Weekly Fireside Chat from your Core Team
Permalink 1 user found helpful
Quick update from your fearless leaders...
So we've been a bit incognito since the new year and the launch of discussion forums. Tidbits of what we're working on have been discussed in threads spread around and IRC, but ChadStrat suggested I start doing a weekly update on where your core team's head was at - so here goes...
1) Yes, we are going to SXSW. I need to update that graph, but we've raised well over $5k and with some gracious deals and the marketplace's continued growth, we are going to be able to afford it. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed in any way - we're super excited.
2) We are trying very hard to get a release candidate of 5.4 out before SXSW. This includes a LOT of new goodness. Hopefully nothing as painful in terms of upgrading as 5.3.3.1 had with the new attribute system, but a lot of sexy features that should make everyone happy.
o.. Incontext editing happens with fewer page loads and more ajax so the whole experience is much smoother.
o.. The Design settings that were introduced with the last version for blocks are now assignable to areas as well, the options have been buffed out to include things like background images, and the settings can be saved as reusable styles.
o.. We're introducing a "Layouts" option at the block area level that lets you chop a block area into many columns and control their width with handy little sliders.
o.. All sorts of performance improvements, bug fixes, and probably some other big junk that just escapes me at the moment.
o.. A better update process and the ability to have multiple cores in one install. If that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. If you've ever upgraded a c5 site in the past, think "add new core directory" instead of "replace your live sites core directory".. This is a happy thing.
o.. Better marketplace integartion. In the past you would connect your concrete5 site to the marketplace through your concrete5.org user account. You'd have to do it whenever you wanted to install an add-on or use support, and it was very confusing with the different account names and passwords. Now you "Connect to the Community" once with your client site, and it creates a unique "project page" on concrete5.org for you. You can join multiple installs to this project page if you have development stages for example. This project page then creates a nice centralized place to manage support and add-on licenses. It's still pretty bare bones and likely will be with launch, but it creates the bones we need to help evolve concrete5.org into a site owner/site developer relationship management destination. Imagine being able to find new clients on concrete5.org, and actually seeing a history of what has happened on their project. Imagine being able to see what else is installed on a clients site if you're an add-on developer trying to offer support.. We're trying to be very careful with these ideas as we know they could easily slide in a misleading direction, everything is opt-in and only there to create value. If you're running concrete5 for your private extranet and aren't interested in any of this "connecting to the community" mumbo jumbo, you don't have to use it.
3) A revamped concrete5.org. We're adding a bunch of new features to concrete5.org beyond this "project page" stuff:
o.. A completely re-organized help section. I've included a screenshot of part of it. The shot is of course already out of date in several ways, but it gives you a sense of where we're heading.
o.. Rethought features & bug requests so they're not compeletely useless to us and impossible to manage.
o.. Forums will now have "this is the answer" flags that can be set by admins or the original poster on every reply. They also have "this thread is helpful to me" that can be set by anyone. They also have Tags. Using all three we hope to let the help section self manage to a degree without having the chaos of a wiki.
o.. New community top will have more member search stuff, including profiles for partners who have been waiting patiently for a long time to get some preferred listing out of us.
o.. Jobs forum will get some simple tweaks to make it easier for site owners to give the information needed so developers can provide meaningful estimates.
o.. Search will suck less. I'm not even going to bother explaining how becuase my fingers are sore and I need something to talk about next week when I post some message like this again.. ;)
So that's where our heads have been these past two months. We've got a lot of work left to do, and we'll be eager to have your help on this stuff as we get 5.4 ready for some heavy testing. The goal is to have much of this behaving by SXSW so we're looking good for this huge new audience. In the meantime we'll do everything we can to approve add-ons at least once a week and keep it coming because once we get through this push and get the word out in Austin, we're expecting some real spikes in growth.
Stay tuned for more news next week. I promise to actually check this thread and reply to it now and again. ;) Thanks for bearing with us as we brun the midnight oil.
best..
-frz
So we've been a bit incognito since the new year and the launch of discussion forums. Tidbits of what we're working on have been discussed in threads spread around and IRC, but ChadStrat suggested I start doing a weekly update on where your core team's head was at - so here goes...
1) Yes, we are going to SXSW. I need to update that graph, but we've raised well over $5k and with some gracious deals and the marketplace's continued growth, we are going to be able to afford it. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed in any way - we're super excited.
2) We are trying very hard to get a release candidate of 5.4 out before SXSW. This includes a LOT of new goodness. Hopefully nothing as painful in terms of upgrading as 5.3.3.1 had with the new attribute system, but a lot of sexy features that should make everyone happy.
o.. Incontext editing happens with fewer page loads and more ajax so the whole experience is much smoother.
o.. The Design settings that were introduced with the last version for blocks are now assignable to areas as well, the options have been buffed out to include things like background images, and the settings can be saved as reusable styles.
o.. We're introducing a "Layouts" option at the block area level that lets you chop a block area into many columns and control their width with handy little sliders.
o.. All sorts of performance improvements, bug fixes, and probably some other big junk that just escapes me at the moment.
o.. A better update process and the ability to have multiple cores in one install. If that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. If you've ever upgraded a c5 site in the past, think "add new core directory" instead of "replace your live sites core directory".. This is a happy thing.
o.. Better marketplace integartion. In the past you would connect your concrete5 site to the marketplace through your concrete5.org user account. You'd have to do it whenever you wanted to install an add-on or use support, and it was very confusing with the different account names and passwords. Now you "Connect to the Community" once with your client site, and it creates a unique "project page" on concrete5.org for you. You can join multiple installs to this project page if you have development stages for example. This project page then creates a nice centralized place to manage support and add-on licenses. It's still pretty bare bones and likely will be with launch, but it creates the bones we need to help evolve concrete5.org into a site owner/site developer relationship management destination. Imagine being able to find new clients on concrete5.org, and actually seeing a history of what has happened on their project. Imagine being able to see what else is installed on a clients site if you're an add-on developer trying to offer support.. We're trying to be very careful with these ideas as we know they could easily slide in a misleading direction, everything is opt-in and only there to create value. If you're running concrete5 for your private extranet and aren't interested in any of this "connecting to the community" mumbo jumbo, you don't have to use it.
3) A revamped concrete5.org. We're adding a bunch of new features to concrete5.org beyond this "project page" stuff:
o.. A completely re-organized help section. I've included a screenshot of part of it. The shot is of course already out of date in several ways, but it gives you a sense of where we're heading.
o.. Rethought features & bug requests so they're not compeletely useless to us and impossible to manage.
o.. Forums will now have "this is the answer" flags that can be set by admins or the original poster on every reply. They also have "this thread is helpful to me" that can be set by anyone. They also have Tags. Using all three we hope to let the help section self manage to a degree without having the chaos of a wiki.
o.. New community top will have more member search stuff, including profiles for partners who have been waiting patiently for a long time to get some preferred listing out of us.
o.. Jobs forum will get some simple tweaks to make it easier for site owners to give the information needed so developers can provide meaningful estimates.
o.. Search will suck less. I'm not even going to bother explaining how becuase my fingers are sore and I need something to talk about next week when I post some message like this again.. ;)
So that's where our heads have been these past two months. We've got a lot of work left to do, and we'll be eager to have your help on this stuff as we get 5.4 ready for some heavy testing. The goal is to have much of this behaving by SXSW so we're looking good for this huge new audience. In the meantime we'll do everything we can to approve add-ons at least once a week and keep it coming because once we get through this push and get the word out in Austin, we're expecting some real spikes in growth.
Stay tuned for more news next week. I promise to actually check this thread and reply to it now and again. ;) Thanks for bearing with us as we brun the midnight oil.
best..
-frz
Oh, and the picture I forgot to attach..
Frz,
I'm so happy that i chocked on my spagetti when reading your update article! lol
Thank you for the updates,
You guy rock and keep the good work!
Cant' wait to test that new version.
Cheers,
Carl
I'm so happy that i chocked on my spagetti when reading your update article! lol
Thank you for the updates,
You guy rock and keep the good work!
Cant' wait to test that new version.
Cheers,
Carl
This is great stuff. I've been running the beta through the ringer. I REALLY love the layouts tool. Great job Tony!
Thanks Frz for the update!
C
Thanks Frz for the update!
C
Sounds awesome, can't wait to see the site updates. Also good to hear the SXSW stuff is on track!
Thanks for the hard work guys!
Thanks for the hard work guys!
can't wait! wow Remo has a lot of answers :P
The new design of the help section looks dead sexy. Job well done.
Wow, this looks so cool, and I thought I was excited before. :-)
Thanks for the update frz! Very excited about you guys being at SXSW. I'm sure that will do great things for Concrete5. I haven't messed with the beta nearly as much as I would have liked to, but all of the new features sound great as well.
Side note - the funny thing about that screenshot is that the number of answers shown for Remo is probably accurate.
Side note - the funny thing about that screenshot is that the number of answers shown for Remo is probably accurate.
that list is not a list of 5 :(.
Wonderful update, thanks alot!
*One* of the most important updates for me is the 'Page Search' and 'Folder view' views of 'Site Map'. Screenshots attached.
*One* of the most important updates for me is the 'Page Search' and 'Folder view' views of 'Site Map'. Screenshots attached.
Ha! told you i forgot some big ones.. yes thanks for helping fast track those improvements to the sitemap - there's now a "folder" view that can handle thousands of pages at a single level with no performance issues...
(scott thats #4)...
and 5) yes. lists of five are great.
(scott thats #4)...
and 5) yes. lists of five are great.
I am excited for the update, and yet I fear the dreaded stumble. I hope to be more diligent in the whole community thing.
thanks for the updates! I've been out of the country for the past few months but I'll try to pop some cash in your kitty before SXSW when I get near a landline.
mario
mario
testing..
I love this list! Thanks for taking the time to explain exciting things to come and the direction things are going.
Is there any way I can help get file set sorting into 5.4? It would be a HUGE feature for the add-ons I'm building, and probably can borrow liberally from the sitemap's code.
Is there any way I can help get file set sorting into 5.4? It would be a HUGE feature for the add-ons I'm building, and probably can borrow liberally from the sitemap's code.
another of many things i spaced yesterday is we're going to add a "Roadmap" section to concrete5.org. It will basically be a forum area with things we know we want to do, and the details on how we want them done, so folks who want to volunteer some time to a patch have some focus..
sorting on file sets is certainly on the list. Frankly I kinda hope 5.4 comes out before something that deep gets incorporated, but I'll do what I can to get some thoughts outta Andy on how that should be approached sooner rather than later..
sorting on file sets is certainly on the list. Frankly I kinda hope 5.4 comes out before something that deep gets incorporated, but I'll do what I can to get some thoughts outta Andy on how that should be approached sooner rather than later..
Yeah, I understand what you mean.
Do you think that maybe it would be better (easier) to make it possible to change the content date?
Leveraging the first-uploaded date works perfect in lots of situations, but it totally breaks down if you upload your files all at once or out of order. It would be cool if you could go to the file's properties and change it's date, just as you can change it's title.
That would make it less important to have arbitrary file sorting. The big problem is when I can't even sort by date, because it's all wrong. That only leaves sort by title.
I already am using a "custom_date" attribute to solve this problem, but it's currently an either/or. If this isn't important to other people than I probably will work with my code to merge the two values, so that it respects the file upload date unless there is a custom date to override it.
Do you think that maybe it would be better (easier) to make it possible to change the content date?
Leveraging the first-uploaded date works perfect in lots of situations, but it totally breaks down if you upload your files all at once or out of order. It would be cool if you could go to the file's properties and change it's date, just as you can change it's title.
That would make it less important to have arbitrary file sorting. The big problem is when I can't even sort by date, because it's all wrong. That only leaves sort by title.
I already am using a "custom_date" attribute to solve this problem, but it's currently an either/or. If this isn't important to other people than I probably will work with my code to merge the two values, so that it respects the file upload date unless there is a custom date to override it.
Nothing more to say than, fantastic work guys!!!!
Thanks for the update. Looks like a lot of useful functionality is planned. I'm curious if perhaps there's also more attention being payed to W3C compliance. That would be great.
-Steve
-Steve
Yes there is. Remo put a lot of work into pointing out some places where we have some funky styles, and we've tried to added types to them where appropriate, and remove empty style tags if at all possible. We still have a little ways to go as far as making sure all header elements make it into the header, but we're quite a bit closer.
I've been meaning to write down some additional items that are smaller but still making it into 5.4, and will probably do so soon, perhaps in a blog post with some nice screenshots. We're trying to tighten up some of the corners and make the overall experience of using concrete5 even nicer. Here is a very random list of things off the top of my head, which haven't been mentioned:
1. A new page search. This is alluded to above with the talk about the sitemap, but now you can search pages by a number of criteria. You can also update attributes in bulk against these pages. We'll be adding further capabilities to this page search, such as bulk deletion, bulk move, etc...
2. We've added a search field to the block types overlay, which you can use without moving your hands from the keyboard. It will filter down block types as you type. We still may add some more sorting/filtering to the add block interface, but if you use concrete5 for any length of time, you'll appreciate this.
3. The update checking and RSS feed checking that takes place on the dashboard home page now takes place asynchronously through JavaScript, making the dashboard home page loading much, much faster.
4. All updates like those above, addon updates, etc...go into a notification list. We're going to experiment with more items we can put into this, but it's definitely an improvement.
5. In addition to pages, images, block types, and packages are now cached, leading to significant speedups, especially when using things like galleries and file search addons.
6. We've integrated the excellent database backup addon by DavidMIRV into the core.
7. We've included a much better addon uninstall routine into the core, which addon developers can easily extend to offer runtime uninstall options.
8. You can easily choose which areas to index or not index from within the dashboard.
9. Certain actions that only the admin user could do (like login as other users, edit page defaults, etc...) are now assignable through the dashboard like other permissions.
10. When searching pages or files, the last page search set should stay persistent. This means that if you take the time to setup a nice advanced search, only to navigate away from the file manager, when you come back, you should see things exactly the way you left them.
11. Blocks can implement a validate() function within them. If the block returns an object of the ValidationErrorHelper type, with errors in it, those errors will be shown to the user post submit.
Ok, that should do it for now ;)
I've been meaning to write down some additional items that are smaller but still making it into 5.4, and will probably do so soon, perhaps in a blog post with some nice screenshots. We're trying to tighten up some of the corners and make the overall experience of using concrete5 even nicer. Here is a very random list of things off the top of my head, which haven't been mentioned:
1. A new page search. This is alluded to above with the talk about the sitemap, but now you can search pages by a number of criteria. You can also update attributes in bulk against these pages. We'll be adding further capabilities to this page search, such as bulk deletion, bulk move, etc...
2. We've added a search field to the block types overlay, which you can use without moving your hands from the keyboard. It will filter down block types as you type. We still may add some more sorting/filtering to the add block interface, but if you use concrete5 for any length of time, you'll appreciate this.
3. The update checking and RSS feed checking that takes place on the dashboard home page now takes place asynchronously through JavaScript, making the dashboard home page loading much, much faster.
4. All updates like those above, addon updates, etc...go into a notification list. We're going to experiment with more items we can put into this, but it's definitely an improvement.
5. In addition to pages, images, block types, and packages are now cached, leading to significant speedups, especially when using things like galleries and file search addons.
6. We've integrated the excellent database backup addon by DavidMIRV into the core.
7. We've included a much better addon uninstall routine into the core, which addon developers can easily extend to offer runtime uninstall options.
8. You can easily choose which areas to index or not index from within the dashboard.
9. Certain actions that only the admin user could do (like login as other users, edit page defaults, etc...) are now assignable through the dashboard like other permissions.
10. When searching pages or files, the last page search set should stay persistent. This means that if you take the time to setup a nice advanced search, only to navigate away from the file manager, when you come back, you should see things exactly the way you left them.
11. Blocks can implement a validate() function within them. If the block returns an object of the ValidationErrorHelper type, with errors in it, those errors will be shown to the user post submit.
Ok, that should do it for now ;)
Hi Franz and Andrew, the new update is shaping up really nicely. The performance improvements are huge. There are 2 points I'd like you to elaborate more about:
"o.. A better update process and the ability to have multiple cores in one install. If that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. If you've ever upgraded a c5 site in the past, think "add new core directory" instead of "replace your live sites core directory".. This is a happy thing. "
I've been following the updates through SVN and that's one thing that you wouldn't notice unless you inspect every updated file. I'd like to have a play with this feature. Where should I start? How do I use it? Why should I use it?
Also, you both missed mentioning the new translation system! I've never had to do multi-language sites before, but have been recently approached by someone wanting to do that. Is the new translation system going to help building multi-language sites, or is just to translate core/packages/blocks/ etc?
As developers, should be we aware of any changes or just continue using the t() function as much as we can ?
"o.. A better update process and the ability to have multiple cores in one install. If that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry about it. If you've ever upgraded a c5 site in the past, think "add new core directory" instead of "replace your live sites core directory".. This is a happy thing. "
I've been following the updates through SVN and that's one thing that you wouldn't notice unless you inspect every updated file. I'd like to have a play with this feature. Where should I start? How do I use it? Why should I use it?
Also, you both missed mentioning the new translation system! I've never had to do multi-language sites before, but have been recently approached by someone wanting to do that. Is the new translation system going to help building multi-language sites, or is just to translate core/packages/blocks/ etc?
As developers, should be we aware of any changes or just continue using the t() function as much as we can ?
lets see..
No. not translation of content in a site. Seriously I'm committed to the view i've espoused many times. Having a single page with multiple languages on it will create pain later. The /right/ way to run a multi-lingual site should be having a tree for each language. I can see adding a cross link block to the marketplace at some point that makes it easier to cross connect these pages when there is a 1-1 match, (ie: view this page in german) but I have yet to hear a well reasoned solution on what to do about all the edge cases on a single tree each page gets X languages problem. Regardless, this should be another thread and isn't part of 5.4 What is part is a better way to deal with language files for add-ons.
Yes. Updates... Uhh I'm not sure its something you really can do much beating on till Andy writes the update process. Basically we shot ourselves in the foot with the promise we make to our hosting clients with the last rev. For those of our partners following our centralized hosting whitepaper approach - you realize having 200 sites on a machine that all share a single core is really great for saving space and making massive changes quickly.. I can't imagine doing it any other way. The problem is when a new version is available the only way to deal with it is EVERYONE gets the new core and you go through site by site running the update script as quickly as possible. If the updates weren't massive (Read the new core didn't destroy the view layer of the site) this wasnt a huge deal, but with the last update they were pretty massive because of custom attributes, and we did have some painful moments as some of our larger sites churned through upgrade.
Now what you can do is tell each concrete5 site where it should be looking for its core. So regardless of if you've got a centralized core (or cores) or are running just locally, you can keep the core from one version in tact, add the core for a new version, point to it when yer ready, not have to destroy/backup files.. etc..
It's a good thing(tm)
No. not translation of content in a site. Seriously I'm committed to the view i've espoused many times. Having a single page with multiple languages on it will create pain later. The /right/ way to run a multi-lingual site should be having a tree for each language. I can see adding a cross link block to the marketplace at some point that makes it easier to cross connect these pages when there is a 1-1 match, (ie: view this page in german) but I have yet to hear a well reasoned solution on what to do about all the edge cases on a single tree each page gets X languages problem. Regardless, this should be another thread and isn't part of 5.4 What is part is a better way to deal with language files for add-ons.
Yes. Updates... Uhh I'm not sure its something you really can do much beating on till Andy writes the update process. Basically we shot ourselves in the foot with the promise we make to our hosting clients with the last rev. For those of our partners following our centralized hosting whitepaper approach - you realize having 200 sites on a machine that all share a single core is really great for saving space and making massive changes quickly.. I can't imagine doing it any other way. The problem is when a new version is available the only way to deal with it is EVERYONE gets the new core and you go through site by site running the update script as quickly as possible. If the updates weren't massive (Read the new core didn't destroy the view layer of the site) this wasnt a huge deal, but with the last update they were pretty massive because of custom attributes, and we did have some painful moments as some of our larger sites churned through upgrade.
Now what you can do is tell each concrete5 site where it should be looking for its core. So regardless of if you've got a centralized core (or cores) or are running just locally, you can keep the core from one version in tact, add the core for a new version, point to it when yer ready, not have to destroy/backup files.. etc..
It's a good thing(tm)
I agree. Managing multiple languages on the same page would really become painful.
I recently developed a site which comes in many different languages. I put each country's content in its own parent page (/usa, /israel, etc.) then used attributes to assign top-level properties like the country's name or the contact information for that office.
Then I designed the site navigation and subnavigation so it could figure out which country you were in, and adjust all of the links accordingly. I agree that there could be a market for creating add-ons which make this type of work easier, but managing each language on the same page would probably, inevitably, create serious issues.
I recently developed a site which comes in many different languages. I put each country's content in its own parent page (/usa, /israel, etc.) then used attributes to assign top-level properties like the country's name or the contact information for that office.
Then I designed the site navigation and subnavigation so it could figure out which country you were in, and adjust all of the links accordingly. I agree that there could be a market for creating add-ons which make this type of work easier, but managing each language on the same page would probably, inevitably, create serious issues.
yuppi yuppi yeah!
This is the perfect answer!
Love to hear that actually happening!!
Of course the c5 way :P
I just sent ya some $$ :)
Greets to you and the team
Fernandos
This is the perfect answer!
Love to hear that actually happening!!
Of course the c5 way :P
I just sent ya some $$ :)
Greets to you and the team
Fernandos
Just found this post.
This is fantastic!
This is fantastic!
How do I get hold of the 5.4 beta for testing?
Happy to help out, considering we are churning through about 3 concrete5 websites a week.
Happy to help out, considering we are churning through about 3 concrete5 websites a week.
you are in the beta team so the page should be available to you to get svn details.
its in subversion, link to it is in beta area.
