As an Administrator, I should be able to enable "debug" mode through a setting

Ralkage

The Problem

In the current state of enabling "debug mode", an administrator would have to edit the config.php file (within the root directory of their Flarum installation) and set 'debug' => true located within the array. Now, for users that use 3rd party hosting providers to host their Flarum installations, this setting can be a little harder to enable due to limited or no SSH access. In some cases, they do not even have FTP access because it is being hosted by a hosting provider that prohibits or simply does not supply FTP access or credentials for whatever reason.

The Solution

The solution to this can be simple, I propose that this setting is kept in the settings table in the database. The setting could be called debug_mode and can be set to a boolean value or simply 0 to disable and 1 to enable this setting. This would also be a bonus for users who use Flagrow's amazing Bazaar (Extension Marketplace) extension as when they run into any errors (they are always bound to happen), troubleshooting will be a lot easier as the debug setting could be enabled or disabled through the UI. This can either be addressed through a switch button or by whatever means that would complement 0 or 1 and the page would simply refresh after toggling this setting.

Thoughts?

KazeroG

? +1 good idea ! but could you explain what does the debug mode for people ?

datitisev

KazeroG http://flarum.org/docs/troubleshooting/#step-1-turn-on-debug-mode

This is more for extension development, but with debug mode on users will see all the error logs that occur (instead of just the message of "an error occurred"). This way, administrators can debug errors that occur through Flagrow's Bazaar more easily, for example.

Ralkage

It essentially gives you the option to see the exception (with trace) to help you troubleshoot where the error is actually coming from. In most cases, it doesn't provide an exact location or file, but it is extremely helpful when developing or troubleshooting extension related errors such as @datitisev stated.

Edit: A real-world example would be the following that occurred in a previous version of reflar/polls

DEBUG MODE

See that DEBUG text? Clicking that text when debug mode is set to true will bring up a modal which displays some details about the error you are encountering.

Not very helpful to the average user, but a developer can very much use that as a point of debugging their extension to provide any bug fixes in a future release.