Just a few notes and guidelines to assist you the developer and user in getting the most out of this forum. We'll be making changes as we go along to adapt, but this will be a start to a more practical development and application process.
A proposed "manageable" development cycle taking into consideration personal time constraints and UBB development cycles:
Alpha/ Beta Development:- Modification is either requested in this forum or by personal need
- Research existing similar modifications, take in feature requests, check " drawing board " forum to see if it's already in line for a future release
- Initial release may be public or private alpha/beta - appropriate warnings/disclaimers instituted and level of support to be expected noted in bold
- Bug-testing continues into beta stage, with a "to-do" list, and "bug list" in the first post of the thread following a link to the actual file(s) themselves
- An alternate link to the download file may be posted by a member if the original download site is down as a result of server malfunction, ISP woes, etc. If file is removed from download due to the developer bringing it back into private development to work out serious bugs, there will not be an alternate method of download posted.
- Once the beta is considered stable enough for wide-release, the developer will so note - again, in the first post of the thread with appropriate levels of support and warnings noted as well.
Finished Status:A modification will be seen as reaching finished status when the following measures are observed:
- has all bugs that are noted in the beta thread fixed (this does not mean "bugs" related to install error on the part of the user)
- has all publically viewable text in wordlet form
- does not break the cache, if the design necessitates breaking the caching function, that it be so noted in bold in the first post of the thread.
Finished Development:- Upon reaching "finished" status, a new thread will be started in the finished forum, with pointers from the old beta thread to the new one with the old thread closed. The modification will be added to the database with a link to the download files and support discussion made.
- the old beta thread will be reaped within one week of closing to reduce confusion among new members
notes:
- it is recommended that all finished modifications that have html in the public files conform to xhtml 1.0 transitional standards
- it is recommended that auto-install files are developed for finished modifications, if developed for beta code, it must be noted to the end-user that bugs are still present and it's not recommended for live sites.
- it is recommended that download files are linked from the database entry once entered
- we reserve the right to not include files in the db that are of a "questionable" quality/ stability
- we reserve the right to move threads in the finished forum back into the beta forum if it is seen that the modification has major bugs or cosmetic problems present
this post is in beta-form
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