Where to post improvements ideas?

[hoochicken]

Hello,

sometimes while setting up a website I get the idea for teeny, weeny, little, yet usefull improvements.
Example:

• com_contact would be better, if a col/field 'firstname' is added.
• com_content frontend administration for article: the 'created' date should be administratable [frontend editing for articles sets value 'created' by default with the date of today; thus it prevents that I can set an article's 'created' (which is the date usually used for displaying) can never be in the future; if I have a list of dates in the future I will never be able to generate or administrate them via frontend; that's bad, because I have clients that I don't want to get in touch of the backend, ever - alternatively a forth date field could be added name 'dateForDisplay', but I don't think this is neccassary.]
• templates of core component often are stubborn to css, as no classes are added to the tags, when I just really, really need it (so I often make override only for adding a simple class attribute; I think I'm not the only one here:-)

Here my questions:

• What has to be done, to make these things heard? Where can one post that stuff? (I know the bug squad, but it's not a bug, so that would be wrong.)
• Can I do this changes to Joomla! myself?
• Who is giving the ok for major changes like adding a col in a core component (e. g. firstname)?
• Where can I look up the "normal" procedure for changes?

Summary: Joomla! is a comlex cms - not only the cms itself, but also the around stuff like how to participate, improve and give to Joomla! I'd be glad for any hint and/or links.

Greetings
Mareike

[Bakual]

I guess the feature tracker would be the right place: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemBrowse&tracker_id=8549
If you provide a patch and/or a PullRequest on Github (https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms) it may help.

There is also a doc on how to request a feature here: http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_request_a_feature%3F

[Marco Dings]

How is the feature tracker governed?

When i look at it i see a lot of quite old open items, seemingly "floating". 
Some have feedback and there seems to be conclusion but no action (example )
Other have no feedback for several weeks (example).

As i see it in projects "open" items have a limited lifetime ( days to weeks), and within that time there is clarity ( accepted, rejected, backlog etc ) and an action holder.

Just trying to understand the workings, not trying to voluntell andybody he/she is not doing it right.

--
Marco

[Herman Peeren]

On Wednesday, 12 December 2012 15:28:02 UTC+1, Marco Dings wrote:

How is the feature tracker governed?

It is not, AFAIK. It's just a place to put ideas in and you can have a look if you find anything useful there. If others need the same feature, you could try to contact them to see if you can do anything together.

If you would like that tracker to be used in a more efficient way to get input into the project, you probably have to put that up yourself. It could be an idea to dedicate some time to summarise things on the tracker, provide some statistics, put items in categories and then for instance report it monthly in the Magazine... Also not to "voluntell", just a suggestion for something that could be useful but I don't have the time for.

Not mentioned in this thread yet: http://ideas.joomla.org.
Or is that not in use anymore?

[Marco Dings]

http://ideas.joomla.org. was indirectly mentioned.. through http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_request_a_feature

the feature tracker having states and action holders seemed the structured counter part to me, the board beeing "non-committal" ( for lack of a better word as non-native speaker NL="vrijblijvend" )

On Wednesday, 12 December 2012 15:49:32 UTC+1, Herman Peeren wrote:

On Wednesday, 12 December 2012 15:28:02 UTC+1, Marco Dings wrote:

How is the feature tracker governed?

It is not, AFAIK. It's just a place to put ideas in and you can have a look if you find anything useful there. If others need the same feature, you could try to contact them to see if you can do anything together.

If you would like that tracker to be used in a more efficient way to get input into the project, you probably have to put that up yourself. It could be an idea to dedicate some time to summarise things on the tracker, provide some statistics, put items in categories and then for instance report it monthly in the Magazine... Also not to "voluntell", just a suggestion for something that could be useful but I don't have the time for.

There is some kind of moderation in place.. imho it does not make sense to setup yet another channel.
Then again some points like the version discussion are well worth mentioning but that one in particular .. i'll wait for the conclusion..

[Herman Peeren]

Browsing through the feature tracker I just saw this in
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=29474

Ingezonden door: Elin Waring
Toevoegen datum: 2012-10-20 00:17:11
Is this something you are proposing to code? The feature tracker is not for
feature requests, for those please go to http://ideas.joomla.org

If I understand this well: 

• the feature tracker seems to be meant for things you propose to code (or have coded)
  
• and ideas.joomla.org just for all wild ideas you may have for future features.

I saw some other postings on the feature tracker that seem consistent with this idea. Also: "closed because no code proposed".

[Matt Thomas]

One way to look at it is that ideas.joomla.org is for gaining interest and promoting an idea that you cannot code yourself. If you can code it, you can open a tracker item and include a link to a pull request or attached a patch.

Best,

Matt Thomas

Founder betweenbrain™

Lead Developer Construct Template Development Framework

Phone: 203.632.9322
Twitter: @betweenbrain

Github: https://github.com/betweenbrain

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[hoochicken]

Hi,
thank you very much for all the answers. That helps a lot.

Greetings
Mareike

[Gary Mort]

On Wednesday, December 12, 2012 6:41:41 AM UTC-5, hoochicken wrote:

• com_content frontend administration for article: the 'created' date should be administratable [frontend editing for articles sets value 'created' by default with the date of today; thus it prevents that I can set an article's 'created' (which is the date usually used for displaying) can never be in the future; if I have a list of dates in the future I will never be able to generate or administrate them via frontend; that's bad, because I have clients that I don't want to get in touch of the backend, ever - alternatively a forth date field could be added name 'dateForDisplay', but I don't think this is neccassary.]

You can choose from created Data, published Date, and modified Date as the default date to be displayed.  Of the 3 dates, publish date is editable on both front and backend.

I am trying to always set my default configuration for all articles to Publish Date so I can control date display better.

[elin]

The feature tracker is managed in this way.  People post code.  Other people look at the proposed features and test the code and give feed back.  If there is no interest in the feature there are no testers and therefore the feature remains just that a proposal with no community support behind it.

If a feature proposer gets feed back and is responsive to it and there are a good number of testers it is reviewed in detail before a release.  At that point there may be additional feed back to be responded to.    In general all features that get to that point are accepted.  Most of the "floating" features are ones that have not garnered any interest from the community i.e. no one has tested or that the person submitting has never satisfactorily responded to feed back.  Occasionally in the case of serious architectural changes a feature is turned down, but most small features are accepted.

In terms of contact, we do already have three name fields (sorename1, sortname2, sortname3)) and you can use those and render them instead of the Name field.

Elin