Code tour, 2 December 2012 - 5 January 2013

[azurelunatic]

This code tour has it all! Refactoring! Administrative page changes! Styles! New bugs! Old bugs! Docs! (Bugs with clocks come. Bugs with docs come. Bugs with clocks and docs and ... rocks come?) This is both the last code tour of 2012 and the first code tour of 2013. The bugs in this tour are not live yet, and planned for the January 7/8 code push.

There are *counts* 39 bugs in this code tour. I could use a sandwich. Let's get to it.


Bug 4760: Split up user-facing replies from ICs for Support
Category: Misc UI/Frontend
Patch by: afuna
Description: This makes life a little more clear for senior technical support and long-term volunteers, and make it a little less easy to accidentally send internal notes or actions as an "answer" to the user.

Bug 4741: Heading tweaks for various base layouts
Category: Style System
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: This makes the headings on these layouts more consistent with the rest of the page when the layout is modified.

Bug 4729: Strip layout-based navstrip styling and use core2 props instead
Category: Style System
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: This fixes some very confusing navstrip color options for the Tabula Rasa style and all of its descendants. There's a style setting to customize the navstrip colors on their own, without fiddling about and snagging colors from obscure other places in the layout.

Bug 630: Navstrip color choice follows journal preference, not logged-in viewing preference
Category: Misc UI/Frontend
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: It makes more sense from an accessibility standpoint to use the logged-in viewer's preference for navstrip colors, even if it's not always the most aesthetically pleasing choice.

Bug 4761: Make it easier to select an answer for approval
Category: Misc UI/Frontend
Patch by: fu
Original script by: sophie
Description: Another little thing to make Support's life easier, by making it easier to pick the correct answer to approve.

Bug 737: Ensure all user-facing text in styles have variables assigned in core2
Category: Style System
Patch by: kunzite
Description: English-stripping, for styles: making sure that all of the displayable layout text has a variable that goes with it, so it can be changed to suit the layout (and changed back with ?style=mine).

Bug 4087: Refactor backend auth code.
Category: Misc Backend
Patch by: exor674
Description: Our backend goddess noticed that "some stuff is done the same in ALL the places", which is totally a call to carefully package it all up in one place now while we're thinking about it, so it can be fixed in one place later when stuff changes.

Bug 4603: Time display does not allow for "none"
Category: Style System
Patch by: kunzite
Description: Occasionally there's a style that would like to display the date and the time in entirely separate places on an entry, or maybe not display the time at all. This bug lets style developers make that creative choice.

Bug 4160: Enable journal-styled /icons
Category: S2 Backend
Patch by: exor674
Description: This is a long-running ticket to make sure that ALL THE STYLES allow pretty displays of the /icons page in the same style as your journal, if that's the sort of thing you're into. Epic, epic amounts of work!

Bug 4765: new see_request.bml doesn't have link to Stock Answers; stock answers not being inserted
Category: Site Administration
Patch by: fu
Description: A tweak to the administrative side of the support boards, fixing a problem with stock answers in the shiny new answer form.

Bug 3987: view support requests in order of when they were touched last
Category: Misc UI/Frontend
Patch by: fu and kareila
Description: Another patch for support administration, making it easier for senior support to notice when an answer has been submitted, to get the user helped faster.

Bug 4358: FAQ #112: typo & terminology
Category: User documentation
Patch by: misskat
Description: Fixing a typo in the FAQ, plus making sure that the text in the FAQ matches what's actually displayed on the site.

Bug 4297: Comment screening is a spam fighting tool too
Category: User documentation
Patch by: misskat
Description: Adds information about how comment screening can be used to fight spam.

Bug 4768: New Update Page's security settings use inconsistent text
Category: Doc Tools
Patch by: denise
Description: More in the effort to make sure that site text matches all over, and matches the FAQs.

Bug 4769: Stray maintainers should become administrators
Category: User documentation
Patch by: misskat
Description: Since basically all Dreamwidth staff and most of the documentation writers spent significant time on LiveJournal, sometimes old terminology creeps into official documents. However, the community position that was called "maintainer" on LiveJournal is "administrator" on Dreamwidth.

Bug 4667: Need to confirm before deleting an entry (new create entries page)
Category: Journal contents
Patch by: fu
Description: It's good form to double-check before deleting something that can't be recovered, and now the new create entries page does that correctly.

Bug 4265: update redesign beta: subject line not properly counting length
Category: Misc UI/Frontend
Suggested by: pocketmouse
Patch by: fu
Description: Silent truncation is not always a valid life choice. The current entry creation page stops you from typing once you hit the character limit, and as soon as the code push goes through, so will the beta one.

The thing about code tours is that sometimes if you don't exactly have a fully functional attention span, maybe you wander off and do some dishes in the middle of them.

Bug 4386: Save "icon only" vs "meta text" in jquery icon browser
Category: Icons
Patch by: fu
Description: Further work on the goal to automatically save people's preferences when using the fancy icon selector with the previews.

Bug 4404: FAQ #126 out of date
Category: User documentation
Patch by: misskat
Description: Information about the navigation strip's options for re-styling the page was missing.

Bug 4455: FAQ #214: passwords must also be the same when renaming to personal account
Category: User documentation
Patch by: misskat
Description: Swapping names between a community and a user is complicated enough without important information missing.

Bug 4775: holiday promotion text is appearing on all past receipts
Category: Payments
Patch by: fu
Description: It's better to not show information about the December promotion on the receipts at all than it is to show it on receipts that it didn't apply to.

Bug 4771: Upgrade to jquery 1.8
Category: Modernization
Patch by: fu
Description: Another step in the journey towards more modern back-end stuff. If something breaks while we upgrade this, we want it to happen before that feature goes out of beta, not after.

I just put the pan of bacon in the oven, and it's starting to smell tasty.

Bug 4781: Default jQuery UI theme somewhat out of place
Category: Modernization
Patch by: fu
Description: The default jQuery look has more "dip it in molten plexiglass to give it that 'children under 3 are going to choke on it' goodness" aesthetic than the rest of Dreamwidth, and needed a little sandblasting so it would fit in better.

Bug 4780: Switch to jQuery UI's tooltip
Category: Modernization
Patch by: fu
Description: The contextual hover menu is the menu that appears when hovering over the userhead or icon (if you have it turned on in settings). It sometimes screws up in really weird ways. Using the jQuery library to handle it means that some of the really weird flakiness that some people have run into should go away, and everybody else shouldn't notice.

Bug 4682: Ciel - misc CSS tweaks
Category: Style System
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: Fixing little alignment and spacing weirdnesses in Ciel. It just gives me so much glee to watch people spending the time to polish stuff that's already excellent to make it awesome.

Bug 4691: Ciel: new themes
Category: Style System
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: Ooo, a black forest cake theme. (Fulfilling two of the #dreamwidth IRC missions: the chocolate dessert themed theme brainstorming session late one GMT-7 evening was both stealthy volunteerism and made everyone present hungry.)

Bug 4629: Reorder metadata print order
Category: Style System
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: No longer will taller-than-line-height mood icons disrupt the spacing of the entry metadata block! The tyranny will end here! ... Okay, perhaps it's not world-ending, but it was a little thing bothering people every time they saw it.

Bug 4640: Core2: remove spaces from text props
Category: Style System
Patch by: ninetyd
Description: "I do love the smell of cleanup in the morning," remarks fu. So do I. I also love the smell of bacon. Is any of it done yet, I wonder? This change involves which back-end bit handles some of the entry metadata display, and shouldn't cause any visible change on the front end.

Bug 3798: Rename Group One/Two to Main Module Section/Second Module Section
Category: Style System
Patch by: ninetyd
Description: "Group One" and "Group Two" are less helpful than maybe something like "Main Module Section" and "Second Module Section", so instead of settings being arranged in teams and having a regular pickup football game, they can be nicely arranged in their proper containers. Regarding teams, I betray my geographic alliances when I declare that San Francisco sourdough is basically the best, though I would have to have a side-by-side fresh comparison with Alaskan sourdough to truly decide once and for all.

Bug 4794: Customize: display' active entries' module option to all users
Category: Style System
Patch by: ninetyd
Description: While free users don't have the "active entries" module on their own journal, they can still use ?style=mine on a paid journal. There's a note in the relevant section now, explaining.

Bug 4793: Customize: mention Search module is only visible to paid-only
Category: Style System
Patch by: ninetyd
Description: Similarly, the Search module is another paid feature that can be visible on paid users' journals, even if the viewer is a free user, and thus free users should know why it's showing up in the customization area. There's a little note.

Bug 4798: SUPPORT: Remove red text box on requests for users with viewinternal
Category: Misc UI/Frontend
Patch by: ninetyd
Description: Dreamwidth's technical support is set up to allow crowdsourced answers from any member of the community who knows what's going on and how to help. There's some basic information on how the process works next to the answer submission form. However, seasoned volunteers who have been granted the ability to see internal comments should already know that 101-level information, and don't need to see it.

(Even without tomato or lettuce, this is a very good sandwich.)

Bug 1960: Long tags get truncated silently
Category: Tags
Patch by: cpm & fu
Description: This is an old, long-closed bug that got re-opened due to someone running smack dab into a tag problem. Tags that are saved with a space at the end cause a problem further on down the line. Fu re-affirmed that seriously, we shouldn't be saving any tags with spaces at the end, and opened a new bug for dealing with any tags that may have been created or imported that still do have spaces at the ends. (Meanwhile, if you notice that any of the tags in your journal have a space at the end, you can rename the tag ahead of the fix.)

Bug 4799: Typo on http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/circle/add?user
Category: User documentation
Patch by: swaldman
Description: Occasionally typos slip through, get found, and get fixed. Nice, streamlined, business as usual.

Bug 4801: Rename Second Module Section to Secondary Module Section
Category: Style System
Patch by: ninetyd
Description: "Secondary Module Section" just sounds better.

Bug 4721: Whitelist goodreads widgets?
Category: Journal contents
Patch by: fu
Description: Goodreads has many widgets for their users to share their treasure books with their friends. Some of them were working all along, some still won't work (the ones powered by javascript), but some will start working.

Bug 4805: OpenID users cannot edit entries with the new edit page
Category: Journal contents
Patch by: fu
Description: Being able to edit your own entries is a good thing, no matter which edit page you're using.

Bug 4809: Logged out front page: "limited time" freedom from invite codes?
Category: User documentation
Patch by: denise
Description: This was one of those things that everyone involved could have sworn had already been done! The logged out home page text was adjusted to reflect the current state of open registration.

Bug 4797: OpenID sometimes fails to allow user to log in
Category: OpenID
Patch by: mark
Description: We got two new shiny web servers! And on the web servers, we put new shiny OpenID modules! Except it would have been nice if the fine print had said what other stuff the shiny new OpenID modules needed in order to work... So the new servers are back to using the old OpenID modules until all the stuff required for compatibility can get tested.

Comments

[cesy]

Hooray for code tour! And bacon sandwiches.

[musyc]

The navstrip bugs! The NAVSTRIP BUGS!! I'd throw flowers at allllllllllllllllll the coders for that, if it wasn't winter.

[baggyeyes]

Ciel's Black Forest Cake them proves DW themers sure do love their food.

The thing about code tours is that sometimes if you don't exactly have a fully functional attention span, maybe you wander off and do some dishes in the middle of them.

Oh my dog, this is so true.

[momijizukamori]

The Mint Chocolate Chip one always makes me more hungry. And I was the one who made it *g*

[pauamma]

Bugs with clocks and docs and ... rocks come?

stocks, perhaps, considering bug 4765?

[lannamichaels]

Mr. Fox, our tour is done, sir,
Thank you for a lot of fun, sir!

[azurelunatic]

:D

[zarhooie]

It's full of bug fixes and bacon!

[azurelunatic]

And your staff name now! ♥

[momijizukamori]

/SCREAMS

4160 IS GOING LIVE? YAY YAY YAY

(Also happy to see kunzite hard at work again!)

[exor674]

YES IT ISSSSSS!

[momijizukamori]

WHOO FINALLY!

[kunzite]

Speaking of kunzite, I'm sorry I've been absent as of late. Family stuff has arisen and we're altering our living situation at home.

[momijizukamori]

Best of luck - I know even if it's for good reasons, stuff like that can be stressful.

[turlough]

Hooray for bug 4265!

[owl]

Mmmm, code and bacon!

[marahmarie]

Yay to Bugs 4793/4794 (they're sort of fraternal twins). Can't wait to see how the changes they invoked look/work. ETA: oh yes *likes*

@ no bug too small to celebrate