Developers Extensions Reference (continued...)
This is a continuation of the discussion on:
http://www.alltogetherasawhole.org/forum/topics/developers-extensions
We have had some great ideas being discussed in the above thread. Stuff to make the whole search for the 'right' extensions much more user-friendly than what the current Joomla Extensions Directory (JED) offers.
We have been talking about a comparison website that would be a stand alone website (outside joomla.org). However, after talking with some folks about this, I think this is not the best way to go in
the long run.
My assumptions that the discussed ideas would not fit within joomla.org were premature and biased and - looking at it now - faulty.
It should not be our goal to move away from joomla.org but to help make it better.
And now...?
Anyway, where do we go on from here?
I am a member of the JED Team and have been discussing many of the ideas we talked about here with the JED Team. The idea of changing parts of the JED to make it better have been received quite well, I think.
I have been talking mainly about changes to the Reviewing System. We (some of the JED Team members and I) have come up with quite a lot of ideas to make the Reviewing / Voting system better that will cause it to be a lot more valuable.
I believe that if and when these ideas will be implemented, the root cause/problem that kicked of the discussion on the 'Developers Extensions Reference' will be (partially) tackled.
In other words: I think that the need for a comparison website like we discussed will be less necessary.
This because the Reviews/Votes will add a lot more information for seekers. These will help in comparing extensions and deciding what extensions will be worth trying out.
So, what are these ideas?
Well, I have made a proposal for the JED Team to discuss and shoot at. This is all very early days. And not all have had the chance to respond to it.
And that is all it is at this stage: A Proposal!
So I don't know how much of it will be implemented, if any at all.
I can't go into detail about what kind of things I proposed, but will share more once I can (when we are further in the process...)
So I am sharing this to prevent the community here from trying to setup a complete new system when our collective interest and aim should be to help joomla.org.
http://www.alltogetherasawhole.org/forum/topics/developers-extensions
We have had some great ideas being discussed in the above thread. Stuff to make the whole search for the 'right' extensions much more user-friendly than what the current Joomla Extensions Directory (JED) offers.
We have been talking about a comparison website that would be a stand alone website (outside joomla.org). However, after talking with some folks about this, I think this is not the best way to go in
the long run.
My assumptions that the discussed ideas would not fit within joomla.org were premature and biased and - looking at it now - faulty.
It should not be our goal to move away from joomla.org but to help make it better.
And now...?
Anyway, where do we go on from here?
I am a member of the JED Team and have been discussing many of the ideas we talked about here with the JED Team. The idea of changing parts of the JED to make it better have been received quite well, I think.
I have been talking mainly about changes to the Reviewing System. We (some of the JED Team members and I) have come up with quite a lot of ideas to make the Reviewing / Voting system better that will cause it to be a lot more valuable.
I believe that if and when these ideas will be implemented, the root cause/problem that kicked of the discussion on the 'Developers Extensions Reference' will be (partially) tackled.
In other words: I think that the need for a comparison website like we discussed will be less necessary.
This because the Reviews/Votes will add a lot more information for seekers. These will help in comparing extensions and deciding what extensions will be worth trying out.
So, what are these ideas?
Well, I have made a proposal for the JED Team to discuss and shoot at. This is all very early days. And not all have had the chance to respond to it.
And that is all it is at this stage: A Proposal!
So I don't know how much of it will be implemented, if any at all.
I can't go into detail about what kind of things I proposed, but will share more once I can (when we are further in the process...)
So I am sharing this to prevent the community here from trying to setup a complete new system when our collective interest and aim should be to help joomla.org.
Views: 6
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Peter van Westen (NoNumber) on -
Thanks Brian... that's the whole idea: "benefit the community as a whole".
I will keep you (and the others) posted if I have any more info on the advances on this... -
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Permalink Reply by Amy Stephen on
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Definitely awesome. Thanks to you and the JED team!
Also, Peter, to give you a heads up - there are some things we are talking about in the Security group, too, to help identify vulnerable extensions, get notice to JED to unpublish, and to the developer, to fix. It would be nice to see JED publish an RSS feed of security updates, only.
That way, users could subscribe to that feed and at see if their extension is in the list. (Eventually, it could be a more focused list but it would be a very good start.)
Very good work - thanks to you and the JED team! -
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Permalink Reply by Martin Blodau on -
Hi Peter,
thanks a lot for the effort of improving the JED!
When i read your post something directly came to my mind, but i haven't been following the initial discussion so this could be a little bit sidetracked from the original topic...
The one central thing that really disturbs me every time i search for a new extension is the utterly useless search function in the JED. Even if you know the exact extension name it is unlikely to get a direct hit.
So now that i see a chance to "influence" you a little bit i have a little proposal for fixing this search function once and for all. :-)
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The JED is based on Mtree and the search function comes from them. It would be quite some work to try to built an alternativ search function but an easy way would be to implement an external search engine like Google search.
We have already built that function for a customer. Releasing it as an official extension to the JED is still on the to-do list but polishing the extension for public release should be quite fast if necessary.
It is basically a Google Search that is limited to certain areas that you can set in the extension parameters. You get a search field (with a little Google logo next to it) and the search results page gets displayed in the component area.
Can't give you a link because its on an internal dev server but heres two screenshots:
The search results page can be styled nicely but we can't add any extra fields like the whole rating thing that gets displayed in the normal JED search results page.
But this search function could be implemented as an alternate search in the JED.
Now the screenshots show the search with search results of external pages but just limit the Google Search to http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions and it would only search the JED. -
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Permalink Reply by Helio Alves on -
Hi Petter,
The idea is very good, the community needs a better JED and if we can reduce JED team work then, even better.
I've gone through your document and I have some comments:
For the Extend Review form you want to ask for extension version and I understand very well why you are doing this, I'm just concerned about how this could reduce the amount of reviews since users would have to log in and search for this information and when adding the version, since will be text there might be misspelling or different version formats.
Could it be possible, in point 2 Aimed at Developers, to have a check list where developers would have to go trough in order to develop a good extension and to have his extension approved, in this check list we would have a point where the developer needs to have a button to allow users to post comments, users would be redirected to JED extension form review and the field version would be filled out, or event better, it could be done right into the extension if there is a dashboard. I don't know if I'm clear enough in this point :P (A little note, this check list would, in my point of view, simplifies everyone's life, developers so they know how to build better extensions and know what requirements are needed for it to be accepted and JED team that would need to go through the check list and see if the extension fulfill the requirements, which I think would save them time)
I know that this would not impact current extensions in the JED but it would impact new updates and since Joomla 1.6 is coming out a lot of extensions will have to be updated.
This could simplify users life and would not impact the number of reviews.
This new extension review form and extended voting you propose will for sure increase the quality of the reviews and simplify reviews reading.
For versioned reviews, I would go with point Version + decreasing: Votes from last version count fully, former version 75%, etc...
I like very much the points you propose and don't see why some of us will raise some eyebrows, this will improve user and developers experience and will improve Joomla community.
Great job. -
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Permalink Reply by Peter van Westen (NoNumber) on
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"but disagree completely that opinions vented were biased"
As you can read, I stated that MY assumptions were premature and biased.
Well, I could take the time to defend myself... but don't really see the value.
You are free to not agree with joomla.org or anything it does. I am just sharing what I am trying to do within the JED. And I do believe that it will add value to the JED as a whole (more valuable reviews/votes).
I don't really mind if you setup a site outside joomla.org. But by going for including the non-GPL extensions it will always stay outside joomla.org. I would like a website that has what we initially discussed. But I don't believe it will 'work together (with joomla.org) to benefit the community'. It might 'work alone to benefit the community'. But personally I don't have the time and faith in something like this (anymore) to put my energy into it. -
© 2012 Created by Amy Stephen.
