New beta: 1.31.5 and growing stable...

[goyo]

I just want to say a huge THANKS for all the developers for this new beta version.

I've upgraded a very heavily customized old coranto with around 20 old add-ons and it runs without any problem! (Now I can even delete the cronjob which restores nsettings every 10 minutes )

Thanks, thanks, thanks!

Of course, you did read all the warnings about not using this on a live site didn't you...

Of course...
I have 4 different coranto upgrades running without a hitch for 2 weeks now. Before that I had daily problems with nsettings on different servers (one installation was 5 years old on the other one there was a problem only about every two months although they sent news daily...it was pretty strange...now flock seems to work pretty well).

So thanks once again...

[Parahead]

I've upgraded a very heavily customized old coranto with around 20 old add-ons and it runs without any problem! (Now I can even delete the cronjob which restores nsettings every 10 minutes )

As feathers points out, there is a warning about using 1.31.5 on live sites. Mainly because of two reasons;
1) The new development release has not been tested fully yet. (Or people use it but doesn't report back any feedback?)
2) There are some addons that have problems with the new folder structure, so you may end up wanting to use a particular addon but it isn't possible.

Many addon authors are not around anymore, so depending on the license for a particular addon we may or may not be able to make an upgrade to it once found it doesn't work with the new folder structure.

Anyway, to start target point 2 and as I have pointed out before, one of the major things needed to get 1.31.x stable is to weed out which addons need updating and which can be marked as OK. So, could you please provide us with a list of those 20 addons you do use with 1.31.5, it would be very useful.

[goyo]

OK. So, could you please provide us with a list of those 20 addons you do use with 1.31.5, it would be very useful.

I'm using the following active addons on 1.31.5 (different sites) without problems:

Abacus, Advanced Profile Postprocessing, Anne Rice, CustomFields, Maginot, Modify News: User Column, Multipart, News Categories, News Columns, SearchNews, Tickit!, vBulletin (3.x) Comments, WebWriter, X Poll, ChangeDateNew, News Preview Modified, Backup, Glossary, Unofficial Email Addon.

Maybe I changed a path in 1 or 2 addons...maybe not...I don't remember...I know the upgrades and the tests took only 5-5 minutes on each site...

[Parahead]

OK. So, could you please provide us with a list of those 20 addons you do use with 1.31.5, it would be very useful.

I'm using the following active addons on 1.31.5 (different sites) without problems:

Abacus, Advanced Profile Postprocessing, Anne Rice, CustomFields, Maginot, Modify News: User Column, Multipart, News Categories, News Columns, SearchNews, Tickit!, vBulletin (3.x) Comments, WebWriter, X Poll, ChangeDateNew, News Preview Modified, Backup, Glossary, Unofficial Email Addon.

Maybe I changed a path in 1 or 2 addons...maybe not...I don't remember...I know the upgrades and the tests took only 5-5 minutes on each site...

Thanks for the feedback regarding working addons. Glad to hear that the upgrade worked smoothly as well.

[Broomsy]

Back on the case as I am starting a new project with Coranto. Thought I would give this version a whirl.

Parahead you are doing a fantastic job. Keep it up!

[Musicvid]

I think that the relatively few complaints and posts about problems indicate that Parahead has a winner. A few tweaks and path fixes for some plugins and can we expect a release announcement soon

[AndyP]

Planning to install later today. Thanks for the hard work again guys.

[Swan]

I tested the 1.31.5 version for a while on a site that I will make live in a few weeks. So far I found no complaints except that I think there is a bug in the CustomFields addon:
The Field Type- list shows:
Single line text Field
Multi line text box
checkbox
radiobutton
move up
file upload
description field
...and so on...

but when make a radio button field I get a checkbox. selecting a checkbox, I get a dropdown box.

I've installed the following addons:
Backup By E-Mail, CustomFields, Erdë ( ChangeUser Revised ), Maginot, Modify News : Missing Subject, Modify News: User Column, MultiPage, Multipart, News Categories, Snipper, Sort Orders, WebWriter, X MultiSubmit

Hope I am of any help and looking forward to the final release!

[Parahead]

I think that the relatively few complaints and posts about problems indicate that Parahead has a winner. A few tweaks and path fixes for some plugins and can we expect a release announcement soon

Or we simply doesn't have enough people testing the new version out and don't get enough feedback because of that? I honestly don't know which is the case... I know it is possible to extract some statistics based on downloads/installations of Coranto versions here at CTUS, maybe that could give a clue?

Anyway, the problem with the new folder structure is that it is *addons* that are effected, regardless of how stable the Coranto core is, and depending on the license for a specific addon it might be simple or hard to update it.

We do know the backup addon contains problems (reported here) and we have some file closing issues with some addons when building news (as reported here). I honestly haven't had the time to look into these two issues, but at least I havn't forgotten about them either...

I tested the 1.31.5 version for a while on a site that I will make live in a few weeks. So far I found no complaints except that I think there is a bug in the CustomFields addon:
The Field Type- list shows:
Single line text Field
Multi line text box
checkbox
radiobutton
move up
file upload
description field
...and so on...

but when make a radio button field I get a checkbox. selecting a checkbox, I get a dropdown box

Neither of those two fields are created by the CustomFields addon, they are part of the Coranto core. I have not been able to replicate this behaviour. Could anyone else report their feedback on this, does it work for you or not?

[Musicvid]

Anyway, the problem with the new folder structure is that it is *addons* that are effected, regardless of how stable the Coranto core is, and depending on the license for a specific addon it might be simple or hard to update it.

Just thinking out loud here -- would it be feasible to write a "silent" addon that would pack with the release version and correct the paths in the old addons on the fly? It could be called UseOldAddon or something. I've only seen 2 or 3 variants of the problem posted, and if it was an addon it **could** be turned off so no one could complain about their licensing, since you will have left their code intact . . .

I think no one should mind if their addon is made to work with a new core, but I guess one can't be too careful.

[Parahead]

Anyway, the problem with the new folder structure is that it is *addons* that are effected, regardless of how stable the Coranto core is, and depending on the license for a specific addon it might be simple or hard to update it.

Just thinking out loud here -- would it be feasible to write a "silent" addon that would pack with the release version and correct the paths in the old addons on the fly? It could be called UseOldAddon or something. I've only seen 2 or 3 variants of the problem posted, and if it was an addon it **could** be turned off so no one could complain about their licensing, since you will have left their code intact . . .

Yes, both of these scenarios are possible, but having a "silent" addon doing upgrades is not something I reccomend (has been discussed before). Turning off the addon would of course also be possible, but abandon an addon is not good either. Actually, in Coranto 1.31.x you *can* specify the paths, so one solution if using addons that isn't updated is to set the folders to the old structure... But of course, the best solution is to update the addons that needs it. The thing is that it isn't very hard or anything, but there really is a big lack of people helping out with different tasks related to Coranto (both regarding coding and otherwise).

I think no one should mind if their addon is made to work with a new core, but I guess one can't be too careful.

I agree that no addon author should mind, but *who* is to update the addon and take over responsibilty to maintain the code? Currently I have about 10 addons under my wing where the original author has stopped developement. This also means I have taken over responsibility for tracking bugs and so on. Like I said above, at the moment it looks like I am the only one coding anything for Coranto and I am starting to lose interest because of it... And regarding license issues, just let's say I have been around for a while and seen things turn ugly...

[Dale Ray]

I am working on the file locking problem when using Feed Builder with Coranto 1.31.5 and noticed that in cruser.pl:

# ** FILE LOCKING **
# File locking is a feature, provided by the operating system, which
# prevents possible serious problems when Coranto is being used by
# multiple users. Almost every operating system supports this, except
# for Windows 9x/ME. Possible settings:
# 2 Enable file locking. If you know your server supports it, set
# UseFlock to this.
# 0 Disable file locking. This may result in file corruption.

$UseFlock = 2;

and the only place I can find this is tested is in crcore.pl (line 299):

eval {

if ($UseFlock == 1){
sysopen($fh, $filename, $flags) || CRcough("Unable to open '$filename' (with flock). $!");
flock($fh, $flockflag) || CRcough("Unable to flock '$filename'. $!");
...(more code follows)

Is this a problem or am I missing something?

[Parahead]

Is this a problem or am I missing something?

Nope, it isn't a problem. In crlib.pl there is an auto-detection for flock that looks like this:

Code: Select all

# Auto-detect flock support, if necessary
unless ($UseFlock == 0){
   if ($^O eq 'MSWin32' || $ENV{'OS'} =~ /window/i){
      # We appear to be on a Windows box, so flock() isn't supported
      $UseFlock = 0;
   }
   else {
      # Assume we have file locking available
      $UseFlock = 1;
   }
}

What it does is check if file lock should be enabled or not and sets the UseFlock variable to 1 if it is OK. However, I really think that setting UseFlock to 1 in cruser.pl should skip this auto-detection, so maybe changing the unless-line to the below instead would be an idea:

Code: Select all

if ($UseFlock == 2) {

[Dale Ray]

Parahead,

I missed that reference to the UseFlock variable. Glad it is a non-issue.

[Swan]

With XMS on: If you have been logged out (end of session) and still have the coranto-mainscreen in your browser and you click on Submit News, after loggin' in again, Coranto opens the Sbumit Newsitem screen.
But, regardless of your XMS settings, it shows all the possible inputs/categories and acts like there's no XMS.

My version: 1.31.5
Other addons:
CSS Editor, CustomFields, Erdë ( ChangeUser Revised ), Maginot, Modify News : Missing Subject, MultiPage, Multipart, News Categories, QuickLinks, Snipper, Sort Orders, WebWriter, X MultiSubmit