Feedback and future development of Tildes Extended
It's been a while since I've managed to follow the development of the Tildes community so I don't know how many invite waves we've had since then.
For the uninitiated, back in the first 30 days (I think?) I started a plugin project for Chrome and Firefox that is meant to be the "reddit enhancement suite" light but for tildes. A sort of Tildes Companion (that would have been another good name, damn).
Anyway, after an initial 2-3 weeks of furious development, some of it with the help of the good @Bauke, I've had to slow down quite a bit due to a big workload coming in at my company. After that I've had several family issues to deal with... to cut it short I neglected my beloved little code monster and today I saw not one, but two PM on tildes, asking me if I basically was alive and well :P
So I thought that maybe it was the moment to ask for a feedback and, eventually, help.
For reference, this is the github page.
If you'd like to take part in the project you should know that:
- It's written using jquery
I thought of using other libraries or pure js but in the end it was the better compromise between spreaded knowledge and ease of use. Even if it's not the faster or lighter, taking up jquery is relatively easy compared to other libraries. - You have to have a minimum understanding of how plugins works for both chrome and firefox
I started it after a long hiatus (I think 8 years) between this and the previous plugin I wrote, so if I could do it, you can as well :) - If you want to have access to the publishing / code review / merge features, you have to show me a decent understanding of code design
I'm not particularly picky but I'd like to be sure that the plugins doesn't go live with lots of spaghetti code. There are already a couple of points in which I wanted to review and rewrite some code and I'd like to know that whoever will take responsability for the code quality, is at least concerned with quality as much as I am.
To discuss further technical details please, come on slack (you don't have to even install it, you can use the web client).
What I'd like to discuss here with you, is if in your opinion, there is still interest in this project or not. From the end-user point of view.
To have a structured data of the feedback, please use this form. The same form will have a section in case you can/want to help.
Thank you, anyway, for any input.
Given that ~'s source code is open and contributions to the code are welcome it seems to me that we'd all benefit more from your efforts being put to improving the core product available to everyone, assuming you agree with the general direction of development. If you feel that there's a different user experience that should be offered, then, yeah, carry on. I don't see where in this post or on the github you talk about what about the functionalities are being extended or why, so I can't really speak further on that topic.
In the issues sections there are several issues (suggestions, bug, general directions) but as a general rule, what I always wanted to do is provide options that were not available from the default UI so that the tildes core development would not be slowed down by UI/UX and could focus on more important and complex features like the trust system.
Also, if/when a feature in tildes extended is developed by tildes, the plugin should remove it, but that's a "plus" honestly.
I personally could not live without Tildes Extended so am glad you made it and continue to show an interest in further developing it and getting help in doing so. The "Jump to New Comment" hover button on Tildes Extended especially, which is hands down the best way to do that IMO, since I think the "Collapse old comments when I return to a topic" feature built in to Tildes is inadequate and extremely clunky by comparison.
p.s. Glad to know you're still "alive and well". :)
Looking at the list of issues for ~ I don't see that they're excluding UI/UX concerns from what is recognized as an issue, so there's a good bit of space for you to contribute code and provide insight into how ~ develops. Having additional people working on the UI/UX doesn't detract from development of other important features.
But that's my two cents.
That's a good point. I got Extended originally because there was no "everything you click opens a new tab" setting in ~. I wanted to use it to use Bauke's Dracula theme as well, but that didn't work and I ended up using Stylus instead.
Something I could see Extended doing (if it's even possible) is opening every article link in Firefox's Reader View. That would be very similar to using Outline, at least as I understand it.
I'll reply here also for @MimicSquid
The main reason I'm not so dedicated in the tildes core is that the stack used is completely out of my usual one (I'm php/node and angularjs/angular2+/vueJS)
The only things I used python for has been for devops scripts. To begin contributing to tildes UI, if not backend, I would have to learn how python works on websites, on the template engine that is used and on the js library used by tildes (phantomjs if I remember?).
All things that I don't really have time to learn right now :/
That's why I preferred to not abandon the plugin and instead ask for help to keep it alive and well as I think a simple jquery UI/UX is much easier and based on technologies that are quite easily picked up or already known, to contribute :)
Nothing says that it won't change in the future, but for now, jquery is a good compromise between ease of use and speed/quality of development, if the code is properly reviewed.
There are features that cannot be added into vanilla Tildes, for example outline link next to articles, I asked Deimos but there would be some legal troubles if Tildes did it.
Some just depend on the low-js policy, as, for example, ability to control whole Tildes with just keyboard would add ton of javascript - that could be hard to understand, and that's what Deimos wants to avoid.
I posted my first PR about three weeks ago and you had been inactive so I was worried this extension was abandoned, and was planning my next steps or forking and starting a new one, so it's good that you're back. I've started contributing to tilde itself as well and have found some of the issues on there are probably more appropriate or at least faster and easier to implement on the extension and I'm looking forward to contributing more.
BTW This is an alt account which is why it has low contribution to the tildes community, my github is linked to my real name and want to protect that separation.