, instead of just removing them cold, but there are exceptions. Mainly if I see that the existing code is broken or not working at all. (There's actually quite a lot of that.)

I'm happy to try to find a way to improve the process though. Here's a few ideas:

I can add third party theme/addon authors as reviewers to the relevant merge requests on framagit.
I can post about parts of the code I want to work on in the @Hubzilla Development forum before I make any changes, so that we can discuss how to go about it.
If I get access to the repos with the third party themes and addons, it makes it easier to verify whether there's any code using the API's I'm looking at.

It may happen that we still want to change something, even if third party extensions are using it, but then I agree we should do it in a controlled manner, so that the third party code can be updated and ready for the changes before we remove the old API's.

(Don't think I've touched pagination, though....)

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 01:38:26 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Harald Eilertsen That sounds awesome. I need access to the developers forum though. I can only read and not participate.

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 01:40:44 -0600

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

@Scott M. Stolz Also... if you are running PHP Code Sniffer (phpcs), there's a conficuration for it in the root of the Hubzilla project directory that will include warnings when it finds deprecated API's in the code. I have it integrated into my editor (neovim) so that I get these and other warnings right in the code while editing.

If you install the dev dependencies in the composer file, phpcs is installed as well in the vendor directory.

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 01:41:54 -0600

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

@Scott M. Stolz I guess @Mario Vavti can fix that.

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 01:49:58 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Harald Eilertsen

PHP Code Sniffer (phpcs)

Thanks. That sounds useful.

https://github.com/PHPCSStandards/PHP_CodeSniffer

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 01:57:34 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

Plus it would give us an opportunity to discuss things like:

1. What improvements should go in the core versus go in third-party components.
2. Making small changes as we refactor the code, since we are already in that section of the code.

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 02:19:18 -0600

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

@Scott M. Stolz Exactly! There are code in core, that is only ever used by addons. While that may be as it should, I think there are cases where it would benefit both core and the addon to move it out to the addon itself.

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 02:24:49 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Harald Eilertsen And vice versa. There may be code that is used in multiple themes and addons, and instead of duplicating the same code over and over, we put it in the core.

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 02:29:32 -0600

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

@Scott M. Stolz True.

All in all, there's plenty of room for improvement in how addons are handled and work. Translations are one issue, but like you point out, handling dependencies for the addons is another. I'd of course also add testing to that list.

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 09:14:21 -0600

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Harald Eilertsen I'm working on making my custom project management system work with Hubzilla, which would make it fediverse-enabled.

Once it is done, I am hoping to get the whole Hubzilla design team to use it, but even if they don't, I would still be able to track things I am involved with, and other developers would be able to see what I am working on.

When I release the beta, I would like you to have a look at it.

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 09:25:02 -0600

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

@Scott M. Stolz I'd definitely be interested in that.

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 17:21:03 -0600

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

@Scott M. Stolz #fixed