Hello plugin developers et al!
As previously announced and finally confirmed by the recent poll, the new Larry skin shall become the new default UI for Roundcube with the upcoming stable release 0.8.
The most direct way to do that is to rename the skin folder from "larry" to default and make the current default to "legacy". The big drawback though is that all the plugins providing skin templates are also forced to do so. If we leave the old skin as "default", hardly anybody will benefit from the new skin unless the local config file is altered.
As an alternative to the rough way proposed above, we could rename the current default folder to "legacy" and keep Larry as "larry" and instead resolve the config value "default" to "larry" within the code.
While I prefer the rough way, I'd still like to hear some opinions from the plugin developers. Those using rcube_plugin::local_skin_path() shouldn't have any troubles no matter which way we choose. All the others please speak up or change your code :-)
Best, Thomas
I will have trouble, but go the rough way, if really necessary.
I have comments in my code where I refer to larry. So it shouldn't be too hard to adjust the code.
Nethertheless, I have concerns. F.e. 'google_ads' plugin has a config spread out for all admins which looks like:
/* credentials for templates */ $rcmail_config['google_ads_templates']['default'][] = array( 'google_ad_client' => "pub-... masked ...", 'google_ad_slot' => "... masked ...", 'google_ad_width' => 120, 'google_ad_height' => 600 );
... followed by a lot of more config settings associated to 'default'.
Since I allow only downloads by my plugin_manager, I have detailed reports.
According to those reports 908 different locations have downloaded the plugin. That's not the amount of downloads, as said it is the report for downloads by IP. I can assume that at least 400 configs will be affected; plus those who directly checked out code from myroundcube.googlecode.com.
So, this will be a big change for me and others!
It is not the only plugin where the config will be affected by a name change. 'google_ads' is just an example to explain my concerns.
Am 19.07.2012 14:11, schrieb Thomas Bruederli:
Hello plugin developers et al!
As previously announced and finally confirmed by the recent poll, the new Larry skin shall become the new default UI for Roundcube with the upcoming stable release 0.8.
The most direct way to do that is to rename the skin folder from "larry" to default and make the current default to "legacy". The big drawback though is that all the plugins providing skin templates are also forced to do so. If we leave the old skin as "default", hardly anybody will benefit from the new skin unless the local config file is altered.
As an alternative to the rough way proposed above, we could rename the current default folder to "legacy" and keep Larry as "larry" and instead resolve the config value "default" to "larry" within the code.
While I prefer the rough way, I'd still like to hear some opinions from the plugin developers. Those using rcube_plugin::local_skin_path() shouldn't have any troubles no matter which way we choose. All the others please speak up or change your code :-)
Best, Thomas _______________________________________________ Roundcube Development discussion mailing list dev@lists.roundcube.net http://lists.roundcube.net/mailman/listinfo/dev
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 3:47 PM, Rosali myroundcube@mail4us.net wrote:
I will have trouble, but go the rough way, if really necessary.
I have comments in my code where I refer to larry. So it shouldn't be too hard to adjust the code.
Nethertheless, I have concerns. F.e. 'google_ads' plugin has a config spread out for all admins which looks like:
/* credentials for templates */ $rcmail_config['google_ads_templates']['default'][] = array( 'google_ad_client' => "pub-... masked ...", 'google_ad_slot' => "... masked ...", 'google_ad_width' => 120, 'google_ad_height' => 600 );
But what's the consequence for the existing installations if the default skin suddenly is a different one? Will the ads misplaced? You could still provide a solution with an update of your plugin and if the ads are suddenly misplaced, I assume that people will also update the plugin after they already updated the Roundcube core.
... followed by a lot of more config settings associated to 'default'.
Since I allow only downloads by my plugin_manager, I have detailed reports.
According to those reports 908 different locations have downloaded the plugin. That's not the amount of downloads, as said it is the report for downloads by IP. I can assume that at least 400 configs will be affected; plus those who directly checked out code from myroundcube.googlecode.com.
So, this will be a big change for me and others!
It is not the only plugin where the config will be affected by a name change. 'google_ads' is just an example to explain my concerns.
Do you have any suggestions how the migration could be done in a better way? Of course we could keep the current default as default but according to the poll, most people want the new skin to become default.
~Thomas
Am 19.07.2012 14:11, schrieb Thomas Bruederli:
Hello plugin developers et al!
As previously announced and finally confirmed by the recent poll, the new Larry skin shall become the new default UI for Roundcube with the upcoming stable release 0.8.
The most direct way to do that is to rename the skin folder from "larry" to default and make the current default to "legacy". The big drawback though is that all the plugins providing skin templates are also forced to do so. If we leave the old skin as "default", hardly anybody will benefit from the new skin unless the local config file is altered.
As an alternative to the rough way proposed above, we could rename the current default folder to "legacy" and keep Larry as "larry" and instead resolve the config value "default" to "larry" within the code.
While I prefer the rough way, I'd still like to hear some opinions from the plugin developers. Those using rcube_plugin::local_skin_path() shouldn't have any troubles no matter which way we choose. All the others please speak up or change your code :-)
Best, Thomas _______________________________________________ Roundcube Development discussion mailing list dev@lists.roundcube.net http://lists.roundcube.net/mailman/listinfo/dev
Roundcube Development discussion mailing list dev@lists.roundcube.net http://lists.roundcube.net/mailman/listinfo/dev
As system administrators, sometimes the phrase "change is bad" is unfortunately true. What we will want to do is *not* change the skin on everyone automagically (which would surely produce many many support tickets) instead announcing that there is a cool new skin available, so those who choose to try it, and prefer it, can adopt it.
I still have questions about what needs to change within plugins to be compatible with larry? It seems like the larry skin has to be "extended" into whatever plugins are active? Are there any resources you can point me to for help with that? We mostly use off-the-shelf plugins which we will just wait for their developers to make larry-ready, but there is one that we have forked ourselves and will need to do whatever it takes. . .
Benjamin Electric Embers Cooperative http://electricembers.net
On 2012-07-19 12:10, Benjamin Connelly wrote:
As system administrators, sometimes the phrase "change is bad" is unfortunately true. What we will want to do is *not* change the skin on everyone automagically (which would surely produce many many support tickets) instead announcing that there is a cool new skin available, so those who choose to try it, and prefer it, can adopt it.
I don't agree. I'm not only planning to automagically change the skin, I'm going to lock it so that the users can't change back. I want any pain to be in one swift lump. I do *NOT* want to deal with it later when the 'classic' or 'legacy' skin is finally removed entirely and I've got users' prefs specifying a nonexistent skin.
-- Arne Berglund System Administrator, Internet Services Lane Education Service District Eugene, OR ____________
Since the skin change is such a major UI change, it may be warranted a bit more knobs and dials from a sysadmins point of view. This discussion is showing that some want slow change, some want a big bang, etc. Wouldnt it be possible to give the sysadmins a choice on the matter?
Cor
Cor Bosman wrote:
Since the skin change is such a major UI change, it may be warranted a bit more knobs and dials from a sysadmins point of view. This discussion is showing that some want slow change, some want a big bang, etc. Wouldnt it be possible to give the sysadmins a choice on the matter?
That certainly is possible. You can still set the skin config option to "legacy" after an update and make the old skin appear for all your users.
We're talking about the default setting here but the skin remains configurable as will the old skin be deployed with the next few releases.
~Thomas
Benjamin Connelly wrote:
As system administrators, sometimes the phrase "change is bad" is unfortunately true. What we will want to do is *not* change the skin on everyone automagically (which would surely produce many many support tickets) instead announcing that there is a cool new skin available, so those who choose to try it, and prefer it, can adopt it.
Sure. The active skin is still configurable. So it's the sysadmins choice which skin to give to the users.
I still have questions about what needs to change within plugins to be compatible with larry? It seems like the larry skin has to be "extended" into whatever plugins are active? Are there any resources you can point me to for help with that? We mostly use off-the-shelf plugins which we will just wait for their developers to make larry-ready, but there is one that we have forked ourselves and will need to do whatever it takes. . .
Those plugins adding UI elements most likely have a skins folder with a nested folder named "default" that holds icons, stylesheets and templates for whatever elements the skin adds to the UI. To make a plugin larry-ready one needs to create a new folder skins/larry/ and copy and adapt the styles and templates from the default folder to look nice on the new UI.
The same rules apply as for the current default skin which are roughly documented here: http://trac.roundcube.net/wiki/Doc_Plugins#Templates
You can also check the upstream plugins like the "help" plugin to get an example: https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/tree/master/plugins/help
What I was asking on this thread was how to change the names of the skin folders. After reading your feedbacks I tend to keep the Larry theme stored in a folder named "larry" and rename the current "default" folder to "legacy". This means, that in an ideal deployment there's no "default" skin folder and all configs that still have 'skin' = 'default' will silently get the larry theme. If a plugin has not yet been updated and still has a skins/default/ folder, that one will be used for both the larry and the legacy theme.
~Thomas
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 11:07 PM, Thomas Bruederli thomas@roundcube.net wrote:
Benjamin Connelly wrote:
As system administrators, sometimes the phrase "change is bad" is unfortunately true. What we will want to do is *not* change the skin on everyone automagically (which would surely produce many many support tickets) instead announcing that there is a cool new skin available, so those who choose to try it, and prefer it, can adopt it.
Sure. The active skin is still configurable. So it's the sysadmins choice which skin to give to the users.
[...]
What I was asking on this thread was how to change the names of the skin folders. After reading your feedbacks I tend to keep the Larry theme stored in a folder named "larry" and rename the current "default" folder to "legacy". This means, that in an ideal deployment there's no "default" skin folder and all configs that still have 'skin' = 'default' will silently get the larry theme. If a plugin has not yet been updated and still has a skins/default/ folder, that one will be used for both the larry and the legacy theme.
After trying out that option I think this is the way to go. So we'll rename all skins/default/ folders to skins/classic/ and adjust the code to use skins/larry/ if the local configuration still says "default". We strongly encourage plugin developers to do the same in preparation for the upcoming stable release which is planned for the end of next week.
But don't worry, even plugins which are not updated and still have a skin folder named "default" will be fine if they use the dedicated function $this->local_skin_path() to get the currently configured skin path.
We're well aware of the fact that this change might have some unintended consequences for some Roundcube installations but the switch has to happen at some point and we hope to have found a proper way to handle it.
Best, Thomas
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Arne Berglund -
Benjamin Connelly -
Cor Bosman -
Rosali -
Thomas Bruederli