Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Phantom Hoover on November 01, 2015, 04:17:06 pm
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Look at this nonsense. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=89597.0) You have a release thread for software made in 2015 that provides builds for systems older than some of this site's members and recommends that users download a compatibility build for 15 year old CPUs. It's ridiculous. You have single downloads for Mac, Linux and FreeBSD (lol), none of which are shackled to this insane level of backwards compatibility. Put the Win9X and no-SSE builds in a separate thread or something for the 3 people who still use them, and the rest of us can get builds targeted at the current decade.
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Pre XP support has already been dropped for the next release. Pre SSE2 builds are probably not needed anymore and could be dropped because the instruction set was introduced in 2001 so it's very likely that no modern systems needs these special builds anymore.
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Look at this nonsense. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=89597.0) You have a release thread for software made in 2015 that provides builds for systems older than some of this site's members and recommends that users download a compatibility build for 15 year old CPUs. It's ridiculous. You have single downloads for Mac, Linux and FreeBSD (lol), none of which are shackled to this insane level of backwards compatibility. Put the Win9X and no-SSE builds in a separate thread or something for the 3 people who still use them, and the rest of us can get builds targeted at the current decade.
Can't agree more.
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The post is also really hard to understand, visually. There's a ton of clutter. Assuming this is meant to be user-facing, not-dev facing, the instant you look at the post your hands should know where to point and click to get the build.
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Pre XP support has already been dropped for the next release. Pre SSE2 builds are probably not needed anymore and could be dropped because the instruction set was introduced in 2001 so it's very likely that no modern systems needs these special builds anymore.
Seriously, my old Dell ****box was running a Pentium 4, and even that supported SSE2. You can get newer machines out of the dumpster behind a random local business.
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Perhaps all builds targeted at legacy systems should be under a separate 'Compatibility' subsection of the release post, or better yet, under a second post?
I know on XDA Developers, OPs who are releasing ROMs that have a lot of information will usually put the overview of what the ROM is / does in the first post, with a sort of table of contents in the first part of that post stating, 'for installation instructions, see 2nd post, for screenshots, see 3rd post, for troubleshooting, see 3rd post' or somesuch, and they often post blank posts after those to reserve them for possible future use if they need more sections.
Keeps the confusion to a minimum. :yes:
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Look at this nonsense. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=89597.0) You have a release thread for software made in 2015 that provides builds for systems older than some of this site's members and recommends that users download a compatibility build for 15 year old CPUs. It's ridiculous. You have single downloads for Mac, Linux and FreeBSD (lol), none of which are shackled to this insane level of backwards compatibility. Put the Win9X and no-SSE builds in a separate thread or something for the 3 people who still use them, and the rest of us can get builds targeted at the current decade.
What utter rubbish. How big of a troll do you have to be to complain that we provide a wide variety of options for a wide variety of users? It's not enough to get something that you want -- for you to be satisfied, other people have to be denied something they want.
This is aside from the fact that, as m!m said, your post is already overcome by events.
Have a warning for your superciliousness.
The post is also really hard to understand, visually. There's a ton of clutter. Assuming this is meant to be user-facing, not-dev facing, the instant you look at the post your hands should know where to point and click to get the build.
This on the other hand is legitimate and reasonable criticism. Programmers tend to have a systematic mindset that is exceptionally well suited for solving problems but not that conducive to designing something that's visually appealing. (It's not that we can't do it, it's that it's extra work and usually a much lower priority.) So any alternative format proposals would be welcome.
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Oh man. :rolleyes:
What utter rubbish. How big of a troll do you have to be to complain that we provide a wide variety of options for a wide variety of users?
First off; Bringing up a valid point that you happen to be (probably the only person) disagreeing with is not 'trolling'.
Second off; This 'wide variety of users' you speak of, who exactly are these people? The three people that use a pc build in 1999 to try and run freespace in this time and day? You?
It's not enough to get something that you want -- for you to be satisfied, other people have to be denied something they want.
That's not even what he suggested. If you actually read his post, he suggested that those olders build be put into a seperate thread. So the release thread becomes easier to read and all operating systems have a single download link.
This is aside from the fact that, as m!m said, your post is already overcome by events.
This one? Pre XP support has already been dropped for the next release. Pre SSE2 builds are probably not needed anymore and could be dropped because the instruction set was introduced in 2001 so it's very likely that no modern systems needs these special builds anymore.
The one that agrees that the builds other than the SSE2 ones aren't needed anymore? Pretty much what Phantomhoover was getting at? I fail to see how this invalidates PH's post at all. More like, it reinforces his point.
Have a warning for your superciliousness.
This is pure power abuse. Is this becoming a thing now? Issueing official warnings to people that bring up valid points that you happen to disagree with? It doesn't even seem like you read his post properly, just that you got upset by the perceived condescending tone of the post.
The post is also really hard to understand, visually. There's a ton of clutter. Assuming this is meant to be user-facing, not-dev facing, the instant you look at the post your hands should know where to point and click to get the build.
This on the other hand is legitimate and reasonable criticism. Programmers tend to have a systematic mindset that is exceptionally well suited for solving problems but not that conducive to designing something that's visually appealing. (It's not that we can't do it, it's that it's extra work and usually a much lower priority.) So any alternative format proposals would be welcome.
Well here's a start to clear up the format; do what has been suggested here by PH and m!m and get rid of the old builds (into some kind of backwards compatibility thread for people with ancient machines) and the absurd "If you don't know which one to get, get the third one (no SSE)." recommendation.
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What utter rubbish. How big of a troll do you have to be to complain that we provide a wide variety of options for a wide variety of users? It's not enough to get something that you want -- for you to be satisfied, other people have to be denied something they want.
This is aside from the fact that, as m!m said, your post is already overcome by events.
Have a warning for your superciliousness.
Interesting fact: both Wikipedia and Mozilla found that adding more payment options to their donations screen actively reduced the amount of donations they received. A 'wide variety of options' is not necessarily a good thing, if it confuses users and makes them spend cognitive effort choosing the one they need. Often they'll just give up on you entirely. So telling new users up front that they need to read a Wikipedia article and download a 3rd party tool to make an informed choice needs a pretty hefty justification behind it. In this case the only reason for offering all these compatibility builds seems to be that you personally use a 20 year old computer and have made it your mission to make the SCP accommodate it. Forgive me if I'm a little dismissive of that.
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In this case the only reason for offering all these compatibility builds seems to be that you personally use a 20 year old computer and have made it your mission to make the SCP accommodate it. Forgive me if I'm a little dismissive of that.
If this is actually the case then that explains why Goober seems to consider the opening post to be 'condescending' to him.
Please don't let the SCP be held back by a single ultra conservative individual. :blah:
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'Perceived' condescending tone? The first four words took care of setting the tone for this thread. I don't necessarily disagree with anything Phantom Hoover said, but I could have been justified to lock this thread after just reading the opening sentence and requesting that if there are to be criticisms of the release template, they could be brought across a bit less dramatically.
Now, as to simplifying it, if there was a 'click to see more' tag in our forum, I could easily simplify the Windows download build section as many other projects do. But, our spoiler tag just hides things and you have to highlight them to read, with no way to turn off the spoiler tag. If we could modify the code behind the spoiler tag in our template a bit or provide an alternative tag (maybe there's one I'm forgetting already?), I could implement it in the template, by offering one default download link, and a small, collapsed 'more builds' section below it.
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The opening sentence was not good, the point is valid, I don't think the warning was at all justified but Phantom you probably could do with not calling people fools!
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Now, as to simplifying it, if there was a 'click to see more' tag in our forum, I could easily simplify the Windows download build section as many other projects do. But, our spoiler tag just hides things and you have to highlight them to read, with no way to turn off the spoiler tag. If we could modify the code behind the spoiler tag in our template a bit or provide an alternative tag (maybe there's one I'm forgetting already?), I could implement it in the template, by offering one default download link, and a small, collapsed 'more builds' section below it.
How about moving it to the bottom of the post in a "Compatibility builds" section?
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First off; Bringing up a valid point that you happen to be (probably the only person) disagreeing with is not 'trolling'.
Second off; This 'wide variety of users' you speak of, who exactly are these people? The three people that use a pc build in 1999 to try and run freespace in this time and day? You?
First, the trolling is not the disagreement. The trolling is the insulting of chief1983's post by the word "nonsense", the categorization of backwards compatibility as "insane", and the general bad faith frame of the post. This is not constructive criticism; this is an attack straight out of the troll playbook.
Second, it has always been the policy of the SCP to provide any builds that coders are willing to compile and support. Your position is no more tenable than if you were complaining about providing support to OSX or Linux users.
It's not enough to get something that you want -- for you to be satisfied, other people have to be denied something they want.
That's not even what he suggested. If you actually read his post, he suggested that those olders build be put into a seperate thread. So the release thread becomes easier to read and all operating systems have a single download link.
You're committing the fallacy of composition. You can't isolate his post to that one statement. Go back and read it yourself. It was completely and contemptuously dismissive of any perspective other than his own.
In this case the only reason for offering all these compatibility builds seems to be that you personally use a 20 year old computer and have made it your mission to make the SCP accommodate it. Forgive me if I'm a little dismissive of that.
If this is actually the case then that explains why Goober seems to consider the opening post to be 'condescending' to him.
Please don't let the SCP be held back by a single ultra conservative individual. :blah:
Please don't base your entire argument on incorrect assumptions.
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Second, it has always been the policy of the SCP to provide any builds that coders are willing to compile and support. Your position is no more tenable than if you were complaining about providing support to OSX or Linux users.
This, then, is a bad policy. You should be providing builds for each OS (because everyone knows what OS they're using) configured for a reasonable range of modern hardware and maybe providing specialised compatibility builds in their own section. We aren't getting new players who use a Pentium running Windows 98. The people who use those builds, if they even exist, know what they're doing. We can sacrifice a little accessibility for them if it means a big gain in accessibility for everyone else.
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Again, there's nothing wrong with the policy, we could just perhaps work on the presentation a bit. But they don't have to be exclusive.
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Yes, presentation is the issue. Make whatever builds you want, but make the builds that should be default for most users the most discoverable.
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Second, it has always been the policy of the SCP to provide any builds that coders are willing to compile and support. Your position is no more tenable than if you were complaining about providing support to OSX or Linux users.
This, then, is a bad policy. You should be providing builds for each OS (because everyone knows what OS they're using) configured for a reasonable range of modern hardware and maybe providing specialised compatibility builds in their own section. We aren't getting new players who use a Pentium running Windows 98. The people who use those builds, if they even exist, know what they're doing. We can sacrifice a little accessibility for them if it means a big gain in accessibility for everyone else.
See, this is a much more reasonable post.
Sure, new players aren't going to be buying old computers running old operating systems. But there are still players who maintain old systems (aside from myself, there is Selectah and at least one other whose name doesn't immediately come to mind). And if old systems can still be supported while not restricting new development, why not keep all options available?
But post-3.7.2, the point is moot, because as m!m said, pre-XP compatibility has been effectively dropped. This is a direct result of moving to C++11 which (for all intents and purposes) cannot be built for pre-XP versions of Windows.
Now, the "maybe providing specialized compatibility builds in their own section" is along the lines of format suggestions I solicited. This might simplify the release post, but on the other hand, it would also take away from the release post being a one-stop shop for all builds. After all, we don't post separate threads for OSX and Linux builds.
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Alright, let's take a step back and go from a fresh base.
1) Noone is talking about dropping the compatibility builds as long as someone is willing to compile them. We have literaly no reason to not give access to any form of content that someone is willing to provide, however marginally useful that content may be.
2) Those compatibility builds do cater to the need of a very minimal minority of players, and currently do needlessly clutter the main release thread.
As a consequence from 1 and 2, those builds can and should be relocated and the main release post should be reformatted.
Remember the release thread is a thread, and therefore can and should be composed of multiple posts. First post should be clear, concise, and comport one link to each supported platform and possibly the launcher(s). Everything else can go in later posts or separate threads, in decreasing order of importance.
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Okay, can we get beyond the namecalling and upset-being and posturing and other bull**** and get constructive?
Let's brainstorm a new release template we can use!
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I was typing stuff and it has been made pretty much obsolete by all the new posts. So lemme just scrap all of it, except for:
Let me just reinstate that:
Second, it has always been the policy of the SCP to provide any builds that coders are willing to compile and support. Your position is no more tenable than if you were complaining about providing support to OSX or Linux users.
Has at no point ever been anyone's position in this thread. You really need to read these things more carefully.
Alright, let's take a step back and go from a fresh base.
1) Noone is talking about dropping the compatibility builds as long as someone is willing to compile them. We have literaly no reason to not give access to any form of content that someone is willing to provide, however marginally useful that content may be.
2) Those compatibility builds do cater to the need of a very minimal minority of players, and currently do needlessly clutter the main release thread.
As a consequence from 1 and 2, those builds can and should be relocated and the main release post should be reformatted.
Remember the release thread is a thread, and therefore can and should be composed of multiple posts. First post should be clear, concise, and comport one link to each supported platform and possibly the launcher(s). Everything else can go in later posts or separate threads, in decreasing order of importance.
This post, is what the position is.
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FYI - here be the code (https://github.com/scp-fs2open/nightlybuild/blob/master/release.pl) that creates said release post, see "sub post" at the bottom of the page (afaik, chief1983 correct me if I'm wrong!)
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Nope, that's the latest version all right.
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Now, as to simplifying it, if there was a 'click to see more' tag in our forum, I could easily simplify the Windows download build section as many other projects do. But, our spoiler tag just hides things and you have to highlight them to read, with no way to turn off the spoiler tag. If we could modify the code behind the spoiler tag in our template a bit or provide an alternative tag (maybe there's one I'm forgetting already?), I could implement it in the template, by offering one default download link, and a small, collapsed 'more builds' section below it.
[hide]<long wall of text>[/hide]
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=20652.0
Scratch that, posted too soon, will post back with appropriate one when I find it.
EDIT2: Here, just need to change the BBCode to something besides [spoiler] and the displayed text on the collapse button, if any.
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=3981
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Honestly I think adding an entire mod just for this one little application seems rather superfluous. Instead, like others have suggested, just put the more esoteric builds in their own separate post, and have a link in the opening post to it. Problem solved with a bit of BBCode.
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I don't mind the idea of a see more option though. It's not just this release thread that could be greatly simplified in this way. I'd love to do the same thing to the Diaspora release thread for instance. And it would be really cool whenever I do a FRED quiz as I could have the answers in the post but hidden (rather than simply spoilered which doesn't hide things like pictures etc.)
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I'm with Karajorma: collapsible spoilers would be useful for other things than just SCP release posts. Let's not throw out adding a useful new tag to the forum's repertoire just because it would be an overkill solution to a single problem.
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"An entire mod" is overstating things a bit. The code at jr2's link is really quite simple to add. Use [hidden][/hidden] or [hidden=some title][/hidden], like so:
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"An entire mod" is overstating things a bit. The code at jr2's link is really quite simple to add. Use [hidden][/hidden] or [hidden=some title][/hidden], like so:
Oooh, that autoplay is quite nice, too. How does it interact with hiding multiple videos?
Can you nest these tags? Wait, I can just try it...
Apparently so.
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Well I stand corrected. :p
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Well played, Goober. Well played.
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"An entire mod" is overstating things a bit. The code at jr2's link is really quite simple to add. Use or Hidden Text: some title • Show
I remember the board at least used to be able to do that and have wanted to know how to do it for ages, thanks. Do feel it would be handy especially for posts with massive amounts of text.
PS: Damn you :lol:.
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I can't hide a list. Not the end of the world but if I wanted to collapse the list of known issues with this, I can't currently.
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Also, I have simplified the release post quite a bit I think with this new tag. Definitely makes the post more concise and 90+% of users probably won't need to expand anything to find what they want.
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Pretty good but I think we can do even better.
http://pastebin.com/nXcLBesN
Notes:
- When did we start using 7Z format for Windows? That requires people to get 7-Zip, a substantial barrier for the average player who just wants to play. Consider using .zip. Then again, since many mods use .7z. maybe it's justifiable, since the average player might need 7-Zip anyway *shrug*.
- Even a computer-savvy player is not going to know how to use OpenAL Soft if just directed to the OpenAL Soft site. We could have a download link to the latest .dll pre-renamed to OpenAL32.dll, with instructions on how to get it directly for those who want that. Unless issues with Creative's OpenAL are common, all of the OpenAL Soft stuff can go in hidden text IMO.
- The average player doesn't understand or care what compiler was used. You can put that in technical notes at the bottom if you think it's worth mentioning.
- Mentioning which versions of an OS are supported is very worthwhile. No need to mention that OS X releases Intel, 10.6 dropped PowerPC support.
- Removing Linux from the main text of the post is a bit anti-Linux and to the casual reader will look like we don't support it. I'm okay with FreeBSD being left in the hidden text though given that it's not one of the three primary platforms (sorry *BSD users). I wonder how many Linux users actually use the Linux build when most need to build from source anyway.
- Put known issues at the bottom. The average player is not going to read through Mantis to see if a bug applies to them. :)
- The hidden text's title text is a bit too subtle. I think we can leave it as is but maybe put a title over hidden text blocks in imporrtant cases, like I did with TrackIR.
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The 2001 thing for SSE2 is a bit off. Yes Intel introduced it in Pentium 4s in 2001, but there were many new PCs being sold after that time which did not have it yet. No 32bit AMD CPU has it, since it was introduced in the Athlon64/Opteron lines in 2003. Also many Pentium 3 core-based machines might have been sold after that as well. Celeron and the like specifically had a long shelf life. Still more than ten years ago, but just pointing out that putting a date of '2001' in the post might not be the most accurate way to represent the use case for various builds. I think we can assume that anyone who _does_ click the 'more builds' area is hopefully savvy enough to figure out which build they actually need with the information we already provide.
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- When did we start using 7Z format for Windows? That requires people to get 7-Zip, a substantial barrier for the average player who just wants to play. Consider using .zip. Then again, since many mods use .7z. maybe it's justifiable, since the average player might need 7-Zip anyway *shrug*.
This is surprisingly true. I have 3 examples of people off the top of my head (wife's younger brother-18yr, my nephew-14yr, friend from college-27yr), all gave up installing FS and Mods until they talked to me because they didn't know what a .7z file was or didn't understand why they needed an extra program to "install the installer". My nephew was unable to do anything because he didn't have the computer permissions on his Windows account to install 7z. If the other mod creators are like me.. they just use 7z because that's what it seems all of HLP uses. I know it has better compression... meh I was never really sure the gain was worth the effort.
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I was doing release builds specifically in zip for this reason though, in fact I'm not sure when I switched release builds over to 7z...might have been during one of my cutovers to the automated script or something. Or when the installer itself was able to extract 7zip files. Really, people who don't have 7zip probably shouldn't be downloading builds manually but using the installer, so I guess this wasn't ever something I was too worried about. Also why I probably never took too much concern for the overall layout of the release post itself. It wasn't really ever intended for the casual first time user in the post-installer universe.
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The 2001 thing for SSE2 is a bit off. Yes Intel introduced it in Pentium 4s in 2001, but there were many new PCs being sold after that time which did not have it yet. No 32bit AMD CPU has it, since it was introduced in the Athlon64/Opteron lines in 2003. Also many Pentium 3 core-based machines might have been sold after that as well. Celeron and the like specifically had a long shelf life. Still more than ten years ago, but just pointing out that putting a date of '2001' in the post might not be the most accurate way to represent the use case for various builds. I think we can assume that anyone who _does_ click the 'more builds' area is hopefully savvy enough to figure out which build they actually need with the information we already provide.
2001 was a half-educated guess. If there's some concise jargon-free way to characterize the pre-SSE2 builds, use that. By "information we already provide" do you mean the information in the hidden text? "More builds" is pretty vague. People won't know whether to click on it.
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- Removing Linux from the main text of the post is a bit anti-Linux and to the casual reader will look like we don't support it. I'm okay with FreeBSD being left in the hidden text though given that it's not one of the three primary platforms (sorry *BSD users). I wonder how many Linux users actually use the Linux build when most need to build from source anyway.
I also vote for having Linux releases non-hidden. There have been a number of people drop by HLP to request help with using the provided Linux builds, that's why I've got the "32-bit libs for 64bit Ubuntu" link in my sig - that's only needed for people with a 64bit OS using the release (or nightly) thread provided 32bit builds.
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I think the order of the links should go most critical to "nice to know". The builds should be front and center. Maybe something like...
- Primary Builds
- Windows
- Max
- Linux
- Link to other builds thread
- FSO Launchers (wxlauncher front and center here)
- TrackIR
- Known Issues
- Brief brief quick Troubleshooting
- How to report bugs
- Test builds/nightly forum link with extreme declaimers
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Oooh, that autoplay is quite nice, too. How does it interact with hiding multiple videos?
That autoplay is only activated for that specific video. ;) In fact figuring out how to make the autoplay work took about 10 times longer than actually integrating the new bbcode tag.
Multiple videos should be able to be hidden and shown just fine.
I can't hide a list. Not the end of the world but if I wanted to collapse the list of known issues with this, I can't currently.
Hmm. :blah: Well, the way the hiding works is that the CSS of a div element is toggled between display='' and display='none'. Everything within the bbcode is enclosed within the div so it should work for any element. I wonder if lists (or the way SMF handles lists) have some sort of incompatibility.
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Testing:
Hidden Text: Testing a hidden list • Show
Looks like it's a problem with the BBCode parser, given that hanging [/hidden] tag floating after the list.
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Yeah, I wondered that too, almost as if the list is forcing an end to the surrounding element. I know you shouldn't be able to put things in a list other than a list item, but you should be able to wrap the list without that breaking parsing I would think. Look what happens when we try to use 'color' around a list:
[/color]
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Turns out that this happens because [list] is a block-level tag. According to the documentation, "Block level tags cannot be nested inside tags that are not block level, and will not be implicitly closed as easily. One break following a block level tag may also be removed."
The same thing happens with [center], as shown here (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=383818). That thread links to a bug report (http://dev.simplemachines.org/mantis/view.php?id=3553) which ultimately links to a commit (https://github.com/live627/SMF2.1/commit/0008e62c62568365f84a034f8e1f93aa7c9721b3) that is alleged to "fix" the issue, but it's on the 2.1 beta branch (we're on 2.0.x stable).
Unfortunately, the commit message doesn't describe how the fix is supposed to work, nor does the diff appear to address this particular issue. Nevertheless, I tried applying that diff to our 2.0.x codebase. It didn't work. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This means that either a) the diff only fixes the issue if the forum is running SMF 2.1, or b) (more likely IMO) the committer made a mistake when associating his commit with the bug tickets.
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More confusingly, that particular GitHub issue actually describes two separate problems; if that commit was meant to fix the second one rather than the first, then this could still be a problem with the 2.1 beta, so it might just be best to leave this be.
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The description of the issue confuses me. I don't know if 'hidden' is a block level tag, but the implementation described uses divs, which _are_ block level tags, so it sounds like the list is withing a block level tag to me. 'Color' may not be block level, I don't know.
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Well, that's interesting. On a hunch, I added the "block-level tag" attribute to [hidden] (as well as [spoiler] for good measure). Lo and behold, it fixes the list case.
The same thing can't be done for the [color] tag because it's usually written inline with the rest of the text.
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Well, that's interesting. On a hunch, I added the "block-level tag" attribute to [hidden] (as well as [spoiler] for good measure). Lo and behold, it fixes the list case.
The same thing can't be done for the [color] tag because it's usually written inline with the rest of the text.
Hidden Text: Just a test, people • Show - This is an item.
- This is another item.
- This is yet another item!
- Let's get downright rainbow-tastic in here.
I think "inability to wrap that whole thing in another color tag" is a perfectly livable restriction. :yes:
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Awesome, I can collapse the known issues list now. Thanks Goober!