[plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

hakjoon · 2007-03-16 13:54:49

Rick,

I’m sure we can make whatever you are using work.

I highly recommend subversion, it’s a life saver and for a single developer pretty easy to use. There are some decent GUI’s for OSX out there although I haven’t found one as nice as TortoiseSVN, so I just command line it on OSX.

I’d be happy to help if you want, I think anyone who does anything with text should use it.

rsilletti · 2007-03-16 15:45:47

hakjoon,

I’ve had trouble finding a version of subversion I can use, it’s the old OSX I’m using. I’ll look a little more closely and see what I can find.

Last edited by rsilletti (2007-03-16 15:46:27)

hakjoon · 2007-03-16 15:51:12

Ahh That could be a problem. Like I said I’m sure we can make something work. Even if you just send us a new file, I’m sure I could probably just throw it into filemerge or something.

You can always pull the php file without SVN by just surfing to it in the repository. The google code source page has a link to it.

rsilletti · 2007-03-16 17:07:57

Patrick,

Rather than try to post progressive patches I’ll just wait until I have something more complete. I can get what I need from the repository, given that it’s small yet.

I’ll be back out here with questions I’m sure, the first and most important, I think, would be wether or not this is a functionality that is appropriate for this plugin?

squaredeye · 2007-03-17 13:49:07

I recently got this email from my friend Neil, and wanted to reply to everyone here for the benefit of all. Hope you don’t mind Neil :)

Neil Wrote

I understand the concept behind the ‘pay for’ plugin, and for something as involved as this, it’s a great way of getting quality plugins. But, speaking as a non-coding TXP user, I am baffled as to how I even go about evaluating how useful or otherwise this is to me. I’ve read through the entire thread, looked at your site examples, etc, etc – and still can’t find a simple explanation of:

1. How I create an entry and what relationship the entry has to the article it seems attached to.
2. How I display a list of entries sorted in various ways but mainly by date, with permalinks to associated articles.
3. How the minical and big calendar are used and how they work.

I understand the lack of detailed docs, but it seems (dare I say) stupid to release a plugin without such basic usage info. I reckon the forum thread would be less than half the size it is if simple, basic info was been provided.

The navigation arrows for the minical are a perfect case in point of one of the more bizarre aspects of this approach to pay-as-you-go. The problem was pointed out, a code solution offered, and yet no one (zem, you, ?) has actually fixed it in the plugin code. It seems a very strange approach to me. Instead, we’re told to cough up more cash to see it fixed. I think the other way round: I’m more likely to pay money for something that has been fixed, rather than throwing money at a project in the hope that it might get fixed at some point!

I’m more than happy to pay a reasonable price for a good, supported plugin, but at the moment:
a. I have no idea if this will be properly debugged to a useful point anytime soon.
b. I have no idea if/when usable docs will appear to help me evaluate the plugin.
And so on.
How is that encouraging me to throw money at a project that has such an indeterminate future?

This is not meant to be a criticism of either you or Alex, but I’m just frustrated and puzzled… :(

Neil,
These are all good questions, and its clear to me a few things need to be reitterated and cleared up.

My Relationship to the plugin

I am not the plugin author
I am only the person in charge of releasing it to the public
I am happy to facilitate changes, but I haven’t the coding knowledge necessary to implement them (in all cases)

Team Textpattern Plugin Development of Zem_Event from start to present

I began the work with the plugin because a client of mine needed it and I couldn’t afford the cost of develoing an integrated solution alone, hense the fundraising and donors listed in the first post.
I collected enough money to begin the process and began working with Zem to figure out basic functionality and how much that would cost.
Zem (Team Textpattern) developed the plugin according to those specs
Upon receiving the current status of the plugin, I inquired about documentation for the plugin at which time Zem let me know that it would not be included. He has shown us here and me elsewhere, evidence that this is not crazy and that his development costs are reasonable. It is however unusual for a plugin, considering what we’re used to.
We’ve discussed this on this thread and have dealt with it by providing loose and community oriented documentation. (I’ve repeatedly asked for help with documentation, and this has been the response – quite good in my opinion).

The move to thinking more publicly about the plugin (and the current track)

As mentioned a few posts back, the plugin has been routed in a slightly different direction. I will be working with Zem to facilitate bug fixes and other changes that can be accomplished with the present sum of $200.
If anyone would like to fund changes to the plugin via Team Textpattern in the future, they are more than welcome to do so, and either add the changes to the public version or keep those changes to themselves and use them as leverage with clients, or sell them, etc.
Our goal is to provide a platform for Zem_Event where the myriad developers in this community can contribute to what is potentially an uber plugin.

participating

As Neil appropriate mentions, we need more documentation. The start of which can be found here (as mentioned in the first post). It is not difficult to add to the wiki. Consider doing so, even if only in small amounts.
I could use help administrating txp.squared as a testing home for zem_event, and would be happy to take it in a different direction. I feel very little “control” over it.
There are numerous changes/patches already suggested in this thread that can be implemented for the plugin. We need to affect these changes in the code and provide an updated download link. I will be happy to change the download link when those who know code well enough can provide me with an update which I can link to :)
Bug Testing and documentation, and feature ideas should now be listed in a central location at the google code home for Zem Event (see the post above for link)

And that’s it. If anyone has any further questions, or if I’ve missed something, feel free to ask, but remember, that this plugin comes with a new paradigm. Its important that we all participate rather than just “receive” the plugin :)

Happy weekend,

Matthew

Last edited by ma_smith (2007-03-17 13:51:05)

mrdale · 2007-03-17 17:12:13

Matthew,

Thanks for the clarification. As a lurker, but financial contributor to this plugin, I too find the different approach to development a little perplexing. I have not yet used this plugin yet, as I have not needed to and have not entered the fray more than an occasional checkin.

That said, regardless of the history of the plugin’s development (thanks) and merely on the surface of things, it appears that…

This plugin has less support than most freely contributed plugins
This plugin requires payment for bug fixes, and incremental releases.
The developer response time and support for this wicked-slow.

I think this feeds the frustrations of users and participants alike. This is not Matthew’s fault, but you can see where people get frustrated. I think the grand experiment of commissioned, free software is showing it’s limitations and producing frustrations.

With all the bug fixes that need to be squashed, I don’t hold out much hope that some of my (I think very useful) pre-release requests are likely ever to materialize, unless I contribute more money. Something I’m not in a position to do right now, maybe someday…

Anyway, Thanks go to Matthew (many thanks, actually, he has made a a huge contribution) for pushing this plugin forward. It has great potential.

Software however, requires maintenance, updates and support otherwise it dies. I don’t see this plugin moving forward until someone branches it, patches it, adds documentation and actually supports it outside of a per-hour development cost scenario.

Thoughts? [steps back… takes a deep breath…]

Last edited by mrdale (2007-03-17 17:16:32)

hakjoon · 2007-03-17 17:48:36

Please keep in mind that this is what brought about the idea of zem event code

We are trying a different approach. A community plugin. We put it up in a openly available project tracker and source control so that others can contribute back and the plugin will not depend on a single developer for progress.

New additions and enhancements are welcome, bug fixes are even more welcome, but I hope we get a nice group of people working around this and as people get busy others can jump in much like Stuart, Tranquillo and now Rudd did with zem_contact_reborn. I’m also hoping more of the plugin developers do this so that we don’t have as many branches of similar plugins to address one change and fewer plugins dissapear.

I would have loved to see an official location for this to happen but other developers seemed uninterested so I’m trying it with Matthew’s help. We’ll see if it works out.

Hopefully I’m making sense.

squaredeye · 2007-03-17 18:03:06

mrdale wrote:

This plugin has less support than most freely contributed plugins

This plugin requires payment for bug fixes, and incremental releases.

The developer response time and support for this wicked-slow.

Dale. I FULLY agree with you here.

I am glad this plugin is in the open.
I have had a really great experience with Alex (Zem), who has been as forthcoming about his work as possible (although I’ve learned what kind of questions to ask in the future).
If I commission a plugin from Team Textpattern or any other dev. in the future, I’ll have a better idea of what to ask for from the get-go.
I am hopeful that zem_event_code will be a strong paradigm, and one to follow in the future.

I share many of the frustrations of this group and yourself, but I do not have the same liberties of frustration. I have put 40+ hours into testing and shepharding to see this plugin to fruition, and yet my early mistakes of not asking for either more funding to cover documentation/support or simply downgrading the functionality in order to up the doc/support, put me in a place of “responsibility” over the plugin. A place, I’m frankly not fond of at this point :)

Anyway, Thanks go to Matthew (many thanks, actually, he has made a a huge contribution) for pushing this plugin forward. It has great potential.

Thank you for that Dale. I do appreciate it. I’m learning as I go. And as always, thanks for your insight as well.
Also, thanks to Patrick for leading me to see the benefits of taking the plugin more obviously public.

Matthew

NeilA · 2007-03-17 20:48:17

Thanks for the detailed response Matthew.

I won’t clutter the thread any further, except to say that perhaps this model of plugin development is most frustrating to the non-coders here.

I guess we have been spoiled by gifted coders producing ‘free’ plugins that generally work really well ‘out of the box’ and have enough documentation for people like me to get my head around them.
I also understand this is a complex plugin which require more effort to understand and use… but I’m repeating myself.

I will contribute to the financial support of this plugin – but it still goes against the grain, paying for something that I actually can’t use yet…

Regards

rsilletti · 2007-03-17 21:33:02

Anyone?

I’ve a patch idea that I am working on and I could use a little help at this point. The current atate of the patch can be viewed here

What I think the problem is here is the way I am using the “checkbox” controls. The queries in zem_event_save are writing to the database properly but are writing defaults from the queries because no value is being passed to zem_event_save, I am also getting undefined variable notices for “auto_delete_event” and “auto_delete_entry” variables when loading the write tab.

Could someone who knows these controls take a look and point me in the right direction if I’m not using them right. Once past the reading and writing of these controls to the database, the rest of this should go smoothly.

squaredeye · 2007-03-17 21:46:32

rsilletti,
I wonder if anyone would freakout if we posted some of these needs to the devlist? Or if you posted it to a plugin dev thread? I wonder how many developers are following here? I wish I could help man. Thanks for putting some work into this.

Neil,
I hear you on the frustration end. Thank you for bearing with the plugin. Feel free to ask questions here, or ask me personally. Lets see if we can’t get a calendar rolling for you :)

hakjoon · 2007-03-17 21:59:24

Rick,

I haven’t had the chance to apply the patch but from looking at the diff it looks like you are never pulling zem_auto_delete_entry and zem_auto_delete_event back from post. Right before the zem_event_save() call in zem_event_handler() you will see block that pulls all the zem_event post variables into variables without the zem event prefix. I think all you need is to add

$auto_delete_entry = ps('zem_auto_delete_entry') ? ps('zem_auto_delete_entry') : NULL;
$auto_delete_event = ps('zem_auto_delete_event') ? ps('zem_auto_delete_event') : NULL;

in order to save the values.

I think then you will need to explicitly call the variables into the current scope since zem is not running an extract on $row. Probably just need to do

$auto_delete_entry = @$row['auto_delete_entry'];
$auto_delete_event = @$row['auto_delete_event'];

around line 1565 – 1580. Hope that helps.

nardo · 2007-03-18 00:05:11

The plugin works great & the reference at Textbook lets you know all the tags available and where they can be used

it’s true you’ll need to learn by doing & there’s some minor bugs to be fixed… but dive in – pretty tight first release for such important new functionality! and usable immediately

sparkybarkalot · 2007-03-18 00:17:37

Great plugin. Will be donating right after I get done typing this. Just thought I’d mention that, as far as I can I tell, the zem_event_calendar_nav function builds the prev link, month name, and next link in the wrong order. I just edited the plugin and swapped the lines where it builds the prev link and next link and it now works as you’d expect it: with the “prev” link to the left of the month and the “next” link to the right of the month.

rsilletti · 2007-03-18 00:29:07

Thanks Patrick, that saved me some time, I would have been a while finding the scope oversight “hit and miss”. I’ve updated the patch text. The notices have cleared, however, I’m still writing NULL to the database fields when saved. The manner in which the queries are being used (borrowed from the line above) won’t work for these values in any case, and I’ll adjust those, but true values should be written when they are set and they are not.
I still don’t think I’m passing anything to zem_event_save?

I got it working, the only remaining undesirable behaviour left in the set/save routine is when editing an existing article and event, prior settings for these aren’t retrieved but are both left unchecked (might be better left that way?)

Thanks again Patrick.

Last edited by rsilletti (2007-03-18 03:44:18)

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#211 2007-03-16 13:54:49

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#212 2007-03-16 15:45:47

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#213 2007-03-16 15:51:12

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#214 2007-03-16 17:07:57

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#215 2007-03-17 13:49:07

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

My Relationship to the plugin

Team Textpattern Plugin Development of Zem_Event from start to present

The move to thinking more publicly about the plugin (and the current track)

participating

#216 2007-03-17 17:12:13

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#217 2007-03-17 17:48:36

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#218 2007-03-17 18:03:06

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#219 2007-03-17 20:48:17

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#220 2007-03-17 21:33:02

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#221 2007-03-17 21:46:32

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#222 2007-03-17 21:59:24

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#223 2007-03-18 00:05:11

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#224 2007-03-18 00:17:37

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

#225 2007-03-18 00:29:07

Re: [plugin] [ORPHAN] zem_event [flexible integrated event management]

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