Planning for Joomla 3.3

[brian teeman]

Thanks for the update and awesome roadmap http://developer.joomla.org/news/577-planning-for-joomla-3-3.html

Just one question from me. Previously it was stated that no new features would go into 3.5 hence the big panic to rush things into 3.2 etc

Is it now still the plan therefore that 3.3 will be the last release within the 3.x tree that can accept new features.

[Don Gilbert]

This is being discussed by the PLT (and was heavily discussed this past weekend during the Architecture Sprint, at which 3 PLT members were in attendance), and we'll have something soon to share. You'll be able to look forward to more stable software with fewer BC breaks in the not-to-far-off future. I'll just leave it at that.

Don

[brian teeman]

On Wednesday, 12 February 2014 22:17:28 UTC, Don Gilbert wrote:

This is being discussed by the PLT (and was heavily discussed this past weekend during the Architecture Sprint, at which 3 PLT members were in attendance), and we'll have something soon to share. You'll be able to look forward to more stable software with fewer BC breaks in the not-to-far-off future. I'll just leave it at that.

I think you missed my point but i will leave it for now

[Vic Drover]

Don, I really think we would all benefit from a longer time, say 10-14 days, to test the RC releases. 

--

Cheers,

Victor Drover
Founder and CEO, Anything Digital LLC (BBB Accredited)
Co-founder, Watchful.li & jInbound.com
262-309-4140
Facebook: AnythingDigital | watchfulli | JInbound
Twitter: @AnythingDig | @watchfulli | @JoomlaInbound

[Webdongle Elgnodbew]

"The PLT is planning a 3.2 release on April 1, 2014, the same day as 3.3.0"

 http://developer.joomla.org/news/577-planning-for-joomla-3-3.html

Does this mean that we will have 2.5.x, 3.2.3 and 3.3.3 all available on the download page at the same time ?

[brian teeman]

Probably not the most auspicious date to chose for a release especially from a marketing perspective where all the attention will be taken by the latest April fools tricks from Google et al.

[Matt Thomas]

Brian,

To answer your question, yes. That is the plan at this point in time. As Don hinted at, there are some changes being discussed, but nothing has officially changed.

Best,

Matt Thomas
203.632.9322
http://betweenbrain.com/

Sent from mobile. Please pardon any typos or brevity.

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[Matt Thomas]

+1 Vic

Best,

Matt Thomas
203.632.9322
http://betweenbrain.com/

Sent from mobile. Please pardon any typos or brevity.

[Michael Babker]

If we continue to add so much code to minor and patch releases that we need 2 weeks for release candidate testing, we have other issues we need to resolve internally. For a minor release, I personally believe that a week of code freeze & release candidate testing should be ample time. Over the last few months, we have continued to make it easier to test the CMS at any time.  What we need now, in my opinion, is for more individuals and companies to test code pre release which will help create a more stable product every release day.

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[Michael Babker]

We have not thought through how to handle this on the download page yet.  All of the packages will be posted on to JoomlaCode as they are now.  With that said, I personally don't know if we should recommend new users install 3.2 after 3.3 is released since it will only supported for security issues until October.

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[Vic Drover]

" Over the last few months, we have continued to make it easier to test the CMS at any time.  What we need now, in my opinion, is for more individuals and companies to test code pre release which will help create a more stable product every release day."

I agree. An extended RC testing period would help this IMO.

Cheers,

Victor Drover
Founder and CEO, Anything Digital LLC (BBB Accredited)
Co-founder, Watchful.li & jInbound.com
262-309-4140
Facebook: AnythingDigital | watchfulli | JInbound
Twitter: @AnythingDig | @watchfulli | @JoomlaInbound

[Samuel Mehrbrodt]

What does that mean for 3.5? Will it be postponed? Is there already a release date for 3.5?
Or will 3.3 become LTS?

[Nick Savov]

With the current strategy, 4.0 gets pushed back 6 months as well, so it
would be Spring of 2015.

Thanks for everyone's patience and bearing with us while we work on
improvements. We're hopefully that the new changes will maximize the
lifespan and support of Joomla sites. It's a big undertaking and we want
to make sure we get it right.

Let us know if you have any further questions and we'll be glad to answer.
Just keep in mind that PLT hasn't finalized things yet, so we won't be
able to give a definite answer to some questions at this time.

Kind regards,
Nick

> With current development strategy, yes it would be postponed (again). And
> no, there is no date already for it. With current strategy, it would be in
> fall 2014 together with 4.0 (if I'm not wrong).
>
> However as was stated already we are discussing a change to the strategy
> currently and if it gets accepted any date given currently for 3.5 would
> be
> a moot point afterwards anyway.

[Beat]

Thanks for the update.

While at planning LTS releases, we may want to consider supporting LTS versions in security-patching-only mode for much longer.

This post (still unanswered) made me think:
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=699&t=834905

Who doesn't still have a Joomla 1.5 site (not speaking of 1.0!) somewhere that time or budget didn't allow to upgrade and that you want to keep for any good reason ? Even Joomla.org's help site is Joomla 1.0 and JED is 1.5.... So let's face it: Joomla is already and still doing security-maintenance of 1.0 and of 1.5 for its own use! The extra-step to share it with the community is marginal.

The example of Joomla 1.5's security stabilty (only 1 major issue discovered and still patched by the community) (Joomla 1.0 same, only very few major security issues discovered since stop of development) shows that the time-cost to do major-security-releases would be quite low.

On the upside, if we can say that e.g. Joomla LTS releases will be security-maintained for high-level security issues for e.g. 5 years after bugs-maintenance stops (and possibly include PHP 5.x up-to-date releases support), then Joomla would have a huge edge compared to other CMSes.

It would lower the cost of sites-maintenance and of costly migrations, and give a good reason to choose Joomla over any other CMS for serious projects.

I'm not saying advertise the download of old releases, nor list old versions and their old extensions on the JED, nor do bug-fixes or minor security-fixes. Only the serious ones.

I think it's a low-hanging fruit, worth a thought at PLT and at Marketing Team while reviewing LTS strategy.

What do you think ?

Best Regards,
Beat
http://www.joomlapolis.com/

[Hannes Papenberg]

I actually hope that we wont have migrations like with 1.0 and 1.5
anymore and instead slowly upgrade our system from release to release
with maybe search&replace changes in the code. So, fingers crossed, I
wouldn't even include the idea of migrations in a future strategy.

At the same time, consider your timeschedule again for something like
the 5 year support that you are suggesting. Joomla 1.0 was released 2005
and was superseeded by 1.5 somewhere around January 2008, if I'm
correct. Its official EOL was in August 2009, that is already 4 years
after it was released. 1.5 was EOLed September 2012, giving it 4.5
years. Its not as if people had to upgrade and migrate every 2 weeks.
Even with current Joomla 2.5, which roots lay in Joomla 1.6, people
have/had 4 years until the major version is not supported anymore. I'd
say a better strategy would be to tell people, that a major version is
going to be supported for 2 more years after its last minor release.
(Going with SemVer teminology here) We will of course communicate our
plans with people, how long we plan to develop version X, etc. So they
in fact CAN plan with our system. But promising 5 years of support after
a product is actually EOL and thus practically encouraging to keep on
using it, is not something that I find wise.

Hannes

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[Herve Boinnard]

I do agree with the extended RC time for a new branch. Then it will push
the release date out of the April fools period.

Regarding getting more individuals and companies involved in testing RC,
there is no easy solution IMHO. I supposed, like me, some of these
"individuals and companies" would really like to spend more time
contributing to this great project and community, but it doesn't fit
into the cycle of life, family, and work (in this order ;-). And
following all the threads and conversations on the mailing list is not
an option. Just looking and filtering "RC release" "freeze" in messages
subject helps.

Maybe we could try to have a specific channel for these important steps,
not only among all the posts on joomla-dev-cms. Would it be more visible
for these "individuals and companies" ?

And also to point/include this channel with the JED communication for
extensions and templates developers?

As I don't know about all the Joomla project infrastructure, I can see
this channel as a single mailing-list topic or forum thread manage by
the PLT, so anyone can subscribe to it and get notifications by email.
If it already exists, sorry, it should be more visible, or even
compulsory for the registered JED devs!!

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,
Hervé Boinnard

Puma - IT services : : multilingual website and online business made easy
http://www.puma-it.ie
Join us on Twitter http://twitter.com/Puma_IT

On 13/02/2014 02:04, Vic Drover wrote:
> " Over the last few months, we have continued to make it easier to test
> the CMS at any time. What we need now, in my opinion, is for more
> individuals and companies to test code pre release which will help
> create a more stable product every release day."
>
> I agree. An extended RC testing period would help this IMO.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Victor Drover

> Founder and CEO, Anything Digital LLC <https://mail.google.com/> (BBB
> Accredited
> <http://www.bbb.org/milwaukee/business-reviews/computer-software-publishers-and-developers/anything-digital-llc-in-sussex-wi-1000009940/>)
> Co-founder, Watchful.li <https://watchful.li/> & jInbound.com
> <http://jinbound.com/>
> 262-309-4140
> Facebook: AnythingDigital <https://www.facebook.com/AnythingDigital> |
> watchfulli <https://www.facebook.com/watchfulli> | JInbound
> <https://www.facebook.com/JInbound>
> Twitter: @AnythingDig <https://twitter.com/AnythingDig> | @watchfulli
> <https://twitter.com/watchfulli> | @JoomlaInbound
> <https://twitter.com/joomlainbound>

>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 6:32 PM, Michael Babker
> <michael...@gmail.com <mailto:michael...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> We have not thought through how to handle this on the download page
> yet. All of the packages will be posted on to JoomlaCode as they
> are now. With that said, I personally don't know if we should
> recommend new users install 3.2 after 3.3 is released since it will
> only supported for security issues until October.
>
>
> On Wednesday, February 12, 2014, Webdongle Elgnodbew

> <in...@weblinksonline.co.uk <mailto:in...@weblinksonline.co.uk>> wrote:
>
> "The PLT is planning a 3.2 release on April 1, 2014, the
> same day as 3.3.0"
>
> http://developer.joomla.org/news/577-planning-for-joomla-3-3.html
>
> Does this mean that we will have 2.5.x, 3.2.3 and 3.3.3 all
> available on the download page at the same time ?
>
>
> On Wednesday, 12 February 2014 22:10:12 UTC, brian teeman wrote:
>
> Thanks for the update and awesome roadmap

> http://developer.__joomla.org/news/577-planning-__for-joomla-3-3.html

> <http://developer.joomla.org/news/577-planning-for-joomla-3-3.html>
>
> Just one question from me. Previously it was stated that no
> new features would go into 3.5 hence the big panic to rush
> things into 3.2 etc
>
> Is it now still the plan therefore that 3.3 will be the last
> release within the 3.x tree that can accept new features.
>
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>
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[Michael Babker]

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 5:19 AM, Herve Boinnard <rvb...@puma-it.com> wrote:

Regarding getting more individuals and companies involved in testing RC,
there is no easy solution IMHO. I supposed, like me, some of these
"individuals and companies" would really like to spend more time
contributing to this great project and community, but it doesn't fit
into the cycle of life, family, and work (in this order ;-). And
following all the threads and conversations on the mailing list is not
an option. Just looking and filtering "RC release" "freeze" in messages
subject helps.

If your company or business is dependent on Joomla being stable, adding a couple of hours the week RC packages are posted (or even making it part of the weekly workflow to spend time developing against a nightly build) would make a big difference.  I notice a lot of developers reacting to our releases and pushing their own.  How many times could problems that turned out to be core changes have been addressed if someone were testing a nightly build or RC package with their favorite extensions installed?  Probably more often than not.

Maybe we could try to have a specific channel for these important steps,
not only among all the posts on joomla-dev-cms. Would it be more visible
for these "individuals and companies" ?

We have a JTesters mailing list where the RC packages are announced when available.  Low traffic (a message every 6-8 weeks, in line with our release schedule), everyone should follow.

[Vic Drover]

The issue is more to do with scheduling. If there is a 2 week window (as opposed to 4 days), companies have time to schedule the testing with their teams. It can be quite problematic to carve out time within a few days (what if some of those days are Sat or Sunday) even in a small but busy company.

At the very least, you could experiment with an extended RC for a few releases and see how it goes.

Cheers,

Victor Drover

Founder and CEO, Anything Digital LLC (BBB Accredited)
Co-founder, Watchful.li & jInbound.com
262-309-4140
Facebook: AnythingDigital | watchfulli | JInbound
Twitter: @AnythingDig | @watchfulli | @JoomlaInbound

--

[Michael Babker]

I have no problem adding in more testing time, but if we don't get folks to commit to testing (beyond the usual folks who already do bend over backwards to support us; this is where we need to outreach and borderline put pressure on organizations to test) or helping to compile a proper list of notes (remember, there's maybe a handful of people doing this work behind the scenes now, I know I don't have the time to review *EVERY* tracker item closed during a cycle to find every little change that might need tested by different developers or users), then why bother with it?  Not exactly a popular answer, but that's my honest opinion on the matter.

So, I put a survey out on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mbabker/status/434017092946235392) asking about just this topic.  Interested in hearing feedback on the matter.  Long and short of it, we can freeze code and test releases at any point.  If there's enough demand and support for a longer period, I'll program it in.

[Hervé Boinnard]

Thanks Michael for the suggestions. I agree with you, it makes perfect
sense. I wish I had the time to allow more for this workflow, but I am
not too much Joomla dependent, yet...

I was not aware of the JTesters list, and while reviewing the Developer
website - a amazing great work by the way, with Coding Standards and
some much links - I could not find this list. There are the four mailing
list in the right sidebar, though.

I suggest to add it in the "I'm a Developer" section on this page
http://developer.joomla.org/cms/volunteer.html
and probably on other point of contact with developers (JED submission,
forum, ?)

Having more time for RC will make senses, like you stated, if we have
more testers ;-)
I will do my best to be there next time.

Hervé

On 13/02/2014 17:38, Michael Babker wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 5:19 AM, Herve Boinnard <rvb...@puma-it.com
> <mailto:rvb...@puma-it.com>> wrote:
>
> Regarding getting more individuals and companies involved in testing RC,
> there is no easy solution IMHO. I supposed, like me, some of these
> "individuals and companies" would really like to spend more time
> contributing to this great project and community, but it doesn't fit
> into the cycle of life, family, and work (in this order ;-). And
> following all the threads and conversations on the mailing list is not
> an option. Just looking and filtering "RC release" "freeze" in messages
> subject helps.
>
>
> If your company or business is dependent on Joomla being stable, adding
> a couple of hours the week RC packages are posted (or even making it
> part of the weekly workflow to spend time developing against a nightly
> build) would make a big difference. I notice a lot of developers
> reacting to our releases and pushing their own. How many times could
> problems that turned out to be core changes have been addressed if
> someone were testing a nightly build or RC package with their favorite
> extensions installed? Probably more often than not.
>
> Maybe we could try to have a specific channel for these important steps,
> not only among all the posts on joomla-dev-cms. Would it be more visible
> for these "individuals and companies" ?
>
>

> We have a JTesters <http://groups.google.com/group/jtesters> mailing

> list where the RC packages are announced when available. Low traffic (a
> message every 6-8 weeks, in line with our release schedule), everyone
> should follow.
>

[Vic Drover]

Thanks for the survey Michael. But what is lost in having a longer testing period?

Cheers,

Victor Drover

Founder and CEO, Anything Digital LLC (BBB Accredited)
Co-founder, Watchful.li & jInbound.com
262-309-4140
Facebook: AnythingDigital | watchfulli | JInbound
Twitter: @AnythingDig | @watchfulli | @JoomlaInbound

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[WooDzu]

I'd like to vote up for extending the testing period. I cannot see scheduling testing RCs within 4 days at my company but 7-10 days sound fair enough.
We're highly Joomla dependent (2.5) on company's site, community site (+860k users) and an online magazine. Currently all Joomla testing was just after release since I wasn't aware of the RC updates nor JTesters group until now, or actually until last RC which was announcement by email if I remember correctly.
Still think RC's announcements should be more prominent.

[Amy Stephen]

On Thursday, February 13, 2014 12:01:23 PM UTC-6, Vic Drover wrote:

Thanks for the survey Michael. But what is lost in having a longer testing period?

Not to be difficult, but what is gained? For years, I've seen extension developers claim there is not enough notification and the project needs to do more. So, the project sets up an email list. But, that really didn't increase involvement. If more time is added, I don't see it making a difference.

What might help is extension developers signing up and saying we've got skin in this game. If you give us two weeks, [name goes here] will test the RC. We will immediately respond to the email indicating we understand the RC needs to be tested. Half-way thru the testing period, we will respond with the results of the testing, thus far. We understand that any show stoppers should be reported at the half-way mark. Two days before the end of the testing period, we will sign off.

That might work -- provided there are 10, or more, extension developers who will sign up and put their reputations on the line, it could make a difference.

Otherwise, I don't honestly see any reason for the project to do more. It never seems to make any difference at all in who chooses to engage. That's as true today as it was five years ago.

Is anyone able to rally the troops and get their involvement?
 

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[Vic Drover]

I've already raised my hand on this, so I don't have much to add except that I don't see the harm in waiting another 7-10 days (especially in a small trial with a few metrics like RC downloads)?

On the flip side, a lot is so be lost by rushing. 

Cheers,

Victor Drover
Founder and CEO, Anything Digital LLC (BBB Accredited)
Co-founder, Watchful.li & jInbound.com
262-309-4140
Facebook: AnythingDigital | watchfulli | JInbound
Twitter: @AnythingDig | @watchfulli | @JoomlaInbound

[Alex Andreae]

We're a 2 person development company with a large, popular extension. Hopefully, the below is good feedback that can be taken, as we're always trying to test more, more, more as it lowers our support costs.

For us, we have a huge Selenium test suite for our extension. It takes about 4-5 hours to run. It tests user registration, authentication, content, and a slew of other things from a 3rd party extension standpoint. A lot of that is hand-holding though as we integrate with social networks, which don't always have the timing we need for automated testing.

We're always trying to run it against the latest releases or RCs, but here are the problems we've run into:

• The time above is for *each* version of Joomla. When an RC comes out for Joomla 2.5 and 3.x at the same time, that doubles the time needed to test (for us).
• The RC time is very compressed, and many times, isn't announced how long it is.
• For example, the JTesters post for J3.2.2/J2.5.18 was on February 3rd, but there was no mention of when the planned release was. We saw the notice and planned to test toward the end of the week (we're getting a new release ready anyways), but then it came out instead. We've since tested, and everything passed, but if we knew the release was planned for Friday, we may have tried to pull it in (more time would have helped though).
• The J3.2.1/J2.5.17 was announced December 15th (Sunday) and released on December 18th (Wed). Very hard to run a full suite in that time.
• The Joomla 3.2.0 RC was pushed out on November 1st in a blog post, but the JTesters list didn't get a post until November 4th. There was an anticipated release date in the post, but still just 2 days later. The release was November 6th (right before JWC, no less). So that's 2-5 days, depending on where you monitor.
• Our testing actually found the 3.2.0 authentication/encryption issues, but a day after the release.. and it took another day to understand what was going on and chat with some people at JWC about it. 
• We definitely have some blame for not testing sooner during the beta period, but the suite was in a much worse state then than now so we couldn't just kick it off as easily. 

With all that said, what would really help us get in and test sooner (and I'm assuming others) are the following items:

• Announce the RC date everywhere possible all at once: blog, jtesters, wherever
• Clearly indicate the anticipated actual release date
• If there is anything specific/big that's changed, it would be great to call it out. 
• This can be tricky since much might change, but I follow the lists, and still get surprised by stuff. Pointing just to the tracker is not an easy way to digest what may have really broke. 
• More time would be *wonderful*. As noted, for us, it's at least 1 day of full testing to get through a J2.5 and J3.x release, which means a 2-3 day notice is almost always not enough
• If possible, please announce that an RC is coming. A few days notice that an RC will be available on xxx would help immensely. With that, we can know to be free on Tuesday and try to get in right when it's released, instead of finding out, clearing our plates and then testing a few days (or so) later.

Our case may be unique with our test suite. It is quicker to 'get in and click around', but for us, we have a known input and output, which makes our tests catch a lot.. we just need time to prepare. We are working to get more automated and testing against nightly type builds.. that's been the plan for about 6 months now, but we're not there yet. Can't wait until we are and we'll definitely be pushing more bug reports (and hopefully code) back.

I hope that helps. None of the above is criticism at all, so please don't take anything that way if you feel I was pointing at you.

Thanks!

Alex

[Amy Stephen]

On Thursday, February 13, 2014 6:56:19 PM UTC-6, Alex Andreae wrote:

We're a 2 person development company with a large, popular extension. Hopefully, the below is good feedback that can be taken, as we're always trying to test more, more, more as it lowers our support costs.

Awesome, Alex, seriously, that's good process. I'm sure it would catch issues.

So, that's two extension developers. Something to build on - maybe you guys could send a call out and see if others would also commit?

[Leo Lammerink]

I also support the longer testing period. I do realize that last minute tweaks always will come up and that we cannot take them in all the time but with a a week more testing after code freeze we will be able to provide a better tested (!) product to our Joomla community is my strong believe so for me +1 for sure

regards
Leo

[Beat]

Hi all,

To reply on the timing aspect and counting us in for RC tests:

I'm following git commits and mailing lists on a once-a-day (or more often) basis and still it's very difficult for me guessing when a beta or RC will be popping out for planning for tests. So advance notices help.

E.g. even now from commits, there is no clue when 3.2.3 will be released. Can't read minds. ;-)

I agree with Alex that having an advance notice helps planing and probably up to 3 workdays advance notice could save the equivalent testing time, provided the notice are reliable.

Current schedule (supposing that RC is 26th evening and 31st is for packaging and last tests of the release package) allows for only 2 workdays of RC testing (you can't plan week-ends as family has priority for sanity reasons, right?). That's sure too short, even with advance notice: 1 day to test and 1 day to try understanding all what's wrong is just (even supposing that those 2 workdays are available for everyone) is just way too short. I would say everything below 4-5 workdays is just an April's joke. :-D

That said, when we get enough advance notice+time to test, we do non-regression testing with our extensions (and we do participate in testing and contributed significant features for 3.2).

So with only 2 workdays of test, don't count on us for reliable tests (we will of course do basic tests). With e.g. 4-5 workdays it will become more reliable.

Best Regards,
Beat
http://www.joomlapolis.com/

[Beat]

As for features freeze up to 4.0 and new 3.3:

Commenting on the "Vision for 3.3" in http://developer.joomla.org/news/577-planning-for-joomla-3-3.html :

For the end user, the only new feature of 3.3 vision is front-end modules editing from current plans (replacing the new link to backend-editing of 3.2, which is certainly good, but not significant nor major).
Rest is new (yet unused) libraries and finish of javascript cleanups.

Regarding the question about features-freeze for 3.5 and question of "mad rush": It will not happen for 3.3 imho:

1) There was no advance notice to schedule time
2) There was no time to propose, design and no process to agree on new features like was for 3.2
3) And now there is only 10 days left to do implementations without any agreement of feature.

So if the goal was to have a minimalistic 3.3, it's achieved.

Actually, thinking of it, with that feature-set, if nothing groundbreaking outside that list pops in (and we would have heard of it by now), it could easily be called 3.5.0.

The only reason I see for adding a 3.3 would be to slow-down releases rythm and make more time for 4.0

And that would mean that 4.0 with 1 year dev time would become a non-evolutionary (and thus less-backwards compatible and less easily upgradable) 4.0 release. And unless 4.0 brings revolutionary mind-blowing new features for the *end user*, that would imho not be good. I would prefer that we do an evolutionary 4.0 and plan the next revolution for 5.0:

Because 1 year is too much for release-early-and-often evolution, and not enough for properly architected revolution.

Best Regards,
Beat
http://www.joomlapolis.com/

[Hervé Boinnard]

Alex, impressive work put in place for testing. I do not have the need
and knowledge to do it yet, but thanks for sharing the process!

+1 for Alex 5 points regarding announcement. As I said, my main business
is not extension dev, but it is growing. So I have other deadlines and
tasks to arrange before being ready for testing a RC.

> With all that said, what would really help us get in and test sooner (and I'm assuming others) are the following items:
>

> - Announce the RC date everywhere possible all at once: blog, jtesters, wherever
> - Clearly indicate the anticipated actual release date
> - If there is anything specific/big that's changed, it would be great to call it out.

> This can be tricky since much might change, but I follow the lists, and still get surprised by stuff. Pointing just to the tracker is not an easy way to digest what may have really broke.

> - More time would be *wonderful*. As noted, for us, it's at least 1 day of full testing to get through a J2.5 and J3.x release, which means a 2-3 day notice is almost always not enough
> - If possible, please announce that an RC is coming. A few days notice that an RC will be available on xxx would help immensely. With that, we can know to be free on Tuesday and try to get in right when it's released, instead of finding out, clearing our plates and then testing a few days (or so) later.


Amy, I understand your frustration from your experience 5 years ago.
Also, 5 years is an eternity in software development (I was building my
first Joomla website with 1.5.8 back then).
And I do agree with the involvement and sign off process, that can be
simple as replying to an email list. It should not be a problem for
people in group, caring for the same project, saying "Yes, I can!" or
"Sorry, I can't, not this time."

I do not have many experience managing a community, but I am sure that
the Joomla community can have a good response to this. Contacting the
top extensions developers could be a good starting point, even if some
of them are already contributing to Joomla. And actually I am getting
more involved because that is an excellent way to learn more! This is a
virtuous circle!

Hervé

[Vic Drover]

Doesn't the Joomla project have a seleium testing suite? If this could be standardized and releases, everyone could be testing the same things, at least on stock Joomla sites. This could be modified for non-stock sites as required.

This is a critical piece of infrastructure IMO.

Cheers,

Victor Drover
Founder and CEO, Anything Digital LLC (BBB Accredited)
Co-founder, Watchful.li & jInbound.com
262-309-4140
Facebook: AnythingDigital | watchfulli | JInbound
Twitter: @AnythingDig | @watchfulli | @JoomlaInbound

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[Karlos Rikáryo]

Friends since the beginning of the planning of Joomla! 1.6, 1.7, 2.5 I have been suggesting water change the blog template that should have a character counter that would make the Read More button would be optional at the time of posting to laypersons, since the counter automatic character was being used.

Maybe it was inserted interesting functionality in version 3.3 and matured until the final version 3.5?

hugs

Rikaryo

Joomla! Brasil

[Michael Babker]

The Selenium and unit test suites are both in the GitHub repo and available when checking that out (and there's some docs on the wiki about getting up and running for first time users).

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[Troy]

+1

Bear

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[mirk...@gmail.com]

As Beat mentioned, I think that could be a great point to provide to community a more longer security maintenance...especially if this is not too time consuming for Joomla Team. Hannes say this could encourage people to still use it and this will be probably the case. But I don't see this as a bad point. People who start a new project will always choose the most recent version but people like me who are happy with their old, stable and customized version will be annoyed and nothing more. Now if Joomla was a commercial and paid software I could understand this could be not positive because they can miss some income..but that's not the case..

[Ran Elkobi]

The most important update for joomla 3.3
Joomla always falls short when it comes to SEO and it's done it again with the new tags component.
Tags are great tool for both controlling your content and for SEO, but why the page title of tag view page (sitename.com/tag/4-tagname) is the site title (duplicated title for google) and not the tag name??!!
It's all simple basic SEO that joomla developers always miss.

Hope it will be fixed on the next update.

[Ofer Cohen]

+1

Ofer Cohen

[Hervé Boinnard]

Hi Ran,

We hear regularly about this kind of statement "Joomla always falls
short when it comes to SEO", but as I am not a SEO expert, I cannot tell.

Ran, it will be wonderful if you could, in a separate thread, list what
you notice, and suggest solutions. I am sure that other SEO wise people
will add their thoughts. And if you provide a patch or a pull request
for the tag code, to fix what you point at, it will be even more close
to be in the next release!

Thank you for your contribution.
Have a nice day!

Hervé

[Bakual]

It only gets fixed if someone writes a patch for it. Best is if it's done by someone who understands the problem.

If nobody does write a patch and others don't test it, then it will never be fixed.

[Ran Elkobi]

Hi Herve,

I am not new to joomla (as hard core user, not a developer) but I am new to joomla dev team.

I am not an SEO expert either, but do knows, learn,  understand (and use) all the basics that a CMS should have out of the box so the users will have a built-in SEO that just works.

I'll be happy to write a DOC with what is need to be done regrading SEO issues with joomla 3.2, whichI am currently testing before upgrading my own j1.5 site. I am not talking about core joomla to replace extensions such as sh404sef, but just basic SEO.

Unfortunately I only knows to read code but I am not a programmer so I'll be able just to test what others have done.

Kind Regards

Ran.

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[Hervé Boinnard]

Hi Ran,

That's good if you can write a doc, and post a new message with the
relevant title. So if one wants to add more to it, and if one wants to
code it into joomla, you will be able to test it.

We will be closer to have it implemented soon then. Thanks.

Kind regards,
Hervé

On 16/02/2014 17:41, Ran Elkobi wrote:
> Hi Herve,
>
> I am not new to joomla (as hard core user, not a developer) but I am new
> to joomla dev team.
> I am not an SEO expert either, but do knows, learn, understand (and
> use) all the basics that a CMS should have out of the box so the users
> will have a built-in SEO that just works.
>
> I'll be happy to write a DOC with what is need to be done regrading SEO
> issues with joomla 3.2, whichI am currently testing before upgrading my
> own j1.5 site. I am not talking about core joomla to replace extensions
> such as sh404sef, but just basic SEO.
>
> Unfortunately I only knows to read code but I am not a programmer so
> I'll be able just to test what others have done.
>
> Kind Regards
> Ran.
>
>
> 2014-02-16 17:25 GMT+02:00 Bakual <werbe...@bakual.ch

> <mailto:werbe...@bakual.ch>>:

>
> It only gets fixed if someone writes a patch for it. Best is if it's
> done by someone who understands the problem.
> If nobody does write a patch and others don't test it, then it will
> never be fixed.
>
> Am Sonntag, 16. Februar 2014 03:40:59 UTC+1 schrieb Ran Elkobi:
>
> The most important update for joomla 3.3
> Joomla always falls short when it comes to SEO and it's done it
> again with the new tags component.
> Tags are great tool for both controlling your content and for
> SEO, but why the page title of tag view page

> (sitename.com/tag/4-tagname <http://sitename.com/tag/4-tagname>)

> is the site title (duplicated title for google) and not the tag
> name??!!
> It's all simple basic SEO that joomla developers always miss.
>
> Hope it will be fixed on the next update.
>
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[Кирил Йовев]

Is Joomla 3.3 a LTS release?

[Bakual]

No, technically it's an STS because 3.5 is scheduled to come out half a year later.

[MaxOnTheHill]

Is there any way that Joomla DEV TEAM or PLT can allocate and work with some SEO folk to cut the code to fix ongoing issues with SEF URL and basic SEO in Joomla core?  There's a lot of very small, but basic settings that would improve things so much - and while some code suggestions are out there, they are all core hacks and get overwritten on updates :-(

I am happy to put some time in trying to get fixes to some of the basic issues, but like most SEOs we are not great code cutters ... so if we can form a little working group that would be great.

Thanks,
Max Lynam
@MaxOnTheHill
PS: also happy to run some of our templates, extensions & sites against RC candidates and see what we can break - will have a chat to Phil as well - not sure if he already does?  If there's automated testing platforms, I'm assuming the RC candidates are already being run against those?

[Marko Đedović]

I will happily test anything that removes id's from urls. It already exists, hidden, but if we can work on it to get it as an official option and solve the issues it causes (if any), it'd be great. Unfortunately the feature proposal freeze is set for 24th of Feb, and it has to be merged by 8th, which doesn't seem very realistic for catching, unless someone is already working on it. And then we're stuck with id's during the series 3 :-)

[MaxOnTheHill]

I'm happy if fixes like that can be any time in the near fufure.  I'm in Joomla for the long haul and just want it to be fixed in a proper, un-rushed and stable manner.

Max

[Bakual]

There is no "DEV TEAM", there is a community. So feel free to team up with others interested and propose a PR to solve the issue. I know there are others who want to do similar things, like Hannes who wants to rewrite routing since at least (felt) 20 years :-) He even proposed code which is ready to test. Unfortunately nobody tests.

[Hannes Papenberg]

<Insert random link to one of my SEF URL discussions on here>

Or rather let me post them again, simply for good measure:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/joomla-dev-cms/Lnyo5JLtwlU/csfuCL6eBDEJ
https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/2538
https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/2487
https://github.com/Hackwar/joomla-cms/tree/jrouter

All the above links either link to a discussion, a PR or an outdated
branch where I tried to fix the URLs and begged for weeks and months and
no one cared. So if you want to see any progress with URLs, simply test
the PRs that I've been trying to get in for the last 3 years.

Hannes

> <http://sitename.com/tag/4-tagname

> <http://sitename.com/tag/4-tagname>>)
> > is the site title (duplicated title for google)
> and not the tag
> > name??!!
> > It's all simple basic SEO that joomla developers
> always miss.
> >
> > Hope it will be fixed on the next update.
> >
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[Bakual]

To be realistic, I don't think such drastic chanegs to our routing could possibly go into 3.3. As you said the timeframe is to short for that and also the goal of 3.3 is to keep it small.

A change to the routing system is a very delicate thing and would have to be 150% backward compatible. Otherwise people get broken links which is far more detrimental for SEO than the possible gain would be.

You can already remove the ids, but you need a 3rd party extension for that. sh404sef for example will do that.

[Marko Đedović]

Testing PR's of Hannes seems like a good start, will do. 

@Bakual

The idea is to have it as an option disabled by default, so if no one enables it, no change to router behaviour. If it can be made to work without breaking how the router works at the moment when it's off, I see no reason why it cannot be included - except that it can't be tested in time.

Personally, I'd never use SEO extension for some essential functionality like that, as you can never again upgrade unless the extension developer is responsive as well, it's too important.

[Leo Lammerink]

Besides that using sh404 or MijoSef or similar extensions  generate quite a number of extra load on the server especially when you talk about a site with a couple of thousand url's. I have seen 4Gb quad core highly tuned servers going down with 60 Joomla sites hosted and all using sh404 and or Mijosef/Acesef. Victor wrote that an average load increase is measured in their benchmarking on an average Joomla site by 2% (OSTraining Forums). So now multiply that with a large number of sites and servers with limited Memory and farewell mysql (has gone away)

So a solution without the need to spend money to get rid of the id's seems a very logical step but I agree we need a lot of testing and also agree that we should not push this into 3.2.3. Too short time and I see such as change either in 3.2.4 or whatever since if such modification ruins ranking because of core changes the hell breaks loose for sure

Leo

[Hannes Papenberg]

We are talking about 3.3 or later.

[Leo Lammerink]

What would be in your opinion than a realistic target?

[Hannes Papenberg]

I gave up pushing this in in one big block and fixing everything in one
go, so I've started with smaller PRs. There were 2 ready to be merged,
but I messed up one again while trying to change the target to staging
instead of master. Anyway, the other one, which is quite important and
means a great deal of improvement for developers, is the class based
routers thing and that has been ready for months and simply waits for a
few testers. So this could go in tomorrow, as far as I'm concerned.

Depending on my free time or if someone is so eager to get this fixed to
actually pay me to get the rest of the code updated again, tested and
working, the rest could go into 3.3, too, or be postponed till 4.0 or
whichever way we go.

Hannes

Am 18.02.2014 09:17, schrieb Leo Lammerink:
> What would be in your opinion than a realistic target?
> On 2/18/2014 3:16 PM, Hannes Papenberg wrote:
>>
>> We are talking about 3.3 or later.
>>
>> Am 18.02.2014 09:13 schrieb "Leo Lammerink" <gws...@gmail.com

>> <mailto:gws...@gmail.com>>:

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>>
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[brian teeman]

If the people crying out for seo changes would spend five !minutes writing down what those changes are it would really help. Instead of just repeatedly stating they are simple and easy actually say what they are. Otherwise I'm sorry but you are talking to brick walls.

No one in the joomla community is to the best of my knowledge a mind reader.

[WooDzu]

Can I bring your attention to this two PRs and suggest adding them to 3.3?

https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/2695
https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/2708

The first one is hard-blocking Joomla from running on Google App Engine.