I've been away due to unavoidable circumstances but I made a small comeback yesterday in terms of catching my plugins up. And that was just catching up bug reports and feature suggestions-- not getting them 1.8 compatible. Nevertheless, it did raise some questions in my mind as to the best approach to maintaining my plugins across both versions of the product.
Not nearly everyone has upgraded to 1.8 so imo any conscientious developer must at least consider maintaining a 1.6 compatible version of their plugins.
How best to do that?
It seems feasible to me that a single plugin could easily be compatible with either version simultaneously, but I'll quickly add that I have all but decided against that because of the issues with having to complicate some of my already complex plugins.
But then I imagine trying to maintain two versions of all my plugins and I feel overwhelmed.
Plugin Authors: How do you plan to approach updating your plugins to 1.8?
For how long will you maintain the 1.6 version?
Do you plan on making your plugin compatible for both versions?
I'd really appreciate your input.
I'm not really a major plugin developer in the community, but as far as any potential developments in the future are concerned, I will no doubt be focusing on 1.8 because 1.6 will only become increasingly outdated as more users migrate to 1.8. However, I have a couple of very small plugins that work just fine under 1.6 and 1.8, so I don't see any reason not to support both. I will probably continue to do so as long as the plugins remain compatible, but I don't see it really being useful to spend a lot of effort on outdated software at this point.
Unfortunately, it looks like the plugin scene is still looking significantly better for 1.6 than it is for 1.8, and it will likely remain so for some time before the new plugin database is really populated with good replacements for the 1.6 plugins. Thankfully, it does look like some of the more popular plugins have been either ported, or replaced with new plugins from new authors. I think it will be interesting to see how things turn out in the long run for the community as a whole.
I'm ditching official support for 1.6 entirely. I won't be testing my plugins against it at all. 1.8 introduces hooks (such as global_intermediate), functions and changes to JavaScript that are too much of a pain to patch around for 1.6 IMO. I don't have time to maintain two versions of plugins.
I've stopped maintaining 1.6 with beta 3 - nearly all of my plugins worked with some small changes with both versions. However they didn't used newly added stuff (like global_intermediate or new setting types). ATM I'm updating those plugins to make use of the new stuff which will completely break 1.6 support.
I can't speak as a major developer because my plugins are not that big but I have already updated nearly all of them and they didn't require anything really special but a simple 16* -> 18* snitch and some adjustments related to Prototype/jQuery issues. There are some plugins which are extensions to others - such as Moderation Alerts Pack, you know what it is - and I'm waiting for other developers - Euan in that particular case - to update the master one, but I will stick to their policy and decide the compatibility according to their decisions.
Still, I have some plugins I need to finish and release. I think I will just develop them for 1.8, but I will test them on 1.6 anyway and see if it works or not. I wouldn't mind adding some lines of code to support 1.6 but just in case the edits would not be too complex. In that case, I would definitely drop support for 1.6.
It would be much easier for plugin developers if we had a clearly defined EOL dates for the 1.6 series.
The "right way" was already enforced by the MyBB team though as the mods database for 1.6 was closed. I am pretty straightforward when it comes to keeping the environment (MyBB, PHP) up to date, but rendering the old DB read-only made the transition painful for some boards as they were left with a decision of either keeping their software and plugins up to date (and thus keeping their boards safe) or sticking with 1.6 and their plugins, not available yet for 1.8.
(2014-12-25, 10:07 PM)Devilshakerz Wrote: [ -> ]It would be much easier for plugin developers if we had a clearly defined EOL dates for the 1.6 series.
The "right way" was already enforced by the MyBB team though as the mods database for 1.6 was closed. I am pretty straightforward when it comes to keeping the environment (MyBB, PHP) up to date, but rendering the old DB read-only made the transition painful for some boards as they were left with a decision of either keeping their software and plugins up to date (and thus keeping their boards safe) or sticking with 1.6 and their plugins, not available yet for 1.8.
I agree. Well said.
Personally I made them work across both versions, running on different hooks for different versions (global_intermediate was a lifesaver) and even had switches to do things in jQuery and prototype... but that's more my OCD not wanting to drop an older version
Any new plugins I do are strictly designed for the 1.8 series. Note that if it is a private request with money involved I'd make it work for 1.6 if that's what was wanted. If it happens to work for the 1.6 series its a bonus. I only maintain a 1.6 version until I release a version that works with 1.8.
If someone's happy to use old MyBB, they should be happy to use old plugins as well.