how nervous are you about dependence on Flarum extensions?

navindra

I've taken dependencies on extensions from around 15 OSS heroes/organizations other than Flarum.

In my time here, I've seen extensions abandoned, I've seen extensions deleted, and I've even seen pull requests to fix extension issues ignored.

How do you all go about managing the uncertainty and risk related to depending on Flarum extensions?

I'm starting to think maybe I should create forks in GitHub for every extension I use, just in case the extension gets deleted one day, but this seems like a lot of work. How do others here handle this dilemma?

The reason I'm asking this now is because I noticed that someone has resurrected the User Badges extension and I so badly want it. 😃

On the other hand the more dependencies I take, the bigger risk I put my site at. Flarum 2.0 is going to be a very tough migration for me.

luceos

Hey @navindra,

I completely understand your post. It's one of the drawbacks of having an ecosystem built around open source; even wordpress has plugins that become abandoned.

navindra I'm starting to think maybe I should create forks in GitHub for every extension I use, just in case the extension gets deleted one day, but this seems like a lot of work. How do others here handle this dilemma?

I actually considered making this a feature of flarum.org soon. Every extension, with the appropriate licensing, that has at least a few users (not sure how we will be measuring this yet) will have their source cloned into a backup location, should the author decide to delete the source or make it private, we can revive it back as an open source extension.
Don't expect this to happen soon though, because loads of these ideas take a while to crystallize and build.

navindra Flarum 2.0 is going to be a very tough migration for me.

Yes, every major version is going to be a pain. It will also be a moment to review the extensions you use. Aside from that the Flarum Foundation will do its best to bring along as many of the most used extensions into 2.x as possible.

CyberGene

The Inline Audio Player is crucial for our forum. Unfortunately @010101 not only abandoned it but deleted its code and repository. There are currently no audio players for Flarum, all of them were made by him. I wouldn’t update to 2.0 for fear of losing that extension unless I’m sure it will work. I can’t imagine why an audio player is not considered an important functionality.

This may come as a slightly sour note and I’m known for saying bitter things to Flarum devs for which I’m later apologizing and I guess this may be one of these moments again but I think you’re spending too much time on either non-essential stuff or maybe it’s important for the businesses you work for, but the free communities like e.g. mine are suffering from lack of essential stuff like first post/discussion preview, better upload extension, better compatibility with iPhones, better PWA, better WYSIWYG editor, better handling of other users’ posts that happened while one were posting, etc., etc. can’t remember all the stuff I have asked for 😒

Subarist

CyberGene
2nrwls/flarum-inline-audio

CyberGene

Subarist thanks a lot! Is this modified or is only a clone?

Subarist

CyberGene
Ok, I think it’s a modified version. Forgive me, I haven’t actually used this extension. But the main impact might be limited to directory changes. Maybe you could keep a copy for yourself and revert the changes.

CyberGene

Subarist thanks, just forked it 👍🏻

Seems I have to start learning Laravel, PHP, JS, etc. instead of complaining about stuff. I’m an experienced Java backend engineer but all these web technologies are very foreign to me 😕

Subarist

CyberGene
At least you know how to code in Java. Before I encountered Flarum, I had no knowledge of coding.
Thanks to Flarum, I've learned a lot about CSS, PHP, and JS.
It shows how unfriendly it can be, but I genuinely believe they are constantly working to improve. As a simple user, I don't think I can ask for more.