dw_dev | Code Tour (2022-01-01 to 2022-05-07)

There was speculation about a code push, and that means it's code tour time! Most of these should be live with the next code push, and some of them (wording update ones) will already be live.

Issue 2627: Updating LJXMLRPC URL references to use HTTPS (pull request)
and
Issue 2900: Update Insanejournal URLs to use HTTPS
Category: importer, crossposter, sheeps should not be on fire
Patch by:

batrachian
Description:

batrachian says: makes importer and crossposter work for InsaneJournal again.
Azz adds: Previously, IJ wasn't using https, and we didn't expect https when importing or crossposting. Then they started using https, and the importer and the crossposter made noises of deep confusion and went off to pine for the fjords instead of importing or crossposting. Now they know what to do with https, and crossposting and importing to IJ can resume.

Issue 2853: Convert inbox to TT (pull request)
Category: back end with a few front end flourishes, BML Must Die!
Patch by:

momijizukamori
Description: Brad, in his dorm room, came up with a language for building webpages called BML, which translates to "Better Markup Language" if you asked him, and "Brad's Markup Language" if you asked anyone else. It was visionary ... for 1999. Since that time, some better tools for the same purpose have happened. Template Toolkit (TT) is one of those. So Momiji ripped out the BML and rebuilt the inbox page and fixed some form handling on the way. It should now play a little nicer with future upgrades, and it has CSS.

Issue 2899: Encoding issue in Icons API (pull request)
Category: WTF-8, API
Patch by:

momijizukamori, reported by

bcholmes
Description: If you noticed some weird characters when you retrieved your icons via the API, with garbled and incorrect characters instead of a single quote mark, this should fix the incorrect encoding.

Issue 2911: possible drag-and-drop breakage in /file/new (pull request)
Category: Un-confusing the browser
Patch by:

momijizukamori
Description: Momiji says: We had code that tried to detect if you were on a mobile device, and hide the drop target on the image upload page, because mobile OSes generally do not support drag-and-drop of files into another application. However, the main way to try to detect this is checking for support of touch APIs and 1) this is not all that reliable (which is common for feature detection) and 2) most desktop OSes now support touchscreens as well, which meant that the drop target wasn't showing up even on non-touchscreen devices in some browsers. So that detection went away - so you may see the drop target in some instances where you can't actually drag and drop files, but this is on the whole less annoying that not having it when you can.

Issue 2912: update copyright footer for 2022
Category: The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.
Update by:

zorkian
Description: It's no longer 2021, and the copyright footer now reflects that.

Issue 2913: Don't warn about unclosed <li> tags (pull request)
Category: YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!
Patch by:

momijizukamori
Description: Momiji says: Did you know you don't have to close <li> tags in some circumstances under the HTML 4 and HTML 5 specs? I didn't! And neither did the HTML cleaner, which meant that the changes put in in #2885 to keep you from posting bad HTML would keep you from posting unclosed <li> tags, too. The cleaner is now aware of this and will no longer you stop you.

Issue 2918: remove error log method calls (pull request)
Category: backend
Patch by:

kareila
Description:

kareila says: Fixes some backend cleanup that was causing an obscure error to appear in some rare cases.

Issue 2919: Cache API keys for faster lookup (pull request)
Category: API, database go ZOOM!
Patch by:

momijizukamori
Description: Momiji says: A while ago, we added API keys! These have to be sent with every API request - right now, there's not a lot you can do with the API, so there isn't many of those, but in the future, this will hopefully increase. Right now, the server has to check the database every time to see if an API key is valid. Checking the database is expensive in terms of time and resources, so we ideally want to reduce the number of times that happens. This change makes the server cache successful key lookups, so if you make a bunch of API requests in a row, it will 'remember' the key after the first one and not have to check the database.

Issue 2922: FAQ44 slightly misleading
Category: Documentation, making things make sense
Update by:

rahaeli, reported by

pauamma
Description: The FAQ title didn't mention Dreamwidth-specific tags when it should have.

Issue 2924: Properly scope entry/icon page pagination (pull request)
Category: when the backend attacks the frontend, BML Must Die! and this is why
Patch by:

momijizukamori
Description: Momiji says: When we made the pagination in the updated site-styled journal entries look nice and fancy, we... accidentally make it look wonky everywhere else. Which is not a lot of places, and thus why nobody noticed, but we should fix it! This properly scopes the new pagination to only happen in the spots that use the new code.

Issue 2927: Fix issue where content-importer worker did not exit on error as intended (pull request)
and
Issue 2928: Fix another way content-importer workers can fail to exit (pull request)
Category: backend, importer, a small but ominous grinding noise
Patch by:

alierak
Description: If something goes terribly wrong with the process that's supposed to be working on someone's import, it should either gracefully (or gracelessly) exit. That is working better now.

Issue 2930: Clear "request" cache of db handles in imports (pull request)
Category: importer, MySQL moved your cheese
Patch by:

alierak
Description: You know how sometimes you get up from your chair to look at something and then you stand there for a while and then you go to sit back down and it turns out someone has moved it and you fall backwards and bang your tailbone? No? Okay, maybe that's only Mr. Horrible. Anyway,

alierak says long-running imports should no longer fail with a "MySQL server has gone away" error.

Issue 2935: membership setting choice in /communities/new not respected (pull request)
Category: community management, typo patrol, when the front end attacks!
Patch by:

alierak
Description: A typo caused the community creation process to ignore the setting for "by invitation only". This makes sure that newly created communities will have the correct settings.

Issue 2940: "credit fix" wording next to support answers
Category: Technical Support, frontend, making things make sense
Update by:

rahaeli, report by

pauamma
Description: This text was only ever visible to users who could approve answers to Support questions, but now the link to approve a specific answer has text that makes more sense.

Issue 2949: convert /manage/banusers to TT (pull request)
Category: backend, BML Must Die!
Patch by:

momijizukamori
Description: Momiji says: Part of the ongoing crusade eliminate BML from the codebase! One page down, many more to go...

17 total issues resolved

Contributors:

alierak,

kareila,

momijizukamori,

batrachian,

rahaeli,

zorkian

Additional bug reporters:

bcholmes,

pauamma

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I loved reading this. I read the chair pull one aloud to my wife.

I always learn a little something when I go to craft analogies for the technical problems! This was inspired in part by when my grandfather worked in a machine shop, except instead of the chair pull, his co-workers tried the ol' hot-seat as their hazing ritual. He never let on that he was seeing them sneak up in the reflection in his safety goggles...