MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



From: Ray Yates
>=20
> As I understand it, Empress5 and Merchant5 not OpenUI compatible "by
> design". That is Miva eliminated from Merchamt5 the feature=20
> that allowed for alternate user interfaces,

That is true.

> in effect, killing the ability of any 3rd party developer from
> substantially enhancing the interface the way OpenUI did.

That's not the case. You can extensively modify the look and
feel of Merchant 5 out of the box via edits to the "Pages"
and "Items" and you can even define your own screen codes
and the templates that make them look the way you want. Here
are some URL's about this:

<A HREF ="http://www.miva.com/docs/merc_5.x_help/page.html">http://www.miva.com/docs/merc_5.x_help/page.html</A>
<A HREF ="http://www.miva.com/docs/merc_5.x_help/template-lang.html">http://www.miva.com/docs/merc_5.x_help/template-lang.html</A>
<A HREF ="http://www.miva.com/docs/merc_5.x_help/tmpb.html">http://www.miva.com/docs/merc_5.x_help/tmpb.html</A>

The largest problem right now is the lack of documentation for
the templates and the lack of documentation developers need
to make things look the way they want.

You can find quite a few modules for Merchant 5 at:
<A HREF ="http://www.emporiumplus.com/tk3/v3/doc.htm">http://www.emporiumplus.com/tk3/v3/doc.htm</A>
Bill has many available mods that include mods that
do modification to the look and feel.

David

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



Hang on - I was told when I asked about Miva Mia MVM5 that it WOULD work
with older compiled versions of Miva Merchant - granted that didn't mean
version with OUI in it. But there in lies the rub - if Miva says MVM5 is
backwards compatible then there WILL be hosts that upgrade to it. Not
every host subscribes to this list. Not every Miva Merchant user
subscribes to this list - they usually wind up here after they find out
they have to pay for support when something has broken on their store.


--
Webs Your Way
www.websyourway.com


> Two things to consider here:
>

> no reason to believe that Miva will ever make a downwards compatible
> version
> of the VM just so that older stores can continue to use OUI. They'll only
> release a new version that has that effect if it turns out to be needed to

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



I think a lot of us are in that same position. Hopefully, developers will
soon fill in the gap to replace what was lost from OUI in MM5 while still
taking advantage of MM5's improvements.

In the meantime, I'm seriously looking at all cart alternatives as well.

Merchant does have the advantage of the 3rd party developer community but
going to compiled code made changes much more difficult for the average
end-user and if Miva continues to buy up portions of that 3rd party
community that advantage will soon disappear.

Dan
Impulse Creations

For low priced back issue comics and the very best in service visit us at
www.impulsecreations.net and be sure to look for information on our
discounted subscription service with free bags and free shipping!

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Ray Yates
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 11:39 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [mru] MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI

As I understand it, Empress5 and Merchant5 not OpenUI compatible "by
design". That is Miva eliminated from Merchamt5 the feature that allowed for
alternate user interfaces, in effect, killing the ability of any 3rd party
developer from substantially enhancing the interface the way OpenUI did.
After browsing through the new admin demo there were so many
"missing" features that had become essential to me, as to render the product
un-usable for future stores I plan to developed.

My host is not upgrading or offering to upgrade any existing stores at all
claiming a lack of backward compatibility. They are selling new server
packages with Merchant5, installed and are allowing users a 1 month grace
period, for users willing to "upgrade/migrate", their own stores. When I
asked how many customers were doing that they guy chuckled and said "I can't
really say". I'm not sure what that meant.

Considering my customizations took more than a year to put into place, I see
NO chance that my new store will ever be using Merchant5 at all. I'm
currently looking for something using something less proprietary than
MivaScript (like PHP) as the core technology.

Ray Yates
<A HREF ="http://www.flyinghands.com">http://www.flyinghands.com</A>

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



No personal offense is intended Dan -- but you are blaming the victim.

I am sorry, but saying "most ... partners want Darren and OUI gone." is
completely wrong, woefully misleading to those without experience in the
history of this application, and simply unfair at its base.

The reality is that almost -all- Partners have directly benefited from the
Darren Ehlers and his exhaustive work on the OpenUI. The overall
contribution made by Darren to the Miva Merchant community is
inestimatable. I can count on one hand the number of new features added to
Miva Merchant in the almost 10 years -- which were not first designed by
Darren, coded by Darren, and implemented by Darren; before being subsumed
by Miva Corp and included into their products. Zero acknowledgement was
given as to the features' true creator, nor support, nor even a passing
"thank you". It started with his (and others of extreme talent) work via
the company 'Starbase21' and continued until the day that Darren had
enough. That he tolerated being treated like an unwelcome cousin all those
years was testament to his professionalism and maturity; no matter what
sour grapes a small minority attempted to create.

The thousands of Miva Merchant stores which were enabled by the OpenUI is
testament to its quality and value. There was NOTHING preventing any
developer from writing their modules or Miva Merchant add-ons to be fully
compliant with the Miva Merchant API; so much as it was/is. Many more of
them tangibly benefitted from his work.

To say that Miva Corp Partners wanted Darren 'out of the picture' is simply
incorrect and misleading.

Jonathan
Driftwood Network Services









At 11:23 AM 5/19/2005, mivalist wrote:
>2. Without getting into whether or not actions on either side are justified,
>Miva and most (or at least the most vocal) partners want Darren and OUI
>gone. Between that and Miva's continued policy of ignoring end-users there's
>no reason to believe that Miva will ever make a downwards compatible version
>of the VM just so that older stores can continue to use OUI. They'll only
>release a new version that has that effect if it turns out to be needed to
>fix other issues as well. I seriously doubt that they made this change
>simply to encourage people to drop OUI and upgrade to Merchant 5 but having
>that effect is certainly a plus for Miva which again makes them disinclined
>to change it.
>
>Dan
>Impulse Creations

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



Vic,

ok, but that still doesn't solve the issue. It just means that in 180
days all the 4.x openui stores are going to break (If I wait that long).

The shared systems we have in place utilize a central storage of mivavm,
its binaries, and libraries. Because of the change in extensions, I am
happily able to run both the 3.x and 4.x miva binaries and conf files
without any problems.

But now I'm in a place where I can't update to mivavm 5 because it will
break all of the 4.x stores that use openui...

This puts hosts in a bad position. (or maybe I should say me, cause not
everyone is set up that way)...

I'll either have to do the .mv5 thing, or come up with a funky way of
running mivavm 4.x on some accounts...

t


WolfPaw Computers - Miva List wrote:

>Tim, the contract specifies you must run the 'latest' version. If that were
>the case, the majority of partners would be in breach of contract.
>
>It specifies you must make the most recent version available within 180 days
>of release.
>
>Vic Vega
>WolfPaw Computers
>Miva Merchant Hosting Specialists
>"Put the power of the pack to work for you!"(sm)
>Miva Standard Hosting Partner - OpenUI Premier Partner
>FREE MerchantHowTo.com Basic Tutorial Subscription with each hosting
>account! A $49 value!
>http://tinyurl.com/48nmu
>Ph: (866) WOLFPAW
>www.wpcomp.com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email protected]
>[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tim Traver
>Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 11:11 AM
>Cc: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: [mru] MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI
>
>ok all, here's the real problem...
>
>By our hosting contracts, we are not able to sell anything but the latest
>Miva Merchant version. This means that we HAVE to run mivavm 5.
>But now all of your users that have tokens on in their openUI stores are
>broken. And there's no way for us to run mivavm 4.x.
>
>unless....
>
>I think miva should have released the new mivavm and Merchant utilizing a
>new extension to solve these issues. They could have used something like
>".mv5" or something. That way, anything with ".mv" is running 3.9, anything
>with ".mvc" is running 4.x and ".mv5" is running 5.x...
>
>That would certainly help this situation. I think Miva just assumed that
>everything would be completely backwards compatible...
>
>I think I might do that anyways...
>
>Tim.
>
>

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



Well... that backwards compatibility is to a bug in the previous VM,
allowing negative or missing array indexes. OpenUI uses the bug as a
feature, but in the current VM that bug was fixed, thereby breaking
OpenUI's exploit of a bug in the system. Not Miva's fault for making
their system work the way it was intended, tough luck for OpenUI by
using an "undocumented feature" in a commercially designed script.

Chuck Lasker - DoublePlus wrote:
> Wonder if Darren will fix what? OpenUI is designed to work with Empresa 4x
> versions. 5x not being backwards compatible is not an OpenUI problem. Now,
> maybe Darren will update OpenUI to accomodate weaknesses in Empresa 5x, I
> don't know, but it's certainly not a "fix."
>
> Chuck
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: [email protected]
>>[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
>>Sebenza Lists
>>Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 11:14 PM
>>To: William Weiland
>>Cc: [email protected]
>>Subject: Re: [mru] MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI
>>
>>Yep... Just another fun task to overcome. I wonder if Darren
>>will fix this.
>>
>>Scott
>>SEBENZA.COM
>>Miva Development
>>
>>Web: <A HREF ="http://www.sebenza.com">http://www.sebenza.com</A>
>><A HREF ="http://www.mvcool.com/SS - miva modules">http://www.mvcool.com/SS - miva modules</A>
>>
>>
>>
>>William Weiland wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Sebenza Lists wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Thanks Bill.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>You are welcome. It must have something to do with a token
>>
>>array and a
>>
>>>0 or blank value in the index. You could get away with it
>>
>>in 4.x; but
>>
>>>5.x revealed the anomaly and left legacy code vulnerable.
>>>
>>>It took me an hour and completely uninstalling about 30
>>
>>modules in our
>>
>>>test store until I found it was not module related at all.
>>
>>Turned off
>>
>>>the tokens and it worked. By then there was on one token left in the
>>>whole store so it wasn't quite as ugly as Jason's example.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Scott
>>>>SEBENZA.COM
>>>>Miva Development
>>>>
>>>>Web: <A HREF ="http://www.sebenza.com">http://www.sebenza.com</A>
>>>><A HREF ="http://www.mvcool.com/SS - miva modules">http://www.mvcool.com/SS - miva modules</A>
>>>>
>>>>William Weiland wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Sebenza Lists wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Anyone have a store running smoothly on MivaVM
>>>> 5.02 with OpenUI? I just
>>>> upgraded a site and now get the following error
>>>> from OpenUI.
>>>>
>>>> Fatal error in ouisub.mvc @ [00000496:0000002a]:
>>>> Line 5000: Array index
>>>> must be positive integer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In the openui admin disable tokens. That may get you
>>>> running again. It
>>>> won't be pretty, but it should work.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



Ray,

that would only be new installations...

t

Ray Yates wrote:

>Vic Vega said >... the contract specifies you must run the 'latest'
>version...
>
>Does that mean every installation, or just "new" installations by the host.
>
>Ray Yates
><A HREF ="http://www.flyinghands.com">http://www.flyinghands.com</A>
>
>
>

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



Vic Vega said >... the contract specifies you must run the 'latest'
version...

Does that mean every installation, or just "new" installations by the host.

Ray Yates
<A HREF ="http://www.flyinghands.com">http://www.flyinghands.com</A>

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



Or you could say touch luck to tens of thousands of OpenUI end-users.

Jason


> Well... that backwards compatibility is to a bug in the previous VM,
> allowing negative or missing array indexes. OpenUI uses the bug as a
> feature, but in the current VM that bug was fixed, thereby breaking
> OpenUI's exploit of a bug in the system. Not Miva's fault for making
> their system work the way it was intended, tough luck for OpenUI by
> using an "undocumented feature" in a commercially designed script.
>
> Chuck Lasker - DoublePlus wrote:
> > Wonder if Darren will fix what? OpenUI is designed to work with Empresa
4x
> > versions. 5x not being backwards compatible is not an OpenUI problem.
Now,
> > maybe Darren will update OpenUI to accomodate weaknesses in Empresa 5x,
I
> > don't know, but it's certainly not a "fix."
> >
> > Chuck
> >
> >
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: [email protected]
> >>[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> >>Sebenza Lists
> >>Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 11:14 PM
> >>To: William Weiland
> >>Cc: [email protected]
> >>Subject: Re: [mru] MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI
> >>
> >>Yep... Just another fun task to overcome. I wonder if Darren
> >>will fix this.
> >>
> >>Scott
> >>SEBENZA.COM
> >>Miva Development
> >>
> >>Web: <A HREF ="http://www.sebenza.com">http://www.sebenza.com</A>
> >><A HREF ="http://www.mvcool.com/SS - miva modules">http://www.mvcool.com/SS - miva modules</A>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>William Weiland wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Sebenza Lists wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Thanks Bill.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>You are welcome. It must have something to do with a token
> >>
> >>array and a
> >>
> >>>0 or blank value in the index. You could get away with it
> >>
> >>in 4.x; but
> >>
> >>>5.x revealed the anomaly and left legacy code vulnerable.
> >>>
> >>>It took me an hour and completely uninstalling about 30
> >>
> >>modules in our
> >>
> >>>test store until I found it was not module related at all.
> >>
> >>Turned off
> >>
> >>>the tokens and it worked. By then there was on one token left in the
> >>>whole store so it wasn't quite as ugly as Jason's example.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Scott
> >>>>SEBENZA.COM
> >>>>Miva Development
> >>>>
> >>>>Web: <A HREF ="http://www.sebenza.com">http://www.sebenza.com</A>
> >>>><A HREF ="http://www.mvcool.com/SS - miva modules">http://www.mvcool.com/SS - miva modules</A>
> >>>>
> >>>>William Weiland wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Sebenza Lists wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Anyone have a store running smoothly on MivaVM
> >>>> 5.02 with OpenUI? I just
> >>>> upgraded a site and now get the following error
> >>>> from OpenUI.
> >>>>
> >>>> Fatal error in ouisub.mvc @ [00000496:0000002a]:
> >>>> Line 5000: Array index
> >>>> must be positive integer
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> In the openui admin disable tokens. That may get you
> >>>> running again. It
> >>>> won't be pretty, but it should work.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



>>tough luck for OpenUI by using an "undocumented feature" in a
commercially designed script.

Should that be tough luck to any store owner who relies on OUI? Or tough
luck any developer/designer/integrator who recommended the use of OUI to
their clients? Do you think your clients are going to want to pay you to
redo all the work that used OUI and is now broken?

--
Webs Your Way
www.websyourway.com

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



And that's not true either. Saying you "must make it available" does not
translate it to "You must upgrade the VM to 5 for all 4 stores."

Pamela
Real Solutions for Miva Merchant
The Official Guide to Miva Merchant
<A HREF ="http://www.designextend.com/DE">http://www.designextend.com/DE</A>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tim Traver
> Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 1:06 PM
> To: WolfPaw Computers - Miva List
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [mru] MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI
>
>
> Vic,
>
> ok, but that still doesn't solve the issue. It just means that in 180
> days all the 4.x openui stores are going to break (If I wait
> that long).
>
> The shared systems we have in place utilize a central storage
> of mivavm,
> its binaries, and libraries. Because of the change in
> extensions, I am
> happily able to run both the 3.x and 4.x miva binaries and conf files
> without any problems.
>
> But now I'm in a place where I can't update to mivavm 5
> because it will
> break all of the 4.x stores that use openui...
>
> This puts hosts in a bad position. (or maybe I should say me,
> cause not
> everyone is set up that way)...
>
> I'll either have to do the .mv5 thing, or come up with a funky way of
> running mivavm 4.x on some accounts...
>
> t
>
>
> WolfPaw Computers - Miva List wrote:
>
> >Tim, the contract specifies you must run the 'latest'
> version. If that
> >were the case, the majority of partners would be in breach
> of contract.
> >
> >It specifies you must make the most recent version available
> within 180
> >days of release.
> >
> >Vic Vega
> >WolfPaw Computers
> >Miva Merchant Hosting Specialists
> >"Put the power of the pack to work for you!"(sm)
> >Miva Standard Hosting Partner - OpenUI Premier Partner
> >FREE MerchantHowTo.com Basic Tutorial Subscription with each hosting
> >account! A $49 value!
> >http://tinyurl.com/48nmu
> >Ph: (866) WOLFPAW
> >www.wpcomp.com
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: [email protected]
> >[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> Tim Traver
> >Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 11:11 AM
> >Cc: [email protected]
> >Subject: Re: [mru] MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI
> >
> >ok all, here's the real problem...
> >
> >By our hosting contracts, we are not able to sell anything but the
> >latest Miva Merchant version. This means that we HAVE to run
> mivavm 5.
> >But now all of your users that have tokens on in their openUI stores
> >are broken. And there's no way for us to run mivavm 4.x.
> >
> >unless....
> >
> >I think miva should have released the new mivavm and
> Merchant utilizing
> >a new extension to solve these issues. They could have used
> something
> >like ".mv5" or something. That way, anything with ".mv" is
> running 3.9,
> >anything with ".mvc" is running 4.x and ".mv5" is running 5.x...
> >
> >That would certainly help this situation. I think Miva just assumed
> >that everything would be completely backwards compatible...
> >
> >I think I might do that anyways...
> >
> >Tim.
> >
> >

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



Can MVM 5.X co-exist with MVM 4.X like MVM 4.X can co-exist with Empresa 3.X?

--
Webs Your Way
www.websyourway.com


> We have 5.xVM installed on a couple servers, but are not installing it on
> servers with 4.x stores. We've been seeing little 'gotchas' like this
> popping up since 5.00VM was released, and I will not compromise any of my
> customers existing stores like that.
>
> Vic Vega
> WolfPaw Computers
> Miva Merchant Hosting Specialists
> "Put the power of the pack to work for you!"(sm)
> Miva Standard Hosting Partner - OpenUI Premier Partner
> FREE MerchantHowTo.com Basic Tutorial Subscription with each hosting
> account! A $49 value!
> http://tinyurl.com/48nmu
> Ph: (866) WOLFPAW
> www.wpcomp.com
>
>

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



Not on the same site unless you rename the files to not use .mvc
for one of the versions.

David=20

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]=20
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of=20
> Miva Lists - Webs Your Way
> Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 1:43 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: [mru] MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI
>=20
> Can MVM 5.X co-exist with MVM 4.X like MVM 4.X can co-exist=20
> with Empresa 3.X?
>=20
> --=20
> Webs Your Way
> www.websyourway.com
>=20
>=20
> > We have 5.xVM installed on a couple servers, but are not=20
> installing it on
> > servers with 4.x stores. We've been seeing little=20
> 'gotchas' like this
> > popping up since 5.00VM was released, and I will not=20
> compromise any of my
> > customers existing stores like that.
> >
> > Vic Vega
> > WolfPaw Computers
> > Miva Merchant Hosting Specialists
> > "Put the power of the pack to work for you!"(sm)
> > Miva Standard Hosting Partner - OpenUI Premier Partner
> > FREE MerchantHowTo.com Basic Tutorial Subscription with each hosting
> > account! A $49 value!
> > http://tinyurl.com/48nmu
> > Ph: (866) WOLFPAW
> > www.wpcomp.com
> >
> >
>=20
>=20
>=20
>=20
>=20

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



WolfPaw Computers - Miva List wrote:

>No, it states you must have it available...doesnt say you have to upgrade
>all your servers.
>
>We have 5.xVM installed on a couple servers, but are not installing it on
>servers with 4.x stores. We've been seeing little 'gotchas' like this
>popping up since 5.00VM was released, and I will not compromise any of my
>customers existing stores like that.
>
>Vic Vega
>WolfPaw Computers
>Miva Merchant Hosting Specialists
>"Put the power of the pack to work for you!"(sm)
>Miva Standard Hosting Partner - OpenUI Premier Partner
>FREE MerchantHowTo.com Basic Tutorial Subscription with each hosting
>account! A $49 value!
>http://tinyurl.com/48nmu
>Ph: (866) WOLFPAW
>www.wpcomp.com
>
>
>
ok, you guys are bashing me over the head with the verbage of the
contract. I understand the contract. I understand that you don't HAVE to
install Merchant 5 or mivavm 5 on ALL of your machines. I get it. got
it. really.

The issue that I'm bringing up is that there isn't a nice way to have
these versions coexist on the same machine (unless you put it in
everyone's cgi, with its own conf files, or http conf ENV's).

I guess this just sounds like its my problem.

t

MivaVM 5.02 and OpenUI



>> Should that be tough luck to any store owner who relies on OUI? Or tough
luck any developer/designer/integrator who recommended the use of OUI to
their clients? <<

Yep. =20

>> Miva might have decided it's not up to them to make OUI sites work
with VM5, too, and screw the tens of thousands of OUI site owners,
which is fine. <<

It would make a good agressive marketing tactic to force upgrades down
our throats, else lots of older stores may sit there indefinitely
generating no revenue for Miva, or their partners.