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www.berrydigital.com.au
Joined: 1/23/2004
Posts: 1961
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I wish there was a simple answer to this - I really wish that more focus was put into making the base build of dnn, minus all the module add ons to be the really great product it could be and once was. Generally I don't upgrade to the latest these days - I've learnt the hard way about what happens when using this model, although having said that, I have also read from project contributors here that we should always be upgrading dnn to the lastest and greatest.
*sigh* but I had to start somewhere, so I started on a large project with what I thought was the best build at the time and the problem with the pages disappearing when changing position on the menu gave me no end of grief, so I've upgraded and upgraded in the hope that this would be resolved, to the point I just did the latest upgrade to 5.4.3 on the weekend, with Catalook 6.1.2 installed.
Everything seems to be working ok except the scheduler with email that's still a bit quirky and the tabs - when you move a page from being nested under a top level menu, you can bet your bottom dollar it is going to go missing for the life of me I can't work it out when there are no errors in the logs accordingly. I simply can't roll this back to what it was now as we've added so much more content and the site is supposed to go live next week.
I don't think people are asking for a monthly release on things, I certainly don't expect it, but I have found of late that the builds are not meeting even the basic upgrades I would expect. (Like the telerik editor when I upgraded, still had to copy the telerik dll from the source build and drop into the bin folder) And it seems that is just a minor thing compared to some other issues you are experiencing.
It's very hard for the community to give feedback Joe. I can assure you that is the sentiment amongst many and the fact it's come to this is also disheartening to say the least. I think egos get in the way of a good product and I think interpretation or defensiveness from both sides - community and corp stop alot of the conversation and people are often chastised as if they were paid workers. Running community based projects are not the same as running commercial projects and should be handled differently because the motivation to support is completely different.
I wish there were less problems as I so much want to get rid of some of these hassles so I can get back to promoting and marketing dnn to a broader community. So much of my time in the last 12 months has centered around management of dnn. I think dnn is trying to be too many things to too many people. I would love for an incredibly light weight, fast build of dnn without all the trimmings that newcomers can really enjoy using and then explore what is on offer. It might come back again. I am trying to be optimistic about it and while I can generally work my way around things, as can the people who have posted on here, newcomers may not be able to and it surely is hurting the brand.
We are at the point of now looking at going back to our 4.8.3 build we had which ran like a rocket!! I loved it.. But now some module developers are only supporting dnn 5 so we're struck, and now some only support dnn 5.4.2 + with their modules so it's closing in the choices we use to have. I guess it means we have to analyse each project we have and decide which build should be used, but then we have the multi build management which comes with it's own set of quirks.
Will the fact I have a 5.4.3 build now running on an important site, mean that I cannot upgrade accordingly when a new build is released? Will it recognise it and make the upgrades without repercussions?
Joe - it is difficult to come out and state the obvious that things are not all that rosy with the builds, and I do appreciate the acknowledgment. I don't have the answers, but I do have the problems and do not envy your position. If you wish to contact me offline Joe to talk about this topic further, I would be prepared to spend some time with you or others in giving some suggestions.
Nina Meiers
Nina Meiers My Little Website
If it's on DNN, I fix, build, deploy, support,skin, host, design, consult, implement, integrate and done since 2003.
Who am I? Just a city chic, having a crack at organic berry farming.. and creating awesome websites.
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Nina,
according to the incremental build process, I am sure there will be a supported upgrade path from 5.4.3 to 5.4.4 - especially to the limited scope of the new release just on this fix.
In general I like the principle of one feature release and multiple stabilization releases with bug and security fixes - and IMHO for security fixes, the cycle should be not more than a month, if possible. There is still room for improvement, of course: New features need to undergo multiple steps of review, for function, usability etc. internally, with peer groups and eventually even public. All releases need more testing and I would love to get the community involved, though some experiences are not much promising.
Maybe the framework needs to be more modularized - moving many of the admin module into separate packages, which maybe released separately and be easily replaced by advanced 3rd party solutions (including newsletter, console, inbox, taxonomy admin, user management), allowing DNN Corp. to focus on the core framework and their commercial versions.
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Joined: 10/31/2007
Posts: 49
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What DNN Corp has to do is to stop thinking that CE customers didn't pay for the product, and therefore should not expect too much from DNN.
The facts are that most people need to buy 3rd party modules to add much needed functionality to DNN, and since DNN now owns SnowCovered, DNN corp profits from a lot of these sales.
I know I have personally spent a lot of money with SnowCovered on modules. To be honest I have never added it up, but I'm sure it's in the thousands, not hundreds.
The point being that we can't build serious commercial sites with software that is buggy a lot of the time and we have a right to get upset about it.
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Joined: 4/20/2008
Posts: 73
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I think more involvement from the community in testing new release woul improve things. As a dnn host and solutions provider, I would love to get more involved in the DNN development. But therefore, getting a little more guidance in testing new release would be welcome. Stuff on the Gemini testing platform is not always that clear to me. I think the DNN Corp should use the power of the community a lot more. The DNN Corp should focus on a strategy of involving the community a lot more in the development of new DNN releases.
Anthony Candaele
www.webmove.be
Belgium
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www.dnngarden.com
Joined: 11/23/2009
Posts: 70
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I think the idea of quarterly feature releases and monthly stabilisation releases is perfectly reasonable. However, the stabilisation releases should be stablisation releases and nothing more. No matter how tempting it is to sneak in a new feature or break an API out of band, they should be purely a branch for security patches and bug fixes. If there's anything that might conceivably break an upgrade, it should be left in the trunk for the next feature release.
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