[Résolu] PHP7 support

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[Andrzej]

Another +1...

Was admittedly a bit disappointed yesterday when I saw the errors... Of all the plugins I use, I would have expected Toolset to have had these resolved long before the actual release of PHP7. Searching through the forum I saw a that this issue was reported as early as August.

Please guys, you've already told me that you won't support HHVM in favour of PHP7, yet two weeks after release there are obvious unfixed incompatibilities.

I'm almost tempted to say that this issue is serious enough that maybe someone needs to explain why this was allowed to happen on a $250 plugin.

[stephen_R3851]

+100 PHP7 needs to be integrated ASAP, not months down the line, i have tested your rival plugins PODS and WCK - Custom Fields and Custom Post Types Creator and they both work fine on php seven and one of them is a free plugin and the other is cheaper than toolset, and both have alot of functionality that toolset has, so whats the deal here? I mean this is a premium suite of plugins, is it not?, I think toolset is great but this is a serious issue for future-proofing, toolset will benefit greatly as i have tested PHP7 on all my websites and it really is over twice as fast! as a new purchaser of toolset i am dissapointed reverting back to a much much slower version of PHP 5.6.

Just to add, I know PHP7 is new but once hosts and people who run servers realize the benefits of using PHP7 in the masses and start making the switch purely for the speed increases, toolset will be in deep water if it has no PHP7 native support. This will happen with PHP7 because hosts didn't feel the jump from PHP 5.4, 5.5 ,5.6 was worth the hassle of upgrading as the benefits where negligible, but once hosts start realizing they can boost performance and speed of their clients websites it will soon become more of a standard than the smaller PHP updates of previous years.

[stephen_R3851]

Please take my comments seriously because i have owned toolset for less than '24 hours!' and the first thing I noticed was that toolset was not compatible with my PHP7 setup, this should concern you because over the next few months of people purchasing toolset that have a server running PHP7, they could easily install the plugins and wonder why they are broken.

As an example: many hosting companys are already integrating PHP7 even siteground

Try PHP 7 on all our servers!

Not many providers offer you the option to work with PHP 7 on a production environment so you may want to give it a try on our servers. The main advantage of PHP 7 for developers is that it is much faster than any of the available PHP 5.x releases

hidden link

See where i am going with this? Its going to be implemented everywhere very fast now people are realizing the speed increases and performance boosts.

[Beda]

I deeply apologize the inconveniences and delay.

The main issue reported by all clients is being addressed in the next version of any of our plugins.

Please acknowledge that as this is common code, we could never be entirely sure that we solved all the combinations until a complete set of releases for Types, Views and CRED has been done.

Our main efforts are in providing this ASAP and without breakage.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

As for now, the hotfix is to delete the offending line containing the break satement in the adodb-time.inc.php file as some of you have already suggested.

I apologize again the delay in this matter.

[Alan Lobo]

Hi Beda,

thanks for the update and I understand the complexity. I'm a little confused on the HotFix. I see in the earlier part of this thread where Nathan removed that line. But he also mentioned that sliders and content templates wouldn't work. Can you confirm that as I am using content templates.

Thanks in advance

[Beda]

According the internal tests of our DEV Team it should work with Toolset if you apply the "fix" suggested (removing the brake statement)

I would, if possible, like to suggest to have a little bit more patience until our DEV presents the updates for all our Plugins.

This way, you don't need to edit the files and can be assured it will work fine with Toolset.

I apologize again the issue.

As for now the "official" fix is this:
https://toolset.com/errata/views-compatibility-issue-with-php-7/

Thank you

[nathanW-4]

Hi,

What's the ETA on this? A hotfix is ok from my perspective BUT as i've mentioned before removing the break statement still leaves widgets and content templates playing up.

Please advise

Thanks

[Beda]

I can not state a exact ETA on this.

I do not have the capabilities to determine on what Toolset Development is focusing, or what the ETA's and hot fixes are.
I have queried again with the DEV Team on the status of this, as per now, the "break" issue is solved with the patch, but I myself found another issue with CRED which I reported and that is under process by now.

If you can describe me a exact step by step workflow to reproduce the issues mentioned by you regarding Content Templates and Views Widgets, I can report them as well.

I know also that in Views Widgets you probably will get the same warnings as for CRED, due to the common Libraries we use.

I can not provide a fix for this, neither am I in the position to state a ETA or priority status, I can assure that our DEV is taking this serious and working on it, but it is out of my capabilities to make promises here.

I requested also a public post on our Blog and eventually a Update Email to all Toolset Users in regard of this process.

I apologize that I can not be of any great help currently.
I am awaiting myself updates to provide then the informations here in the Forum.

Thank you for your patience.

[stephen_R3851]

Hi Beda

Ty for your update

Regarding this information you posted from above:
'I do not have the capabilities to determine on what Toolset Development is focusing, or what the ETA's and hot fixes are'

I realize that you are just a moderator on these forums and not a toolset developer which obviously puts you in a position of explaining blindly to toolset users about its progress, but under the circumstances would it not be decent for an actual dev to come and reassure us all that toolset will infact be working with PHP7 sometime in the near future? Due to the fact PHP7 is fully compatible with wordpress it should be its highest priority and the dev team should not be focusing on any anything else until this is integrated first.

I am stuck in a hard place right now, I purchased toolset not far off 30 days ago after I upgraded my servers to PHP7, yes I can revert back to PHP5.6 and use that, but to be honest with you I REALLY DON'T WANT TO REVERT BACK TO 5.6, why would anyone in their right minds revert back to an older version of PHP after seeing first hand the boost's that PHP7 give when compared to all the previous versions? it is insane to take such a performance hit by having to revert back, especially when toolset was only purchased for my next few projects.

I have sat waiting for nearly 30 days waiting and hoping for a fix before I can even begin to try toolset out and start work on my new projects because I refuse to revert back to 5.6, using a hotfix is not an adequate solution when it is known to cause different compatibility issues that you guys already know about (and no doubt has ones not yet found), then to ask your users to report problems they have using the hotfix is almost using us to test for problems rather than use the toolset as intended without problems, this plugin is a premium plugin and not a beta test that was free to join!

At the moment I am sat here wondering if I have thrown away 150 dollars, yes I did briefly use it on a PHP5.6 server but decided to wait for toolset to be PHP7 compatible.

Before buying toolset I was on the fence and didn't know if I should buy toolset (149 DOLLARS) use Pods (FREE with a good solid dev team behind it) or buy WCK - Custom Fields and Custom Post Types Creator (139 DOLLARS) , Now out of these 3 plugins the only one that is not compatible with PHP7 is toolset, you do the maths? I feel a little let down to say the least, Pods is free and works fine with PHP7, what is that all about?

I chose toolset as I believed it was the right choice to make, I am starting to feel like I should ask for my money back as I am still under the 30 day purchase period (just), I do not really want to have to take this route and ask for my money back, what I really want is a definitive answer that toolset is going to be futureproof if I do revert back to PHP-5.6 and start on my new projects, I do not want to put time into something to find out later down the line toolset lets me down, do you understand my point of view?

It is no help under any circumstances stating that you don't have an ETA for PHP7 compatability, that is just like saying we don't know anything at all. It is also just like saying it could be a day away or 2 years away, this information does not help anyone at any time and is similar to shirking off an answer.

[stephen_R3851]

I know this is going to sound long winded, but I want to ask you guys something from a different perspective in a second post.

Ok, so Toolset is a premium suite of plugins right? well let me ask you this as an example and comparison towards software sales in general.

Lets say a brand new 'A Rated' pc game that was out of beta stages was released and went on sale for 50 dollars, then lets just say that since the release of this 'A Rated' game everyone was gaming just fine on their current operating system windows 10, but everyone knew windows 11 was in the pipeline and suddenly got released early, then everyone rushed out to upgrade to the latest windows 11 because it gave significant performance boosts as an operating system, then all of a sudden all of these people that formatted and installed this shiny/newer and faster operating system that outperformed the last one by a mile went to then install that same 'A rated' pc game only to find that the install crashed and would not install on this brand new and improved version of windows even though every other game worked just fine indicating the game needed patching.

What do you guys think would happen? WOW what a thought HUH!, you guessed it everyone would ring the games company up or post in their forums demanding a patch or would be running back to the shops to swap or get a refund, so seeing as this is an 'A rated' title and the developers didn't expect this and they wanted to maintain sales and good reputation, they would drop absolutely everything and make sure that patch surfaced within a matter of weeks, do I really need to state why this would happen? What the games company would not do under any circumstances would expect everyone on their brand new operating systems or new computers expect its customers to downgrade to an earlier version while they fixed it. Nor would they release a semi working fix that didn't function as intended and expect users to sort of test it as if in beta again, this would just lead to more complaints.

Do you get where I am coming from? lets not forget that even when comparing this situation that toolset costs nearly FOUR TIMES the amount of this 'A rated' game after we have paid VAT. Now that's food for thought for your developers.

Remember to survive in this ever increasing vast world of plugins and software, to be in the game you have to always be ahead of the GAME!

[Beda]

I appreciate your Inputs and I apologize this mess.

I can not say it with other words.

I want just to answer to a few points below that @stephen_R3851posted

1. But under the circumstances would it not be decent for an actual dev to come and reassure us all that toolset will infact be working with PHP7 sometime in the near future?

Yes, I 100% agree and I queried Views Lead DEV to kindly put in his word(s) in this thread.
This will happen as soon he is online today.

And I assure, Toolset WILL work with PHP7 but as I stated, I am not in at the position to say when, although the next releases should include this, I can by my best will not state a ETA.

2. Why would anyone in their right minds revert back to an older version of PHP after seeing first hand the boost's that PHP7 give when compared to all the previous versions?

You are right.
Please also consider that we are facing a double front here.
Many (too many) Host Providers are running on (compared to PHP7) very old PHP versions.
PHP7 comes with new nice features. But same time we have to keep compatibility for the old PHP (yes, there are many under even PHP 5.6)
We can often not use the new features due to that.

I hope you understand the majority of current public server providers have not updated PHP to any version close to PHP7
Of course this does not excuse a delay in compatibility, it is although a insight in the problems a DEV faces when it comes to compatibility with PHP7 AND old versions.

3. What I really want is a definitive answer that toolset is going to be futureproof if I do revert back to PHP-5.6 and start on my new projects, I do not want to put time into something to find out later down the line toolset lets me down, do you understand my point of view?

Yes, it will. This much I can state with 100% security.
More on ETA, why's and how's will be from Views Lead DEV Juan soon.

Regarding the comparison with the A Rated Game and new Windows versions, I fully understand your concern.
I understand your points, and I assure everybody at OnTheGoSystems is on the same side.
We don't want to neglect this compatibility, our main goal is to deliver a product that works.

Juan will be in touch with you today here in the Forum.

I honestly apologize all this.

Thank you for your patience and comprehension.

[stephen_R3851]

No worries Beda and ty for your quick response,

I do not in any way want to come across to you guys as ignorant or argumentative, I am just a little bit disappointed that is all, I am dying to get stuck into learning how to use toolset for my specific needs, but as you can imagine I am just stuck here battling with myself about dedicating my time and efforts into my next projects using toolset to then be disappointed if toolset did not deliver for future-proofing.

I have very specific ideas and needs that I want to try to integrate into my next builds so it will most likely mean dedicating a lot of time and effort into them and learning the most advanced ways of integrating views and types together and just wanted to know if it was worth putting the effort into it before I even start, no doubt I will need a little help off you guys down the line and have a few questions in the support section as I get deeper into my new projects using types and views and cred for the first time.

This is why I was in a dilemma when choosing the right plugin for the job without having to write the template files from scratch and speed up workflow, I did quite a bit of research with the three plugins that I mentioned above and decided that toolset seemed to fit the bill for my needs. I am thinking of adding Easy Digital Downloads into one of my websites using toolset and views and cred into a custom post type and read somewhere that toolset was fully compatible with EDD so it kind of swung me towards purchasing.

The big concern for me when building websites is always speed, speed, speed, the more speed I can get out of my websites the better I feel when ive finished the build, this is why I have such a big interest with PHP7, I always spend lots of time tweaking for speed such as combining every single JS script and CSS stylesheets I can in my websites without breaking things via trial and error as well as minify and compression of HTML and Gzip everything lol, so as you can tell speed and performance when I build websites is most important to me, Its great to have an amazing looking website but its no good having that great looking website if its slow and sluggish. So the speed improvements PHP7 and its inbuilt Opcache gave me on top impressed me so much that I was instantly sold.

I look forward to hearing the update from the DEV team about PHP7 integration as I am sure lots of other toolset users will be too.

Thx again for your quick response 🙂

[Juan Supporter Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)]

Hi everyone

This is Juan, lead Views developer. Sorry for the long time without a dev answer here. I do agree with Beda about the need of an explanation: you deserve it and it is time it arrives. I want to personaly apologize for any inconvenience we might be causing you with our delay.

First, let's stress the problems. We are aware of two major problems related to php7 compatibility. Both of them belong to third party libraries included within Toolset: a library to extend date management beyond the php native limitations, and a validation library. One of those issues is addressed in the errata we posted for Views. Those two libraries are included in a chunk of code that is shipped with almost all Toolset plugins, so we need to update them all to be sure the fix is being completely applied. Let me be clear here: we are aware of those two issues, they are fixed and ready for a release.

Second, I have heard about issues with Views related to Content Templates and sliders. I believe those issues are caused by one and the same problem, and I am already working on it. It should not be a big deal to solve anyway, but it needs some little time.

Now, a word about updates. I want to also stress that all Toolset plugins, and that includes Types, Views, CRED and Layouts, are headed for a release, including the fix for the known two issues on our common code for those third party libraries. But they need to go through a series of tests before we can ship them. They passed development tests, and are on our Quality Assurance queue, one at a time. We want to release as soon as posible, but we can not skip internat tests - that would be the perfect path to broken or incomplete releases.

We know we live in a competitive world here, and that you clients pay for a service. Having well tested plugins is part of the service. I am truly sorry if this means that they need time to be completely ready, but I really hope and think this is the right way to go.

I know an errata might not be enough, but I am going to push for an update on it right now, so it covers how to apply the patch for the two known issues in our shard code for all the Toolset plugins, not just for Views.

Hope this helps to clarify things about this subject. Please feel free to comment or ask whatever you want, I am open to any question you might have.

Regards

[nathanW-4]

Hi Juan,

Thanks for the response, appreciate the work of you and your team in resolving this matter. Great to hear that you have fixed some of the issues but, understandably they require further testing before release. Could you please release a beta version that some early adopters can try? If there are further errors we can assist by reporting them to you. Failing that could you please email me some files with a hotfix for the content templates?

The main site we are building that uses views suffers greatly when it comes to speed and the improvements in PHP7 are just too good to pass up, so we want to move to PHP7 as soon as possible.

Thanks

[Juan Supporter Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+02:00)]

Hi Nathan

We have a basic hotfix in the errata page we created for this issue, along with instructions on how to implement it on Types, Views and CRED:
https://toolset.com/errata/views-compatibility-issue-with-php-7/

In addition, Views needs some extra changes, related mainly to Content Templates, which will need another patch that I am crafting and updating to that same errata page - I will keep on updating here as the patch evolves and new fixes are added to it.

About beta releases, I have good news. CRED is almost finishing its QA tests, so it will be released quite soon. Types will go next, and then Views. On the meantime, as I said, I will keep on mantaining the growing hotfix files and instructions on the errata page, and update here whenever a change is made.

Note that the errata page also states which version the patches need to be applied against. This is quite important 🙂

After applying the patches, any other issue should be reported in a separated ticket (you can link it here too if you want) for fast handling.

Regards.