MyBB Community Forums

I don't know if this has been suggested or not (I searched, but couldn't find anything), but having core functionality to patch files would be nice.

Something like frostschutz Patches.

It should be easy to port that addon to MyBB 2. It's open source and the core functionality of patching files is part of PluginLibrary so if someone wants to build a new interface around it, they already can.

MyBB team should concentrate on making MyBB 2 so great that no patches will be required

also a vote for including patches in core.

I honestly doubt that will make it into 2.0. It's an advanced feature and as we're not using single files anymore it won't be that easy to modify files as it was in 1.x. Probably better as a plugin (considering that the plugin system is planned to be more powerful as in 1.x) or in 2.1, 2.2 when we can concentrate on improving what we have. Also it's probably better to wait till the repos are public before we start discussing this. But as frostschutz said: Writing a script that modifies files is pretty easy.

(2015-09-06, 08:41 AM)Jones H Wrote: [ -> ]I honestly doubt that will make it into 2.0. It's an advanced feature and as we're not using single files anymore it won't be that easy to modify files as it was in 1.x. Probably better as a plugin (considering that the plugin system is planned to be more powerful as in 1.x) or in 2.1, 2.2 when we can concentrate on improving what we have. Also it's probably better to wait till the repos are public before we start discussing this. But as frostschutz said: Writing a script that modifies files is pretty easy.

will mybb allow us to use child files/themes so our edits to core files won't get overwritten each time a software update is released?

that is something I really like about wordpress and other software I've used.

wordpress has some magic that allows you to edit files and update the same files without having to edit them again? Now that's something I'd like to see. Usually you can't have both, so - If you keep your edited files you haven't updated them, or if a file you changed receives an update you have to perform your change again, hence - patching. (Sometimes you even have to edit the patches as they might not work anymore if the update changed something in the relevant code).

(2015-09-06, 07:42 PM)frostschutz Wrote: [ -> ]wordpress has some magic that allows you to edit files and update the same files without having to edit them again? Now that's something I'd like to see. Usually you can't have both, so - If you keep your edited files you haven't updated them, or if a file you changed receives an update you have to perform your change again, hence - patching. (Sometimes you even have to edit the patches as they might not work anymore if the update changed something in the relevant code).

it looks like it applies to the themes, and any files within the theme: https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes

I'd like to have that too as it gives the admin endless possibilities. But as said I doubt it'll make it into 2.0 Gold.

(2015-09-06, 07:42 PM)frostschutz Wrote: [ -> ]wordpress has some magic that allows you to edit files and update the same files without having to edit them again? Now that's something I'd like to see. -snip-

Search and Replace. They probably had an automated feature for that and replace specific parts of the code with the updated code. Also, this sounds a lot like how the Woltlab Community Framework does it's updates for the Framework, Plugins, and Message Board. It definitely sounds like the coding would be complex though.

The page above describes something about theming, and that's one case where you don't have to patch at all (for example CSS, you can just add another CSS file and override previously set values with it). MyBB 1.x also already has a "child theme" concept, maybe it doesn't take it quite as far as wordpress but the basics are there.

That's great but doesn't help when you want to change a specific bit of code in core that you can't get at through plugin hooks. With full OOP maybe you could overload functions in ugly ways without patching their originals but - you still have to adapt your version when the original receives some kind of update.

In the end patching gives you some fine grained control not achieved otherwise.