4.6 release schedule - request for a beta

gaekwad · 2016-05-04 09:07:21

Three of my Textpattern 4.5.x clients called me this morning, their respective hosting companies (two in total) bumped the server spec and updated to PHP 7 & MySQL 5.7 at 8am UK time.

Stuff broke, and some fixing was required. I used this and this to get things working again.

There were apparently front-side deprecation errors thrown, despite the production status being set to Live, though these went away. I’ve explained what happened, how I fixed it and they seem to be OK. Consider this pre-amble for my bit below.

I am very aware of the amount of work that’s already gone into Textpattern 4.6, even though I don’t understand the code behind the improvements. It’s significant, and even on the number of lines in the 4.6 release notes there’s a whole lot of stuff that’s changed. Textpattern 4.5 was released in 2012. Textpattern 4.6 will hopefully come out before the 4th anniversary of 4.5’s launch.

Someone has to say this, so I will: there’s already more than enough in 4.6 to release it. In semantic versioning terms, it’s a minor release. Sure, a lot has changed, so ‘minor’ is perhaps up for interpretation, but please can we have a beta to run with?

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS came out a few weeks ago, and that includes PHP 7. I haven’t tested what MySQL is included as I tend to roll with Percona, but many people use Ubuntu LTS release for web serving and Textpattern 4.5.7 doesn’t play nicely with PHP 7 & MySQL 5.7 out of the box. That means extra support burden and potentially unnecessary migrations away from Textpattern to something else if the solutions aren’t immediately clear.

As I understand it, and this is accurate at the time of writing, there are four issues on the 4.6 milestone at GitHub:

Taking these into account:

the current jQuery UI appears to work fine, so this could be rolled into a patch or point release
will be taken care of with a beta release and production release
unless I’m missing something obvious, that’s a patch release issue
that’s been an issue since at least 2011

I noted a few issues relating to multi-site that haven’t yet been addressed, so perhaps a post-4.6 project could be a good look at how multi-site stuff works. In the absence of any metrics, I can say I’ve never installed multi-site and zero of my Textpattern clients use it. Conversely, I know of 20+ Textpattern clients who would benefit from things in 4.6 immediately.

At least 140 issues have been closed for 4.6, and if brains & eyeballs can be focussed on getting a beta out soon then more people outside the GitHub bubble will be able to run with it, providing feedback on real world stuff – perhaps then some more issues can be raised and closed.

What needs to be done to release and feed back on a beta, and what can we forum folk do to help that process, please?

Thank you!

etc · 2016-05-04 09:35:38

gaekwad wrote #298963:

What needs to be done to release and feed back on a beta, and what can we forum folk do to help that process, please?

Testing. IMO, this is more important than the remaining 4.6-milestoned issues. Most plugins should be updated, some could break. If this is compatible with the beta status, then go for a beta.

gaekwad · 2016-05-04 09:40:00

etc wrote #298966:

Testing. IMO, this is more important than the remaining 4.6-milestoned issues. Most plugins should be updated, some could break. If this is compatible with the beta status, then go for a beta.

Is it appropriate to freeze development (very soon or imminently) and package up a beta for testing? I will commit some testing hours to beta candidates, and can provide feedback on the (few) plugins I use.

Edit: clarification.

Last edited by gaekwad (2016-05-04 09:40:29)

Bloke · 2016-05-04 09:48:02

If we’re happy with the way the Title field and menus are working, we can go for beta today or tomorrow as far as I’m concerned.

etc · 2016-05-04 10:07:25

Bloke wrote #298968:

If we’re happy with the way the Title field and menus are working…

From users perspective, Title or Title_html makes no difference. Or you mean back to entities decoding in the input field?.. umm, I don’t like it.

Re menus (and overall), it would be nice to hear from Phil.

We must also decide for $trace, but this (and other minor fixes) can be done during the beta stage.

phiw13 · 2016-05-04 10:28:27

Bloke wrote #298968:

If we’re happy with the way the Title field and menus are working, we can go for beta today or tomorrow as far as I’m concerned.

Go for it ! Then menu system works fine, the way the Title field handles input is OK, as I commented in another thread. (That is testing with multilingual input etc).

If a beta is released, perhaps plugin authors will pay some more attention ?

Bloke · 2016-05-04 10:40:07

phiw13 wrote #298970:

If a beta is released, perhaps plugin authors will pay some more attention ?

Ahem. Guilty. *cough*

NicolasGraph · 2016-05-04 11:56:41

etc wrote #298969:

Re menus (and overall), it would be nice to hear from Phil.

philwareham wrote #298972:

The menu has been designed to be accessible ARIA and keyboard navigable, work on mobile, work on desktop and be HTML lean.

I think most of us are confident with Phil’s work. I’d say ok for the menu.

gaekwad · 2016-05-04 12:15:34

phiw13 wrote #298970:

If a beta is released, perhaps plugin authors will pay some more attention ?

This. And administrators. And forumites. Heck, maybe even Jukka might stop by to say something – I hope he’s doing OK.

Also, a blog post timed to coincide with the beta would be useful – many Textpattern folks no longer active here may be spurred into action if news trickles through.

Edit: add blog post recommendation.

Last edited by gaekwad (2016-05-04 12:16:57)

etc · 2016-05-04 13:29:21

May the 4th be with us? :)

funtoosh · 2016-05-20 12:12:07

So – any news on a possible beta release? I’d love to get my hands on it!

philwareham · 2016-05-20 12:25:39

I just have a couple of jQuery UI v1.12 fixes left to do in the admin theme (done most of them now), and I’m happy to go to beta. Soon.

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#1 2016-05-04 09:07:21