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IRC Meetups/2006/April/April26RawLog

[17:07] <photomatt_lap> alrighty
[17:07] <photomatt_lap> <meetup>
[17:07] <photomatt_lap> stevecooley, want to kick off the themes topic?
[17:07] <stevecooley> hi
[17:07] <stevecooley> thanks to podz, shadow is back on the themes.wordpress.net project
[17:07] <stevecooley> woo
[17:08] <photomatt_lap> cool :)
[17:08] <stevecooley> that's it
[17:08] <Podz> photomatt_lap, seen it ? Shadow changed it some
[17:08] <stevecooley> sorry, I'm in 2 additional meetings
[17:08] <photomatt_lap> no let me check it out
[17:08] <stevecooley> very very sorry I can't say more about how happy I am he's back on the project
[17:08] <photomatt_lap> Podz: how did you talk shadow back?
[17:08] <stevecooley> I'm very happy
[17:09] <photomatt_lap> http://themes.wordpress.net/
[17:09] <Podz> he wants to do it. But as I said befoe some help would be nice
[17:09] <photomatt_lap> nice on the look
[17:10] * Joins: EduardoE
[17:10] * Joins: undersigned
[17:10] <Podz> I blogged it to try and get some, and he'd like it to be a bit more 'official' so if the mechanics need changing to fit (like extend?) then that could be done
[17:10] <Podz> only he has ~500 themes
[17:11] <photomatt_lap> it sounds like the key to making it more sustainable is making it more self-serve
[17:11] <photomatt_lap> from a theme creator's point of view
[17:11] <photomatt_lap> I actually saw a post about this earlier today
[17:11] <photomatt_lap> http://sunburntkamel.wordpress.com/2006/04/26/wordpress-theme-park-vs-wordpress-theme-viewer/
[17:11] <Podz> but then if it became more official theme authors might help by submitting correctly
[17:11] <Podz> photomatt_lap, I saw that too.
[17:11] <photomatt_lap> what do you think of the points made in that?
[17:12] <Podz> me? That the poster should actually look at what has been done, for over 2 years with no wanting ads / money / glory
[17:12] <photomatt_lap> well approaching it critically
[17:12] <undersigned> Podz: i still dont see why i shouldn't be allowed to host ads
[17:12] <photomatt_lap> perhaps we could put self-uploads and such on a themes roadmap
[17:13] <Podz> the offer was there to help create one site. it was not taken up.
[17:13] <photomatt_lap> undersigned: that's not really an issue right now
[17:13] <undersigned> ok
[17:13] <photomatt_lap> stevecooley had mentioned he won't have much development time for the site
[17:13] <Podz> photomatt_lap, a better structure would be great - but coders are needed to make that
[17:14] <photomatt_lap> what we need to do is find a coder who can be dedicated to that project
[17:14] <Podz> if someone codes, the rest will be done
[17:14] <photomatt_lap> yep
[17:14] <stevecooley> yes, correct
[17:14] <stevecooley> not that the coding aspect is all that time intensive on the backend
[17:15] <stevecooley> the front end has some interesting things that I don't have time to dig into
[17:15] <undersigned> if i can get help financing my snapshot server, ill close down wp theme park and move it to themes.wordpress.net .. if thats up for discussion
[17:15] <photomatt_lap> do we have a wishlist or todo list for the site?
[17:15] <photomatt_lap> undersigned: what's a snapshot server cost?
[17:15] <photomatt_lap> Podz: it might be nice to seend a hook out on wp
[17:15] <photomatt_lap> -hackers
[17:16] <photomatt_lap> with a list of the things the site needs, see if anyone bites
[17:16] <undersigned> photomatt_lap: im currently hosting the server for ~ $30/month
[17:16] <Podz> okay - will do. when I've got a list together :)
[17:18] <photomatt_lap> 30/mo is doable for hosting costs
[17:18] <photomatt_lap> it's something I'd be willing to sponsor
[17:18] <mumbles> if i had money i would do
[17:18] * Quits: EduardoE
[17:19] <undersigned> wp theme park is currently running on php 4.4.0, on a sponsored freebsd server
[17:20] <undersigned> using some exec commands to handle zip unpacking etc
[17:20] <undersigned> only theme uploading bug atm is if the zip includes more than one style.css file
[17:21] <undersigned> otherwise a theme could be in a folder in a folder in a folder without problems..
[17:21] <photomatt_lap> undersigned: so would you be willing to work with the themes.wp.net folks to create a unified resource? if so, I'd happily cover the hosting
[17:21] <photomatt_lap> the community would benefit from a one-stop shop
[17:22] <undersigned> as far as my site is working now i know many theme creators love to have the possibility to link directly to their themes in the gallery etc
[17:23] <undersigned> i just want to help out the community, and if i do that best by moving to wp net, that would be it
[17:24] <photomatt_lap> okay, that sounds great then
[17:24] <photomatt_lap> Podz: you're the ambassador
[17:24] <photomatt_lap> would you mind connecting undersigned and shadow?
[17:24] <Podz> I am?
[17:24] <Podz> NP
[17:24] <Podz> oops
[17:24] <Podz> I meant np :)
[17:25] <undersigned> just to add, im not an elite coder or anything, so dont expect everything from me
[17:25] <photomatt_lap> awesome!
[17:25] <photomatt_lap> sounds like we finally can put the theme topic to rest
[17:26] <Podz> undersigned, I'll send a cc'd email to you/shadow with the goals
[17:26] <undersigned> great
[17:26] <undersigned> nothings official yet, right
[17:26] <undersigned> unless people read the logs of course..
[17:26] <Podz> ?
[17:27] <undersigned> i want to wait a little before i close down the site
[17:28] <photomatt_lap> well I imagine there will be some dev time
[17:28] <undersigned> great
[17:28] <photomatt_lap> in addition to hosting support, I'm happy to help out with dev if there is a tough problem
[17:29] * Joins: rboren
[17:29] <undersigned> Great, im new at php, so maybe there will be some issues
[17:30] <undersigned> right now the system ive made, simply uses wordpress as backend..
[17:30] <photomatt_lap> not a prob
[17:30] <undersigned> screenshots in different sizes are named the posts id, so is the theme folder etc.. quite simple
[17:30] <undersigned> Podz: do you have my mail?
[17:30] <photomatt_lap> undersigned: email the host details and I'll contact them about taking care of payment
[17:31] <undersigned> photomatt_lap: its at my work
[17:31] <Podz> undersigned, no...
[17:31] <undersigned> silkjaer@theundersigned.net
[17:32] <Podz> ta :)
[17:32] <photomatt_lap> undersigned: okay, just email me what needs to be done
[17:32] <undersigned> photomatt_lap: i will
[17:32] * Joins: mdawaffe
[17:33] <photomatt_lap> groovy
[17:34] <photomatt_lap> okay next up, mikelittle
[17:34] <photomatt_lap> cooommmmeee on down
[17:34] <mikelittle> Is it a good idea to have a list of officially supported browsers? At least for the admin screens. 3 or 4 that are known to work perfectly. A couple with known issues -- WYSIWYG degrades gracefully?A list that are known *not* to work -- and won't be supported.
[17:35] <undersigned> may i be the first to add lynx to the list of unsupported browsers?
[17:35] <mdawaffe> why should lynx not be supported?
[17:36] <undersigned> well.. at least the wysiwyg editor wouldnt work properly :)
[17:37] <photomatt_lap> well, realistically
[17:37] <mikelittle> I appreciate that the list needs to be as small as possible. Saying whats official commits to supporting and testing on those.
[17:37] <photomatt_lap> we target IE6+, FF 1.0 +, and safari
[17:38] <photomatt_lap> of which the first two
[17:38] <photomatt_lap> are an overwhelming percentage
[17:38] <mikelittle> OK. Is there value in documenting that. And also any that are known to work. Especially old versions.
[17:38] <mikelittle> known to *not* work
[17:39] <mdawaffe> photomatt_lap: for all the bells and whistles. For complete functionality, but no fancy JS nonsense, we should support things like lynx.
[17:39] <photomatt_lap> we do
[17:39] <mdawaffe> mikelittle: how are you defining "supported"?
[17:39] <photomatt_lap> I blog from my blackberry
[17:39] <mumbles> i can blog from my ornage spvc500
[17:39] <photomatt_lap> it could be better, I'm going to take a whack at rearranged the post screen so title and post are on top, rather than after all the sidebars
[17:39] <mdawaffe> photomatt_lap: right. Just clarifying. Stuff like that basically comes down to good html.
[17:39] <mikelittle> I mean that we expect it to work on browser X, and thus things that break are legitimate bugs.
[17:40] <mdawaffe> mikelittle: how are you defining "work"
[17:40] <mikelittle> And also we know it doesn't work on browser y, sorry
[17:40] <mdawaffe> does WP work in lynx, for example, according to your defL
[17:40] <mdawaffe> (def?)
[17:41] <photomatt_lap> it does for me
[17:41] <mdawaffe> I just want everyone to be on the same page, here.
[17:41] <mikelittle> Able to complete the task of writing a post, with title and assigned category, adding an image.
[17:41] <photomatt_lap> except for the last one, there should be no issues
[17:42] <mikelittle> A small number of uses cases. Some of which will be without the WYSIWYG interface.
[17:42] * Quits: cori
[s] ("MirOS HTTP-IRC (EOF)"�)
[17:42] <mdawaffe> "Able to complete every task WP has to offer." A very reasonable definition, thanks.
[17:42] <photomatt_lap> ignoring the irony of people uploading graphics with non-graphical browsers... :)
[17:42] <mikelittle> Or MP3 files
[17:42] <photomatt_lap> if they have iframe support they should be fine
[17:43] <photomatt_lap> if not, there are several upload plugins (or they can use ftp or something other than WP) that would help out those edge users
[17:45] <mikelittle> All valuable information, if it can be collated somewhere -- codex? I think it will help.
[17:45] <photomatt_lap> codex is the place for a list, to the extent we have a list, and bugs should be in trac
[17:46] <photomatt_lap> like always
[17:46] <mikelittle> Or perhaps http://wordpress.org/about/requirements/
[17:46] <photomatt_lap> one thing is though
[17:46] <photomatt_lap> it's the kind of thing people get worked up about
[17:46] <mikelittle> It currently covers hosting, but a working browser is a requirement.
[17:46] <mikelittle> I know!!
[17:47] <mikelittle> That's why the graceful non-wysiwyg fallback is valuable.
[17:48] <photomatt_lap> We do pimp browsehappy in the footer to IE users
[17:48] <mikelittle> So I believe, but it's one of those things where you don't want to upset people about their choice of software.
[17:50] <photomatt_lap> I could add a "WordPress best experienced with..."
[17:50] <photomatt_lap> note to the about page
[17:50] <photomatt_lap> in which case I'd just link to firefox
[17:50] <photomatt_lap> but for an official list of must-work browsers, it's really just IE, FF, and sometimes safari, but only safari because its users are so loud :)
[17:51] <mikelittle> Again, for the non-technical it sounds like, "Oh I don't have that, it won't work for me!"
[17:51] <photomatt_lap> so we should just handle bugs as they come up in trac, if at all
[17:52] <mikelittle> Sounds good. What about a list of known failures? IE < 6, Netscape < 7, etc.
[17:53] <mikelittle> If that's the case
[17:53] <photomatt_lap> nah
[17:53] <photomatt_lap> if they're big enough to matter they'll get reported on trac
[17:53] <mikelittle> OK.
[17:53] <photomatt_lap> if someone is on netscape, we should arrange an intervention
[17:54] <photomatt_lap> get an exorcist
[17:54] <mikelittle> :-)
[17:55] <photomatt_lap> just for color
[17:55] <photomatt_lap> on wp.org we're
[17:55] <photomatt_lap> 49% firefox
[17:55] <photomatt_lap> 39% IE
[17:55] <photomatt_lap> 6.4% safari
[17:55] <mikelittle> WOW!
[17:55] <photomatt_lap> 3% opera
[17:56] <photomatt_lap> trace amounts of camino, netscape, konqueror
[17:57] <mdawaffe> what about wp.com?
[17:57] <photomatt_lap> one sec
[17:57] <mdawaffe> seems to me that'd be more telling
[17:57] <photomatt_lap> wow, reversal on WP.com
[17:57] <photomatt_lap> I guess it's a more mainstream audience
[17:57] <photomatt_lap> 57% IE
[17:57] <photomatt_lap> 33% FF
[17:57] <photomatt_lap> 4.9 safari, 2.3 opera
[17:58] <photomatt_lap> I wonder if scoble skews those stats :)
[17:58] * Quits: ringmaster ("Find me at http://asymptomatic.net, where I remain ambivalent."�)
[17:59] <mikelittle> I added another agenda item
[17:59] <mikelittle> Closing trac issues instead of setting low priority or milestone (e.g. html comments problem)
[17:59] <mikelittle> I thought the closing of a bug which breaks standards compliance astounding. I'd much prefer to see "low priority, can someone supply a patch please" than wontfix. The wrong message is being sent with the latter.
[17:59] <photomatt_lap> mikelittle: the bug that was referred to was closed by me
[17:59] <photomatt_lap> I think what was happening at the time
[18:00] <photomatt_lap> was we were still on mosquito and trying to clear things out so it was easier to see what was important
[18:01] <mikelittle> OK. But without that explanation, it really does send the wrong message.
[18:02] <photomatt_lap> sure
[18:02] <photomatt_lap> I think at the time I really meant wontfix though
[18:02] <mikelittle> Oh!
[18:02] <photomatt_lap> because it seemed like something silly, if people want that sort of flexibility to do advanced HTML, they shouldn't have been using autop
[18:03] <photomatt_lap> at the time autop didn't handle tables, or many other basic things
[18:03] <photomatt_lap> since then it should work with most stuff
[18:03] <photomatt_lap> so we should probably just make it complete
[18:04] <mikelittle> I think so: IIRC out of the box they don't have a choice about autop, it's just on?
[18:05] <photomatt_lap> back then it was a checkbox, now it's just on
[18:05] <photomatt_lap> you can deactivate it through plugins, but not in the UI
[18:06] <mikelittle> That's the problem I guess. Out of the box, it can break the HTML it produces. I don't mind if WP lets you paste in bad code, but when it breaks good code it's a problem.
[18:09] <photomatt_lap> yep
[18:10] <photomatt_lap> so if a non-destructive patch comes in, there's no reason not to include it
[18:10] <mikelittle> Sounds good.
[18:10] <undersigned> ive got to go to sleep
[18:12] <photomatt_lap> I think that's everything
[18:12] <photomatt_lap> did anyone else have any topics they wanted to put out there?
[18:12] <mikelittle> Yep, I'm done.
[18:12] <photomatt_lap> speak now or forever hold your piece, until next week
[18:13] <stevecooley> thank you for more focus on themes
[18:13] <stevecooley> (I'm back from my 2 other concurrent meetings :)
[18:13] <stevecooley> sounds like that got resolved very nicely
[18:13] <photomatt_lap> stevecooley: just in time for the close :)
[18:13] <photomatt_lap> </meetup>
[18:13] <photomatt_lap> have a great day/night everyone!

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