Blog

I've always loved the default MyBB theme. Personally, I think it looks much better than PHPBB's default theme. Since MyBB is GPL, I've often thought about porting it over for use with Advanced Forum 2.x. Last night, I spent a couple hours and got pretty far. It still has some rough edges but it's not bad. I can't really spend any more time on it right now so I decided to put what I have up here in my blog both to show what I have so far and share it in case someone wants to finish it off.

If anyone polishes this up and uses this on their site, I'd be interested in seeing it. I got it probably 80% there and but all know the last 20% can be a killer. ;)

In the attachments below are screenshots as well as a zip of the style.

Enjoy!

I've been with Drupal just about four years. Almost from the start I've been helping people. I spent a long time active in #drupal-support on IRC. I wrote tutorials about things I was working on. I answered emailed support requests. Eventually I moved on to writing three modules and all the support that goes along with those. Everywhere I look I see people needing help with Drupal and I want so badly to help them all.

I think of myself as a generally friendly person. Of course I'm not perfect and I have a temper now and then. But I'm mostly easy going and want to get along with everyone. I've had tons of people seek me out for support just because they saw me helping someone else and I was nice. I thought I was fairly well known in this community for being nice and helpful, especially to new people.

But lately I've been told by several people that I'm not. They say I'm harsh, condesending, defensive, cocky. That I lack empathy. When it was just one person, it was easy to dismiss. Tonight, it was two different people on two different posts bringing the total up to 5 that I'm aware of.

I sat here in tears for a while after that. I try so hard to help people and yet I'm obviously failing somewhere. I know I can give curt, short answers often. I frequently answer posts in my queue with a couple of screaming children clinging to me and can barely get a sentence out before having to leave the computer. So I dash off answers, do my best to point them in the right direction. I know how in so many queues questions sit for weeks or even months unanswered. I thought people would appreciate me giving my best attempt, letting them know if I need more info or if it's something I can't help with. If it's another module at fault, I move the issue. If it's something weird that I'm pretty sure isn't caused by my modules and I'm unable to reproduce it, I let them know. I thought people would want a response so they aren't sitting waiting and wondering. But it seems all I'm doing with my quick responses is pissing people off.

But what more can I do? I've already been told to suck it up and stop whining about how I have no time because of my kids but that's my reality. My computer time is stolen moments here and there in a loud crazy house. Even now, at 11pm, I write this with a toddler by my side who is refusing to go to sleep and just whipped his sippy cup at my monitor. This is my life. My family is my priority. I squeeze helping people in where I can, as much as I can, to the detriment of my own sites that sit there unfinished. But it's not enough. It's never enough. The support requests just keep coming at me from all over.

And I'm getting burnt out. I try drawing lines. Saying, yes, "this" is a problem in my module and I can fix it and, no, "that" is some weirdness on your site that I can't reproduce. I hate setting won't fix. It's a horrible status, admitting defeat. But I must or I will go crazy. I can't fix everyone's problems. Perhaps "can't fix" would be a better name. "won't" implies refusal. It doesn't say how much I desperately wish I could wave a magic wand and solve your problem.

But I'm only human. I have no magic. I only have my code and my not infallable Drupal knowledge. I have my love of helping people and I have my limits.

And I'm drawing another line.

Effective immediately, I am taking a break from support. I am going to work on my sites for a while, solve my own web problems. Aside from APK for D6 my modules are stable and don't have any known bugs. Certainly there's nothing critical that can't wait a while. I'll keep working on APK D6 because I need it for my own site and it only makes sense to publish what I have. But I will not be supporting any of it for a while. I don't know, yet, what will become of the eBook I am writing. Documenting everything has slowed my rebuild to a crawl. I suspect that will either be canceled or massively scaled down. We'll see. All I know is I can't keep going like this. I can't keep giving and giving only to be told I'm not giving nicely enough. It's tearing me up inside.

I need a break.

I'm not going to put this on Planet but will link to it from my projects to explain my absence. I'll leave comments open here just in case something needs clarifying but please don't post to say how I've helped you and that sort of thing. I'm not posting this for attention or fishing for compliments; I'm not an attention whore who gets all dramatic just to get praise. I'm posting this to let you all know why I'm dropping out for a while and that is all.

Michelle

Early this morning, just past midnight my time, I put out 1.0 releases of Advanced Forum, Advanced Profile Kit, and Author Pane in both D5 and D6 with the exception of APK D6 which still needs a lot of work. I was trying for a 4/1 release just for fun but they're showing up as 3/31 for me (though one person reported it says 4/1 for them). If you've been using the RCs, there's not much change. I've waited until the bug reports stopped on the RCs before doing the release and I haven't made major changes for a while. If you're one of those folks the usage stats reports on the early alphas, I'm afraid it's going to be a rough upgrade.

These releases were a long time coming. Advanced Forum started out as a modified Flatforum on Coulee Region Online two years ago and has been a module of its own since November of 2007. Advanced Profile Kit started out as a tutorial based on the profiles on Coulee Region Online and has been a module since January of 2008. Author Pane is the new kid on the block but is actually bits of AF & APK pulled out so they could be shared. I've been working on these fairly constantly all that time, slowly adding features and working out the bugs. There is still much work to do on Advanced Forum but it has gathered so many users I felt it was time to make a cutoff point so they would have a solid release.

Which brings us to the future. The D5 line is done as I am leaving D5 behind on all my sites and don't care to work with it anymore. I will continue to support it and provide bug fixes until D7 is released but it's definitely on maintenance only mode for me. D6, however, still has much work to do. Advanced Forum will be getting a 2.x branch soon to file feature requests against and I will start in on them in a month or two (I need a short break). For Advanced Profile Kit, I plan on making the move to Panels 3 and finishing up a more limited feature set to give it a 1.0 release. Then that, too, will get a 2.x branch to start in on some of the plans I have to make it live up to the "advanced" in its name.

So this isn't an end to the long journey but merely a milestone. I'm excited to continue taking Drupal's forums and profiles to the next level and hope you all will keep on the journey with me to make these modules the best they can be.

Thank you all for your continued support. Without users, these modules would not be where they are today.

Michelle

Earlier today, someone created an account just to attack me. I was in the lobby of the YMCA when it was pointed out to me on IRC. For a while I was in shock, fighting back the tears so I didn't look silly crying there in public about something on the computer. I've been having a rough time with Drupal lately, feeling overwhelmed by all the people looking to me for help, not getting paid for a big chunk of my very limited freelancing, frustrations with trying to get my main site to Drupal 6. On top of it all, I had this crazy idea to write a book that is going much, much slower than I hoped. And then there was this forum post, there for all the world to see, telling me that almost every post I've written was "condensending and discouraging". Now I'm human like anyone else and I have my bad days. I'm sure I've had posts here and there that fit that description, especially when someone hits my pet peeve of not reading what I've taken the time to write before asking what's right there. But "almost every post"? I suddenly found myself questioning the hundreds (thousands?) of hours I've spent trying to help people over the last four years. If that's the sort of impression I was making, I figured it was time to move on.

But then a funny thing happened. That hurtful post gathered a few nice comments, and then more, and more, until I was overwhelmed with all the love pouring in. By the time I had a kid free moment to answer the post, there was over 30 responses! I went from being angry and hurt to blushing at the overflowing praise. I'm just one of many people in this community working to make it better. No one special; just a volunteer like many of you who takes some time to help those who aren't as far along. And yet the community stood up and made it clear that I do matter, that the work I've done here is important. We are a family, here, this Drupal community. And I am so thrilled to be a part of this wonderful family.

Thank you to all of you who came to cheer me up when I was feeling down. You've given me the push I needed to keep going.

Michelle

It has been a long and twisty road since I first set out to build a community site for the greater La Crosse, Wisconsin area (also known as the Coulee Region) over two years ago. And it's a road that I continue to travel. Coulee Region ONLINE, as I call my site, has been running (or maybe limping) for most of those two years on Drupal 5 but is in a constant state of undone filled with glitches and promises of good things to come Real Soon Now.

Along the way I have made several aborted attempts to document the process of building the site. Some of it turned out to be useful like the user profile tutorials that eventually turned into Advanced Profile Kit. And then there was my frustrations with flatforum that turned into Advanced Forum. Some of it was not so good like my promising to write up how to create an area directory that never went farther than a tease of Views dumps.

As I approach the second anniversary of launching my "public alpha" (beta would be too kind) I find myself not wanting to start a third year of making excuses for a site that doesn't quite work right. So I am taking a break from freelancing, which has consumed too much of my time this last year, and am going to focus on making the site that's been living in my head, waiting to be expressed in Drupal. In conjunction with that, I am going to finally write that ebook that I've been dancing around for two years.

It won't be done in a hurry; even without having computer time going to freelancing I still have two young children who don't like mommy at the computer too long. I expect this will take several months to do, but I will get there, slow and steady. I have a goal, I have the desire, and I even have an outline.

So, enough announcing what I'm going to do. Time to get doing it. :)