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EvilDragon

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Just a quick note:

I've setup the forum to automatically make posts about new releases on the repository.

So if you upload something to the repo, it's no longer needed anymore to do a newspost.

You can still create posts about beta tests, etc. and stuff you haven't uploaded on the repo yet.

Let's see how well this works :)
 
While this is a nice idea (thanks!), I would like to be able to enable/disable this on an app based level, if that is possible.

Reasoning behind is that I often supply additional information in my release posts, which have no place on the repo (like alternate download links, detailed info about the source/port, etc.).

Also auto-posting means that I don't have control over the thread, since I did not make the opening post, so I cannot change the title, etc.

And I don't want the forum be cluttered with doubled threads.

Btw, here is an example of an auto-generated post: http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/12885-repo-litecoin-0634-update/
 
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Ah thanks foxblock. I guess this code use some method to tie a forum account to a repo account to give the thread control to the correct user...

Also per app disabling sounds like a good idea.

I agree it's a good feature but there is room for improvement.
 
And I don't want the forum be cluttered with doubled threads.
Is there really a problem with posting your additional information to the auto-thread?My concern with this autothread thing is that on more than one occasion I've noticed a problem immediately after uploading and have to do a second upload almost immediately. Will that create two threads?
 
Well, the function simply takes the RSS feed and posts.

So as long as there's no possibility to enable / disable an app from the repo RSS feed,

And I don't want the forum be cluttered with doubled threads.
Is there really a problem with posting your additional information to the auto-thread?
Yes, that's how it's meant to be.The forum simply creates topics from an RSS feed, the author can post additional information there.

I have no idea how this could be handled otherwise.

The only practicable idea would be a function added in the Repo, where the user can leave additional information for the forum post and then the repo would create a special RSS feed with that info included for the forum.

My concern with this autothread thing is that on more than one occasion I've noticed a problem immediately after uploading and have to do a second upload almost immediately. Will that create two threads?
The forum checks for new entries every 30 minutes, so as long as the repo doesn't create double-RSS-Feed entries, it should only create one.
 
And I don't want the forum be cluttered with doubled threads.
Is there really a problem with posting your additional information to the auto-thread?
My concern with this autothread thing is that on more than one occasion I've noticed a problem immediately after uploading and have to do a second upload almost immediately. Will that create two threads?
Yes, people tend to skip anything past the first post and might miss it. This also defeats the purpose for me, as the bot does not relieve me of work (and the layout/formatting of the post is inferior to a single, properly formatted post with all info in it).

This is nitpicky, but would be solved with an opt-out option.

Also the issue with thread ownership remains, I would mark old released as "outdated" in the title to avoid confusion (for example: when searching this forum for a OS update, more often than not an old update is higher up the result list).

Another thing I noticed: Even with the bot in effect for only a few days, you can already imagine how the forum can become clustered with threads of small updates.

This will hide important release and update threads where seemingly a more interesting discussion is happening. Note how all auto generated threads have no replies, while the custom created ones have at least some - and without discussion these threads are useless as you can subscribe to the repo RSS or use PNDManager for the same result.

Thinking this further the author of the app might not notice your post anyway, since he is not subscribed to threads he did not create, by default.

I personally would rather have one thread per app and update the starting post with new info, while also adding a post with changelog info to that thread bringing it to the front.

I don't mean to shut down the bot immediately, but I am vary and interested to see how it turns out. (Tbh, I don't follow this forum very much anyway, but it would be sad to see important release threads being lost in a sea of auto-generated noise)

I think when uploading a PND it might be possible to add a checkbox to the final form with something along the lines of "This is a minor update" or "Don't create a thread for this", so the uploader can choose what updates to create threads for.
 
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And I don't want the forum be cluttered with doubled threads.
Is there really a problem with posting your additional information to the auto-thread?My concern with this autothread thing is that on more than one occasion I've noticed a problem immediately after uploading and have to do a second upload almost immediately. Will that create two threads?
Yes, people tend to skip anything past the first post and might miss it.
They do?I'd guess they will discuss about it there and will do bug reports, issues, directly on this thread.

This also defeats the purpose for me, as the bot does not relieve me of work (and the layout/formatting of the post is inferior to a single, properly formatted post with all info in it).
Well, not everyone does that, and you can still add a properly formatted post below :)
This is nitpicky, but would be solved with an opt-out option.
Which would only work if milkshake allows to opt-out any new software release from the RSS feed, but that would defeat the purpose of a newsfeed.
Also the issue with thread ownership remains, I would mark old released as "outdated" in the title to avoid confusion (for example: when searching this forum for a OS update, more often than not an old update is higher up the result list).
The bot includes the version number in the post.How many software release threads have been marked as "outdated" until today?

Is there even a single one?

So if no one ever did that, I don't see a reason to see that as issue now.

As the bot includes the version number, it should be a lot more clear than before, as a lot of devs just wrote "Updated xyz", without giving the version number in the title.

Aditionally, if you search and get the search results ordered by topic creation date, that won't happen.

Another thing I noticed: Even with the bot in effect for only a few days, you can already imagine how the forum can become clustered with threads of small updates.

This will hide important release and update threads where seemingly a more interesting discussion is happening. Note how all auto generated threads have no replies, while the custom created ones have at least some
I don't think that will be an issue. We don't have THAT many releases that it will clutter.If no one is interested in a software and doesn't reply, it will go down pretty fast anyways.

BTW: Who defines what's important and what not?

Even a tiny update to a small program can be important to some people while it's unimportant for most of the rest.

- and without discussion these threads are useless as you can subscribe to the repo RSS or use PNDManager for the same result.
But the purpose here is that people CAN now easily discuss every new software release without having to create a new topic.
The topic title is standardized now and created automatically, so that people can discuss.

Thinking this further the author of the app might not notice your post anyway, since he is not subscribed to threads he did not create, by default.
It's one click to subscribe to the thread when it's created.
I personally would rather have one thread per app and update the starting post with new info, while also adding a post with changelog info to that thread bringing it to the front.
But that would hide new releases.I, for example, don't follow every thread of an app. So if the update is only posted in there, I wouldn't even see that.

I don't mean to shut down the bot immediately, but I am vary and interested to see how it turns out. (Tbh, I don't follow this forum very much anyway, but it would be sad to see important release threads being lost in a sea of auto-generated noise)
Unless we have 20 releases per day, I don't think that's an issue.And if we ever have that, we can create a forum where only the bot posts these automatic news. 

I think when uploading a PND it might be possible to add a checkbox to the final form with something along the lines of "This is a minor update" or "Don't create a thread for this", so the uploader can choose what updates to create threads for.
That's up to milkshake. It would require a special RSS feed for the forums, or otherwise it would go away from the normal RSS feed as well.
If he includes something like that, it would also be easy to add special authors comments for the forum, so that the post would be automatically created.
 
Can the bot create replies to the original thread whenever an update is uploaded? Or update the first post with a brief summary of the update?

I think we need Milkshake in on this discussion.
 
Can the bot create replies to the original thread whenever an update is uploaded? Or update the first post with a brief summary of the update?
How would that work?As said, it's simply an RSS feed grabber.
 
Do you have its source code?

If so, it could use a unique app identification number to either create a new thread or post in a pre-existing one with the same number

Failing that, I think the best way would be if Devs could either opt out of the feed, or customise it, which is mainly milkshake's problem.
 
No, it's built-in into IPB.

If anyone needs more functionality, someone needs to code an IPB plugin together with milkshake, so the repo and plugin talk to each other.
 
I don't really like it, it's much more convenient to have single thread for program, like I had PCSX for years. Sometimes I want to go though old bug reports, and one thread is simple enough, with this system I would be forced to search 19 different threads.

I also like to write things in first post and update it with time, now it's no longer possible.
 
Why was there even a need for it ?

I just can't see the benefits - if I want to be informed about new releases I have the rss-feed. If I need to talk about a release I either use a thread that the author created or create one myself if there is a real need for it.

What I would really like to see, is that repo and forum get mored tied together - especially regarding the comment section in repo
 
What I would really like to see, is that repo and forum get mored tied together - especially regarding the comment section in repo
Yeah, I think that's where the real need is - having comments on both sides make it difficult to track things. 

Now, having new topics for each version will only make the current situation worse: one software author will have to track the comments in many different threads + on the repo. It's probably not going in the right direction.

I think this comes from good intention but this will have unintended consequences.
 
I for one think this feature is awesome! While the comments box on the repo is useful, it's not really designed as a discussion forum. It'd be even nicer if it posted a comment on the repo linking the latest update to the corresponding thread, so we could natter about it.


IMO it would be very nice if updates updated an existing thread rather than creating a new one, but I can see how that would be a big step up from an RSS parser. We'd need a proper spec, or at least need to decide how to identify an existing thread - whether to try to find an existing thread for all updates, or just handle those threads the system has previously created, and could thus store an ID for.


Either way it would require a significant rewrite, so perhaps the best idea in the interim is for the system to filter the RSS field to exclude updates, and only create threads for new software (or for Milkshake's system to generate a specific RSS feed that includes only new stuff) until someone decides the best thing to do about updates.
 
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I don't really like it, it's much more convenient to have single thread for program, like I had PCSX for years. Sometimes I want to go though old bug reports, and one thread is simple enough, with this system I would be forced to search 19 different threads.

I also like to write things in first post and update it with time, now it's no longer possible.
Perhaps at the end of every update you could request we merge back into the master thread when that application version has done its run or maybe ED could let the dev decide if there's a thread generated or not.
 
Yeah, if you could keep all single app releases in a single thread, I think that would be much better IMO
 
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