Planning for tngIL v2.0

[svoght]

I thought it would be good to have a separate thread dedicated specifically to discussing the development of a new tngIL release, and leave the other threads to their original topics of discussing styling and other issues.

As has been mentioned in some other spots, I'm working on developing a tngIL v2 release. The current v1.5b4 is functional, but it requires a lot of manual effort to install correctly and lacks a lot of the interoperability that other CMS integration modules now offer.

Martin Mosley has mentioned a few of his wishes in other threads, and anyone else who is using tngIL (or might be interested in using it in the future) is encouraged to contribute their wishes as well. I won't make any guarantees about what will be included in the next release, but knowing what people are interested in will help prioritize what to think about in more detail, and as the capabilities of e107 and TNG continue to evolve those ideas might see inclusion later on.

With that in mind, here is the current list of things that I'm working on (some might not see inclusion in the final release, but this is the dream list.)

Install/setup:

• rewrite and update the tngIL readme file
• automate more of initial setup
• automatically create e107-tngIL user classes
• automatically add any existing TNG users to e107 user list
• allow TNG to be installed anywhere on the same server
• create a TNG Mod Manager config file to automate the required TNG code customizations

Administrative interface:

• Fix the 'TNG Administration' link on tngIL admin page
• combine all the configuration menus (e.g. move wrap/non-wrap option to main config menu)
• automatically obtain SQL settings from e107 and TNG config files, rather than duplicating that in tngIL config
• better help files and more descriptive text on each admin page
• provide links to TNG administrative pages directly from e107 admin page (if possible)
• provide a link to tngIL administration from TNG admin page
• integrate TNG media into e107 media system

Public interface:

• create an integrated e107/TNG theme
• provide full multi-language support within tngIL
• integrate e107 and TNG language selection
• integrate e107 and TNG search functions
• improve the method for providing page <TITLE> on TNG pages

e107 front page menus:

• Random TNG photo menu
• Top XX Surnames menu (with customizable number)
• 'Today in Family History' menu (with displayed events customizable)
• Gendex search menu

Back-end code:

• improve performance when dealing with missing leading or trailing slashes in paths
• clean up versioning and contact info in plugin.php
• create plugin.xml file for future compatibility with e107 v0.8+
• move install-time MySQL functions out of plugin.php and into a separate file

A few of these things are already mostly done (such as the tngil theme and some of the front page menus), a few are in progress, and a few are mere dreams. As I go through more of the code and get a better feel for what is feasible within the limitations of e107, things will probably change.

Right now this is pretty much a one-man job, but obviously everything will need thorough testing in the future. And as I said earlier, any other suggestions and ideas are welcome, and once the English language file is sorted out, if anyone wants to do some translations they can help out with that, too!

[nimebe]

As has been mentioned in some other spots, I'm working on developing a tngIL v2 release. The current v1.5b4 is functional, but it requires a lot of manual effort to install correctly and lacks a lot of the interoperability that other CMS integration modules now offer.

Hi Steve,

This is Nick Flint, the original author of tngIL. Thanks for keeping up the integration. I had started a new full-time job, was going to school full-time, began volunteering ~10-15 hours a week at church, and adopted a beautiful baby boy! While I intended to keep working on tngIL (and my family history), neither has happened. So again, thank you.

I'd like to help with your tngIL v2.0 efforts. I've now upgraded to TNG 8 and e107 0.7.22. As of this morning I was still on TNG 6! I can see a lot has changed since then. Please let me know if you'd like some help with tngIL v2.0 and what I can do.

Thanks again,

Nick

[Martin J Mosley]

I remain willing to help in whatever limited way I can. And in particular, will be happy to provide a French translation.

My efforts to apply the TNG theme to tables etc in TNG have been stalled due to family commitments for some time, but I remain keen to see a fuller integration. My other ideas are pretty much incorporated in Steve's posts, but he has the expertise which I lack.

Please count me in if I can be of any help.

Martin

Mosley and other Families

[Rush]

Thanks svoght for putting all the effort into the new tngIL!

You mentioned that it's a one man show, but if you need assistance feel free to contact me. The summer months are so busy (away from the comp), but I could probably squeeze some time in here and there.

Rush

[svoght]

Thanks all for your offers of support, it's nice to see that there are still a few of us out there using e107 with TNG. Like all of you I've also become rather bogged down with real life (in my case a new baby) so things have slowed to a crawl.

Right now I've got a rough alpha version of tngIL v2 running on my home server, but just as I got that working Darrin released TNG 8 and the e107 people ran into some nightmare hacking problems that caused several rapid updates on their side as well. As far as I can tell it works on the latest e107 and TNG 8, but there are still a lot of missing features and 'quirks' that need to be addressed before pushing it to you guys for beta testing.

My plan is to develop two major components for a tngIL installation: the "core files" similar to the current version of tngIL, which include the menus, an e107 theme, and the necessary plugin code to run the integration. The second part is a Mod Manager config file that will automatically handle all of the necessary TNG and e107 file tweaks, since that's the part that challenges most people and any time there's a code upgrade to either e107 or TNG it needs to be redone. With the recent security problems with old versions of e107, automating the code tweaks will make all of our lives easier.

If anyone's feeling brave and has a test server, I think the Mod Manager config files are ready for some testing and debugging. This config file will automatically patch your e107 files (class2.php, footer_default.php and e107.css), as well as all of the TNG files that we've modified to improve the integration (begin.php, footer.php, genlib.php, addbookmark.php, etc.)

(attachment deleted -- see new post)

Note that version 7.1.0 is meant for TNG 7, while version 8.1.0 is meant for TNG 8. I forewarn that although these both work on my local installation of TNG, I cannot guarantee they will work for you! That said, they will not cause harm to your system, and at worst you will need to re-upload an original version of a modified file.

The one TNG file that will not be updated by this config file is genstyle.css, which I leave to each user to customize as they please. Finding a way to automate this via an add-in style sheet is on my to-do list, but it's pretty far down compared to finishing the actual tngIL code updates.

If you have questions or comments leave a reply, although it might be a while before I'm able to respond.

-Steve

e107_integration.zip

[Woody]

Hi svoght,

i hope it´s all right with the "new baby".

May I ask you whether tngIL v2.0 has already finished? With the older version, it will not work yet. It is somewhat difficult for me.

Woody

[John Paul]

I'm also interested in the progress of tngIL 2.0, although I'll be building a new site with tng 7.13 (?) and tngIL 1.54b hopefully starting tonight.

[matt2112]

I am using TNG v9.01 with e107 v1.0

I am interested in knowing if the tngIL 2.0 is still in the works or if there is a fix, I am having minor problems with logging in as Admin.

currently I am using tngIL 1.5

Thank you!