Code tour: June 22, 2010 - June 28, 2010

[azurelunatic]

This code tour is brought to you by the San Andreas or San Gregorio Fault, which provided the bulk of this morning's excitement in Miss Lunatic's neighborhood.

Welcome to new patch contributor catness! This code tour also introduces documentation changes being tracked through Bugzilla, as well as other tasks. There are 37 feature-and-bugfix bugs resolved this week, and 1 documentation bug.

Out in front in this week's resolved bugs is szabgab, who is responsible for many patches over quite some time on one testing megabug. It may only have been one bug, but it was an enormous amount of work, and we salute you.

Then we've 9 patches from denise, 8 patches from kareila, 3 patches from fu, 3 patches and some serious image wrangling by ninetydegrees, 2 patches each from foxfirefey, rho, and new developer catness, and one patch each from exor674, aveleh, kaisa, allen, chemicallace, yvi, and returning developer penemue. SpamAssassin handling was implemented by mark.

Thanks to the other people who help keep these running: the reviewers, the people debating the best way to implement, everybody in Support troubleshooting and reporting things, the people who cheer when a new patch lands in IRC, and many more. Some specific shoutouts: policy from mark and denise, reviewing from allen, domtheknight keeping a Support-ive eye on things, some good Support bug descriptions from cesy and zarhooie, pauamma monitoring changelog for useful changes to the code we inherited, andy and colleagues at LiveJournal for their continuing work on our parent codebase (1 patch imported from them this time around), some nice teamwork and troubleshooting from yvi, domtheknight, kareila, exor674, kaisa, mark, fu, foxfirefey, cesy, and sophie, and bonus backchannel (over-the-shoulder?) support from alierak.

Stuff in this code tour won't be live until the next code push. See dw_maintenance for advance notice of scheduling, and @dreamwidth for up-to-the-minute information if stuff has gotten all weird.


And onward to the actual tour!

Bugs and Improvements

Bug 2719: new edit profile page cut off in some browsers
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, the edit profile page, fixing what's broke
Patch by: fu
Description: Even though the new edit profile page is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, it's not without its little bugs. Like cutting off important bits if it's wider than the rest of the site thinks it should be.

Bug 2040: /admin/pay should allow the addition of paid time in arbitrary increments
Category: Site Administration, raising denise's hair less often
Patch by: catness (oo, new person!)
Description: There are some very solid administrative reasons for wanting to toss a couple days' worth of paid time at an account -- check is in the mail, PayPal is being problematic (well, for sites that use PayPal), maybe there was some funky bug or something. There are reasons to want to be able to add more than a year at a time, from an admin end. (Some of the reasons are, admittedly, "the administrator has better things to do than waste time doing this in several rounds when it could be done in one go.") Site administrators will be able to grant up to 98 months in one go, much better than 12. (99 is a magic number, for seed/permanent accounts.)

Bug 2686: Expanding cut tags doesn't work in certain browser/style combinations due to CSS conflicts
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, cut tag expansion, styles, freaky-and-obscure
Patch by: fu, troubleshooting with yvi, domtheknight, kareila, exor674, and the breakthrough from kaisa. I love the smell of teamwork in the morning.
Description: The problem was eventually tracked down: it had to do with styling the first letter of an entry in a special way, and this causing conflicts with the cut-expansion. The solution isn't the most elegant in the world, but it will do until a better one comes along.

Bug 2404: Don't bless $opts to DW::Routing
Category: Misc Backend, cleaning up code
Patch by: exor674
Description: In response to a FIXME in the code's comments, this splits handling options to a separate class, instead of having them lumped in with DW::Routing.

Bug 2513: Edit fails to cross-post if deleted on the cross-post site
Category: Crossposter, things doing as you expect them to
Patch by: catness
Description: A vexing dilemma! On the one hand, if you have the tickybox to crosspost an entry to another service selected when you edit the entry, it should crosspost the edit. On the other hand, if you deleted the entry on the other service, you probably meant to. What to do? This: Check if the remote entry exists, and if it does not, clear the crossposted checkboxes and send a warning, with instructions: if you want to re-create the remote entries, select the boxes to crosspost again.

Bug 2721: Remove support for $LJ::ALT_PROFILE_BML_FILE
Category: Misc Backend, fetch the code-machetes
Patch by: denise
Description: Unneeded inherited code, gone!

Bug 2725: Clear memcache for both system and user layers
Category: Style System
Converted for Dreamwidth by: denise, original on LiveJournal committed by andy
Description: andy remarks: "ten thousand revisions later, we actually clear memcached data properly". Well-spotted, sir; it had likewise been overlooked here.

Bug 1308: apply bare-bones style to feed account journals
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, syndicated accounts (inbound), spider-blocking, styles, working nicely with other sites
Patches by: foxfirefey, aveleh
Description: To play nicely with other sites out there, incoming syndicated content tells search engine spiders and other bots to not even bother coming over to index this (as of 2009, thanks, Fey!) and now the recent entries page for the syndicated journal will be a sparse style with an explanation of syndicated accounts at the top, the title of the entries, and a link to them. This style better highlights the temporary nature of syndicated entries on Dreamwidth.

Bug 1561: Atom feeds use invalid URIs as entry IDs
Category: Misc Backend, syndication (outbound)
Patch by: kaisa
Description: The simple version: there was something wonky with entry IDs in outgoing Atom feeds. This fixes them.
The slightly more complex version: when links are released into the wide world, there's always the concern that a link from the dark ages of the internet when $GoodWholesomeCompany owned Domain X should get mistaken for the same location at the same domain from when $SlightlyNefariousCompany snapped up the abandoned domain name -- or at least confusion if two equally upstanding entities happened to have the same domain name at different points in time, and different content at the same location. Thus, the scheme of tagging links as they are released into syndication, to establish that this link at Domain X is not that link at Domain X. Or thus I interpret RFC 4151.
Or, in Dreamwidth's case, perhaps User 50 snagged a particular username, then let it go, and then that same username was snapped up by User 369, who might then by perfect chance be assigned the same entry ID for an entry with wildly different contents.
In any case, Dreamwidth was sending out syndicated entries with actually not so valid metadata, and that had to be stopped. Thus, the new scheme of generating entry IDs incorporating the userid number (which does not change over the lifetime of the journal, no matter what the name is), and the account creation date (as the RFC specifies that a date in which the identity is in control of that location, any date from the past up until now, is required).

Bug 2658: check_referer should deal with HTTPS
Category: Misc Backend, admin tools
Patch by: kareila
Description: There are some tools that depend on the back-end "check_referer" dealing with secure (https) pages correctly. It's always good to have things working properly.

Bug 2672: Crosspost label text says "xpost" instead of something user-friendly, in core1 styles
Category: Style System
Patch by: kareila
Description: Core1 styles, as well as Core2, were showing "xpost" as the label for crosspost data, instead of something user-friendly. This was fixed a few tours ago, but marked as resolved now.

Bug 2723: alphabetize htdocs/site/index.bml.text
Category: Misc Backend, making things make sense
Patch by: ninetydegrees
Description: It doesn't matter to the computers what order things are in in htdocs/site/index.bml.text. It does matter to the humans who have to try and find things in there, and Dreamwidth is going the alphabetical option, not the frequency-of-use option.

Bug 2724: suggestions generator should use 'admin only' security, not members only
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, better tools make happier users
Patch by: ninetydegrees
Description: It would be pretty nifty if you, an interested user, could join dw_suggestions and subscribe to all comments posted there, to better drink from the firehose. However, all suggestions posted to the community are actually posted twice: once public, by the user who suggested them, and once members-only, to archive them in case one up and disappears, and for easy import to Bugzilla. This change makes the locked version post admins-only, so at some point in the nebulous future, people who are not actually part of the Dreamwidth suggestions administration process can join the community.

Bug 2745: Modular: date unreadable in comments
Category: Style System, making things readable, fixing what's broke
Patch by: ninetydegrees
Description: In the Modular style, the datestamp on comments was not entirely readable as its color couldn't be set properly. Ooops.

Bug 1214: Add "join community" link on protected entries in open communities in S2
Category: Communities, community (non)membership, making things make sense
Patch by: denise
Description: This is only part of the work, and depends on Bug 2138, but the problem here: say you're logged in, and you're linked to a locked entry in an open-membership community. Running up against a 403 error is sort of unfriendly. It would be nice to have a link offered to join the community, in the case of open community membership and you're not banned.

Bug 2278: Add "subscribe to all comments" to the community management page
Category: Communities, community management, making things make sense.
Patch by: rho
Description: It's a sensible community admin task to subscribe to all the community's comments. Therefore, it makes sense to put this on the community management page, rather than just on the community profile.

Bug 2696: Make siteschemes link to /nav/BLAH instead of /nav?cat=BLAH
Category: Misc UI/Frontend
Patch by: foxfirefey
Description: Making cleaner links!

Bug 2160: Allow different crosspost footers for when comments are enabled and disabled.
Category: Crossposter, making things make sense
Patch by: allen
Description: It makes no sense to have a crosspost footer on your remote entry that says something like "you can comment on Dreamwidth" when you've disabled comments on this particular entry. This will allow separate crosspost footers for comments enabled on Dreamwidth, and comments disabled on Dreamwidth.

Bug 2050: fix formatting issues on Staff page
Category: Frontend, making things pretty
Patch and heroic resistance against needlessly correcting single quotes to double quotes by: chemicallace
Description: Makes the formatting on the Staff page better. [Edited for more fun facts: the immediate problem was fixed pretty quickly, but the bug stayed open so the owners could inquire with dw_accessibility about how to handle alt text for some of the images on the page.]

Bug 2618: Username in subject breaks entry link in active entries module
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, fixing what's broke
Patch by: penemue (welcome back!)
Description: The active entries module lists the entries that have had the most comments on them recently, by title. If there was a username in the title of one of the entries, there was (unspecified) brokenness. This will fix that.

Bug 273: Implement bot policy and document somewhere on site
Category: Server documentation, playing nice with bots so they'll play nice with us
Patch by: denise, policy by mark and denise
Description: It's good to have Dreamwidth's policy on bots hitting the site laid out in a document. The policy is viewable in the attachment to the bug in Zilla. Executive summary: include a contact address in your bot's user agent string, play nice (especially, no screenscraping), and contact us (via Support) with any questions (like if the only way you can get something is screenscraping).

Bug 2059: find/remove unused widgets
Category: Misc Backend, fetch the code-machetes
Patch by: denise
Description: A search-and-destroy through LJ::Widget for unused stuff. Includes a bonus renaming of something we still use.

Bug 2170: bulk changes to entry security page
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, making things make sense
Patch by: denise
Description: The editprivacy page will henceforth be linked from the site map and the /editjournal page (that last if your account type can use it).

Bug 2460: Comment Posted page wrong for some screened comment replies
Category: English-Stripping, making things make sense
Patch by: denise
Description: denise says it best: "Adds in "are you a maintainer" and "is this your journal" checks for purpose of changing the 'yo, you been screened' message."

Bug 2665: remove LJ::u_equals
Category: Misc Backend, code cleanup
Patch by: denise
Description: Replacing LJ::u_equals with $u->equals, in case you were coding something and you don't know where LJ::u_equals got to.

Bug 1689: Email summary of post-by-email commands/options
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, making things make sense, code duplication is not fun, fetch the code-machetes
Patch by: kareila
Description: In the course of making it possible to send an email with instructions on actually using the post-by-email feature to any registered email addresses that you can post from, there was some gnarly duplicated code that was encountered. I get the impression that kareila likes duplicated code about as much as Adam Savage likes spiders. And unlike spiders, duplicate code does not fill a necessary role in the ecosystem, does not live and breathe, and it is therefore not unnecessary cruelty to savagely destroy unnecessary duplicated code.

Bug 1787: What to do with LJ::PersistentQueue ?
Category: Misc Backend, fetch the code-machetes
Patch by: kareila
Description: Unused code, you say? kareila is a codewhacking machine.

Bug 1788: Is LJ::LDAP planned to be used?
Category: Misc Backend, fetch the code-machetes
Patch by: kareila
Description: More unused and yea, even duplicated code, gone!

Bug 2700: remove LJ::nodb
Category: Misc Backend, fetch the code-machetes, fixing what's broke
Patch by: kareila
Description: 2700 returns! There were a few issues when ripping out old code, but all should be well now.

Bug 2737: Feeds with ansi_x3.4-1968 encoding can't be parsed
Category: Misc Backend, syndication (incoming), funky encoding problems
Patch by: kareila, with some enlightening back-and-forth with sophie
Description: Incoming syndicated feeds were having a problem with some particular text encoding formats. Quite a bit of research later, the workaround is that because ansi_x3.4-1968 encoding is simply an alias of US-ASCII, we should just treat it as that, and all shall be well.

Bug 2738: add LJ::mysql_date and $u->atomid
Category: Misc Backend, avoiding duplication from the outset
Patch by: kareila, with bonus backchannel support from alierak
Description: Bug 1561's code makes a triumphant return: it's a useful little thing that kaisa made, so kareila created a new function and a new user method for future use in other things. This is the happy end of code duplication: spying something that might be useful, and making something so no one is tempted to duplicate it in the future.

Bug 52: Spamassassin plugin
Category: Misc Backend, antispam is good for the whole family
Implemented by: mark
Description: Running incoming mail to paid users' @dreamwidth.org email aliases through SpamAssassin. Woohoo for less spam on the internet!

Bug 1405: Feed account URL change request form
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, making things make sense
Fixed by: other development
Description: The need for a specific "help help my syndicated feed needs fixing" form is generally met by the link to open a support request (in general) on the profile.

Bug 2640: Sunday Morning: update graphics
Category: Style System
Patch by: fu, heavy imagework by ninetydegrees
Description: The preview images for Sunday Morning weren't as good as they could have been.

Bug 2741: Remove sexist overtones from code comments
Category: Misc Backend, cleaning up code comments
Patch by: rho
Description: Sometimes it's a fine line between "removing anything smacking of personality from code comments" and "removing things that will repel potential developers from code comments". In this case, listing "women" as an example interest that's likely to be popular in comment-documentation (about how the code doesn't handle popular interests particularly efficiently) could be read in a few inoffensive ways, and also could be read in some very off-putting ways. So out it went!

Bug 1721: Many tests in t/ fail
Category: Site Administration, having a working test suite
Patches by: szabgab, immense teamwork involving mark, fu, yvi, foxfirefey, exor674, cesy, and kareila
Description: This is a massive bug. Basically Dreamwidth's code test suite was exceptionally lacking, and szabgab came in and Made Things Happen. For some perspective: many bugs have only one attachment, maybe two, perhaps none if it's small enough. This bug has 17 attachments. Closed because most of the other remaining scenarios that need tests have their own bugs open.

Bug 2126: Add a note when a post is too long for latest posts feed
Category: Misc UI/Frontend, Latest Things, making things make sense
Patch by: yvi
Description: From a user-viewing-the-page perspective, it's totally bizarre: you're reading along on the Latest Things page, and the entry cuts off mid-word. From a code perspective, it makes total sense: entries on the Latest Things page are cut off at 2000 characters, so a very long entry that winds up there won't make the Latest Things page totally tl;dr. This reconciles the two perspectives by making a note when something on the Latest Things page is truncated due to length.

---

Documentation

Bug 2708: Create FAQ for administrator override settings
Category: User documentation, community administration
Patch by: denise
Description: FAQ 205: What changes can I make to entries in my community? created, which shows the changes a community admin can make to any given entry (rather than comment moderation abilities), plus some stuff that's planned for the future.