Relevant implementations suggestions

[tams]

Can this entire site be made to have a more integrated appearance? For example, from this forum there is no direct link to the homepage in the header. Can we do away completely with the phpbb forum and use TangoCMS itself for the questions and answers. I believe this will be quiet easy to implement.


Joomla, Wordpress and almost all other cms-es are now supporting social networking ( example: http://www.buddypress.org ). I swear this won't make TangoCMS bloated if a similar add-on is quickly included - infact, it will draw more user -> more rapid development. Basically this will mean adding profile comments, activity list, social apps/gadgets && fine-tuned privacy controls for those who become members to my TangoCMS site. Additionally, giving each user capabilty to add multiple blogs will be great.


While the above is a feature that one will like to have for his or her site's members, here is one request for the site-owner or site-administrator - let TangoCMS have the ability to add custom content types and a web interface to design the presentation for this content types. Example - Wordpress - http://pods.uproot.us/ or Drupal - http://drupal.org/project/cck and drupal Views. This again is not a bloat BUT can actually eliminate need for any other extensions/add-ons/modules/whatever.

Lastly it will be great to have an integrated section to exchange "Ideas" like http://ideas.mybboard.net/ or http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com

TangoCMS is excellent - please make it more useful and widely usable really fast. Thanks.

[AlexC]

Hi there,

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback, the main issue with all points is developer time. I'm pretty much the only one these days working on the project, which makes things tricky. The good news is, most of the features I feel need to be implemented are done as of 2.5.0 (released in ~1 week), so I can take a look at our roadmap and have a good think about the direction the next version should go in, which could be the social-networking features you mentioned.

Can we do away completely with the phpbb forum and use TangoCMS itself for the questions and answers. I believe this will be quiet easy to implement.

There currently isn't anything within TangoCMS for this sort of feature, we could always add a forum module at some point (as additional download).

Joomla, Wordpress and almost all other cms-es are now supporting social networking ( example: http://www.buddypress.org ). I swear this won't make TangoCMS bloated if a similar add-on is quickly included - infact, it will draw more user -> more rapid development. Basically this will mean adding profile comments, activity list, social apps/gadgets && fine-tuned privacy controls for those who become members to my TangoCMS site. Additionally, giving each user capabilty to add multiple blogs will be great.

Feel free to file a feature request on http://dev.tangocms.org with details of what you'd like to see. We can keep track of it then and see about creating it. Sounds like a good idea for quite a few users though.

While the above is a feature that one will like to have for his or her site's members, here is one request for the site-owner or site-administrator - let TangoCMS have the ability to add custom content types and a web interface to design the presentation for this content types. Example - Wordpress - http://pods.uproot.us/ or Drupal - http://drupal.org/project/cck and drupal Views. This again is not a bloat BUT can actually eliminate need for any other extensions/add-ons/modules/whatever.

I'm not quite sure what Drupal Views are, can you explain more on this (or even make another feature request for it)?

Lastly it will be great to have an integrated section to exchange "Ideas" like http://ideas.mybboard.net/ or http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com

We have http://dev.tangocms.org for feature ideas, that works best for us to keep track of ideas.

TangoCMS is excellent - please make it more useful and widely usable really fast. Thanks.

Thanks unfortunaly I only have 2 hands and 1 brain, so speed may not be something I can do for all of these

[tams]

I'm pretty much the only one these days working on the project,

I understand this fully well and kudos to your efforts. At the same time, I will like to say most CMSes like Geeklog, Drupal, e107 all began as single-handed coder BUT quickly drew a lot of effective crowd who added and tested codes. This happened due to various reasons, one reason being they provided actual features for end-end users which the site-builders could provide to their sites' members. How do you plan to attract this effective crowd ? One sure-shot and quick-fire way is to provide the features as detailed in OP in a most mature way. It will be good to know your plans for future (not the roadmap for the software but how you plan to attract)

we could always add a forum module at some point (as additional download)

I was not speaking about downloadable forum module but to use the TangoCMS itself for these questions and answers. TangoCMS as it is now can do this, why not ? Same about http://dev.tangocms.org/. TangoCMS itself can handle that too, maybe with little tweaks. It is really really cumbersome that I have to do a separate registration AGAIN there to post. It seems I am visting 3 separate sites. It should be an integrated affair, even if its a small attempt or a single coder, from the day one. I am not sure if I am driving home the point, if not, I am willing to detail again.

Feel free to file a feature request on http://dev.tangocms.org with details of what you'd like to see. We can keep track of it then and see about creating it. Sounds like a good idea for quite a few users though.

I will.

I'm not quite sure what Drupal Views are, can you explain more on this (or even make another feature request for it)?

Drupal Views is "a flexible method for site designers to control how lists and tables of content look.
This tool is essentially a smart query builder". You can test it very easily at localhost by using this http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/views-6.x-2.8.tar.gz

We have http://dev.tangocms.org for feature ideas, that works best for us to keep track of ideas.

This is NOT quite the same as http://ideas.mybboard.net/ or http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com - please have a look! dev.tangocms is more of an issue tracker than an ideas section.

Last but not the least, huge thanks for taking time to answer in details.

[AlexC]

How do you plan to attract this effective crowd ? One sure-shot and quick-fire way is to provide the features as detailed in OP in a most mature way. It will be good to know your plans for future (not the roadmap for the software but how you plan to attract)

Personally I believe that documentation, something we are severally lacking, is the best way to attract users and developers. People like to be able to turn to a manual and see how to do something, or to read developer documentation so they can create this new module. Features are good, and as of 2.5.0 it seems like a good solid basic (feature wise) is in place for the majority (for non community sites), however I plan after the 2.5.0 release to create as much documentation as I can.

We also need to advertise more, and the good thing is we should be on Microsofts Web App Gallery very soon (the custom installer for that has been completed, see http://dev.tangocms.org/issues/221). This should give us a massive boost in visibility, and I am hoping will attract developers.

After that, I plan on creating somewhere that people can download (and share) additional modules and themes to allow people to extend their installation easily. Something like 'extras.tangocms.org'

I was not speaking about downloadable forum module but to use the TangoCMS itself for these questions and answers. TangoCMS as it is now can do this, why not ? Same about http://dev.tangocms.org/. TangoCMS itself can handle that too, maybe with little tweaks. It is really really cumbersome that I have to do a separate registration AGAIN there to post. It seems I am visting 3 separate sites. It should be an integrated affair, even if its a small attempt or a single coder, from the day one. I am not sure if I am driving home the point, if not, I am willing to detail again.

While the framework that TangoCMS is built upon is capable of all of these (it can do anything, really), there is no functionality within TangoCMS to provide a forum or issue/feature tracker. That's why we'd have to create a forum module and issue module.

However I am not too sure on this, I like to use existing projects for what they are built for - instead of reinventing the wheel every time (that may sound contradicting considering TangoCMS could be called 'yet another PHP cms'). Redmine is a fantastic project management system, to me it doesn't make sense to start from scratch and build our own (and to maintain it). http://dev.tangocms.org/issues/36 tracks OpenID & LDAP authentication, which is something I'd much rather harness as that will let you login to many things with 1 account. For example, these forums, Redmine and TangoCMS could all use LDAP which means you'd only need to register once.

This is NOT quite the same as http://ideas.mybboard.net/ or http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com - please have a look! dev.tangocms is more of an issue tracker than an ideas section.

I'm not really a fan of having these separate, because you'd then have 2 places where feature ideas are held. One where people dump their ideas, and the other where it tracks the progress of said idea. We can easily add a Voting plugin to Redmine which lets people vote on the issues, and from there we can see what users want the most for the next releases. Redmine does just fine for tracking feature ideas.

I can take a look at Drupal Views later on to see what that is all about. I've moved this to the development forum as well, btw.

I am liking your ideas, to. If I could just get some more developers, things would be much better here. Bearing in mind I've been developing this for 3 years now, and a full time web developer - right now I get little time (and motivation) to work on her.

[tams]

that may sound contradicting considering TangoCMS could be called 'yet another PHP cms'

It not only sounds but actually is contradicting : it hurts too and that also very badly to any one who starts to show interest in this project.
You need NO separate forum or issue module but TangoCMS as it is now can be made to manage these two things - this may be far from perfect, even very crude but I think they can manage to do the things for a beginning. Only "talk" is not going to help - I understand. As soon as I get some time I want to put a demo installation of TangoCMS to show what I mean.
[BTW : Drupal and many other CMSes have their own integrated approaches to this though many devs there feel github, abc, xyz is better. The integrated stuff still works very and popularly well]

Till then if you are bent on sticking to existing 'perfect' solutions please implement a COMMON login immediately and a common THEME all over the domains and subdomains of TangoCMS to give it an integrated look. This is utmost essential.

I'm not really a fan of having these separate, because you'd then have 2 places where feature ideas are held.

Should personal likings come into this
The idea of "ideas" is two-fold - non-geeky people can be easily attracted and they can ... well.. put up just ideas, even vague ones, rather than the issue lists which with its so much technicality is daunting. Number 2 : this can act as a primary filter so that issue lists are not clogged up. Ideas that make it to issues mean they are on their way to implementation.
There is yet another factor : user expectation. "Normally" people coming from CMSes like Wordpress, MyBB or from sites like Ubuntu will be looking for this section and will not find one. Imagine you are trying a new email service and there you are not finding "draft" option. In all email service you can send mail to yourself and this may be "draft" but still there is a prominent "save as draft" option. Maynot be very good analogy though. "Ideas" actually is a more informal way to get people more interactive and a way of saying "hey! we are listening to you in your own lingo". This is actually a great start for even the smallest CMS.

I can take a look at Drupal Views later

Thanks for the time that you will give. Drupal CCK and Drupal Views are what makes possible for any site admin ot site creator to set up what ever data type they want (blog, forum, issue, anything) and how they present that data (blocks, pages, paginations, tables, whatever). If these TWO functionality are there in TangoCMS it can be well on its way to unbeatable.

Thanks again for answering this post.

[AlexC]

You need NO separate forum or issue module but TangoCMS as it is now can be made to manage these two things - this may be far from perfect, even very crude but I think they can manage to do the things for a beginning. Only "talk" is not going to help - I understand. As soon as I get some time I want to put a demo installation of TangoCMS to show what I mean.

There is simply no functionality within TangoCMS to provide either issue tracker, or forum. So I am quite interested as to how you think this is possibly currently, there is also http://demo.tangocms.org if that is enough for you to show this.

Till then if you are bent on sticking to existing 'perfect' solutions please implement a COMMON login immediately and a common THEME all over the domains and subdomains of TangoCMS to give it an integrated look. This is utmost essential.

http://dev.tangocms.org/issues/36 will add OpenID & LDAP support as said before, and will be done when it's done. The integrated look would be good (however is not essential), however: man power. Simply do not have the time.

Should personal likings come into this

Yes. As the lead developer I need to make sure we have a workflow that works for us, not our users. Our installation of Redmine at http://dev.tangocms.org is more than capable of tracking feature ideas. It's the same thing as a brainstorm site, users login, post ideas, people vote. Keeping it all on Redmine means we can then easily flick through and assign the already created issues (generic term for both features and bugs) to upcoming versions.

The idea of "ideas" is two-fold - non-geeky people can be easily attracted and they can ... well.. put up just ideas, even vague ones, rather than the issue lists which with its so much technicality is daunting.

They don't have to look at all outstanding issues. Simply login, hit 'New Issue' and submit your idea. The rest of the work is up to us.

Number 2 : this can act as a primary filter so that issue lists are not clogged up. Ideas that make it to issues mean they are on their way to implementation.

Redmine allows us to manage issues in a very easy way, especially with custom queries which you see on the right hand side. Issues that people submit that we never want to do anything with, with set the status correctly, same goes for issues we'd like to implement.

Imagine you are trying a new email service and there you are not finding "draft" option. In all email service you can send mail to yourself and this may be "draft" but still there is a prominent "save as draft" option. Maynot be very good analogy though. "Ideas" actually is a more informal way to get people more interactive and a way of saying "hey! we are listening to you in your own lingo". This is actually a great start for even the smallest CMS.

Your analogy refers to lack of features within the software its self, not how the project is managed. There is no technical terms that a user needs to know or tell us when submitting ideas for the project, they can be as detailed as they wish.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not shooting down all your ideas - since I think they are good. It just needs time and man power to accomplish. Something I don't have.