Topic: Do we want Epochtalk? - page 2. (Read 1471 times)

No offense to any one... and just for fun... Here's  a Richard's Guide to Software Development



yes exactly I wish if we can keep every thing same just make the interface responsive or mobile friendly in other words.

if we are lucky, it will not be completed this century but will be carried into the next. I am no programmer but with so many forums out there I am completely mystified at how long and how much this one has cost and yet still appears to be in stage 1.

With all due respect - and I mean it, not just saying so; I do respect your effort in this project - I don't like users being told to do it themselves when there are people getting paid to do it. Besides, if I wanted to contribute a year ago and started learning Angular or whatever it was, it would have been quite useless now that it's being converted to something else, and 5 years from now when Vue is no longer cool it will be something else again etc.

I thing the whole ragbag of buzzwords and frameworks in this project is one of its fundamental flaws, not the least due to the short lifespan of said technologies and the lack of skills in the community. I'm not saying go back to PHP but surely maintainability has to figure somewhere in the decisions to use those technologies in a project that's been in development for nearly a decade now and presumably will need to be functioning for a couple hundred years for it to have been worth it.

Reporting bugs is great but even Veleor's valiant effort is a drop in the bucket compared to what a full time QA person could do in a month or two and it would cost probably less than 1% of the total budget. Or at least pay Veleor a couple of bitcoins to keep him going LOL.

Anyway, I just stopped by to express my usual dismay at this project of the century. Carry on.

Well, I won't knock whatever is in the pipeline until I've tried it.

Looking at the last attempt (epochtalk?) -- I don't think it's worth making the change, sorry. I can understand people who actually donated to build a new forum would probably still want to see that carried through.

The biggest design complaint I have with the forum now is the mobile version. We undoubtedly lose a lot of traffic through lack of mobile device support, meanwhile the world continues to move in that direction. Not that I care much about traffic -- the forum obviously has more than enough money to support itself.

So whatever's coming, hopefully its a lot more mobile-friendly.

The options were Vue and React. They chose Vue because it's easier to work with for future contributors , good community and a few other aspects. Not sure if it's easier to port from AngularJS... might be

Regarding the ETA part it's hard to say. I would guesstimate a few more months to finish porting the code.
About a fully functional working beta... only Satoshi can say.

I'm assuming the change to Vue was predicated on it being a bit easier develop with as opposed to Angular (which is also very different from AngularJS).


How much more time? Can anyone give a rough ETA?

I use some userscripts myself and yes, they are very helpful. Also made some myself to improve work flows (nothing fancy tho)
Was just saying that the functionality of those userscripts might as well be added directly in the source. It is an open source project after all, regardless of who and how much paid so far. Anyone can fell free to contribute and I am 101% sure the devs would be happy to hear an opinion or review a commit/pull request etc

@Veleor was super helpful and has 113 issues open so far on the epochtalk repo.
Did not get a chance to publicly thank him for all the bugs found, the typos, the glitches, proposals and the advice so far. Thanks Veleor, you're awesome !

My point was that it has huge potential. True, the current design has a certain hate it or love it vibe. Maybe, as you said, some members with UI/UX experience can have a look and chip in a bit  

And to answer the topic title: I personally want it !

I was referring to userscripts - if necessary - after it's released as Bitcointalk 2.0.
I was referring to the fact that even now there are user scripts doing very well thins kind of things.

Currently devs are pushing hard to move the code from AngularJS which will be EOL at the end of this year to Vue. Don't have an ETA but you can see the progress here


It's open source: https://github.com/epochtalk
Instead of criticizing the CSS or make a userscript... make a commit or open an issue. Even if it's just a typo or something. It all adds up. Plus your username would be in the list of contributors for the forum software. That must count for something  


It comes with some predefined color themes that can be edited and each admin can customize to his/her own preference. Don't see any reason why not to also have several general themes that can be changed with just one click. OK... maybe two clicks, guess you also have to click and the "Save" button   maybe even community made. It's just a commit away !



On top of that it's very modular. For years there have been tons of requests to add certain features. Some stupid, some reasonable, some very cool and useful. But the biggest reason was the code. Because it is a highly pimped upgraded custom SFM, any change/addition can easily break many other parts of working code. I can see the addition/changes of future features would be implemented much easier and safer.

There will be some public API, so statistics etc would be a piece of cake.

P.S. just glancing at it for 2 seconds and throwing up means you just don't see the bigger picture. I guess only time will tell  

Exactly. And we have on the forum quite a number of skilled people that can add an user script and adjust the look and feel here and there if it's getting released and a big number of users won't like it.
Somewhat strange to keep telling that over years, but it's still early to criticize the UI.

I don't think it's completely ready. What you see is just the tip of the iceberg, and it's not tweaked. What they did until now is a lot of coding to make it secure and the same time compatible with other software applications. We don't really see the power of the functionalities the software provides, all we see is some ugly CSS, which can be changed when the coding is finished. I think this is all done just for the purpose of testing the stability and bug hunting and the final release won't look like it's now.

It will take time to actually get it ready for release.

I can read the current forums on my phone with no issues. but I can see how it could be hard to read on a smaller phone.

The epoch one completely sucks on a pc though.

I had the same thought when I've seen the newer generation forums. But it looks like a lot of (potential) users to like such "design".
What I miss the most is a slightly improved view on the phone. Basically to not need to rotate the phone, nor zoom in, and still able to read.

But all in all I don't want to criticize too much. We will get used to the new forum look too if the migration will happen, don't we? 

And that is the worst part - forums should not have even cost 1/100th of what was wasted on epoch nor should it have taken the years that has been wasted on it.

Keeping it like this is fine for me, maybe just keep tweaking with some missing features but then that means that all the btc spend in creating the ultimate forum software were just thrown in the bin. This is probably the most expensive project ever created,considering the spent btc and the current btc price.
Hope to see it implemented as an alternative option to browse the forum tho.

I prefer to keep it the way we have it, last time I looked at it, I nearly vomited. It appeared as if grade school children were the designers. But I have already expressed my thoughts in the discord channel so I wont list them all here again lol

When I read  "Epochtalk - Next generation forum software." I automatically assume... that's not for me but for the next generation probably my kids or grand kids.
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well I guess changing the design (front-end) shouldn't be a big deal we can keep the backend as as it is and just change the design to be responsive at least. Currently this sucks on mobiles specially posting a topic or replying to any post is so difficult... for me i totally avoid it or delay it until i get access to my laptop.

anyway easier said than done being a programmer i know how nasty it can get while changing the whole systems.

The amount of money spent means it is inevitable we will see an upgrade but i am comfortable with the current set up and even if they move as you said i would like to have the option to use the current forum as well, i am not looking for two different forums but multiple options to toggle between SMF and Epochtalk and with the same database it is possible .

It's not like we can get a refund from the developers at this point, so it seems this change is inevitable.

I wonder if the forum will fork at that point and we will have 2 Bitcointalks or if this forum will cease to exist.  Personally, I think it would be fun to have the forums forked and would probably stick to the format I'm comfortable with.  Who knows, maybe that would double the forum's total revenue?  Maybe they could operate slightly differently with regards to freedom of speech or moderation tactics... 

Personally, I wouldn't mind sticking with the current software but if it's going to be an improvement ^{[e.g. Support for mobile devices, better security and etc...]} over what we already have, then why not?