[META] Rules 8.x Roadmap

I've moved the code to the 3.x branch - so we can move issues to that as well now. Development will happen on Github for now, i.e. https://github.com/fago/rules.

Added "#d8rules meeting notes" google docs link to summary.

Removed duplicate issue link #2418165: [META] Rules condition and action plugin access

Some updates.

Update docs address.

Can we hope for a stable Rules release anytime soon? I think it's the biggest missing module for D8.

I think Rules needs to have more visibility about this funding issue. Community loves this module and I'm sure they would be willing to donate and push this forward. Would be nice to have some marketing effort on milestone 3 funding - Twitter, Drupalfund.us, even Kickstarter could be option I guess (or any other popular funding platform).

I mean https://www.drupalfund.us/project/d8rules-support-rules-module-drupal-8 page has pretty old info and it be good to just create as new project for milestone 3. This should get the ball rolling.

Let's make this happen, Rules rulez :)

+1

I think Rules needs to have more visibility about this funding issue.

I wasn't even aware that it was an issue. The webpage https://www.drupalfund.us/project/d8rules-support-rules-module-drupal-8 states:

106 % Funded [...] Successfully funded

I'm happy to donate and market the need for funding, but that web page needs to be updated or a new one at another service needs to be created. And if the funding should continue to go through drupalfund.us they really, really need to update their certificate.

Maybe this discussion needs it's own issue?

http://d8rules.org/ seems more up to date, not https://www.drupalfund.us/project/d8rules-support-rules-module-drupal-8

Come on guys. Create another funding campaign and let's be done with it. It's such a pity that this module is abandoned.

Been scouring d8rules site and other resources to find the latest info.

Would someone involved in the project be kind enough to clarify its status as it *looks* like there are a few milestones left to achieve (looking from the outside with limited knowledge).

Kind regards

It looks like Rules-8.x has a small but significant estimated userbase (compared to 7.x), 33% (300k / 900k) vs 0.03% (4k/160k). So has it stalled on UI only? See also #2913095: Business Rules module overlap discussion for discussion about and link to a highly-related module.

Thank you dasjo for giving us a comprehensive update.

What about starting a new funding campaign and getting it into drupal newsletter dasjo?

I can't believe the community would not bet behind (financially) this project being completed and you getting a drupal dev to help complete the 3rd milestone.

Any chance of having the next meeting later in the day? I'm at UTC-8, so that's 06:30 in the morning where I live. Way too early for me. Although if you all are morning people and want to reschedule for 0630 UTC that's fine by me.

Awesome, thanks! See you then.

Hi all, nice to know there are such meetings, I will not be able to attend this one but on the next one it'll be good to raise the subject of Rules-VBO compatibility for executing action sets so I'll be there if nothing unexpected happens. VBO issue: #2931170: Allow executing "action set" Rules components.

HNY :)

Live from drupalcamp.ruhr...

you really need to make it easy for people to chip in. giving just some oversea bank account at d8rules.org is hardly the way. its a lot of work to go to local bank and filling deposit form to oversea company is quite a hassle. the bank ask for the invoice or bill, correct address and everything. please provide some easy donation interface like paypal or credit card payment system, please.

even the link to dupalfund.us at d8rules.org is broken and outdated.

another suggestion - provide a smaller donation package below 650usd for individuals to contribute. like 100usd or 200usd. this way people with smaller budget can also contribute financially

sure thing

Why is Global site variable not in the list? [site:current-path] actions not planned no more for D8?

good news. TR is requesting to be co-maintainer. https://www.drupal.org/project/rules/issues/2986745

😍!

>Bi-weekly calls 4pm CET next one 20th

Unfortunately, I get sick so I want make it tomorrow. I'd suggest to call next week instead!

Any chance of a new alpha release soon?

Yes, hopefully within a week. I want to get some of the needs review issues completed first. But the -dev release is always going to be the best choice IMO while we're still in alpha.

@TR related to #144 and #145 I would like to ask, if there any news about the new alpha. Best regards

@dercheffe I haven't had time to work on it recently, but it's still near the top of my to-do list. Until then, you can use the -dev and plan to update to the alpha when it comes out - there won't be any API-breaking changes between the current -dev and the -alpha5 release.

It doesn't appear this issue has been updated in a couple years, though the module has apparently progressed in that time. With the coming EOL of Drupal 8 it would be great to have at least a beta release which uses the new semantic versioning and explicitly supporting D9. Are all the things listed here still blockers to that?

I also note that the module's project page says, "Rules still faces an existential threat until https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/3126747 is fixed. If you want to ensure the future of Rules in Drupal 9 and beyond, please participate in that issue." It looks as though that issue has been resolved in core 9.1+. Given that, should the warning text be updated or removed? Between it and the lack of an explicit D9 release version, clients have told me a few times now that Rules is not compatible with D9.

@barrett: The issue #3126747: ContextDefinition::create() can no longer be used with an entitytype-specific datatype (like entity:user) got committed about a month ago. So, Rules is saved.

As the work on this issue was not completed before the end of Drupal 8, can we proceed with tagging a stable release for Drupal 9? What are the blockers that might prevent us from creating that tag?

I became a co-maintainer, and the only active maintainer, about 4 years ago. As you can tell, I don't use this issue to track progress on Rules. I have left it open because there is some very valuable big-picture type information, but as far as day-to-day work it isn't useful to me.

To see the issues that are IMO required for a stable release, look at the "beta blocker" tag. There are only a few of them, but some are blocked by problems with core, and others are blocked because of lack of people helping out - there is only so much I can do by myself on a part-time, volunteer basis unrelated to my day job.

As the work on this issue was not completed before the end of Drupal 8, can we proceed with tagging a stable release for Drupal 9? What are the blockers that might prevent us from creating that tag?

The core version doesn't really matter. Once all the issues marked "beta blocker" are fixed, we will move to beta. A few months after that, if there are no significant problems, we'll have a fixed-point release.

We will not be moving to semantic versioning until after a fixed-point release, as there is absolutely no reason and no need to create a new major version release.

The most important factor in a stable release is to provide the ability to upgrade from the D7 release (used by >175,000 sites) to the current release, whether that's D8 or D9 or D10. That means providing substantially all the features that were available in D7, so that a site may be re-created in D8/D9/D10. Making a "stable" release indicates that those D7 sites can move their sites to D8+. That's not true for Rules yet, because of some unported functionality. If there is missing functionality, then making a "stable" release will only cause problems for sites that want to upgrade. Leaving this as an alpha or beta indicates that if you want to upgrade, there are things that you will have to deal with - it's not going to be seamless. That is an honest and accurate statement, whereas marking this as "stable" is just misleading and inaccurate. A lot of projects don't seem to care about that - they make stable releases without regard to functionality or upgrade path. I'm not going to do that just because everyone else does.

Rules is already highly "stable" in the normal sense of the word, and strongly supported. Everything that is already ported is tested and rock solid. The only real thing missing is parts of the UI, but if you just want to use Rules programmatically it has been finished for years.

Look at most other projects - how many of them have extensive test cases for D8/D9/D10? Not many. How many of them can actually prove they work in D8/D9/D10? Not many. How many have working and tested upgrade paths between each release, alpha or beta or stable? Not many. How many have an ever *decreasing* list of bugs and issues? Not many. Rules is the exception here, and I will gladly compare it to any other module in these terms. There are only a few modules I know of that are doing a better job, and those all have better support from the community.

Anyone who wants to see a "stable" release of Rules is welcome to help out in the issue queue by answering support questions, creating examples, writing documentation, reviewing patches, contributing patches, etc. Every little bit means there is one less thing I have to do by myself, which means I have more time to work on the blocking issues. But how many are doing this? Not many. (Just answering this question, for instance, means I'm not working on anything else for a half hour ...)

Likewise, there is a whole ecosystem of Rules-related modules which many D7 rely on that need support and work to get them over the massively disruptive and destructive D7->D8 transition; modules like Flag and Mime Mail and Fivestar and Userpoints, which were building blocks of D7 sites but have not completed the jump to D8. I am doing my best trying to push all of these along, since Rules is far more useful when integrated with other modules, but it seems like the community as a whole has ceased giving and is more interested in just taking.

I see. The advantage of a stable release is that thousands of websites will get security coverage, and you'll have support from the security team. We can continue to work on features and bugs enjoying the benefits of better security coverage.

As an aside - drupal.org is still on Drupal 7. It hasn't moved to Drupal 8 or Drupal 9 yet because a lot of the modules it uses are still stuck on D7. The whole D7->D8+ transition is a big problem; I can't solve all the problems, but I'm trying to make it so Rules and the Rules ecosystem are not blockers for those hundreds of thousands of sites that are still on D7.

Blockers are https://www.drupal.org/project/issues/rules?text=blocker&status=Open I guess.

FWIW people visit this page and see no progress. It may be better to close this one and start a new issue 'Beta blockers" with the issues as child then fingers crossed for the new troops

There's a way to make links that will display count like in issue summary #3213895: [META] Remove deprecated classes, methods, procedural functions and code paths outside of deprecated modules on the Drupal 10 branch

Attempt to have a link form previous comment Open blockers

You need to search for issues that are tagged with 'beta blocker' not just search for that text. Here are the Beta Blocker issues. I have added this to the issue summary

Fixed the broken links in issue summary

FWIW people visit this page and see no progress. It may be better to close this one and start a new issue 'Beta blockers" with the issues as child then fingers crossed for the new troops

I rather had feedback on this :-/

One of the issues is 5 years old. We can tag a stable release in 5 minutes of work, and it's not tied in any way to a list issues listed. The whole alpha/beta/rc/stable ship sailed 5 years ago. We just need to correct our release tags on the next release, and move forward.

The guidelines for a stable release are:

Does the module install?
Do people find it useful for a problem on their website?
Does the module completely break someone's website making it unusable?

If the module installs, solves a problem, and doesn't completely break sites it's installed on, it's safe to tag a stable release which should come within a few weeks of creating a first release on Drupal.org. Obviously folks are busy with paid work and life, so releases may take a long time, but after folks have had a few weeks to test a alpha/beta/rc release, stable is the way to go.

Obviously, if I've misunderstood the state that Rules is in, and the maintainers do not recommend that people install it at all, then the responsible thing to do may be to remove the release from Drupal.org until we have the resources to create a release that functions on people's sites. I used it in D8 3 or 4 years ago, and it seemed great to me then, but it could be totally broken in D9. As the D7 end of life gets closer, Drupal needs stable module releases, at least for modules over 100k installs. Otherwise, we're telling people they should not use Drupal once Drupal 7 is gone.

Obviously, if I've misunderstood the state that Rules is in, and the maintainers do not recommend that people install it at all, then the responsible thing to do may be to remove the release from Drupal.org until we have the resources to create a release that functions on people's sites. I used it in D8 3 or 4 years ago, and it seemed great to me then, but it could be totally broken in D9.

Well that's pretty insulting. Are you deliberately misunderstanding everything I've said here and in a hundred other issues? And if you haven't even used Rules in years, who are you to offer an opinion on what I should do here? If you're so concerned about getting this project to a stable release, then you should do something to actually help. Like I did when I took on the thankless job of trying to rescue Rules after it failed to make a successful transition to D8.

Making a stable release without completing the missing portions of the UI is only asking for a flood of support questions from people who expect those missing features. Are *you* volunteering to deal with all that?

I apologize for offending you. Your work on Drupal and all the modules you contribute to is stellar.

I'm happy to help with support questions that come up from making a release.

I haven't used rules in a few years because we've never installed Drupal 9 on our main website (We're D7). I'm here because we'll need rules or an alternative before November. So, I thought I should start working on releases for the modules we need. I've looked over the code required in some of the issues you've tagged as blockers, and the programming is likely to advanced for me, but issue support I can do for sure.

@Greg Boggs
I think this portion of #151 summarizes why there is no stable release yet:

Leaving this as an alpha or beta indicates that if you want to upgrade, there are things that you will have to deal with - it's not going to be seamless.

This is the exact reason I've been hesitating to create a stable for Feeds as well. Though in case of Feeds, only breaks in modules that extend it are expected since I'm still making changes in interfaces and base classes.

Also from #151:

The only real thing missing is parts of the UI

I can understand this can be dealbreaker for Rules creating a stable release.

I can understand the pros for having a stable release as well: security support and an indication that it is safe to install.

So I guess it is incomplete UI + possible breaking changes in future releases VS security support + safe to install (does not render site unusable).

Something similar happened with the webform module sustainability and the open collective founding alternative started to have sense for the module developers and maintainers as TR. https://opencollective.com/webform. For sure in the background are organizations and individuals using the module that can help sponsoring rules and their maintainers.

My few cents here:

If we only have missing features comparing to D7 version and the API is stable, we should have a stable release, or at least a RC or absolutely at least a beta (https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/choosing-a-drupal-version/release-types). This means other module maintainers like me can integrate with Rules and we can actually start working together as we know the entire project is not subject to unexpected API changes and our work will not be wasted at some point or we don't lose support for our outdated version with different API.

Missing features shouldn't be a blocker here, those will have their own issues and if someone really wants a feature, they'll help.

Seeing it as alpha all the time was the main reason I haven't touched VBO - Rules integration years ago (and haven't contributed to rules as well as I did for example to search_api even if it's a byproduct of integration only) and that hasn't changed, IMHO this is a blocker for many people to actually help with development of the Rules project.

There is a new module similar to rules really promising: https://www.drupal.org/project/eca maybe is a good moment to join forces?