Beta Features

Needs Update: This page is out-of-date as of June 2013.

This page describes how to code and enable beta features on a server from the perspective of a developer. For instructions on doing beta work as a user, see Beta Testing.

Putting a Feature into Beta

Features in active beta are listed on Dreamwidth Beta. To add a feature to that list, you will need to create a new module and configure the server to enable the feature beta.

Here is the bare minimum to get a module to work, to be placed in

   dw-free/cgi-bin/DW/BetaFeatures/featurename.pm

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# DW::BetaFeatures::featurename - Allow users to beta test featurename
#
# Authors:
#      Afuna <coder.dw@afunamatata.com>
#
# Copyright (c) 2011 by Dreamwidth Studios, LLC.
#
# This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under
# the same terms as Perl itself. For a copy of the license, please reference
# 'perldoc perlartistic' or 'perldoc perlgpl'.
 
package DW::BetaFeatures::featurename;
 
use strict;
use base "LJ::BetaFeatures::default";
 
1;

Refer to the base implementation at dw-free/cgi-bin/LJ/BetaFeatures/default.pm for methods that you can override.

Configuring your Server to List the New Feature

You'll also need to enable it in your configuration. Add this to ext/local/etc/config-local.pl (or look for an existing %LJ::BETA_FEATURES line)

   %LJ::BETA_FEATURES = (
       "featurename" => {
           start_time  => 0,
           end_time    => "Inf",
       },
       "otherfeaturename" => {
           start_time  => 0,
           end_time    => "Inf",
       },
   );

The actual names of the beta features can be found by going to this page or asking about them at dw_dev_training.

Conditionally Enabling Features for Beta Testers

To determine whether a user has enabled a certain feature, use this in an if-statement:

 LJ::BetaFeatures->user_in_beta( $u => "featurename" );