I would be one of those unhappy with the direction tinyMCE took. It was highly configurable from Drupal which made it easy to tailor it to a particular sites need. Now you can not even add a new configuration type without modifing the code (or modifying the buttons in the js for an existing set). Either way makes it hard to apply patches or upgrades down the road Steve Ringwood

I posted a hack last night that will allow you to customize the TinyMCE theme displayed for each role... http://drupal.org/node/116006 I don't see any reason why this functionality couldn't be added to the module the way "Enable TinyMCE for this node types:" was added. Allowing users to type the role names like they now do with content types isn't ideal, but it would restore some of the missing functionality. The other complaint I've seen repeatedly posted is the lack of GUI to select the buttons that appear in TinyMCE. The GUI was nice and I certainly used it, but the new module doesn't require any additional tables to store those settings and uses the same method of configuration (customizing the .js themes) that the rest of the TinyMCE using world uses. Customizing the .js files isn't going to cause problems with upgrades unless you are upgrading the TinyMCE part of the module. When you download updated versions of the module, you are still going to need to download a new version of TinyMCE or copy the version with your customized .js themes into the module folder. If anything, following the TinyMCE way of customizing .js themes makes it easier to upgrade the TinyMCE part of the module. I don't know this module's maintainer. I've never communicated directly with drupal-id, but I think replacing a maintainer because a module is lacks some features is an extreme move. The module code he produced is solid and works well for me. It would be nice to hear from drupal-id more often, but the module functions and there are other ways to achieve the desired functionality that was included in the 4.7 version. I expect that someone will rewrite my hack into a patch adding a text fields to the TinyMCE admin interface. If that patch sits for a more than a month without any action from drupal-id, then I'd agree a new maintainer is needed. ___ Kevin Reynen Integrated Media Coordinator Reynolds School of Journalism and Advanced Media Research University of Nevada, Reno On 2/5/07, Gerhard Killesreiter <gerhard@killesreiter.de> wrote:

Alaa Abd El Fattah wrote:

...

Hi,

I don't know how many of you are following tinymce module development, so I thought I'd bring up this issue on the mailing list.

recently user drupal-id.com took over the project and immediately started on a rewrite for drupal 5 discarding all old code. the problem is drupal-id.com's new redesign lacks features that many existing tinymce users find crucial (like customizing the button set and having different buttonsets per role).

but the problem is not limited to differing goals, I don't think drupal-id.com is a good maintainer, he does not respond to issues in the issue queue (the issue queue is not 10 pages long and growing rapidly).

at the moment the only way to get tinymce to work as before is to patch the DRUPAL-4-7 branch using a patch attached to this issue http://drupal.org/node/100864

check the discussion around this issue to soo how many are complaining about current state of tinymce.module drupal-id.com responded only once to this issue.

IMO tinymce needs a new maintainer.

I've mailed the maintainer and asked for clarification.

Cheers, Gerhard

Boris Mann wrote:

In some ways, the 5.0 version is a "fork" of the 4.7 code. The nice thing is that our current development method actually enables this. A suggestion has been to have the 4.7 "evolution" be the 5.0--1.0 tag, with the brand new code being 5.0--2.0

In fact, this is the responsible pattern to follow. Give folks an upgrade path that doesn't change the way things work, deprecate it if necessary, and continue development on the branch. Merlinofchaos has basically done just this with Panels, and the world is a happy place.

Kevin Reynen wrote:

Is everyone is aware that drupal-id was maintaining TinyMCE plus (http://drupal.org/project/tinymce_plus) before taking over the TinyMCE module?

Is the suggestion to move drupal-id's current module back to TinyMCE plus and revert TinyMCE to the patched version of 4.7?

It seems like the project was already forked once and making drupal-id the maintainer of the primary module was an attempt to merge these efforts.

That is indeed the case.

Learning to edit the theme .js files may push less technical users beyond their comfort zone, but it is really the TinyMCE way of doing things. There are 3 very usable themes included for people who just can't edit comma separated lists. For those who want to learn to modify their .js themes, there is community that is much bigger than just the TinyMCE module users who help support this. Drupal users make up a small part of TinyMCE users.

I am well known to not be too interested in having a slick UI, but editing .js files is not acceptable.

If you really can't use TinyMCE without a GUI toolbar designer, wouldn't the proper place to do that be as a stand alone tool that output theme.js files that any TinyMCE user could use? Write that in javascript and release it as a TinyMCE tool. Users could design their toolbars and save that .js file to their /modules/tinymce/includes/themes/. The admin interface for the TinyMCE module would simply allow users to link their theme .js files with their roles (a Drupal specific feature).

Putting the configuration part into a separate module would be an option, yes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the 4.7 (and patched 5) button configuration bypass the .js theme files? Shouldn't Drupal development respect the way other frameworks want to handle their configuration?

If we think it could be improved, I can't see a reason to not improve it.

I have neither been involved with Drupal long enough nor been active enough to deserve a vote,

Software development is a decidedly non-democratic process anyway.

but if I'd had one it would be to "stay the course" drupal-id started regardless of who the maintainer is.

If this involves "edit JS files to get what you want" you'd probably get a lof of complaints, too. :p Cheers, Gerhard

Was there a decision made about co-maintainers? I didn't follow that thread to its conclusion. I would be willing deal with the backlog in the issue/support queue until a decision can be made about the long term direction if it helps avoid bypassing the .js files. I think we can find a solutions that restore the 4.7 functionality without comprimising on long term compatibility with TinyMCE framework. I think if the hack I wrote last night can be flushed out as a patch that restores the GUI role based customization, that will go along way towards putting out this fire. Another thing that might help is a dojo-style video showing users how to customize their theme .js. I think I can get a someone to do that in the next day or 2. Hopefully that will give drupal-id a chance to share his thoughts. It may turn out that drupal-id isn't up to the task of maintaining the TinyMCE module and we have no option but to revert the the patched 4.7 version, but I'd like the discussion to be driven by the long term benefits of each direction rather than the short term issue of a large number of very vocal users who don't want to edit a comma separated lists. ___ Kevin Reynen Integrated Media Coordinator Reynolds School of Journalism and Advanced Media Research University of Nevada, Reno

On 2/5/07, Kevin Reynen <kreynen@gmail.com> wrote:

Was there a decision made about co-maintainers? I didn't follow that thread to its conclusion. I would be willing deal with the backlog in the issue/support queue until a decision can be made about the long term direction if it helps avoid bypassing the .js files. I think we can find a solutions that restore the 4.7 functionality without comprimising on long term compatibility with TinyMCE framework.

No "decision" because we haven't faced such a situation before. We have the technical ability to make people co-maintainers, but still haven't had any discussion with drupal-id.com. I reluctantly agree that we need to move forward. Maybe, in a strange twist of fate, take over TinyMCE Plus? Allie, looking for a plus one from you on this.

I think if the hack I wrote last night can be flushed out as a patch that restores the GUI role based customization, that will go along way towards putting out this fire. Another thing that might help is a dojo-style video showing users how to customize their theme .js. I think I can get a someone to do that in the next day or 2.

As Gerhard (!!) pointed out elsewhere, editing js files are too high of a barrier for many users. Particularly the target users of a WYSIWYG editor....

Hopefully that will give drupal-id a chance to share his thoughts. It may turn out that drupal-id isn't up to the task of maintaining the TinyMCE module and we have no option but to revert the the patched 4.7 version, but I'd like the discussion to be driven by the long term benefits of each direction rather than the short term issue of a large number of very vocal users who don't want to edit a comma separated lists.

Would be great if you got in touch with him. As stated, zero responses so far, including ones from the infrastructure team asking to update his email address. -- Boris Mann Vancouver 778-896-2747 San Francisco 415-367-3595 Skype borismann http://www.bryght.com

Allie Micka wrote:

On Feb 5, 2007, at 11:12 AM, Boris Mann wrote:

...

And, of course, the fact that the users and other developers have been trying to get in touch with the maintainer for 3 - 4 weeks with no response.

Unfortunately, I feel that our hands are tied on this matter.

It's true that the maintainer has not actively participated in these threads, closed any issues, or responded to personal emails. However, he is continuing to commit to this "forked" version. Last week, he added a comma-delimited text field where you can type in the node types you wish TinyMCE to appear on (!).

While he might not be communicating or coding in a way that most of us would agree with, this module is arguably still being maintained. Unless we hear otherwise from Drupal-id, I'm afraid that the only fair choice is to create a *third* TinyMCE project to maintain the un-forked version.

Hopefully, this can serve as a warning about handing our modules off to new maintainers. TinyMCE was an important and popular module, yet this new maintainer had no previous modules or community participation. After 6 months of being listed as a maintainer, the very first commit - ever - was this controversial fork.

The problem was that tinymce didn't have a maintainer. Then he got maintainership but decided to start his "plus" version instead. This got him some complaints about creating yet-another-JS-editor module and so he apparently decided to make his version the official version. As I said, I've contacted him and hope this can be resolved. It would be ideal if he'd accept say Kevin as a co-maintainer. Should this not be possible, I'll probably restore maintainership to the last maintainer who was working along Dries' thoughts on the matter (http://buytaert.net/responsible-maintainers) and let him take it from there. tinymce.module is the second most downloaded contrib module, we can't have such a screw-up there. Cheers, Gerhard

On 2/5/07, sime <info@urbits.com> wrote:

2c not yet spent?

If you disagree with how a maintainer operates, this is no reason for a coup. I believe that if negotiations fail, the next step should be to fork.

Yep. We have just not had any (2 way) communication yet, which is the frustrating part. And really, really really don't want to have to fork. Most people (== devs running it for clients) are running the "patched" version that is the 4.7 version updated for 5.0. -- Boris Mann Vancouver 778-896-2747 San Francisco 415-367-3595 Skype borismann http://www.bryght.com

On 2/5/07, Kevin Reynen <kreynen@gmail.com> wrote:

I understand that some people are upset about losing functionality, but for those of use who have been working in Drupal 5 and the "official 5 version of TinyMCE", reverting to the patched 4.7 module would remove functionality we have now!

As I said, we don't want obliterate what's there. That's what tags are for -- there could be a 5.0-1.x and 5.0-2.x tags with different codebases.

I've tried to connect with the maintainer by posting to the www.drupal-id.com forum...

http://www.drupal-id.com/where_thetinymce_module_maintainer

It's only 5AM there right now, but I hope for everyone's sanity that we will get a response in some way, shape, or form today (tonight for most of us).

I do hope you get a response. Several people have tried contacting him for the last 3 - 4 weeks with no response.

Meanwhile, progress on restoring the 4.7 functionality to drupal-id's TinyMCE rewrite continues. Scafmac released a patch to enable roles. Unfortunately it is limited to the 3 included .js themes...

Yep, which isn't good enough for the range of flexibility that people have used throughout 4.7.x. In any case, it looks like we're going to do an "unfork" and have a bugfix party. Will update with details. -- Boris Mann Vancouver 778-896-2747 San Francisco 415-367-3595 Skype borismann http://www.bryght.com

On 06/02/07, Kevin Reynen <kreynen@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not going to claim to be a TinyMCE expert, but I have learned a lot more about how to configure it since I was allowed/forced to configure the theme.js files myself. The 4.7 module only allowed users to select the buttons, not change the order or decide which bar they appeared on. PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there is a way to override the 4.7 module settings with a custom .js theme.

The 4.7 module allowed you to set any TinyMCE init settings in a Drupal theme override function. You could change pretty much any setting including button locations and orders as well as strictly restricting the markup it produced. I just used the TinyMCE advanced theme, then customised it for different Drupal roles in the theme. Not as easy as a GUI, but better than editing the .js files directly though IMO. Makes upgrading either TinyMCE or the module much easier and your TinyMCE config is Drupal 'aware'. -- Cheers Anton

The good news... Drupal-id.com is alive, well, has functioning email (support@drupal-id.com), and is responding to issues. Solutions to most of the unresolved issues have been at least been identified. A few have been patched. This module is no longer is crisis mode. The bad news... -----Original Message----- From: Drupal Indonesia [mailto:support@drupal-id.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 4:56 AM To: Kevin P Reynen Subject: TinyMCE Maintener Kevin, Currently I have very much activity on Drupal training, several customer websites and some ERP Projects. So, I am searching someone who likes to be Maintener of tinymce.module. Please reply to this email if you like. I have send this email to several Drupal users and I will choose one of them including you. Regards, Jonathan.

I think that anybody who was critical of drupal-id.com's work to this point has added the caveat that things could simply resolve favorably if the communication roadblocks were eradicated. This is fortunately the case and I think that anybody following the discussion will now gladly say "welcome back, drupal-id.com", and get on with life. If there is any lesson to be learned, it is to make sure that you pay attention to as many channels of communication as possible. The issue queue, the devel list, and the IRC channel would have all been valuable sources of early warning to this person that a critical spotlight was being focused on them. So when you have the chance to offer advice to new Drupallers, let it be that they need to tune in to as many of the sources of information as possible. -RD Sam Tresler wrote:

...

The bad news...

Ok, I bit my tongue through most of this process, because I didn't feel I knew the intricacies involved to comment intelligently, but now that its resolving itself it appears that this poor chap had nothing wrong but a busy few months, a broken e-mail address, and a little difficulty with English.

Drupal-id deserves a bit in the way of apology - its a contrib module, not core, and he took it up when No one else would - it appears just to get CVS access to work on things his way - since no one else wanted too.

Now that we've spent Many e-mails calling him a poor maintainer in public He's ACTIVELY SEEKING HELP - now its 'Bad News'? bad news?!

Isn't this great news from this thread's perspective?

Isn't this exactly what a busy 'responsible' module maintainer *should* do?

I ask this in all seriousness as I'm thinking of applying to be a co-maintainer of a few 'highly-used' modules and if this is the treatment people who try to help get, I might reconsider. I'd rather be fully informed in advance though.

Let's wait a bit, if he is in Indonesia, then he might have other problems than Drupal atm.

As it stands, there's no way to easily see whoever else has write access to a project (co-maintainers). Given a patch in "in the works" to show this public ally here's the list of co-maintainers of TinyMCE to which people could possibly approach. It's worth noting, they may not know they are still co-maintainers and may not want to be directly contacted. But since they are there, here's the list: m3avrck (http://drupal.org/user/12932) Steve McKenzie (http://drupal.org/user/45890) ufku (http://drupal.org/user/9910)

On 2/5/07, Darren Oh <darrenoh@sidepotsinternational.com> wrote:

...

As it stands, there's no way to easily see whoever else has write access to a project (co-maintainers).

Fixing that would really help solve what is mainly a communication problem. drupal-id's lack of communication wouldn't have been such a big issue if there had been someone else to communicate with. Keep in mind that we still don't know why drupal-id hasn't been communicating. A revolt may not be necessary.

As Gerhard alluded to, he may be stuck in the flooding that hit Jakarta, and Drupal/TinyMCE would be his last concern at the moment if he is affected. http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6395652,00.html -- 2bits.com http://2bits.com Drupal development, customization and consulting.

So drupal-id is Wendy, not Jonathan? I'm so very confused. Someone with CVS access responded to my post on www.drupal-id.com and granted me CVS access... http://www.drupal-id.com/where_tinymce_maintainer "TinyMCE.module currently maintenances by: 1. Drupal-id.com 2. m3avrck 3. Steve McKenzie 4. ufku We are happy since you like to help this module. Welcome Kevin Reynen and I already added your account in CVS access." And contacted me with the Drupal contact form... "kreynen, Drupal-id.com (http://drupal.org/user/75798) has sent you a message via your contact form (http://drupal.org/user/48877/contact) at drupal.org. If you don't want to receive such e-mails, you can change your settings at http://drupal.org/user/48877. Message: Hi Kreynen, Look at my reply here: http://www.drupal-id.com/where_tinymce_maintainer Regards, Drupal-ID.com" But there is still no direct email address to contact anyone. - Kevin

On 2/6/07, AjK <drupal@f2s.com> wrote:

As it stands, there's no way to easily see whoever else has write access to a project (co-maintainers). Given a patch in "in the works" to show this public ally here's the list of co-maintainers of TinyMCE to which people could possibly approach. It's worth noting, they may not know they are still co-maintainers and may not want to be directly contacted. But since they are there, here's the list:

m3avrck (http://drupal.org/user/12932) Steve McKenzie (http://drupal.org/user/45890) ufku (http://drupal.org/user/9910)

i wasnt aware of this. i can help but dont think i'll have much time for it.

Thanks Kevin for your diligence in trying to solve this one.... Suggesting an alternate outcome: I'd humbly suggest that the responsible thing to have done is to fork TincyMCE before the rewrite into either another module until it became a better replacement (e.g. TinyMCE2). I realize that this could be new ground, but is it possible for the outcome to be that we create a new project such as TinyMCE2 which becomes the drupal-id code and leave his maintainer status intact on that one? HEAD from TINYMCE 4.7.1 remains unchanged, and we use the 5.0 patch for TinyMCE with all its old features (is that what moxie is?) as a module that becomes the basis for continuation of TincyMCE 5.0 compliant. Much less confusion for drupal user community if that course gets followed..... IMHO. -----Original Message----- From: development-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:development-bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Reynen Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 12:31 PM To: development@drupal.org Subject: Re: [development] should tinymce get a new maintainer tinymce Here's an update on the TinyMCE saga... Posting to the www.drupal-id.com forum is getting a response, but those responses only come on the forum or through the Drupal.org contact forms. Attempts to send email directly to support@drupal-id.com are delayed. My guess is these emails are ultimately rejected. Even when I am able to communicate with someone at www.drupal-id.com, they do not answer the questions I ask nor have they begun to deal with the backlog of issues. All of the responses have been from someone named Wendy. The drupal-id.com on Drupal.org lists a first name of Jonathan. I've asked, but have not gotten an explanation about that. The only thing useful Wendy has done is grant me co-maintainer status. I went a head and posted this message to the TinyMCE project page today... "IMPORTANT: There are unresolved issues with the current release of this module in IE and Safari. In addition, two features found in the 4.7 version of the module are missing from the 5 release. There is a patch to restore basic role based customization, individual buttons can no longer be selected with a graphical interface. To add, subtract, and change the order of buttons in the current release, users must edit the .js files found in the module's themes directory. Users interested in using TinyMCE the way it worked in Drupal 4.7 should look at the new Moxie module. I am not the official maintainer of this module, but communicating with drupal-id.com has proved problematic. Hopefully these issues will be resolved soon. - Kevin Reynen" I see few potential outcomes from this course of action... 1) drupal-id.com gets pissed and removes me from the project, but doesn't address any of the other issues leaving things where they were yesterday 2) drupal-id.com finally realizes there is a problem with their email system, starts to respond and address user issues/concerns 3) drupal-id.com continues to do nothing, is removed as the maintainer, and everyone interested has a rational discussion about how best to move forward Meanwhile, I am trying to clear as many issues from the TinyMCE queue as possible. Suggestions about leaving the 4.7 feature requests open or pointing those users to the Moxie "unfork" and closing the issue?

On Feb 6, 2007, at 2:31 PM, Kevin Reynen wrote:

HerI see few potential outcomes from this course of action...

1) drupal-id.com gets pissed and removes me from the project, but doesn't address any of the other issues leaving things where they were yesterday 2) drupal-id.com finally realizes there is a problem with their email system, starts to respond and address user issues/concerns 3) drupal-id.com continues to do nothing, is removed as the maintainer, and everyone interested has a rational discussion about how best to move forward

These three options are a no-win. This is not some power struggle and nobody is going to walk away with a prize. While it's somewhat of a privilege to be the maintainer of a highly-used module, it's also a huge pain and a thankless job. The main issue here is that the cost/benefit for maintainership was too much for the original maintainer. Upon stepping down, nobody but Drupal-Id picked up the work effort. The good news is that he/she/ they put forth some development effort, the bad news is that this came without community involvement, and therefore, the community needs where not adequately addressed. The TinyMCE module is important to our business and our clients. Despite this, I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't taken any part in working the issue queue or otherwise participating in the care and feeding of this module. Now it has reached a critical situation, and many of us have been forced to act reactively rather than proactively. I don't have the time and necessity to spend on theoretical changes (apparently, few do), but the lack of an upgrade path is the key matter of importance. Now, it's useful to fewer people, and making this seem like a contentious or competitive situation makes people feel even more disinclined to get involved. It's like "opposite day" in open source land. So now, I have enough motivation to make the time to maintain a 4.7- compatible "unfork" at http://drupal.org/project/moxie . Boris and Steve McKenzie have agreed to help address some TinyMCE issues there, and we will work on it there for as long as is necessary. If, on top of clearing issues and meeting the community's short-term needs, someone *still* has time to expend on these feature changes, then great! We may have found a "real" maintainer this time around :P

Meanwhile, I am trying to clear as many issues from the TinyMCE queue as possible. Suggestions about leaving the 4.7 feature requests open or pointing those users to the Moxie "unfork" and closing the issue?

As long as Drupal-Id is continues committing to the tinymce project, we have no right to remove maintainership, even if we disagree with his/her/their decisions. I really appreciate that you want to help clearing out the issue queue - that's the most important thing we can be doing now. We're creating a clean-up rallying point around moxie, and it would be great if you could direct issues there. For everyone else who feels like they need a little give/take karma on TinyMCE, please lend a hand in this! Doing it this way lets us dispense with this frustrating discussion. Everybody gets what they need in the short-term, bugs get fixed in a maintained branch, nobody's getting publicly flogged for their development choices, and we can all get back to work. Later, we can revisit a merge when/if one module is bug-free and can address the needs of both user sets. Allie Micka pajunas interactive, inc. http://www.pajunas.com scalable web hosting and open source strategies P.S. I don't disagree with the motivations for some of these changes, From here, it seems that it would be easier to add the js- files-as-editable from the 4.7 interface rather than starting from scratch. (by writing them to the files directory rather than putting them in a db table). Keeping what's useful and blending in your requirements.

FYI http://www.drupal-id.com/id/where_tinymce_maintainer#comment-161 "Thanks for info, now email Submitted by admin on Wed, 2007-02-07 00:29. Thanks for info, now email works fine after we fix some settings here. I can receive your email today."