Maintenance

[sfcgeorge]

Hi. I'm working on a client's website which has used this extension in the past but needs updating to work with Spree 3.

@jsqu99 has said he doesn't have time to actively maintain this, that's fine. I found several fairly active forks:

@renuo https://github.com/renuo/spree_flexi_variants
@tailic https://github.com/tailic/spree_flexi_variants/tree/2-2-wip
@factorlibre https://github.com/factorlibre/spree_flexi_variants

And others that seem to be working on Spree 3 support already:

@JuandGirald https://github.com/JuandGirald/spree_flexi_variants
@alexgirdler https://github.com/alexgirdler/spree_flexi_variants

This seems like a lot of duplicated effort when we're all likely working towards the same thing. I suggest we work together on this, rather than separately. We could add collaborators to an existing repo, or start an organisation.

We would need to select the best repo to start with, probably merge in some fixes others have made if the conflicts aren't too bad, then go from there.

Are any of you interested in this? If so please reply and we can get something going.

[tailic]

Hi @sfcgeorge I really like the idea, this extension brings some essential features to spree and we need to keep it up to date. My fork is active but I messed around a bit with some custom logic for a project... so its not a good one to start with.

As you already mentioned, we should first select the best fork to start with or we fork this one and merge in other forks/commits.

As next step it would be helpful if @jsqu99 puts a notice/link into the readme so that others may start to work on the new repo.

[jsqu99]

All, I'm happy to hand this project off to a new maintainer (or link to wherever). If you can get together and come up w/ a consensus or another plan just lmk.

[sfcgeorge]

Great, that's 1 person, hopefully we'll get more :)

I agree that this is a pretty essential Spree extension. My client needs it for made to measure curtain measurement calculations, with a custom price matrix.

@tailic Thanks for commenting about your fork; that's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for. The five I've mentioned look active but it's hard to tell without digging—are they lots of tiny commits / or big ones; project specific / general fixes; relatively stable / just testing; etc.

I have no strong feelings on who, where or how we collaborate on this. Yes if we choose a different base repo/org then a link from @jsqu99 would be great, alternatively @jsqu99 may want to add us as collaborators on this repo. Thanks @jsqu99 for your support.

I've never used a GitHub Organisation, but they look super simple to set up. Apparently you get "Repository management. Fine-grained permissions. Focused dashboard". Perhaps spree-contrib-variants/spree_flexi_variants.

We could then use the wiki to organise development, and perhaps set up a Gitter chat (they're very nice).

[alexgirdler]

Hello @sfcgeorge https://github.com/sfcgeorge my company is actually
going to be moving to spree in the future(end of year/beginning of next)
and will likely support and maintain the plugin, we're switching from
Bigcommerce which has the features we would be needed already implemented
and we would be porting the features over as well as updating existing
features for spree 3. I believe the fork that I currently have is about 60%
finished with a few things still needing to be updated for spree 3. I am
very for combining efforts to make maintaining it easier. Let me know when
more information is available.

Thanks,
Alex Girdler
ManCrates http://www.mancrates.com

On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 7:47 AM Simon George notifications@github.com
wrote:

Great, that's 1 person, hopefully we'll get more :)

I agree that this is a pretty essential Spree extension. My client needs
it for made to measure curtain measurement calculations, with a custom
price matrix.

@tailic https://github.com/tailic Thanks for commenting about your
fork; that's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for. The five I've
mentioned look active but it's hard to tell without digging—are they
lots of tiny commits / or big ones; project specific / general fixes;
relatively stable / just testing; etc.

I have no strong feelings on who, where or how we collaborate on this. Yes
if we choose a different base repo/org then a link from @jsqu99
https://github.com/jsqu99 would be great, alternatively @jsqu99
https://github.com/jsqu99 may want to add us as collaborators on this
repo. Thanks @jsqu99 https://github.com/jsqu99 for your support.

I've never used a GitHub Organisation, but they look super simple to set
up. Apparently you get "Repository management. Fine-grained permissions.
Focused dashboard". Perhaps spree-contrib-variants/spree_flexi_variants.

We could then use the wiki to organise development, and perhaps set up a
Gitter chat (they're very nice).

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#104 (comment)
.

[sfcgeorge]

Fantastic, thanks @alexgirdler hopefully the 3+ of us can come up with a solid repo. I have invited @alexgirdler and @tailic to the new org spree-contrib-variants plus @jsqu99 as he started it. If more interested people reply I'll add them too. This may seem heavy handed but I read a post by a repo owner who said it worked to encourage contributions.

I haven't yet chosen a base repo to fork into the org. @talic's fork does look very active, but it's a shame if there's custom logic in there. @alexgirdler you mentioned wanting to add features, have you already started doing that in your fork? Ideally we'd keep the core repo as simple as possible; then separate repos with extra features could be created. Both @renuo and @factorlibre forks have been active as they're dev teams, so one might be a good start fork, hopefully they'll come onboard.

Lets give it a work day or so to decide then we'll get stuck in.

[sfcgeorge]

I skimmed every commit in every recent fork since the last on the @jsqu99 repo to see which looks most up to date. It's very confusing as forks have forked other forks, stable branches have got ahead of master, and some forks seem to have merged between each other. Nonetheless I concluded that the @renuo fork was the most comprehensive, so I have forked that into the org. Of course I would be happy to add @renuo and co to the org if they're interested.

@tailic as you forked from @renuo this should work well for you. They got ahead of your fork, but perhaps you could re-apply any of your commits that are generic enough on top; there are some that look good.

I've enabled issues on the fork so now we can continue discussion there.

[cristianogregnanin]

Hi, I think this gem is perfect for me. I am using Spree to sell computers. Users can configure ram, cpu, hdd,.... There are many forks for this gem, and I am little bit confused.. which fork is the best? I am considering to use Spree 3.2 with Rails 5. Is that gem compatible?

[sfcgeorge]

It's been a while since I last used it but at the time:

• jsqu99 (original creator) had been working on a replacement called spree_product_customizations.
• It lacks a few features from the bigger spree_flexi_variants but for me had everything important.
• It's coded to hook into newer Spree APIs and be less of a hacky monkeypatch, though it's still quite hacky.
• It wasn't quite finished.
• I updated it to finish it and make it work with Spree 3.

So I created a fork and an org to contain it, with the intention being that anyone using either gem could join the org and make improvements. But not much happened since then. So at the time my fork was the most up to date, I don't know if that's still the case: https://github.com/spree-contrib-variants/spree_product_customizations

I could potentially add you to the org so you can contribute if you start using it and have the grit to work on it.