Idea: Easy update/upgrade Joomla! and it's extensions (extends 07060)

[Mike Szyndel]

Hello everyone,

I'm compter studies student at Wroclaw University of Technology,
Poland. I've been using Joomla (and Mambo before Joomla came out) for
past four years. I've been developing extensions, and making changes
to the core, as if it was needed. I'm using Joomla for professional
(commercial) purposes, as well as for non-profit and personal
projects. I'd like to take part in GSoC, because I think it would be
great to participate in such project.

The idea behind my proposition is to give Joomla users easy way to
keep their websites up to date and secure, without messing around with
filesystem and database. I'd like to extend existing idea
http://docs.joomla.org/Code_07060 to let users easily manage also
extensions updated.

First of all, the main aim of project is to develop the core extension
able to check pending updates (core as well as for 3rd party
extensions) and apply them with one-click. Updates presence wuold be
checked simply by getting special XML file(s) on the update server(s).
If update needs any special actions from the user, the file should
contain information, and link to the full explanation. When applying
updates, Joomla should be automatically put into maintenance mode, so
frontend users won't be confused about possible errors during files
changes. For backend administrator (Super administrator) upgrade
process will look very simple, like Firefox extension update, for
example.

For extensions developers there should be special component released,
to let them easily manage their update server.

As a project is quite complex (not to say complicated) there are
obviously some pros and cons.

PROS:
- ease of keeping site up to date for non-tech-savvy users (and also
for users on hosted Joomla installations)
- less data will be transferred to apply patches (at the moment not
everyone submits just patches)
- auto update saves time. If it will work well, there will be no need
to make backups (whole site backups)

CONS:
- at a moment I can't imagine how to do that without FTP enabled
- 3rd party extensions developers may not came familiar with this idea
- possible update errors may be hard to fix

All comments and ideas are welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Mike

[Wilco Jansen]

hi Mike,

This is certainly not a new idea. The update logic was subject to SoC 2005 and 2006, and now a full white paper has been written for implementation in Joomla! 1.6. You are welcom to join in on that effort, but because of this I am not sure this proposal would be selected in SoC.

[Mike Szyndel]

hi Wilco,

maybe I'm getting it wrong, but as I see this idea was added to SoC
projects, and already have a mentor. I'm glad for your warning,
because it would be stupid to loose chance to participate in this way.
However, I'd like to hear some more explanation from Matheus Mendes,
as he's a member of a group. Matheus, could you write something
more? :)

greets,
Mike

On 26 Mar, 13:39, "Wilco Jansen" <jansen.wi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> hi Mike,
>
> This is certainly not a new idea. The update logic was subject to SoC 2005
> and 2006, and now a full white paper has been written for implementation in
> Joomla! 1.6. You are welcom to join in on that effort, but because of this I
> am not sure this proposal would be selected in SoC.
>

> On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 10:35 AM, Mike Szyndel <szyn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello everyone,
>
> > I'm compter studies student at Wroclaw University of Technology,
> > Poland. I've been using Joomla (and Mambo before Joomla came out) for
> > past four years. I've been developing extensions, and making changes
> > to the core, as if it was needed. I'm using Joomla for professional
> > (commercial) purposes, as well as for non-profit and personal
> > projects. I'd like to take part in GSoC, because I think it would be
> > great to participate in such project.
>
> > The idea behind my proposition is to give Joomla users easy way to
> > keep their websites up to date and secure, without messing around with
> > filesystem and database. I'd like to extend existing idea

> >http://docs.joomla.org/Code_07060to let users easily manage also

[Matheus Mendes]

I'm sorry guys. I'm not following the white pappers and thought this
could be a good oportunity to implement this. I noticed that Pasamio
already started something in this area but thought it hasn't been
finished.

if you think its not suitable for GSoC, then it isn't.

--
Matheus Mendes
http://www.joomla.com.br

[Michał Szyndel]

Thank you guys for your help. I'll try to look for something else.
by the way, could you recommend me something, that's not well prepared
(white papers/documentation, etc), but may be important for 1.6
development. Personally I'm interested in overall improvement of
content (comments, tags, versions).

regards,
Mike