Breaking Extensions so much

[rhagelstrom]

I'm sure all the standardization is great in the long term. I can see how it makes building new stuff or rulesets faster, however, that is the last compliment this post is going to give.

We seem to be going backwards as far as standardization across rulesets with regards to the latest 5E update. It used to be that we could, for the most part, write a xml definition for something and it would work with 5E, PF1E, SF, perhaps PF2. Case in point lets take items for example, a fairly universal thing that shouldn't deviate much if any across rulesets. In the past one could write a single xml definition and it would work and you could support multiple rulesets. Now with the latest 5E update, and a bit before this https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post723007 there needs to be an exception that 5E is different for some reason. That is not standardized. Furthermore, what was broken in the Aug update, see previous post, was once again broken a few weeks later with the 5E update https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post726339 These sorts of changes should be made all at once and save everyone the pain of all this churn. Additionally, with the new 5E changes, the underlying scripts don't function correctly, such as bag collapsing of the items for 5E, but they do for all the other rulesets, PF, SF, PF2. Again, we are talking items and bags, there isn't any significant difference across the rulests for things like this warrant them being special cased. I suspect some/all of this is due to the giant Legacy/2024 box at the bottom of all these record sheets, which is completely unnecessary because it could have just been a toggle at the top like itemID. This would have also saved valuable screen real estate which I think for most people would have been preferable and potentially some of the breakage of extensions, in the case of ExtraPlaner Containers ext it for sure would have made it immune to the update.

Then we have the changes just to be changes with this latest 5E update. As SR pointed out, why change the anchor name, as you have to know this is going to break stuff, and for what benefit? Its a name, and changing it still is a name. Let's move on to renaming RaceManager and the associated lua file to SpeciesManager. Yes, the string for Race changed to Species, that is fine that is a string definition. Call it whatever you want, spagettimonster for all I care or whatever is in vogue, but there is no reason to change RaceManager to SpeciesManger as none of that is user facing. If you want to scrub Race to Species for whatever internal discussion that is fine too, but then we still have SubRace and not SubSpecies so there is no benefit in renaming this stuff and the only thing it accomplishes is breaking things.

Do I want any of the above to be addressed? No because that would again break things. This is the bed we lie in now it seems.

The way things are going we won't have to worry about breaking extensions because there won't be any devs left to build extensions as it isn't worth the effort. We have bmos who is tired of the updates https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post724693, Celestian, who threw in the towel on Advance Effects https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post710452 , Silent Ruin who is upset but he is always upset and I don't think I have to link that, Mad Nomad who is on the cups of hanging it up https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post726366 , and Me&Unique who has apparently left and before he left, I had a private discussion with him being unhappy about the direction of things after building Kingdoms and Warfare and then being put in the situation of having to change things. I'm sure there are a number more but haven't said anything.

It probably is true that most people don't run extensions, but a lot of the core user base does. The ext devs are providing thousands of people hours of free labor and passive income, if they are sold on the forge, to improve the product but they are getting scared off. It wouldn't be long before the core users start re-evaluating their options as the VTT market is much more competitive than it was 4 yrs ago. The core users are your champions of the platform and do a lot to help other users.

A number of these extensions wouldn't even need to be built/supported if they were in FG in the first place. Collapsing bags down (ExtraPlaner Containers) isn't an exotic concept. Players having pets (Friend Zone), isn't an exotic concept. Letting people know how their scores are adjusted because of effects (Character Sheet Effects Display) isnt an exotic concept, Defining an area of effect (Aura Effects) isn't an exotic concept. Attaching effects to items (Advanced Effects) is not an exotic concept.

We also have the issue of people doing an update and a number of these errors are from exts that are not updated. The problem being is some of these extensions on the forge are abandoned and as far as I can tell will never be updated. The only way to get some of the updates is out of band via the forums or hunting down githubs. Some of these extensions have been known abandoned for months (Me & Unique), Kit n Kaboodle. Why are these still up on the forge? They either should be taken down, per the crafter agreement, or found a different maintainer. A lot of these can be forked and reposted to the forge if need be. There is no leadership from SW on what is going on with these abandoned exts, how to move them to someone else, or what the path forward is. People are going to continue to post errors for these things as long as they are up, because I got it off the forge I expect it to actually run.

Don't update also works for the short term and I do recommend that after each quarterly update and any significant ruleset update. However, don't update doesn't work long term like some other platforms because the software update is tied to the store update so the only way you can get stuff that you buy on the store is to update. So one can't tell someone to just not update in perpetuity to stay in a known good state.

[MrDDT]

As a user mostly only here reading this makes me worried about using extensions. I see how much they improve my games and it’s a huge question if SW is not really supporting extension makers and making it harder for them then it’s greatly going to cut into them staying around.

[LordEntrails]

FYI, Abandoned extensions can not just be given to some other developer to take over. SmiteWorks has to follow Intellectual Property laws. And most community devs do not specify a license for their extensions. Therefore, the law says they retain all rights to the code. Therefore it would be illegal for someone to take over the code.

I've tried before to get the community devs to just post their licenses. With the hope that many could/would use something like one of the MIT or CC licenses that would allow collaboration. But I got zero takers. And to my knowledge, Rob2E is the only one who planned the handoff of his work. Simple put, most community devs don't care enough about what happens when/if they leave the community to spend any time or effort accommodating it.

[SilentRuin]

FYI, Abandoned extensions can not just be given to some other developer to take over. SmiteWorks has to follow Intellectual Property laws. And most community devs do not specify a license for their extensions. Therefore, the law says they retain all rights to the code. Therefore it would be illegal for someone to take over the code.

I've tried before to get the community devs to just post their licenses. With the hope that many could/would use something like one of the MIT or CC licenses that would allow collaboration. But I got zero takers. And to my knowledge, Rob2E is the only one who planned the handoff of his work. Simple put, most community devs don't care enough about what happens when/if they leave the community to spend any time or effort accommodating it.

Expand your knowledge.

All my extension code has license at top.
Multiple places I’ve told people they could look at my code to figure out how to do stuff or solve it like that.
Grim press controls forge delivery of my stuff and has written permission to take over fully if I vaporize.


Probably other devs who do this I suspect.

Be wary of lumping us all into the same pot!

[LordEntrails]

Expand your knowledge.

All my extension code has license at top.
Multiple places I’ve told people they could look at my code to figure out how to do stuff or solve it like that.
Grim press controls forge delivery of my stuff and has written permission to take over fully if I vaporize.


Probably other devs who do this I suspect.

Be wary of lumping us all into the same pot!

Excellent! I'm very glad to hear that. And I hope you are right, that other devs too have made such plans. But based on what rhagelstrom said above, it does not sound like many of the devs they are stating have or might left/leave the community have done so.

Besides, adding a little cummin and salt and pepper, you all taste pretty good when in the same pot
edit: But yes, I should be more careful to not imply everyone is in the same group, regardless of the topic.

[YAKO SOMEDAKY]

One simple thing I learned is, just be polite and communicate with the creators and they will pay attention to you and will fix it when possible or even make the code of their extensions available so you can try, if you can't wait... in short, communication and politeness are the key!

[ddavison]

I reached out to MeAndUnique regarding reports that some of his extensions were reportedly broken and abandoned. We wanted to give him time to respond before deciding what to do with these. SmiteWorks has no rights to pass his work or any other developers work to another developer without explicit rights granted directly from the creator of those extensions. We can de-list items on the Forge and even remove a build so it simply drops off the extension list for people unless it gets re-activated with a new build. His extensions are currently free and he has a very high rating on each of his items.

The best thing you can do if you find an extension that is broken (paid or free) is the following:
1. Contact the developer by sending them a message through the Forge
2. Make the message clear and explain steps to reproduce the bug. Include the ruleset you are using and if you are using any other extensions with it.
3. Click on the Forum thread link from the Forge Item and join a discussion there to see if other users are experiencing the same issue.
4. Patiently wait for the creator to respond or post a new build. In the meantime, you can disable the extension on your campaigns
5. If it is a paid extension and within 30 days of purchase on the Forge, you can request a refund through support.fantasygrounds.com
6. Change the rating to warn others that the extension is broken. If it is later fixed, you can increase the rating again
7. If an extension is completely broken and it isn't due to an interaction with another extension, you can report this to support.fantasygrounds.com

There are currently 1,624 extensions on the Forge. We have no way of knowing which extensions are working or not working and which have been abandoned. Even MeAndUnique, I couldn't tell you which of his extensions are having any issues without researching each one.

The broader discussion about changes to the core software that require changes to extensions is an internal discussion here at SmiteWorks. We will be discussing how we can continue moving the platform forward and if we can take steps to minimize the impact on extension developers. I suspect we can improve this area somewhat. We will probably never be able to fully avoid breaking compatibility with extensions, but there are some refactoring steps that we can do differently to aid us in this goal. This latest development cycle was compressed for us for a number of reasons. In general, we try to have stuff sit in a TEST branch for a while longer to allow community devs the chance to test and modify code for upcoming releases. Engaging with our dev team at this point in the laboratory threads will help smooth the process for all involved and the community devs will also be able to help one another.

[MrDDT]

FYI, Abandoned extensions can not just be given to some other developer to take over. SmiteWorks has to follow Intellectual Property laws. And most community devs do not specify a license for their extensions. Therefore, the law says they retain all rights to the code. Therefore it would be illegal for someone to take over the code.

I've tried before to get the community devs to just post their licenses. With the hope that many could/would use something like one of the MIT or CC licenses that would allow collaboration. But I got zero takers. And to my knowledge, Rob2E is the only one who planned the handoff of his work. Simple put, most community devs don't care enough about what happens when/if they leave the community to spend any time or effort accommodating it.

The case with M&U is they are open so you can just take it over.

Of course you would have to relist it. Which is where part of the problem is.
It would be nice to have a system in place to transfer or have multi owner of a product.