Your class ratings by site users - PHP Classes blog

By Manuel Lemos
manuellemos.net
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Hello,

Since the number of classes of overlapping purposes is raising and the site users have been requesting so they can figure in advance if a class is worth downloading, some time soon I will be implementing a system that will let the users rate the classes that you provided in several aspects: utility, documentation, examples scripts and sample output. Other aspects may be considered later but these will be the most important that I will support.

Only users that indeed have downloaded your classes will be allowed to vote on them. However, it does not make sense letting a user voting for instance on documentation, if a classes does not provide any documentation. The same for example scripts and so on.

So, I added an extra option to the records of the files that lets you tell what is the role of each one. I have allowed you to specify the following roles: class source, documentation, example script, application script, auxiliary data and sample output. Just let me know if you feel that more should added or need further explanations on what is each one.

This way I will be able to tell whether I should let the users to rate on each of aspects that I specified above.

Now you just need to edit the records of the files of your classes and tell what is the role of each one. You will have some time to do it because the rating system will take some time to be developed. If you do not do it before the system is ready and the users start voting, your classes will be marked as if they are NOT BEING MAINTAINED.

When you edit the file records, a new version of the file is uploaded. The site will eventually send notification messages to the current users if you also change the contents of the files. Even when you don't change the files, some browsers may send them with a different line breaking sequence than what was used in the previous file upload and the site will still take that as if the file was indeed changed.

Since many users complain of notifications that are send too frequently to them about updated class files, I have added now an checkbox option to let you tell if the change that was uploaded is important enough to be notified to the users. This option is reset by default. Make sure you keep it that way when you just change the field of the role of the file.

One last thing, some time ago I added an option to the class records to specify which software license it uses. Some users complain to me that they do not want to download a class that does not make the software license clear because they want to know the terms of usage, for instance to know if they can include the class code in commercial applications.

So, please go and edit your class recors to specify a software license. If none of the listed licenses apply, just let me know what license you want to use so I can add it. If you do not do it, I am considering to marking classes with unspecified licenses as NOT BEING MAINTAINED. I hope you understand.

Regards, Manuel Lemos