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Pugdog Plugins
Hi Pugdog,

As part of a job Im doing for a client I have been asked to install the recommend_it and bad_link plugins however I have experienced error after error in getting them to install as they are incompatible with the newer versions of Links SQL.

Please could you address these issues or withdraw the plugins form the download page as it is unfair on the people who try to install them (and people like me who end up having angry customers through no fault of our own). I've seen quite a few recent threads regarding this.

For example bad_link claims to be compatible with 2.1.0 on the download page, but the necessary init calls are not present.

Last edited by:

Paul: May 27, 2002, 6:37 AM
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Indeed. I have asked Alex to look at making recommend-it as part of the main package if pugdog is unable or unwilling to update this. I couldn't imagine a better way for promoting the use of a links directory than using this plugin.

~ ERASER


Free JavaScripts @ Insight Eye
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Come on! After all the hours, days, months of effort and commitment pugdog has devoted to these forums over the three or so years he has been participating in this community; this is the way you address him? Surely the guy deserves a little bit more respect and a little more consideration in your message.

His profile lists his personal email address, his ICQ number and his website address as personal means of communication. This forum also supports private messages. Surely it would have been a better, more tactful approach to send him a personal message first to give him the opportunity to clarify his situation and to help resolve any disputes you may have with your customers. I'm sure a reasonable explanation is behind all this, and I'm sure a reasonable explanation would have calmed your clients' anger.

I'm sorry that I've picked up on the negative vibes in your message, and I apologize if I have taken your words out of context, but I am also very sorry that some of these forums do not acknowledge the hard work and tireless effort many people here give, and have given over the years. This does not only include the many who volunteer their time, but staff members who also work way beyond the course of duty.

Rgds

- wil
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Re: [Wil] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Hi Wil,

I don't think Paul is wanting to be rude here. I believe he is just trying to make a point by saying that

1) Till Pugdog updates the plugin's it would be wise to remove them from plugin download section.

I personally have never had an opportunity to talk with Pugdog but I honestly believe that he is a darn good programmer and human being (afterall free plugin is also a community service and it should not only appreciated, but also respected :) ).

I think, the main purpose for above suggestion by Paul, was to save tons of hours or work by non-programmers like me. Who don't really know why the plugin is not working - and because it is in the download section offered by Gossamer Threads, it is believed to be working. Hence a fellow like me, will not doubt Gossamer Threads company, but will doubt in the way - I installed and then the cycle of uninstall-update-reinstall-check-error-uninstall-update-reinstall-check-error starts :)

At this moment while I am posting this message - I have already used up about 5 hours trying to play different tricks and make the 2 plugin work - but guess what :( - yup, still not working.

But well, I am sure Pugdog also knows this thing and he must be having plans to take care of this problems, - if not today, than tomorrow, and if not tomorrow than in near future.

Vishal
-------------------------------------------------------

Last edited by:

TRPN: May 27, 2002, 9:54 PM
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Re: [TRPN] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
I have always offered to Alex to incorporate any of the free fixes, or plugins, or code changes I've made into Links. That's up to GT to decide to do.

Part of my moving all my code into units/modules (.pm files) is so that my libraries can be just installed, and used, without going through the "plugins" system even.

As for updating and fixing things:

I've had a year from Hell, as most know, and during that time my income has been almost non-existent, while expenses, and health/etc costs have hit the highest ever. For those who want numbers, for the past year my income has been less than 1/10 of what it had been, and what was barely making ends meet to begin with, so do the math. What would your situation be under those circumstances?

I lost 2+ years of development on my servers in a failure-to-do-back-ups situation with my last ISP, and that gutted us for the holiday season, and beyond. (We are now hosted with Gossamer, and Alex's help and patience has been most appreciated, and essential to getting back this far.)

We've opened a retail shop for our collectibles business, mostly stuff I had collected over the past 30+ years, with a concentration on rocks/minerals and beads/beading. Those are the shop staples. This has given me more time to sit and work with the computers, and work on the plugins, but there have been other problems.

One of my computers has been off-line for almost 2 months now. I never realized how important it was to the working of my network, but without it, things go very slow, and data is not always at hand. I don't have the resources to repair or replace it (but suffice to say, I have not, and will not, buy any more HP equipment. I used to swear by them, now I swear at them.)

Without these resources, I don't have the ability to test, or work with, the code in more than one development environment. If it works for me, I have no way of checking it out further.

Anyway, that is just an update.

As for the Recommend_It plugin working with Links 2.1, I believe I posted the plugin to the FORUM, since I was unable to update it in the downloads area. I had made some changes not only to the header, but to the mail calls, since the way the mail (non-display) templates were called in Links 2.0 changed in 2.1.


PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.

The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.
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Re: [pugdog] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Just as a suggestion to GT, maybe it would be easier if plug-ins which were already checked and placed in the download area, could be updated by the owner of the plugin directly. This would allow updates to happen as the owner of the plugin had the time or resources. It would also allow the owner to discontinue offering their plugin if they feel they want to do this.

Just an idea guys. I personally think, the more plug-ins in the download area, the better. And my comments don't really reflect on anyone or any situation mentioned here. I just think it would be better if the download area was more accessible by the plugin developers.

BTW pugdog, I sympathise for your situation, I know EXACTLY what you have gone through.Smile


http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
Links Plugins
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Re: [Ian] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
>>
Just as a suggestion to GT, maybe it would be easier if plug-ins which were already checked and placed in the download area, could be updated by the owner of the plugin directly.
<<

They already can.
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Oh, I did not know that. Well, it should be easy for developers to update their plugins then. Good!Smile


http://www.iuni.com/...tware/web/index.html
Links Plugins
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Yes they can, but when I am at the machine with the .tar files, I didn't have the password, and other such problems from being on a fragmented network.

What I wish GT would do, since the features are already in Links to yank files from other sites, is to provide some software, or a link mechanism in their download area, where third parties, can have their plugins sites linked, and if they have multiple plugins, displayed the same way they are on GT's site.

This would allow plugin authors to take full responsibility for their plugins, and would not increase any "risk" since the mechanism to do this is already in the plugins/download area. The only change is GT registering 3rd party developers and providing the link to their download area from the downloads page, rather than the downloads themselves.

Perhaps the criteria could be 1 major or 2-3 minor plugins before you were able to get listed as a developer and on the download area. Til then, you could be on the main GT page, or just provide the download URL to be put into the download area the way it is now.

Just a suggestion...


PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.

The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.
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Re: [pugdog] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Whilst I sympathize with your situation and don't wish to appear insensitive (I too have gone through troublesome times over the last few months) I still think this is an issue that needs resolving.

It takes literally a few moments to update/upload the plugin which would save quite a few people a lot of time and effort.

Posting a fixed plugin in the forum will result in it being "lost" within a few days and unless you know its been posted in the first place you aren't going to know it is there.

Currently the plugins as they are, are "dead"....they are of no use to anyone except those that wish to spend some time correcting the errors....I expect most would try to install them and when they hit an error just give up.

If you don't wish to continue developing them or have other commitments perhaps you could pass on responsibility to another willing plugin developer or at least withdraw them to stop further confusion.

I have no personal interest in the resolution to this problem as I have aquired the knowledge to be able to fix the errors but I've posted this thread to hopefully bring about a change to benefit others who aren't so confident with perl.

I don't wish for this to be taken out of context...its not meant to be provocative, I would just like to see a resolution one way or the other, for other peoples sakes mainly.
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
>> I have no personal interest in the resolution to this problem as I have aquired
>> the knowledge to be able to fix the errors but I've posted this thread to hopefully
>> bring about a change to benefit others who aren't so confident with perl.

Then why not just post them, or the fixed program? Seems to me those are more negative responses and attitudes than anything else. Wouldn't it have been better for you just to say "I have fixed files, could you use them?"

The problem is it's not "just a minute" to do this. I have 9 computers, of various ages, on 3 different networks. (I had 30+ live sites, plus mail system, and more that was my main job, in addition to the Links support/coding.) 2 of the networks have Internet connections, but cannot talk with each other any more. The files are spread all over the networks, on machines that are not able to boot anymore (I just love Windows), or have other problems. My key development machine is now no longer attached to *any* network, and is orphaned from it's database. I'm not sure how to resolve this, except over time, and re-developing then mirroring the old network. I've even purchased an 80 meg USB hard drive to allow me to move data between these networks, and that expense hurt.

"Free" programs have big problem. By being "free" the authors have no way to pay for the costs involved in maintaining or developing them.

"Free" isn't going to cover the cost of that hard drive, yet the only reason to get that drive was to be able to work on the "free" programs here, and be able to access my Links code. Keeping that data in sync also has time costs.

Anyway, I'm done with the griping and answering gripes. It goes no where, and I've got to open the shop.


PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.

The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.
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Re: [pugdog] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
>>
Then why not just post them, or the fixed program? Seems to me those are more negative responses and attitudes than anything else. Wouldn't it have been better for you just to say "I have fixed files, could you use them?"

<<

Ok I like the way I get the blame shifted onto me as usual :)

That would be fine with me but the reason for not posting them was not because I don't wish to be helpful, it was because I didn't want to jump in and start correcting your code as that could also have been taken the wrong way....it's a lose lose situation.

Its your decision....Ive pointed it out and thats all I wanted to do.

Last edited by:

Paul: May 28, 2002, 9:56 AM
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Sorry for butting in, but wouldn't it be a good thing to have the approved version that the plugin applies to listed in the plugin manager? This would allow people to see what version the plugin applies to prior to downloading and attempted installs.



I too have tried to download a plugin that did not apply to my version. While it did not cost me months of time to correct, it was an inconvenience that would have been avoided or at least a potential realized prior to the download if a version assignment would have been present.



Just an idea!



Smile
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Re: [Teambldr] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
In Reply To:
Sorry for butting in, but wouldn't it be a good thing to have the approved version that the plugin applies to listed in the plugin manager? This would allow people to see what version the plugin applies to prior to downloading and attempted installs.
Smile



Or even better - you could have the plugin script test to see what version each plugin was designed for, and if it's an older version than the one that's installed - don't display a link to it.

r.
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Re: [ryel01] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
I think this would need to be added in unless Im forgetting something as the plugin download page doesn't currently store info about the required version.
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Re: [ryel01] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Excellent idea. The main thing is to be proactive with the information rather than reactive.



Maybe assigning an approval stamp (so to say) from GT based on a specific version? Then as the testing is done on a new version the plugin can be tested and a new stamp given by GT or the author.

One drawback on this is that it may slow the "to market" time down a bit due to the certification and stamp assignment process.
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
I was just in the download area and no version application section is available. The version of the plugin is but not the applicable GT product version.

Unsure
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
Ok I can see I got nowhere with my plea for fixes so over the next few days I'm going to write my own versions of the out-dated plugins.
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Re: [Paul] Pugdog Plugins In reply to
I hope you have the recommend-it type plugin high on your list. For me anyway I REALLY need this plugin like a house fire needs water. Unimpressed

~ ERASER


Free JavaScripts @ Insight Eye