"Templates.Joomla.org" Topic is solved

[sozzled]

There is a http://templates.joomla.org website; it's been under construction for the past six months. It's purpose is

a place for users to find Joomla templates

The idea seems to have been floating around for the past 5 years but it's never gotten much further than a solution looking for a problem.

Without knowing much more than what we've read in a few reports—the JTD team is still active—it looks like this service will complement (but sit apart from) the JED. The objective is for JTD to be realisedaround Q3 of this year (i.e. June/July 2018 onwards)

I'm not complaining but I am questioning why there is a need for a Joomla-sanctioned/approved listing of templates. We know that most of the big names in Joomla template design have their own listings, support, etc. We know that people tend to choose a template based on their experience with a certain company and those companies have invested heavily into developing template frameworks (e.g. Gantry, Warp, T3, Helix, Vertex, among others). These companies are unlikely to benefit greatly by advertising their wares on a Joomla Template Directory.

Even the smaller/boutique template developers are able to bring their products to market by advertising on the dozens of template sites that exist on the internet.

The two places where joomla.org is a leader in ensuring that third-party products meet rigorous standards are the Joomla Extensions Directory and the Vulnerable Extensions List.

Given that there are hundreds of markets for people to choose a template for their website—albeit with varying degrees of reputation—why is OSM backing a "template directory" listing idea? Is OSM suggesting, perhaps, that templates that are not listed on the JTD are not rigorous in meeting customer expectations? Are we to infer, perhaps, that if a template is not listed on the JTD then it's not safe, reliable, usable?

I'm posting this topic in the Sites & Infrastructure - Feedback/Information category because my thoughts relate to the existence of the Templates.Joomla.org - Feedback/Information category that has largely sat idle for 5 years except for the trickle of spam and the occasional "are we there yet" enquiry. Until such time as a JTD emerges from its cocoon (if that should ever happen), my suggestion is to remove the Sites & Infrastructure - Feedback/Information from the forum; its continued existence is an embarrassment.

Cheers.

[H13]

+1

[ot2sen]

They did an official call for volunteers last week to get new Template Directory finalised.
https://twitter.com/joomla/status/975724035727331328

Help Wanted! We are looking for members for the #Joomla! Template Directory to help get the portal finished and policy & documentation managers. Can you help?
#volunteer #JTD #templates

You can follow their reports at their team page at https://volunteers.joomla.org/teams/tem ... ctory-team

[sozzled]

I'll be very brief and to the point.

I don't support a templates.joomla.org portal. I don't feel it will add value to what people are able to obtain via Google. Furthermore, it begs the question of whether the proposal has the support from the major players in Joomla template development who already have their own successful market places where their products are available and support given to their customers.

This idea has more potential to divide the community between those who use the templates.joomla.org portal and those who don't.

As I wrote at the beginning: this looks like a solution looking for a problem.

After five years of discussion, and the apparent disappearance of support from the OSM board (read the past few reports and you'll see what I mean), I feel that OSM's resources could be put to better use if the JTD was wound up.

[ot2sen]

Understand your point of view, really do

On the other hand, if there are volunteers who are truly engaged in making this happen then I also do see the potential in how it could help the users of joomla. Not necessarily how it help template providers, but how it help users to easily find new looks for their websites and thereby better understand the true power of a CMS.

People in the forum, at FB, at twitter, and other resources too often ask the million dollar question "where to find templates". Would be nice to just say, go to templates.joomla.org

[sozzled]

Thanks and, if templates.joomla.org was merely an unfiltered list (without any implied warranty or endorsement), then I would agree. It shouldn't require any tremendous effort to allow anyone to "advertise" anything on a facility such as that.

However, as soon as a portal exists that carries the Joomla brand, there's an implicit endorsement by the community that

1) listed products are compliant with the latest standards in Joomla software development;
2) the portal allows for a "complaints" department in connection with operational problems when they occur;
3) defective, suspicious or vulnerable products are referred to the VEL (perhaps);
4) listed products may be "better" than products not appearing on the portal;
5) the majority of Joomla users approve of, and will use, the portal; and
6) listed products are reliable, robust and compatible with Joomla.

I haven't seen any policy in relation to the points that I've made apart from the generalised purpose that templates.joomla.org will be

a place for users to find Joomla templates

[ot2sen]

Yes, a good list. Visitors should expect that.

Concerning the policy you lack seeing, look above in my first reply, they call for volunteer managers of policy and documentation. Go for it

[deleted user]

there's an implicit endorsement by the community that

1) listed products are compliant with the latest standards in Joomla software development;
2) the portal allows for a "complaints" department in connection with operational problems when they occur;
3) defective, suspicious or vulnerable products are referred to the VEL (perhaps);
4) listed products may be "better" than products not appearing on the portal;
5) the majority of Joomla users approve of, and will use, the portal; and
6) listed products are reliable, robust and compatible with Joomla.

I haven't seen any policy in relation to the points that I've made apart from the generalised purpose that templates.joomla.org will be

a place for users to find Joomla templates

The JED doesn't make that guarantee, and anyone who says that a JED listing includes those endorsements is honestly just trying to play the "well it's listed on joomla.org so it's gotta be good" card. If there were a team akin to the WordPress plugins and/or themes directory managers in place it'd be another argument.

On a personal level, I'm more annoyed that we're developing yet another directory system, based on yet another underlying platform (seriously, every JxD uses a different backbone, because inconsistency FTW), spending resources on something that's not a real problem, and spending resources on something that already exists (umm, there is an extension directory which should've been the model for this just modifying some listing detail internals, but no, we had to go and write yet another directory system) whereas we still use that hunk of crap JoomlaCode to serve our language system downloads and sometimes I feel certain American politicians have a higher approval rating than that system has uptime percentage.

[mandville]

perhaps just redirect the TJO url to http://google.com/search?q=joomla+template
and arent template just extensions.. sooo...

[sozzled]

I could reply that, if I were to volunteer to write policy for the JTD, I might expect my airfare to attend the next meeting at J&B to be paid as part of that service, eh?

But, seriously, these objectives should clearly be stated even in the rough form as I listed them ... and they haven't been stated as far as I can tell.

While it may have been a good idea at the time (and that time was probably before 2010 when J! 1.5 was in its heyday), that time has passed. It's not hard for people to find Joomla templates: people use Google all the time.

[sozzled]

@mbabker: I agree with you that the JED makes no warranty in relation to fitness-for-purpose but there there's an [kind of] "endorsement" by the JED (whether expressly stated or implied) in relation to the six points that I mentioned.

I should add: thanks for your support and thanks, too, to @mandville.

[sozzled]

Following the recent update to the forum software, it might also be an opportunity to revisit this issue now that we have people's attention

The forum category for "Templates.joomla.org" questions, news and advice has been dead for the past six years. As far as most of us are concerned, it's a embarrassing to have a forum category that promised something and hasn't delivered on any of its promises in a long time. If (and thats a big if) there's some news on this front that would be welcome news but when there's been no news I think we can reasonably conclude that it was a just good idea at one time.

I repeat my request to lock the forum category for "Templates.joomla.org" (or remove it entirely) and let's move on.

[darb]

I think it’s a good idea to showcase Joomla with different "look" themes/templates similar like Wordpress doing https://wordpress.org/themes/ this is a about marketing and agree to use already infrastructure for show casing this for how Joomla could look. It’s just another marketing channel for Joomla supporting template developers..

Just copy Wordpress and use JED create a new category and showcase with a menu directly to the template directory

[brian]

Personally I welcome this idea and trust that the JTD will only list gpl compliant templates

[sozzled]

Personally, I welcome the idea that the JTD might actually even exist!

[darb]

There is over 6.000 template to dl from Wordpress site and just look at the dl figures you understand that this is a core feature for marketing of any CMS. The template developers show case their free dl templates and then get the lead to their site where they can sell premium templates, club memebership and support/customisation. And it works..

[sozzled]

@darb: you've missed my point. I'm saying that the JTD is missing in action, presumed dead. If that's the case then the forum category that was established for its purposes is, likewise, dead and the forum category should be removed or closed.

[H13]

Personally I welcome this idea and trust that the JTD will only list gpl compliant templates

What should be the reason to limit the list and reduce it to gpl compliant templates only?

I am not an "Against-GPL-Advocate", everything I ever released is under GPL or later but if there is demand for templates with another licence, why not to list them? Listing of high quality template, even with other licence, can only help the Joomla! project. If it doesn't break Joomla! licence (I don't remember it exactly but there were some discussions which described that having other licence for some parts of temlate should be possible) why should Joomla! limit itself and skip promoting high quality templates?

[darb]

I agree its better to let the user/buyer choose if he want to use a non GPL or GPL template but that should not hinder template providers or Joomla to promote good looking designed useful templates that could be used for Joomla sites. But its good to have a declaration if the template is GPL or not of course.

[Webdongle]

Many templates have plugins/modules ... if those are not gpl should they be allowed in?

[ot2sen]

The templates would need to be GPL as any other extension Joomla! would list and promote.

Plugins/modules: Yes, they would obviously need to be GPL too.

All that and the exceptions on some parts, graphics/CSS/js/etc., of GPL extensions is explained well at:

https://tm.joomla.org/joomla-license-faq.html

[Webdongle]

Will they be checked for hidden exploits ?
Will they need to use Joomla! Update System ?

[sozzled]

I agree that any directory of templates would, of necessity, need to follow a similar treatment that us used for the directory of other extensions (i.e. the JED)—the need for GPL compliance—but, at the outset, my point in opening this discussion was:

I'm posting this topic in the Sites & Infrastructure - Feedback/Information category because my thoughts relate to the existence of the Templates.Joomla.org - Feedback/Information category that has largely sat idle for 5 years except for the trickle of spam and the occasional "are we there yet" enquiry. Until such time as a JTD emerges from its cocoon (if that should ever happen), my suggestion is to remove the Sites & Infrastructure - Feedback/Information from the forum; its continued existence is an embarrassment.

This point, the existence of a forum category that is useless, that exists only to attract spam, that shows no evidence of movement, has not been addressed. Basically, the JTD is nothing. That's the point of this topic. I think people are overlooking this point.

[ot2sen]

Yes, you are right. Launch the category when the directory is ready. Agree

[sozzled]

Yes, you are right. Launch the category when the directory is ready. Agree

And when that happens—the Templates.Joomla.org - Feedback/Information forum category is closed, I mean—I will be happy to mark this discussion as resolved.

In the meantime, whether the JTD team is able to obtain volunteers to progress its agenda and how the team manages key stakeholder involvement going forward, that's outside this topic of discussion.

[sozzled]

It's good to see that the "templates.joomla.org" forum has been removed from prominence on the "main board" index. Thanks. This matter is now resolved as far as I'm concerned.