Joomla! Discussion Forums

Ken, I suggest you research the Mambo history in late 2003 somewhere about 4.5.0 beta 2 and beta 3, I can't recall exactly which.  You will find your answers there.

It was added for benefit of a potential Mambo user, a BIG one! SEF advance didn't even exist back then.

Gee why am I even explaining anything to you when you twist every word I say and refuse to actually READ what's written.
If you are to use something as argument then get your facts straight first by asking, don't speculate and make things up.

@kenmcd

So basically, you are (very) frustrated at the relative paucity of documentation available for developers.

Surely this is the case across many areas of Joomla, not just SEF.

There is no great conspiracy.

That's an unfortunate turn of phrase. And quite definitive.

Not too sure what's unfortunate about it, but yes, it states priorities rather clearly

Well, that's clear then.

Personally, I don't agree with Ken's particular stance or approach, but I do have a perfectly legitimate and reasonable interest in the issue of itemids, the pathway and URLs and their relative development priority (which I place quite high).

I don't mind buying an add-on to achieve my aims - that is currently the best solution.
I don't want to be "placated."
I don't want "pretty" anything.
And I most definitely don't like being set up in opposition to some mythical blind person in such a crudely rhetorical way.

That is what is unfortunate. But I assume it was born of frustration. Which I do understand.

I'm sorry, but I'll have to disagree here.  There is approximately 20% of the US population that self-identified as having a disability at the last census.  About the same in New Zealand.  I understand the UK is around the 1/5 mark as well.  This seems to be a world wide trend.  Andrew mentionned blind users, but accessibility is also important to a wide range of people with just as wide a range of disabilities. 

As for mythical, there is nothing mythical about the 25 non-profit groups, employing approximately 300 people between them (most of them with disabilities), whom I have been in close contact with, that told me they were very interested in Joomla, but couldn't touch it until it was accessible. 

That is not counting my blind friends who are giving me hell about the system not being really friendly to them.

I'm sorry if I come accross strongly, but I *do* take exception to someone dismissing accessibility concerns because of the "mythical" blind user.  You have *no* way to track your visitor's disabilities.  You can tell what browser they use, what OS they use, how long they spend on your site, what pages they view.  But you can't tell what their needs are.

I'm gonna get off my soap box now.  Please feel free to PM me if you want to continue this discussion.

If your arguing that this issue is being ignored, you've just had 4 and now 5 Core Members discuss this topic, so you cant use that argument.


The core code written by Emir for URL rewriting allows for extensibility for 3rd party addons well before the idea of making extensibility easier via mambots.  So in this regard Emir was at the forefront of this effort.



As you will no doubt know now, Marko [predator] is now a Core Team member and we have already discussed the SEFBot approach we will be adopting for 1.1 with him (we had already examined this route before this discussion was brought up).



I also totally agree that there are far more important priorities like Usuability and Accessibility than SEF/Human Readable URLs.

Well, I apologise if I was frustrated (about the placting bit), but I was quite serious about the blind person.  My personal preference is to put compliance with usability and accessibility standards above SEF so that Joomla! can 1) prenetrate those organisations that require it, and 2) actually be able to be used by those people that will benefit from it (eg, via screen readers, etc).  That was the point I was trying to make.

That said, both are on the agenda and require some none-to-small changes to achieve in a reliable and robust fashion.

But on the original charge of conduct unbecoming, I suggest people mail me or the people involved first.

Not related to this original question, but: just the same for ACL problems for example;
many people have been asking/demanding/begging for this for a looong time, and nothing has happened.
And this would really benefit many areas of the CMS, much more than URL cosmetics
-and for these, there are solutions available, for ACL not.

Point is: why are you complaining so strongly about this, while at the same time working on a free solution?..
And: Predator said he would make his hack available, so what's the big deal?

Gosh, that provoked an avalanche.

Don't misunderstand me. I am not suggesting for a moment that blind people are mythical, nor any other disabled net users. The opposite is true. I have disabled friends too - blind and otherwise.

My point was precisely that just because I consider this issue important, does not mean I am taking up battle stations against those promoting better accessibility.

You may say that limited resources mean that these two goals are in direct opposition. OK.

My point remains that I do not wish to be associated with an "us versus them" battle stance by default just because I see URLs as important.

So soap boxes not needed.

I GREATLY appreciate all the input to this thread by so many core team members. It clearly shows that the issue is not being ignored: so no, I don't think that. And nor do I question any of your integrity in any way. I would like to distance myself from any such suggestions.

So THANK YOU.

And perhaps this is a good point to say a sincere thank you for the incredible achievement of the whole Joomla project over recent months too. I am awed.

I contributed to the thread merely to say:
"please look at the priorities again and let us know more precisely where things are going on this, how and when."
Partly because I did not put much in to the old forums, but did gain an awful lot out of them.
Maybe that's all I should have said.

For clarity: I agree.

two things here. i'll get to the "bigger issue" in a sec.

first:

wow. it's good to see such a lively discussion on this.. i've been wanting better sef support since day one (before there was such a thing in mambo).. but for my OWN sites, not really for the search-engines' benefit, but for web site visitors.

simple, structured url's within a site are much easier for visitors to use, share, remember, and type in. and when they look at the url, they know where they're at in the site.

http://www.joomla.org/content/view/5/6/
means absolutely NOTHING to anyone or anything except the php core behind the scenes, but
http://www.joomla.org/docs/license
is crystal clear.

and url's referring to components are worse.
http://www.joomla.org/component/option, ... Itemid,44/
what the heck is that? how about
http://www.joomla.org/docs/faq

but the kicker is "home"..
http://www.joomla.org would be how joe schmoo would go to the home page of the site, but the software really likes
http://www.joomla.org/component/option, ... /Itemid,1/

i've used what is now opensef on several sites, and i love it's complete flexibility. what i don't like, is having to manually type all that data in on sites with several dozen or more pages, but when it's all done, it's a work of art.

sef is needed, yes. for search engines, it's ALREADY covered with what's in the core.. i'm referring to "people friendly url's", which, i think is more important, because it goes one step beyond just being search-engine friendly, it's called being "people friendly". and we make web pages for PEOPLE, NOT GOOGLE.


ok. so about that bigger issue i reference in the subject....

the main issue here, i think, isn't about sef and ensuring that the sef support in the core is good enough. it's whether the project, as a whole, will be JUST A FRAMEWORK for commercial (and open source) developers to work with; or will the project actually include features that are frequently requested by the community, the users, the regular joes, that use the product.

the core developers need to remember that the end-users, the web site developers, teachers, students, parents, the grandma's, etc, for the most part, are NOT going to be php and mysql experts! nor does everyone have the budget to hire out for help.

so a decision needs to be made: which target audience is this project going to be developed for.... the professional developers and php experts; or the regular guy. will it be a bare framework or a more complete web site management product. right now, it's looking rather bare (always has). many of the commonly requested features should be officially added to the project, perhaps as the (official) "joomla addons' i saw listed in on the forge when i was poking around, with the most frequently requested of those maybe included in the core distribution itself.  you can add things to the core without it looking like JAN (just another nuke).

AND the decision on whether or not to include a feature or component in the official project should NOT be determined by whether or not there is a commercial application (or who's making it) out there already that does the same or similar thing.

personally, i tend to shy away from 3rd party things for joombo, mainly because things have changed too frequently and developers are coming and going all the time. you've got no assurances that the guy's even going to be around at the next rev or not... and paying for one? forget it, unless it's a custom app for a client (who gets the code and exclusive rights or copyright assigned to them).

if i need a feature that's not in joombo (which is my own preferred 'site server' for most projects), i go find a suitable cms that has more of what i need already in place (all told, i work with about a half-dozen ones. i've also written my own basic scripts to manage a couple sites)... other cms projects may not be as 'user friendly' as joombo, but they may have a wider or different selection of addons.. and many other open source cms projects with large communities do not have near the number of "commercial" developers selling addons either; which is more attractive to me and my clients who, for the most part, are small nonprofits, churches, individuals (the joe schmoo's and grandma's), and small businesses with small budgets.

I was surprised to see four pages in this thread and it has been an interesting read from everyone. I am not up on Joomla but have a couple of Mamb* sites that surprise me how well I come back in search returns. I am obviously being crawled by many as I am #1 in returns that I never even thought that someone would search for.

Which brings me to a couple of questions.

1.) What are the differences between Joomla and Mamb* ?
2.) If you do a upgrade to Joomla will your old  SE returns be hurt?
3.) Is Joomla worse than Mamb* for SEO?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks kper.

The horrible thing about any project is that there are so many worthy competing proirities and we have to apply some sort of triage process to them.  Sometimes they will line up with individual wants and needs, sometimes they will be in opposition.

Timeframe?  Many of the dev's are going to be talking about this in the next few weeks.  We have a long list of things to try and "slip into" Joomla! 1.1.  SEF, ACL, JoomFish, U&A and so on are all on the table.  How much we include needs to be balanced by how much tolerance we feel the community has to wait for the new version.  Do we rush 1.1 in it's current state (not recommended) or do we have some breathing space with 1.0 and allow it to bed in (lest we get the crys "A new version! I just upgraded to this one!")?

Personally I would hope we can bump forward stage 1 ACL, provide some pain relief in the area of SEF url's, improve U&A standards, fully integrate JoomFish out of the box, have the installers use ftp...the list goes on.  That's a tall order eh   Let's see what we can pack in before Jan 06.

I don't mind people asking the question of when a feature is to be included but some need to be satisfied with an answer of "we are working on it" without seeing it as a conspiracy.

That's cool with me, Andrew.

Thanks for responding. And similarly to the other core members who have been posting here too.

I don't envy your position, any of you, besieged by the gaggle of us all clamouring for even better functionality, plus support for what is already there.

Your dedication is impressive. 

Oh, and congratulations to Marko on joining the team - a brave move 

We have always adopted a framework approach and will continue to do so.

It is our belief that it is more effective in concentrating on building a strong core framework that people can integrate easily with, rather than building dedicated components into the core (life a forum package) when it would be more effective to simply allow existing standalone applications to be able to plug in the Joomla core.



Never has been, most of the time we dont even know what commercial or even OS products exist out there as there are now so many.


I'm sure its not intentional but such a statement can be understood as suggestion that we do undertake this practice and that is something we obviously defend vigourously against.

As a Referee of a sport I can easily handle being called incompetent, but being called bias is something I do not accept - with that is a suggestion of calculated dishonesty

Hmmm . . . what is this thread about? . . . hmmmm.
Oh yeah.
When will SEO be integrated?
"Integrated" - maybe that's my mental stumbling block.
Again, I may be wrong, but that means, ahh, "integrated" into the core.
Is a 3PD component integrated? - No.
Is a core hack integrated? - No again.
Integrated, or a part of, sort of like, well, integrated.
Yeah, that's it.



These comments are ironic.

The OpenSEF project and Predator/Marko's CoreSEF hack exist because of this discussion.
At the beginning of this thread the project and the hack did not exist.
Because of this discussion, Arto, the Lead developer on the dormant Xaneon Extensions (XE2), contacted me regarding taking over the XE2 project.
Because I do not have the needed coding skills, I contacted Marko before accepting.
Marko does have the skills needed, and joined the project.
I then accepted in the role of Project Coordinator, and we renamed it OpenSEF.
While working with XE2/OpenSEF on a couple test sites, Marko decided to hack this into the core.
The first demo I saw changed one core file; apparently all that was needed to add the functionality.
The admin interface will add more changes.
Marko is a very talented developer. I am sure he will get it done.

The challenge will be working around the ItemID and other problems which arise.
This is not insurmountable, but it is definitely an undocumented black hole.

You're right, I did leap to a conclusion there.
No knowing the exact origin of Title Alias, and the time-line of exactly when it was added to the core, and the exact date SEF Advance was created - I formed a conclusion.

Perhaps the lack of information on Title Alias contributed to my misunderstanding.
Before the above posts, I had been trying to find more information on Title Alias.
I did find this deep explanation in the Mambo help site. (and now the Joomla help site)
"Title Alias: This field is not used by core. SEF scripts and dynamic title/meta scripts use it and it may have a future use."
I first became aware of this field due to it's use by SEF Advance and assumed it was related.
Ignorance on my part.
Please point me the documentation on the origin and use of this field and I will be happy to READ it.
- the info on DevShed requiring/requesting this field
- the time-line (assume this is somewhere in the 2003 change log, or?)
- creation date of SEF Advance (assume you will know where I can READ this)
Sorry if I have missed this rather obvious info.

Speaking of my need for READing . . .
Given all the praise I have READ for how well SEF Advance works "right out of the box," I assume you have solved (or know work-arounds) for many of the problems created by the current ItemID system in Mambo/Joomla, and for the problems with various components and mambots. Again I may be wrong, but it does seem like you may know this stuff.

Please point me to the info on:
- SefRelToAbs - how it works, proper use, things to be careful about. 3PD component developers would probably find this very helpful. They could construct their components properly from the beginning to incorporate advanced URL re-writing. Just a thought.
- JavaScript links - from what I have READ in the huge SEF threads in the Mambo forum, there are problems with the links in JavaScript, and that you seem to know how to fix these. Perhaps you could point me to where to READ how to fix these problems.
- Known problems with various components and mambots, and the fixes - from the posts I have READ in the old forum there are many problems, and that you appear to have solved these in one way or another. Please share the solutions or work-arounds.
- ItemID problems - wrong URLs, duplicate URLs - from what I have READ in the old forum, you appear to have solved these problems in SEF Advance. Please share the solutions or work-arounds.
- sef_ext.php files - how they work, constructing for various components, proper use, things to be careful about, samples.

Please accept my apologies if the answers to all these questions appear somewhere.
I have not found any clear and concise documentation of these issues.
In my defense, I did check to see if this was in the SEF Advance manual, but either there is no manual or it is just not publicly available.
I have only READ 400 to 500 of the posts in the old forum regarding SEF.
Perhaps the answers are in the other 700 to 800 posts I have not read.
Please point me to the correct posts and I will READ them.

Generally it may be more desirable to have a well organized 2-3 page written documentation, written by someone knowledgeable on the subject, rather than requiring users to sift through reading 1,200+ disorganized forum posts, or wading through 2-3 years of change logs, bug trackers, and tea leaves.
I did READ that you recently released SEF Advance 4.2, and that you have other personal obligations taking your time, so I can certainly understand the lack of documentation on these issues related to SEF over the previous 1-2 years.

From what I have READ, you appear to be the Core team SEF (URL re-writing) guru.
Perhaps you would be the best source of this information.

If not, perhaps you can point me to where I can READ who is.


Note:
I have been READING everything available.
For what ever reason, needed information is not available for reading.
In combination with or because of the other non-reasons provided as supposed explanations - I concluded this was perhaps because the lack of available information helps a particular commercial product.
I may be wrong (and have been adequately informed of such).
Regardless, that is the effect.

I assume open source would also include open information.
Please share with me, and the rest of the planet, the answers.
SEF Advance seems to work, and work well.
These are all issues you have apparently solved or dealt with using various work-arounds.
I have found some of these by READING the old forum threads.
So instead of telling me I am stupid, lazy, ignorant, clueless, or whatever - just provide the information.
Once that happens the debate is over.

Yes you jumped into conclusions, at least you admit that. The lack of information is not excuse for making accusations, you could have simply asked instead.

Now that you lost your arguments about me holding back core development for personal benefit you keep insisting that there is some kind of conceiled information about core that I am not willing to disclose.
In case you haven't noticed Joomla! is open source. Anyone can read the code, find out the problems and propose solutions. There is nothing hidden about this.

Itemid IS a big problem in core's structure and this problem won't be solved until the database has been restructured. I keep telling you that but you refuse to read again. The workarounds in SEF advance are just patches developed over years, still with many issues that can't be worked around. There is no magic solution that I hide.

Over years I have been working and helping many, many users that kindly asked a specific question. Many solutions and workarounds are posted on the old forums, on my FAQs page etc.
Now that you attacked me (and keep attacking) I am simply not prepared to be friendly and helpful to you. So my debate is over anyway.

Right then.  Ken, let me answer the question, again, because it rests squarely on my shoulders.  It's on the table to discuss and devise a solution.  It will end up in a future version of Joomla! but exactly which I am not sure because of other competing priorities which will all be considered on their relative merits.  Believe me, I would like nothing less than solving the dreaded Itemid problem (because it drives me nuts) but a scalable/flexible solution is not simplistic and requires architectural changes.

Let me make this perfectly clear that we are 'hearing' and 'listening' to the issue but I cannot guarantee that the implementation to this, or any issue, will please everyone and there is nothing to say that other 'features' will get slipped in ahead of it. 

I really do not see any point in labouring this topic further as it will not contribute to getting a coded solution done any faster.  It's now a design issue.

Even more so as Search Engine OPTIMIZATION is not only about SEF URLs, seems to be a bit of confusion/amalgamation here. SEO is a lot more than that, many sites and books deal with this specific topics, so there is enough to READ out there..
Marko, as you say Ken, has the technical capacities to make OpenSEF (any publication date?) a great product, and being in the Core team now, I guess he'd be in a position to ask Emir for pointers he might need any time..?!

Right SEO is more than only SEF ( but is a part   )

Due to OpenSEF, we are still a little blocked on the Site, because the Xaneon team didn't gave all "key" to us so the site looks a little under heavy contruction also we are waiting of the Beta 3.0 which would be the last version from the Xaneonteam before changing it to GPL, that's why i'm playing with small like this SEF hack and also on some sef_ext.php

Asking Emir would be great by a lot of beers ( maybe he talks than more ) just joking.

Hey just asking nicely is usually enough for me to help. Accusations and personal attacks (by some) tend to have the opposite effect.
And, of course, I never say no to a beer.

I think its difficult to underestimate the importance of SEO, possibly the only things more important are consistant quality content and link building. Without a strong focus on those two, no matter how your site rates in SEO terms the site will still sink..

Joomla leaves a lot to be desired in terms of SEO. It something Drupal has over Joomla in spades..

I think if you really want to get the best the SEO outcome while still using Joomla, you need to take a look at the xJoomla project. The days of tables are over..im going to convert my sites over to DIVs and CSS exclusively.

SEO is such a broad subject...SEF urls are really just the start and possibly the easiest thing to implement of all.

Where talking Proper use of title tags (with strong keyword weighting), proper use of meta tags (something the old Mambo screwed up and i think still remains...appending content meta with site meta), using the correct keywords based on the content and the competition( the KEI factor), keyword density, keywords within all your alt tags, image alts etc. Keywords within hyperlinks and the list goes on and on...

When it comes to DIV's and Tables there is no competition SEO wise. DIV's allow spiders to see more of the content and less of the code. Everything else being equal, your site WILL rank higher using DIV's over tables...

If someone out there ever creates an SEO component that can check for those things within the admin backend before you submit articles etc..i would wager it would outsell just about any other commercial component yet released...Id buy it

We're working on that   As part of our work to make the site WCAG compliant, tables *will* have to be dropped (unless used for tabular data).  http://help.joomla.org/content/view/805/60/

But I'm hoping to get tableless output in 1.1 (nothing certain on that yet).

Top news I wasnt expecting at as soon as 1.1 id have to say...but even slated for a 1.2 release would be good. As long as its given top priority because its such an important issue these days. Its one thing that several other CMS products have over mambo...not to mention no cross over blog/cms type products.

So many "top priorities" now; SEF urls, accessibility, ACL, internationalisation.. poor Core devs! But I read somewhere coders like challenges I guess an Xmas "gift release" would be cool to start the new year with a broad smile.. like this

Dis-donc, Joe, pousse pas mémé dans les orties! LOL

Say, Joe, don't push gramma in the nettle bush!  Hehehe

I thinks that sometimes tou have to find solution quick. Mambo , now joomla is a CMS full of promises but the way things are organize are odscure  :
                    - The SEF controversy is quite a false problem : some component are core component and should be released.
                    - If the is structural defaut in the core database , they have to be correct eventhough they can be big.

                    - when you release a product : Think that some people are using it. Other CMS as Drupal with less function are more administrator friendly and stable. You have the option to automatically update your site......Get out the cave age !!!!

                    - The 4.2.3 release is on one the most unstable release i have ever seen. I do not know if the correction stability have been tested but core stability with major component ( MosCE, Tiny) is terrible. The pathway module is very unstable and need to be patched ( I pathched it wit the one of 4.2.2 because of its instability with mosce)

                  - I think that you should as a core team publish which area of the program , with table, const, and module which are going to be impacted. This the way you should do stuff to make things easy for third party devellopers.

    The purpose of this is a constructive criticism.

if any question you can contact me on jamloofacile forum
regards
Pierre