Any interest in jdump for Joomla 4.0?

[schnuti]

I've used jdump over the years and really missed it as I reworked some of my own code for J4. I have now reworked jdump and you can have the code to use in this project if you like. It is now completely namespaced and is using the J4 structure. I can not promise to maintain it and will not make some kind of fork. It has the same functionality. Two changes:

1. The popup opens in a browser tab. I had always problems with the browser window getting hidden.
2. The plugin is activated/deactivated in the components backend view. i.e. deactivate it as soon as you are not "debugging" your code.

PS. I hade to change the command dump() ( to dumpVar() ) as dump is in use. DS.

[Sophist-UK]

@mathiasverraes - Please say yes.

[gruz]

Hi. @mathiasverraes has no opportunity to support it. But I have permissions to approve pull requests.

So I think it would be great, if @schnuti creates a pull request (in fact to replace the old code).

The only doubt I have is dump()->dumpVar() replacement. Does J4 use dump() function name? I personally have much code with dump() in it. It would be a pain for me to replace it with dumpVar(). But if there is no way out - it's ok.

@schnuti ?

[mathiasverraes]

Just here to confirm that you can work with @gruz to make new releases for J4, add features etc. Email me if there's some problem I'm the bottleneck for, but feel free to make all decisions amongst yourselves :-)

[Sophist-UK]

The only other thing to decide is whether there can be a single version for both J3 and J4 or whether the code can be common.

1. If we are going to change dump() to dumpVar() then we should backport that to the J3 version.

2. If we have common code then if dump() is already used by J4 we would then need to (somehow) hide that.

[schnuti]

I'm first talking about a Joomla 4.x version not any mixing. The Joomla 4.0 version can probably be backported to Joomla 3.Last (10?). Not anything else. You can choose any characters you want to replace dump(). This was a bad choise in the first place. dump is a very common word in this world. It should have bin "namespaced" like e.g. Fontawesome fonts. I followed the longer dumpMessage and Co and added Var to dump. Shouldn't also the component get the name com_jdump? EDIT: and the plugin jdump as well. It shouldn't come to any clashes. The code is in classes. (except the "shortcodes").

@gruz I hope it's possible for you to create a new branch and prepare for the auto packaging structure. I have no clue there. I so far zip my files manually, It is the same as the existing one down to components/com_jdump and administrator/components/com_jdump. The rest is completely changed.
A new path goes to media/com_jdump with directories css, images and js. The plugin path is the same plugins/system/jdump/ with a jdump.php and a jdump.xml.

It then should be possible for me to create a PR against that new branch.

[gruz]

@schnuti I'll write back after my main job in the evening. I've created a J4 branch, but I have not permissions to give you push permissions. So let's think how to behave better. Or I miss something.

@Sophist-UK If you have any thoughts, please share.

I have doubts. If the J4 code doesn't respect J3 backward compatibility, I don't see a reason to support 2 Joomla versions at the same time. I'd better maintain 2 independent projects. J3 for older projects with low acrvity (as it's now) and J4 with modern code.

@schnuti When you criticize the older approach of JDump, you criticize almosy 10 years old approaches. At that time Namespaces were not so obvious and widely used. Many thing were done in other ways, together with the project developers` experience. (-:

[schnuti]

@gruz That was not meant as criticism. Only as a hint that it from time to time is better to skip some old solutions. I do not see the necessity to be backward compatible more than Joomla itself for this kind of code. No data get lost on the way and the functionality remains. I've used JDump from time to time in those 10 years and made some coding for J1.5 without using any PHP classes.

[Sophist-UK]

I don't see a reason to support 2 Joomla versions at the same time. I'd better maintain 2 independent projects. J3 for older projects with low acrvity (as it's now) and J4 with modern code.

I agree.

[schnuti]

i see the two branches as different projects. Like Joomla 3.x and 4 beta lives in different branches. They will never be merged as one version. The 3.x branch will be kept at least until EOL. But this is up to you.

[Sophist-UK]

IMO it is not so much as how this is handled in Github as much as how it is handled in the JED.

[schnuti]

• Anyone with an idea where to find an icon set that could replace the old gifs in the tree view? Those old 16x16 ones were great in the J1.5 era but some 32x32 (or SVG's) would refresh the look a bit.
• Anyone with knowledge in Mootools tooltip styling? I got the textarea wider but a background square do not expand with it.
• I was thinking of using Bootstrap for a popOver and a few buttons. That code is maybe a bit to heavy for the Tree view and not that easy to load. A bit of fresh look is all that remains. If you have ideas around new functionality please let me know but any implementation should wait until the status quo gets more tested.

[schnuti]

I've made some changes to the UI. The about view is using Bootstrap, the tree view is using homemade CSS for buttons and SVG's as icons for buttons and tooltip. You can see the tooltip in the image. Mootools 1.2 is only used for the tooltip, not in the javascript.

About

Tree

[gruz]

@schnuti Cool! Please proceed (-: I'm overloaded at main job nowadays. I will definitely get involved in several days.

You doing a great job. Thanks!

[schnuti]

@gruz Well, I see it as completed from my side, except creating a PR against a repository for it.

[schnuti]

As I wanted some other icons I had to edit the tree-javascript. This made me remove half of the code (not used) and namespaced it. (namespace has different meanings ;) ) The old Mootools is removed, replaced with a simple message popup. All inline javascript (onclick) are removed. And all gif's replaced with svg's. Now I'm really through.

[gruz]

Awesome, @schnuti !

[spurgeonbj]

@schnuti Thanks a ton for your great efforts! This sounds cool. Is it possible for me to check this out? Where can I find the package/code?

[schnuti]

@spurgeonbj My intention was to get the code into this repository but never got sugesstions to how and where. Great if you want to test it/use it. I suppose I could upload the zipped installation package to my GitHub account somehow. Do you know?

I haven¨t tested with the latest Joomla 4.0 alpha versions. i.e. Joomla changes could force some minor bugs. I'm now awaiting the more stable Joomla 4.0 beta.

[schnuti]

@spurgeonbj I uploaded the zipped file to a repository. You can find it here: https://github.com/schnuti/files

The Readme has some short hints. Please let me know if it works.

[spurgeonbj]

@schnuti Thanks a ton for your quick and kind help! Will check this out today and revert shortly! God bless you!

[schnuti]

@spurgeonbj If you tested the package, it may not have worked. I installed J! 4.0 alpha 7 and my extensions were broken because of some changed php class-names. I've fixed it and could upload a new package if there is someone interested.

[gruz]

Upload please. Sooner or later we will use the code.

[denvarel]

Thank you, @schnuti !