[Dev] Development & Website Notes

[steeffeen]

Hey plugin developers!

• We are working on adding a plugin error page to the User Area on ManiaControl.com.
  It will need some more time but when it's ready you will be able to see if your plugins cause errors or exceptions on the servers that are using them.
  This way you can easily track down bugs and issues in order to create a fix.
• In MC v0.15 we've added a simple constant DEV_MODE in ManiaControl.php inside the root folder
  Please turn it on during plugin development. (You have to fetch the latest version from git or use the latest nightly build (0.15004) to have that constant.)
  Currently the only thing it does is to disable the error and usage reporting to the central website.
  In the future it might enable other helpful stuff though.

Please subscribe to this thread to get informed about important development-related news.

Thanks.
Steff

[steeffeen]

please note that after 0.15 release we've moved the DEV_MODE constant into the ManiaControl.php inside the root folder

Code: Select all

define('DEV_MODE', false);

that way it's independent from any class

also check out the User Area on ManiaControl.com
we've added pages listing errors and exception raised for your plugins
(the pages aren't pretty currently but they will be improved ^^)
you can "resolve" the errors (when you've fixed them) by clicking on their ids
though they will appear again if they keep being reported (for example because the old version of your plugin is still in use)

[steeffeen]

on maniacontrol.com it's now possible to delete plugins or just individual versions

if you want/need anything on these pages we would appreciate your feedback!
(docs page and error/exception lists aren't polished yet, so you will have to wait for their updates before giving feedback)

[steeffeen]

i've worked on the website:

• the errors & exceptions lists have a new design so that they can be displayed without having to scroll horizontally (because that sucks in some browsers)
• plugin owners can now add additional plugin admins who then are also able to maintain metadata and versions, that way you can collaborate more easily

feedback welcome!

[steeffeen]

One kind request from my side:
Please create your plugin and set the ID right at the start of your development

Reason: We have some errors that can't be assigned to the authors because the following plugins don't exist on the website
- SenSai\Sounds
- MrPhil\ModeSwitcher
- Mariomarco\HideAndSeekCommands

[phil13hebert]

One kind request from my side:
Please create your plugin and set the ID right at the start of your development

Reason: We have some errors that can't be assigned to the authors because the following plugins don't exist on the website
- SenSai\Sounds
- MrPhil\ModeSwitcher
- Mariomarco\HideAndSeekCommands

Sorry for this

[steeffeen]

Hey there,

Today I changed the way you can release plugins on ManiaControl.com!
It's not necessary to wait for our approval to release new versions since we want to give you more freedom

All plugins are visible as long they are set as "active"
As soon as you do that, there is also a ManiaHome notification sent (visible for your buddies)

We will still mark plugins which we think are really well written as "verified", to give users some kind of hint about the quality
This flag will only come with time though...

I also want to add a way to privately comment on plugins so that core developers can share ideas and advices with plugin authors

Feedback welcome!

Cheers

[steeffeen]

I would like to drop some hints about issues I saw in error reports:

- don't unset() your maniacontrol reference in unload() - if you registered for manialink page answer callbacks you will still receive them for the current tick, causing your plugin to use the reference which doesn't exist anymore

- you don't need to unregister for callbacks, listening, .. in your plugin unload() method, the plugin manager is doing that for you! - but you might want to close managed connections (or detach any other references to your plugin that are not handled by maniacontrol itself)

[steeffeen]

GUYS please turn on DEV_MODE during development!!
and set a proper plugin id...

[steeffeen]

two more things i would like to point out:

• please name your php files just like the classes they include, so that a class "AwesomePlugin" is in a file "AwesomePlugin.php"
  some authors call their class "Awesome" but call the file "AwesomePlugin.php" or something similar
  these are just simple naming conventions
• the zip you're uploading on maniacontrol.com doesn't need to include the "plugins" folder, just compress your own stuff like the namespace-based folder with the actual plugin files inside it
  the whole content of the plugin zip will be extracted into the plugins folder anyways