Issue 1245 in dactyl: Nightlies page not up-to-date

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Status: New
Owner: ----
Labels: Type-Defect Priority-Medium Project-Pentadactyl

New issue 1245 by cab...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Visit http://5digits.org/nightlies
2. Note that the most recent nightly is 2014-10-11 despite it being at
least 2014-12-09

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

I expect to see a nightly for today, yesterday, etc. (2014-12-09,
2014-12-08, etc. at the time of this writing).

Instead, I see 2014-10-11, 2014-10-10, etc.

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[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #1 on issue 1245 by bluebl...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

Is this project dead?

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #2 on issue 1245 by tgc...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

It's been three months today.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #3 on issue 1245 by eulereul...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

Yea, seems to be dead. No updates since 2014-10-11. :(

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #4 on issue 1245 by v.beslo...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

well if you have a look here https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/source/list

it was updated 3 days ago. You just need to compile it yourself

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #5 on issue 1245 by sw...@ingo-karkat.de: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

Yes, the source code is still being updated. So why aren't there updated
instructions on how to get an add-on version that works with current
Firefox builds? (I wouldn't mind compiling this myself if there are clear
and concise instructions, though it's highly unusual and not user
friendly.) I guess there are magnitudes more people interested in just
consuming Pentadactyl vs. developers working on the code. The homepage
still proudly displays the version 1.0 release from 2012; the nightlies
page stopped updating in Oct-2014.

So, core developers, aren't you interested in other people still benefiting
from your excellent work, contributing feedback and patches?! Is this now a
mostly-private project for those few that know and bother to work directly
with the sources? What do you need to regularly publish official builds
somewhere again? Please speak up / update the pages; it would be sad to see
such great project losing its user base because of this.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #6 on issue 1245 by v.beslo...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

http://5digits.org/coding see this link on how to compile, it is quite easy

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #7 on issue 1245 by sushisou...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

It's not about it being easy to compile or not - it's about making it
convenient for people to use who aren't developers. Hell, even for people
who are developers but don't feel like cloning a repro and compiling
something just to have it.

I get that the audience for this plugin isn't exactly huge to begin with,
but I guarantee you're losing users because of this.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #8 on issue 1245 by wsha.c...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

The 5digits.org website is quite depressing. It is of course true that
Pentadactyl is a pretty niche project and only of interest to fairly
computer-literate users, but still when your front page advertises a
release from 2.5 years ago and then both your project page
(http://5digts.org/pentadactyl) and the official Mozilla repository
(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pentadactyl/) advertise a
release that is almost a year old and is not compatible with the latest
version of Firefox, you are going to discourage the majority of potential
new users. At least the last official release still works with the current
ESR of Firefox.

In my experience, the nightly builds of Pentadactyl have almost always just
worked with the release version of Firefox, and, when something was broken
in the nightly build, it was due to a change in Firefox that also made all
previous versions of Pentadactyl broken with that version of Firefox. I'd
like to see a new version of Pentadactyl cut with each Firefox release or
at least a re-release with the version bump (I'm using ESR right now so I
can't check if AMO thinks Pentadactyl 1.1 is compatible with Firefox 35 or
not though I know some things have broken since 1.1 was released). I really
want Pentadactyl to succeed (I donate each year), so it is a shame to such
minor upkeep being neglected and the community around the project allowed
to dwindle.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #9 on issue 1245 by anhadjon...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

Sorry for bumping this thread, but being a Pentadactyl user I was plagued
with the same problem in addition to the loss of compatibility with each
Firefox release, so I came up with
https://github.com/ffledgling/dactyl-build/releases to fix the problem.
Nightlies are built everyday at midnight IST. It's an adhoc workaround but
it should work for most people.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #10 on issue 1245 by tgc...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

Perhaps this isn't the best place for this, but my firefox complained when
I tried installing your latest nightly, anhadjon...
The green jigsaw piece says "Pentadactyl could not be installed because
Firefox cannot modify the needed file."

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #11 on issue 1245 by anhadjon...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

@tgc Do you mind opening a gihub issue if you have a github account? We can
take the discussion there.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #12 on issue 1245 by n.schm...@protelcotelsa.com: Nightlies page
not up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

@anhadjon...@gmail.com, I just downloaded the last build on your repo.

Do you think that you could email the pentadactyl developers or something
like that to put your nightly builds instead of the old ones?

Because to me it seems a shame also that pentadactyl may lose more of its
already little user base.

Thanks

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #13 on issue 1245 by anhadjon...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

@n.schm... I'd love to but I can't seem to find a way to contact them
(code.google.com doesn't show full email IDs) and the 5digits.org website
is down for me (and for others based on isitup.org), so I don't know they
best way to reach the maintainer.

I'll be happy enough to help setup whatever is needed to get the nightlies
onto the official website.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #14 on issue 1245 by anhadjon...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

Update: I've sent the maintainer (Kris) an email, I will update again if I
have a response.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #15 on issue 1245 by veritas....@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

What's the point of having nightly build and installing it if there are no
changes to the code base?

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #16 on issue 1245 by anhadjon...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

@veritas...

TL;DR There's a need for *some* form of XPI releases of the code whenever
it changes because they don't exist ATM but the code continues to change.
You can call them whatever you like since they wouldn't be nightlies in the
strictest sense of the word.

Long Version:
There don't seem to be any official releases being put out and the latest
official nightly seems to be 11 commits behind the source in head/tip.
The codebase itself isn't dead, it's still updated, albeit infrequently.
Even if nightlies aren't updated "nightly", there is a need for some kind
of release whenever code is changed, not to mention the MaxVersion
annoyance that happens everytime there's a new Firefox release, which means
Pentadactyl needs to be recompiled with a bump in the `MaxVersion` field in
the `install.rdf` file.

The problem with no official releases is that:
(1) Pentadactyl doesn't Auto-update whenever Firefox updates, which makes
Firefox disable Pentadactyl after the update.
(2) You can't go to the official website and install a compatible version,
since there's no up-to-date release.

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #17 on issue 1245 by wsha.c...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

There isn't much point to having nightly builds when the code base has not
changed. I think the concept was just taken from projects where things do
change every day. It is slightly different than making a new build for each
change to the code base -- if it changes several times in one day there is
still just one build for the day.

When the developer built nightly builds were working for Pentadactyl, they
used the update.rdf update system so that automatic Firefox updates only
happened when the code base actually changed and not every night.

By the way, just a warning if you haven't been following it -- Mozilla is
going to mandate signing of all extensions later this year. That will be
another hoop we will have to figure out how to jump through for Pentadactyl.

If Kris does not respond, try looking in the #pentadactyl oftc IRC channel.
He is usually on there as John-Galt. Doug, the other developer, is usually
on there as well.

Perhaps the Pentadactyl mailing list would be a more visible place for
holding this discussion about hosting Pentadactyl builds than within this
issue?

[dac...@googlecode.com]

Comment #18 on issue 1245 by darkcraw...@gmail.com: Nightlies page not
up-to-date
https://code.google.com/p/dactyl/issues/detail?id=1245

@anhadjon Thanks, man. I'm a dev myself, and I do agree that, even though
building yourself is not complicated, it shouldn't be expected from you to
do that, regardless of your skills. Thanks for automating the nightlies.