Exception thrown on control panel requests when using CKEditor 4.x and Footnotes 5.2.0

[mmikkel]

Describe the bug

I'm still on CKEditor 4.11.3, and after updating Footnotes from 5.1.3 to 5.2.0, the following exception is thrown on control panel requests:

yii\base\ErrorException: Declaration of verbb\footnotes\assetbundles\CkEditorAsset::registerPackage(): void must be compatible with craft\ckeditor\web\assets\BaseCkeditorPackageAsset::registerPackage(craft\web\View $view): void in /var/www/html/vendor/verbb/footnotes/src/assetbundles/CkEditorAsset.php:44
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: yii\base\ErrorHandler->handleFatalError()
#1 {main}

I'm guessing this is due to the fix for #35, but considering CKEditor 5 is a major release (and a slightly controversial one at that), it'd probably be a good idea to if Footnotes 5.2+ is made backwards compatible w/ CKEditor 4.x, for the immediate future at least 😅

Steps to reproduce

1. Have CKEditor 4.11.3 + Footnotes 5.2.0 installed
2. Visit the control panel

Craft CMS version

5.9.16

Plugin version

5.2.0

Multi-site?

Yes

Additional context

CKEditor version is 4.11.3

[mmikkel]

Hm, even getting around that exception (for example, by adding a variadic signature for CkEditorAsset::registerPackage()), Footnotes 5.2.0 does not play nice with CKEditor 4.x – no toolbar button appears, and the browser console displays the following errors:

I'm guessing this is due to the changes described in craftcms/ckeditor#363. I haven't looked deeper into it, but I'm not sure if it's even feasible to have Footnotes support both CKEditor 4.x and 5.x? If so, Footnotes 5.2+ should probably add an explicit requirement for craftcms/ckeditor:^5.0.

[mmikkel]

...so sorry for piling on 😅 but I just tried downgrading Footnotes to 5.1.x by adding "verbb/footnotes": "~5.1.0" to my composer.json. That downloaded Footnotes v. 5.1.4, which also causes the exception mentioned, and otherwise looks identical to 5.2.0 (probably 5.1.4 was published by mistake?).

Have pinned my version of Footnotes to 5.1.3 now, but just thought I'd mention it 😊

[engram-design]

Yeah, right, I wasn't sure how many people would be staying on CKEditor < 5.0. It has broken a lot of things of ours, unrelated to this issue!

I think in light of that, and that we've revamped the plugin ourselves for module consumption, and a new UI, I think we'll bump our plugin to a new major version and scrap (essentially) 5.2.0 - or at least make Footnotes 5.x continue to be compatible with CKEditor 4.x plugin.

I really did think people would be upgrading to the next major version without hassle, but that was a big assumption. But I also second-guessed at the time bumping a major version, so I should've gone with my gut.

Footnotes 5.2.1 for Craft CKEditor 4.x
Footnotes 6.0.0 for Craft CKEditor 5.x

[mmikkel]

I think in light of that, and that we've revamped the plugin ourselves for module consumption, and a new UI, I think we'll bump our plugin to a new major version and scrap (essentially) 5.2.0 - or at least make Footnotes 5.x continue to be compatible with CKEditor 4.x plugin.

Yeah, that's a good call IMO. I'm sure everyone will be on CKEditor 5 soon enough, but I also think some folks will hold off for a while, for a number of different reasons. Seems like the safest bet for a plugin like Footnotes to follow CKEditor's lead and bump the major version.

Thanks for the quick response and resolve @engram-design ❤️