Inform about php81/jquery371

[sreichel]

Please improve :)

[colinmollenhour]

It's good to warn of the possible breakage, but it seems like this is better as a highlight on the release notes page rather than an admin notification which many many non-developers will see. I kinda think admin notifications should be reserved for announcing critical security vulnerability patches and asking for donations (preferably both as one message) - if we use them for anything else people will just disable or tune them out.

[addison74]

I approved this PR because we are discussing two important stages. The first stage is dedicated to preparing OpenMage users for some major changes, PHP and JQuery really require changes. The second stage is the one in which the release of the version is announced. In my opinion, if I look at the number of those who are subscribed to immediate notifications, they are few. Between the first and second stages, a testing time and mandatory for the extensions, the themes. It doesn't mater if the backend user is an administrator or just a user with limited privileges, the notification will make them to be ready for the upgrade (if they want to do it).

[sreichel]

if we use them for anything else people will

Ah okay. I did not knew that.

(How much notification have we sent at all?)

[colinmollenhour]

@addison74 The intention is definitely good, but what is actionable? If the code is not released yet the devs can only wait and if you're not a dev it is just gibberish. The admin notification feature to me is a bit intrusive so I just want to reserve it for when we really need it. E.g. major community announcements, severe social engineering attacks, etc. I suppose the executives can start mentally/financially preparing knowing that a major update is coming, but it just doesn't seem that urgent.

We should probably do a better job somehow of advising users to subscribe to the OpenMage/magento-lts release updates as it appears we currently only have 63 watchers.. But this seems like the ideal way for people to manage what updates they get. Perhaps that would be a good use of admin notifications. 😄

This is from clicking Watch -> Custom:

[addison74]

I understand your point of view, but we have not used this powerful tool at all to communicate with OpenMage users. I have seen messages related to the war in Ukraine, but nothing about the release of new versions, as the Magento team regularly did. When I install the Magento Sample Pack I can't help but notice the Inbox full of notifications. For me, the fact that there is activity motivates me to continue. You have noticed well that there are only 63 followers. You rely on developers, who have Git accounts. A user who sees the notification may also be one who has tasks related to the store theme which are not complicated. In addition to this important code change, I would be interested in a survey, to find out how many still use OpenMage and what expectations they would have from those who are involved in maintaining the code.

[sreichel]

I have seen messages related to the war in Ukraine, but nothing about the release of new versions, as the Magento team regularly did.

👍

imho we should use Web_Notification more often. You can mark them as read ...

When I install the Magento Sample Pack I can't help but notice the Inbox full of notifications.

That will be cleaned up soon (new sample data), but yes - aggree.

[colinmollenhour]

I mostly agree, just perhaps rather than the release "coming soon" I would suggest it should wait until it is already available or clarify where the code can be found for preview. In any case I'm not intending to get in the way of productive use of the notifications system, so am willing to just concede.

A survey would be great, or just install some anonymous and very limited tracking code in the next release. :)

[addison74]

When I install the Magento Sample Pack I can't help but notice the Inbox full of notifications.

What I wanted to emphasize with this sentence is that the Magento team really kept us informed. After all, we want investors, sponsorships and much more. If we don't keep in touch with the loyal OpenMage users, no matter of their level of knowledge, let's not complain that the interest in this shopping cart is below expectations.

[sreichel]

Web_Notifications could be the simplest way to let the users know that OM is alive,

We dont want to spam, but 1-2 messages a month would not disturb anybody. imho

[addison74]

@colinmollenhour - PR is fine, but the release note should be modified. First I would set the release date for this version. The message could be something like, "We would like to inform you that version X which will be released on date Y brings major changes. The minimum PHP version is 8.1 and jQuery is v3. If you choose to upgrade, please update your existing source code with these changes to avoid any issue that may occur in production."

[Flyingmana]

My 2 cent, I remember countless people beeing very annoyed with the way Magento used the notifications to advertise, and there was also a number of people beeing skeptic about OpenMage wanting to keep this feature in fear of "spam".

To compare it with maillists, every use of them also causes some people to unsubscribe.
So the message should be at least worth it.

[sreichel]

It should not be abused, but what would be wrong to announce a PR, that contains bigger changes?

Changing php-requirement and also jquery is worth to mention. imho

[addison74]

In order to make an evaluation, we have to use this feature. Otherwise, we remain at the discussion stage. It may even work. If the number of those who are outraged is large then we can completely eliminate this channel of communication from OpenMage.

[colinmollenhour]

I don't think people will be outraged and it's not advertising a conference or something so it's legitimate information, just I think it should be at least actionable to justify the annoyance. But again, I'm not blocking it and will concede now that I've made my concerns clear.