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I'm pleased to announce that we've released the next major version of slashcode, and upgraded the production systems as of today. Since yours truly forgot that May has 31 days, you're also getting it a day early. Here's the short list of what's in this update.
Slashcode 14.06 Changelog
Hate the red? Not a problem, go choose "chillax", and enjoy a nice refreshing blue look and feel for the site. Right now, we're only using it for CSS changes, but each theme can override the default theme in an inherited matter. At some point, we are seriously going to look at giving SN a facelift and moving away from the stock slashcode red. Now, with any change, there are those who will dislike it for one reason or another, but with a simple click in their preferences, they can simply go back to how the site was before.
Improved Threading (D1.5)
Perhaps our most user visible change with this release, this brings the discussion system out of 1997, and something closer to mid-2000s. For anyone who's ever used the old "Slashdot/SoylentNews Expandable Comment Tree", this is going to look familiar. I took the GPLv2-licensed GreaseMonkey script, modified it into a server-side script, then Paul went and made it work with CSS instead of page-scraping. The upshot?
A *massive* improvement to site usability, and threading, preventing you having to have millions of tabs open to follow any discussion. Now, obviously, there is still some room for improvement, such as an inline "Reply" box, but this should go a long way in helping in browsing comments. Due to the way its implemented, non-JS users will gracefully degrade to the "Threaded" view, and for those who simply hate it, feel free to flip your user preference from "Improved Threaded" to "Threaded" or "Nested.
Improved Threading is now the default for ACs, and if your preferences were set to Threaded or Nested, you were automatically upgraded. This feature, as with all features, will continue to keep evolve. If you're interested in improving it, and are good with JavaScript or CSS, come find us on IRC, and make yourselves known, or write a nifty GreaseMonkey script, and we'll migrate it into a server-side one.
NOTE: There was a slight goof which is causing Improved Threading to not quite work the way most people expect it to, its more "Improved Nested" at the moment. We're discussing on IRC about this right now, but as a workaround, set your browsing score to 4 which will make it work similar to the way its supposed to work).
Dead Code Removal/Site Optimizations
Inspired by the LibreSSL efforts to strip down and clarify OpenSSL, I've started undertaking a similar project through the codebase. As of now, approximately, 50k lines of code and other garbage have been jettisoned from the codebase, including most of the bloated and unused Javascript. As a practical upshot of this, our average page load size is now 3/5ths smaller than what it was in the previous release. There's still a fair bit of cruft in the codebase in the form of unused functions, dead code paths, and other junk, but I'm optimistic that by time we're done, we can skim another 10-15k lines of code out of the codebase, making it easier to audit and bugfix.
The following bits of code were completely removed:
I do hope you enjoy this round of fixes and improvements. That being said, I am sorry that some promised work didn't make it into this release, most importantly, moderation and metamoderation reworks. With luck, I'll find time between now and the next release to really start hammering on it, and then look at releasing it to production in the form of a point release. As always, post below, and know that your comments are helping decide the future of this site.
Until next time, NCommander
Slashcode 14.06 Changelog
- New user-selectable themes, including a Night Mode. Themes are now CSS based and use no images for effects.
- New collapsible comment with the Improved Threaded mode. (Has set as default for all users that have Threaded or Nested set. You can change it back if you dislike it.)
- New message display that shows all messages in reverse chronological order as a full message (now without the email footer). Also set the Daily Newsletter to be off for new users.
- Removed a bunch of unneeded code that will make page loading faster.
- Static pages (FAQ and About) are now dynamic and show the proper user menu and theme.
- RSS now encoded properly.
- Preferences update to make pages work together better. (Most of the work was on the admin side so most of you will never see the bulk of the changes.) Also fixed a issue with the Homepage Prefs where the reset to default would not set everything to the defaults.
- Updates to the Submissions system. The pages look better and now your past submissions are organized better.
- Login system updated to allow passwords with unlimited lengths and user names of upto 35 characters.
- Slashboxes fixed so that they show properly when you change your Homepage settings.
- Pollbooth updates to make pages look better.
- Fixed issue with long words and page elements overflowing their parent divs by adding word-wrap: break-word; to the css.
- Smoke-test of subscriber code; expect to see a few users with stars running around as we get the bugs out
- And a bunch of smaller fixes that you will be sure to notice.
A huge round of applause to paulej72 for going through the bug list and sorting out much of what was there. Furthermore, I'd also like to extend thanks to iWantToKeepAnon and TheMightyBuzzard for contributions to this release.
As always, feel free to submit your issues to our bugtracker where our crack team of flying monkeys will labor to try and make it part of future site upgrades.
Check past the break for more thoughts and comments on these changes.
Hate the red? Not a problem, go choose "chillax", and enjoy a nice refreshing blue look and feel for the site. Right now, we're only using it for CSS changes, but each theme can override the default theme in an inherited matter. At some point, we are seriously going to look at giving SN a facelift and moving away from the stock slashcode red. Now, with any change, there are those who will dislike it for one reason or another, but with a simple click in their preferences, they can simply go back to how the site was before.
Improved Threading (D1.5)
Perhaps our most user visible change with this release, this brings the discussion system out of 1997, and something closer to mid-2000s. For anyone who's ever used the old "Slashdot/SoylentNews Expandable Comment Tree", this is going to look familiar. I took the GPLv2-licensed GreaseMonkey script, modified it into a server-side script, then Paul went and made it work with CSS instead of page-scraping. The upshot?
A *massive* improvement to site usability, and threading, preventing you having to have millions of tabs open to follow any discussion. Now, obviously, there is still some room for improvement, such as an inline "Reply" box, but this should go a long way in helping in browsing comments. Due to the way its implemented, non-JS users will gracefully degrade to the "Threaded" view, and for those who simply hate it, feel free to flip your user preference from "Improved Threaded" to "Threaded" or "Nested.
Improved Threading is now the default for ACs, and if your preferences were set to Threaded or Nested, you were automatically upgraded. This feature, as with all features, will continue to keep evolve. If you're interested in improving it, and are good with JavaScript or CSS, come find us on IRC, and make yourselves known, or write a nifty GreaseMonkey script, and we'll migrate it into a server-side one.
NOTE: There was a slight goof which is causing Improved Threading to not quite work the way most people expect it to, its more "Improved Nested" at the moment. We're discussing on IRC about this right now, but as a workaround, set your browsing score to 4 which will make it work similar to the way its supposed to work).
Dead Code Removal/Site Optimizations
Inspired by the LibreSSL efforts to strip down and clarify OpenSSL, I've started undertaking a similar project through the codebase. As of now, approximately, 50k lines of code and other garbage have been jettisoned from the codebase, including most of the bloated and unused Javascript. As a practical upshot of this, our average page load size is now 3/5ths smaller than what it was in the previous release. There's still a fair bit of cruft in the codebase in the form of unused functions, dead code paths, and other junk, but I'm optimistic that by time we're done, we can skim another 10-15k lines of code out of the codebase, making it easier to audit and bugfix.
The following bits of code were completely removed:
- D2 (approximately 100 kiB of javascript per page load)
- Firehose
- Tags
- Jabber Integration
- World of Warcraft Integration
- Daypasses
- Many unused slash plugins
- Bitrotted support for PostgreSQL and Oracle (both very incomplete)
- Tagboxes (a MASSIVE amount code)
There's still a quite a bit of low hanging fruit, so if you like to blowtorch old codebases, grab the source and start deleting!
Subscriber Code Enabled
We're not offering subscriptions until post-incorporation, but we wanted to start looking and smoketesting this code in preparation for that happy day. Expect to see a few users with *'s after their name that marks them as a subscriber. As a note, the subscriber +1 pseudo-mod is disabled by default, so subscriber posts do not show up higher than they otherwise would.
I'd like to get a discussion going with the community on what sort of things you'd like to see from subscribing, so look for that article, and start brainstorming on what you would be willing to pay for (like shell accounts, USENET access, or some other service we could reasonable provide?)
I do hope you enjoy this round of fixes and improvements. That being said, I am sorry that some promised work didn't make it into this release, most importantly, moderation and metamoderation reworks. With luck, I'll find time between now and the next release to really start hammering on it, and then look at releasing it to production in the form of a point release. As always, post below, and know that your comments are helping decide the future of this site.
Until next time, NCommander
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Site Upgrade: Slashcode 14.06 Released
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The whole world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes.
-- George Gobel
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lemming on Saturday May 31 2014, @02:44PM
First of all: the new threading is great!
But comments are never collapsed at the root level. Even if I set the threshold to 5, root level comments downmodded to -1 are still visible. I switched to the classic threaded and nested, and it seems to act the same. Was it like this before? I'm not sure.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Saturday May 31 2014, @05:49PM
Crud, its a regression. Just checked on the staff slash instance which is still on the previous release. Thanks for the headsup, we're working on it.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday May 31 2014, @11:02PM
What the heck is Threshold and Breakthrough?
Couldn't we find more descriptive terms?
I don't like anything collapsed, just makes it harder to read replies.
With the level of moderation happening here on SN, you simply can't rely on the
score to indicate worthwhile posts. Some posts will sit there with a score of 1
for three days before someone reads it and mods it up, or even replies to it.
We do the community a disservice by only reading threads that scored high.
I don't really see the improvement that improved threading is supposed to offer.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 01 2014, @01:58AM
I was opening so many collapsed comments that I ended up using Nested instead, because there are enough good comments at lower levels (I have threshold at 0 for now) to be worth the minor nuisance of having a longer page to scroll through.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday June 01 2014, @06:45AM
I'd recommend still using improved threading, and simply setting Threshold/Breakthrough to the same level, which will prevent it from creating multiple pages at the very least, but Nested isn't going anywhere for those who want it :-)
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 01 2014, @12:14PM
Ah, didn't realise there was such a thing as 'breakthrough', but that combo sets the page up nicely, thanks.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday June 01 2014, @01:53PM
It's actually been there since day one, but it was buried in the user preferences. This is what caused the initial "comments always expanded" bug since when it was wired, it was wired to the wrong variable, which caused unexpected behavior. THe interface at top could be clearer, but this was written in an "OH SHIT, ITS BROKEN BECAUSE THE UI SUCKS".
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 01 2014, @06:21AM
I don't like anything collapsed
Same here. I generally read at &mode=nested&threshold=-1, so all the CSS doesn't change anything for me--even if I *did* download the CSS.
(I unblocked it this time and the last time tweaks were made to see what the fuss is all about. It takes me back a decade, but, nostalgia aside, it doesn't do anything useful for me.)
Unless someone is reading with e.g. Lynx (no pull-down dialog boxes), I see the simplest page of anyone here: visible text on a white background.
The only gripe I have ever had is that Reply to This and Parent are stacked vertically on my pages.
If those were on the same line, thus adding less white space, I'd be happy as a clam.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday June 01 2014, @01:50PM
Having slept on this, and reviewed the code much more in-depth, it should be relatively trivial to allow ACs to save their preferences as a cookie ...
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 01 2014, @05:13PM
it should be relatively trivial to allow ACs to save their preferences as a cookie
One of the reasons I haven't bothered to establish an account is that I don't do cookies
(well, I'll grudgingly allow Netcraft to temporarily make one, but it's nuked immediately).
I was hoping this would be as simple as substituting a nbsp between the 2 elements for what is currently generated.
The positioning of Parent is currently being done *afterwards* via CSS, so in the HTML-only view I use, it appears in a different place from those using CSS see (aka doesn't degrade gracefully).
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Monday June 02 2014, @07:34PM
This should be relatively trivial to fix. My HTML foo kinda sucks, but if you could look at the templates on https://github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode [github.com] (in the themes/default/templates directory; grep should find the right template easily), and submit a patch, we can probably get it rolled out sooner or later.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 02 2014, @09:28PM
My HTML foo kinda sucks
Yeah, I only know enough HTML to be dangerous.
github
...which, again, requires a signup and cookies. 8-(
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday June 05 2014, @04:49PM
I'll file a bug on your behalf, but I can't promise it will get fixed anytime soon.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10 2014, @09:19AM
Which is no reason not to allow those ACs who are not afraid of cookies as long as they are not identifying, to save their preferences in a cookie.
After all, you have to store the preferences somewhere. OK, a Greasemonkey script would also work ... for those whose browsers support it.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Sunday June 01 2014, @06:34AM
Threshold is the lower bound of what comments will show up. i.e., with a Threshold of 0, comments at -1 are hidden. Breakthrough is when a comment is automatically expanded. So a Threshold/Breakthrough of 0/3 would cause all -1 to vanish, and all 3 comments to autoexpand.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10 2014, @09:22AM
Actually I think the current default breakthrough of 4 is much too high.
An ideal solution would IMHO be to make the default dependent on the number of articles. For example, you could set the default to the highest non-negative value so that at least 20 comments are non-collapsed.