[Boofo]

Originally Posted by orban

Okay you're right. But I don't see what's so bad about adding a $whatever_plugin_name to some template, you can even choose then where exactly you want to add the plugin.

But to be honest, this plugin is actually for bigger boards (you probably won't notice any different on smaller ones anyway) and on bigger boards you aren't going to install those hack that add several new queries to every page. And a lot of plugins I see here are awful for bigger boards. And if you own a bigger board you most likely know PHP and then it's no problem to fix it or rewrite it. I am more concerned about optimization that a new feature X that slows down my board.

In your new plugin there, why is the signature between new PMs and new subscribed posts? If you added a variable $plugin_signature, a user could choose where to add it, at the top, at end, after new subscribed posts...well, that's my opinion. It will for sure not break anything after a vB upgrade, there is a new feature to compare updated templates to old ones, so you can see what you added, in the worst case you have to add it again.

vBShout uses comments to for its str_replace. Ouch. What about all those template optimizers (they're all usesless anyway if you use gzip, by the way, but that's not the point here ) that remove comments? The comments might be renamed, or removed, or there might be a second one named "<!-- main -->" from your own templates...I just don't think that's too smart. I don't understand why not just add to the installation a template edit where you can add $vbshoutbox wherever you want it to have.

Well, it's the same thing with the plug-ins, before they came along. You had to hack a file for the smallest change on your site. Upgrades took forever, especially on bigger boards. Now, upgrades are a breeze for the most part, and even better for larger boards.

Myself, I agree with you on the versatility of adding a line to the template for all of the reasons you stated above and more. But we are getting more and more members here that don't know coding and don't really care to learn. And we are all spoiled now by the plug-in system and we want to do even less to our sites manually. Everything is going automatic, my friend. LOL

Doing the search and replace is more of a learning tool for me than anything else. I'm still new at it and have a lot to learn. But I think it's great when you can install a product in about 2 seconds that used to take you anywhere up to an hour to do the files and template edits, if it was a major hack. Remember Lesane's Store hack?

Sooner or later I expect the template system to get a overhaul just like vb did when we got the plug-in capability added to it. And you have to admit, it does make life a lot easier and less complicated in adding things to your site and upgrading.