App Store proposal

[Paul Orwig]

Hi all,

Please share your thoughts in this thread about this proposal for a Joomla App Store (working on an App Store is one of our 2013 overall project goals):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YLG6X7dCDs3gXI33-tVIVQjLrHExBLf49B_VevPdEZQ/edit?usp=sharing

If this proposal (or a revision of it based on feedback here) gets enough support in the next week or so (especially from PLT and JED), then that will hopefully give enough time to potentially get this feature added to Joomla 3.2 (if the code is ready and then accepted). So please share any thoughts (including concerns or support) as soon as possible!

I want to thank everyone who volunteered to join the App Store study group after I posted a blog about this subject on May 27, and for those who have been sharing their thoughts to make this proposal better. I also want to especially thank Beat, Nicholas D., and Matthew Baylor for the collaborative discussion they had during JAB that helped shape the general concept for this proposal, and to Beat for his significant contributions to the shared document.

I also want to thank Parth Lawate and Vic Drover, who I know have both been long time supporters and evangelists to add this type of feature to Joomla (I am sure there have been others too!). Sometimes it takes a long time for things to happen in our project. Parth and Vic have been thoughtful, patient, and positive advocates for adding this type of feature that I think will be a big step forward for Joomla.

Regards,

paul

[Victor Drover]

Thanks to everyone for all their hard work on this. The document is very thorough and clearly a lot of work has been done.

As for my specific comments, one thing to note is that the stated goals actually appear to be more "ground rules" for the project. It might be helpful to define a singular goal more clearly. The Executive Summary touches on this, but is quite descriptive about what the process as opposed to what is the goal. 

For example, is the goal to make it easier for "end users to discover and install extensions"? Is it to increase extension usage? At JAB13, i am sure all of these and more were expressed, but maybe the authors can define that a little more clearly (please use small works so as not to confuse me :) ).

From a perspective of "App Store", I would caution against this terminoloy and the document addresses this directly. My reasoning is that there is a powerful and familiar user experience now associated with the term "App Store", and I am not sure the proposed solution meets that idea we all have in our heads. As such, tempering expectations with the right name will be important. 

Further, the document supports 3 models. What about additional models that folks come up with. Is there a way to support them or add to the infrastructure? What about commercial extensions that only allow updates for specific domains. If this isn't properly supported, i suspect a lot of confusion for end users. 

Finally, as we are only a few weeks from 3.2, I have concerns about the ability to get this done and tested in time, along with the other goodies for 3.2. Does anyone else think that 4.0 is a better fit? We would expect the new JED to be in place at that time also.

Yours in Joomla...

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[Beat]

Hi Victor,

Thanks for your excellent feedback. And also many thanks for your previous consultations on this (you had a very good work-session at JAB12 on that that I came too).

Here a few replies to the good questions you raised:

- The Goals section of the documents outlines the goals of the implementation, indeed not the goals of having "in-app installation", as those were expressed in the project's 2013 goals.

- As I see it, the main goal of such a simplified "App Store" (name to be changed ofc) is to make the life of the Joomla user much easier when he wants to install one or a few extensions. It just brings back Joomla to a leading position in that area. So the gaol in a few words is: "Simpler and friendlier extensions installation for the user". It is a user-centric approach. Side-effects are probably less frustration of the user (hopefully), better usability and better evolution of Joomla in Google Trends, and this should help to benefit the whole Joomla Community, not just users and extensions-developers.

- Terminology: That's why I'm proposing a "low-profile" terminology, like e.g. "Install from web" in the user-interface.

- I believe that the 3 basic models expressed in the document cover probably 99% of the extensions. Special model should be possible too. The user is (after review of the information provided) redirected to the extension developer website, if the download is not available for free without registration, and from there on all scenario are possible imho. We will also make use of all the Joomla great ways of extendability, so that new uses and models that we didn't think of should be possible.

- The "App Store" will not support updates, as those are already supported by Joomla or by third-party libraries, independently of the installation method.

- We are 5 weeks away from Joomla 3.2 beta 1, but there are some more weeks before Joomla 3.2 stable, so that there should be enough time to test and fix all bugs. Keep in mind that the Joomla CMS part is very reasonable in function and size. The bigger part is the server-part running on joomla.org, and that can be very simple too in the first release, and then extended on its own schedule during the lifetime of Joomla 3.2 and 3.5. So the implementation, testing and bugs-fixing delays are reasonable imho.

- Once 3.2 beta 1 is out, all features are frozen until Joomla 4.0 in more than one year from now, and also the 3.5 LTS release will be up for another around 2-3 years. So that's why I believe that it is way better to provide that new feature now in 3.2 beta 1 in a modest and pragmatic way, and then to be able to extend it server-side as needed during the whole life-cycle, as well as to fix/improve minor issues CMS-side during minor releases, than to aim to a perfect solution for 4.0.

Open-source works best with small reasonable steps released more often, and that's the aim here with catching the 3.2+3.5 "train" before it has left. :-)

I'll not change the document under review during the review process here so that everyone speaks about the same document and not a moving target that needs to be re-read every day, but I might add a last, marked as "live", section based on feedbacks and replies in here as time permits, and integrate the changes more up in the document after the review here.

Best Regards,

Beat

[Victor Drover]

Thanks Beat. 

Nice responses, and glad someone remembers my talk on this that was, incidentally, inspired greatly by Yannick Gaultier. 

words is: "Simpler and friendlier extensions installation for the user".

I think this is not a goal that we can measure, so IMO success will be difficult to quantify. Perhaps that not important but it really seems like a good opportunity. Even if we don't have a goal to measure, i think it might be a good idea to monitor http traffic on JED. I wonder if one unexpected consequence is that folks use the JED less?

On a related note, will reviews/ratings be shown in the App store with the listings? I might have missed that in the doc).

-V

[Beat]

You are welcome Victor :-)

Yes Yannick and quite some others have been bringing quite some thoughts to this process which started quite some time ago. I'm not claiming anything on this as it would be unfair. I'm just trying to make it happen by trying to lower the barriers that made it not happen yet, by making it as simple as possible, while planing on future extensibility in small steps. :-)

JED traffic concerns have been addressed in the document and many comments from JED and other reviewers are in the "Comments" (top button) that are visible and incorporated into the main text before being marked as resolved. So btw there are many authors to this document :-)

Short summary: the group believe that there might be 2 impacts on JED:

1) - a bit less traffic (e.g. at the time of coming back to find the download link of the selected extensions).

2) + there might be (a bit) more traffic brought by the visibility of available extensions and fact that full descriptions and reviews will not be available in the "App Store", but only on the JED.

So JED will still be very useful to choose the extensions.

Possibly showing average stars from JED with extension but not reviews has been addressed in document: it is possible to have that in first version, but can also be added later as the information and most of the layout is generated server-side. So the nice thing is that it can be changed anytime on the JED side without having to release a new Joomla version.

My metric for Joomla 3.2 success is the Google Trends, and the goal on that one is no less than to reverse the current trend for Joomla with the "App Store", better UX friendliness and stronger APIs making extensions easier to write :-) Hope that google trends count as a measurable item :-D

But as stated in the document, JED is measuring aggregate traffic, so we should have some metrics there too.

Best Regards,

Beat

http://www.joomlapolis.com/

[Nick Savov]

Overall, this looks good to me! We just need to make sure it's user
friendly and based on the descriptions I have some reservations on the
"Possible workflows" section. However, I think that will sort itself out
through the process, especially since that's the main goal and interest
for the idea.

Based on the discussions I've seen so far (including this one), looks like
you have the green flag to get started on this. Please let me/us know if
you need anything to make the contribution process easier or if you have
any questions about the process. Feel free to open up a new topic in the
JCMS mailinglist if you don't want to clutter this one. Either way should
hopefully work well.

Thanks for everyone's work on this! We have some great additions being
planned/coded for Joomla 3.2, so it's an exciting (and busy) time right
now :)

Kind regards,
Nick

> Hi all,
>
> Please share your thoughts in this thread about this proposal for a Joomla
> App Store (working on an App Store is one of our 2013 overall project

> goals<http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/1730-2013-overall-project-goals.html>):

>
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YLG6X7dCDs3gXI33-tVIVQjLrHExBLf49B_VevPdEZQ/edit?usp=sharing
>
> If this proposal (or a revision of it based on feedback here) gets enough
> support in the next week or so (especially from PLT and JED), then that
> will hopefully give enough time to potentially get this feature added to
> Joomla 3.2 (if the code is ready and then accepted). So please share any
> thoughts (including concerns or support) as soon as possible!
>
> I want to thank everyone who volunteered to join the App Store study group
> after I posted a blog about this

> subject<http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/1749-app-store-study-group-forming.html>on

> May 27, and for those who have been sharing their thoughts to make
> this
> proposal better. I also want to especially thank Beat, Nicholas D., and
> Matthew Baylor for the collaborative discussion they had during JAB that
> helped shape the general concept for this proposal, and to Beat for his
> significant contributions to the shared document.
>
> I also want to thank Parth Lawate and Vic Drover, who I know have both
> been
> long time supporters and evangelists to add this type of feature to Joomla
> (I am sure there have been others too!). Sometimes it takes a long time
> for
> things to happen in our project. Parth and Vic have been thoughtful,
> patient, and positive advocates for adding this type of feature that I
> think will be a big step forward for Joomla.
>
> Regards,
>
> paul
>

[Sully Sullivan]

It would be wise to find another term to describe this delivery model
instead "App Store," which is a trademark Apple has vigorously defended.

Best,
Sully

[Beat]

Hi Sully,

Thanks for your feedback. As explained in the doc, "App Store" is only code name before the release. There are many better reasons than just the "trademark" to find a better name than the not that great "App Store" name. ;)

[Sully Sullivan]

Hi Beat,

 

I read that. I still strongly suggest you find another “code name,” particularly now that there’s public discussion taking place.

 

Best,

Sully

Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-dev-cms.

[Victor Drover]

It's covered in detail in the proposal.

[Paul Orwig]

Hi all,

Thanks to everyone who has given their feedback on this proposal! I think it's appropriate to begin moving forward with the implementation work so that the solution can hopefully get accepted for 3.2 beta.

Thanks to David Hurley for volunteering to help coordinate the work from volunteers to write the code as well as with the integration work needed from the JED team. If this solution does get accepted for 3.2, then look for a blog and/or other public announcement giving instructions to extension developers about what changes and updates will be needed for their extensions to work with this solution.

My thanks to those who are volunteering their time to try and make this happen for Joomla 3.2! If others are interested in helping, please speak up in this thread or follow up with David Hurley.

Thanks again,

paul

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 5:53 AM, Victor Drover <ad...@anything-digital.com> wrote:

It's covered in detail in the proposal.