Deadline for new features for Joomla 1.7 approaching

[masterchief]

Time is marching on and 1.7 is just around the corner now (that went quick didn't it). There's some information on the development mailing lists about 1.7 if you are still wanting to contribute.

Information about the workflow for processing new features can be found here:

http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-d ... 7ad63dabe0

And information on the timeline for 1.7 can be found here:

http://groups.google.com/group/joomlabu ... 88c19e52d9

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask here on on the mailing lists.

[jayflux]

What do we do if we have say ideas for 1.7 but not necessarily features or scripts ourselves? Who do we go to? Where can we mention them?

[masterchief]

@jayflux, you can throw ideas "out there" on the Joomla Ideas Pool:
http://ideas.joomla.org/forums/84261-joomla-idea-pool

Hope that helps.

[CHCG]

Time is marching on and 1.7 is just around the corner now (that went quick didn't it).

Sure did, and I am still confused regarding Joomla's future update strategy, but maybe you (or someone else) can shed some light on the matter:

Will Joomla 1.7 be an update that can be installed over 1.6 installations, or will site's built in 1.6. have to be rebuilt from scratch?

And what about 1.6 extensions, will they work with Joomla 1.7?

You say all support and security releases for 1.6 will seize after the 1.7 release. Really?

Hoping for someone that can bring some clarity. Thanks in advance!

[masterchief]

Will Joomla 1.7 be an update that can be installed over 1.6 installations, or will site's built in 1.6. have to be rebuilt from scratch?

I need to chat with Sam Moffatt about the exact details but I'm hoping the 1.7 update will be done through the update manager in the same manner as updating from 1.6.2 to 1.6.3. I'll get back to you on that one as soon as I know the definitive answer

And what about 1.6 extensions, will they work with Joomla 1.7?

At present I know of now changes in the API that would prevent extensions built for 1.6 working on 1.7. All the major work that extensions developers did to move from 1.5 to 1.6 extensions now carry through to 1.7. So, after Joomla 1.6 reaches end of life, you will have 1.5 extensions and 1.7 extensions available. Version 1.6 will just have been a stepping stone. If we didn't end-of-life 1.6 it would make the developer's job a lot harder because they have to support 3 versions of Joomla (and as a developer, I wouldn't want that myself). It also means developers can take advantage of new API in 1.7 immediately because the project is, more or less, forcing people to drop 1.6 quickly. It's a win-win for everyone really.

You say all support and security releases for 1.6 will seize after the 1.7 release. Really?

Correct - that's why it's a short-term support version. 1.7 is the direct upgrade to 1.6 so you are expected to upgrade to 1.7 just as if it were a maintenance release. There is a short window of overlap to allow for any "bugs" to be ironed out in 1.7, but otherwise 1.6 will cease to be supported.

The same thing will happen to 1.7 in six months. As soon as 1.8 is launched, you are expected to upgrade all 1.7 sites to 1.8 immediately (more or less) as this is a direct upgrade for this version. *But*, when 1.9 comes out you have a choice - stay on 1.8 for 18-21 months or upgrade to 1.9. Given that we really should have ironed out upgrade issues by then I'm think the uptake of 1.9 will be fast and furious, but that's a bridge to cross when we come to it.

Hope that helps and thanks for asking good questions.

[g1smd]

While that is an "ideal", looking around the web it seems that many sites never apply any sort of updates at all, and remain on versions that are many years old.

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q= ... om_content

[masterchief]

While that is an "ideal", looking around the web it seems that many sites never apply any sort of updates at all, and remain on versions that are many years old.

True, but that is a problem that all software developers face (in fact, any manufacturer of anything that needs maintenance, cars, etc) - it's not unique to Joomla. It's one of those problems you have to accept will never be solved and just manage best you can (and one of the reasons why the short-term-support versions of Joomla are not supported beyond the next release).

[CHCG]

First thank you for shedding more light on the 1.6 to 1.7 upgrade issue. In all fairness, I also think Masterchief has a point that all upgradable products must discontinue support at some point (is this correctly understood?) but using the same analogy with desktop software, it seems common practise to provide forward compatibility to facilitate easy and (more or less seamless) upgrades.

That seems especially important for CMS systems, since many people have so much time (and money) invested in web sites built. If these are not easily upgradable to the latest releases, people will stick with old and eventually unsupported versions, simply due to the fact that they cannot afford the effort of converting them to the new versions. And that in turn will eventually discredit the CMS in the eyes of the end user when security and functionality gradually wear thin.

Most importantly, for the sake of preserving and furthering Joomla's market position, I believe that the Joomla development team must be far more transparent and active in providing continuous and detailed information about its plans as to give site builders and 3rd-party developers the possibilty to decide strategy.

Hope these opinions make some sense.

[g1smd]

>> when security and functionality are ..... are what?

The "edit" button allows you to edit and complete your post

[CHCG]

Sorry about that. What I meant to say was "gradually wears thin".

[masterchief]

Most importantly, for the sake of preserving and furthering Joomla's market position, I believe that the Joomla development team must be far more transparent and active in providing continuous and detailed information about its plans as to give site builders and 3rd-party developers the possibilty to decide strategy.

That's very easy to do in the corporate world where you have structures and predictable resources to do that. Life is generally never that easy in an Open Source project without a major corporate benefactor (as some other FOSS projects enjoy) and where there is no clearly defined "development team", just a team of people that contribute to the core code. However, I think the project has made huge strides over the last few years to make the process as clear and transparent as possible given the uncertain resources available at any one point in time. It's very hard to hide anything when all your code and processes are out in the open. This very thread is part of that transparency - a tool to point people to information that they may not have been otherwise aware of, and a vehicle to answer questions before the new release.

Anyway, if there are more questions specially about the 1.6/1.7 process (or beyond), I'm happy to answer them.

[Robert_Vining]

Thanks for taking the time to answer these types of questions before the release of 1.7 Andrew. Glad you are able to make yourself available for this type of community support.

I haven't seen or heard anything other than what you stated above on how well 1.6 extensions will be supported by 1.7 out of the box. I'm specifically concerned (that's a harsh word for this sentence, but lack of a better choice of words fails me at the moment) about the separation of cms and framework, if it will affect the extensions and how they will function in 1.7.

I'm sure this will be difficult to answer fully until we have something to test, as in 1.7 beta. Is the Beta release of 1.7 being planned for a june 10 (give or take a week or 2) in preparation for a GA release of 1.7 in July as previously planned?

It would be helpful to 3rd party devs to have an installable package to test with before the actual release in July.

[CHCG]

Thank you everyone for enlightening me further. It was not my intention to come across as unappreciative or too overly demanding. I love Joomla and have profound respect for the developers and all the other volunteers making this grand project what it is: in my view the greatest open source software out there.

I also think I understand the limitations set by the open source nature of the project, and don't suggest that there should be any deliberate negligence in providing information about developments. I merely wanted to suggest that perhaps some more such information could be provided on a regular basis without too much effort - and that this information could perhaps be made more comprehensive and easier to find. The forum is great, but not always easy to search.

For instance, I suppose that the development team is currently busy testing version 1.7, and would be in the position to provide a preliminary assessment about if the upgrade from 1.6 seems to go seamlessly or if we have to prepare for a more complex upgrade procedure - and whether some selected of the most common 1.6 extensions work or not in the new version. I know that this information would be be of great value to me, and suspect that others could be interested too.

Or am I asking too much?

[masterchief]

Excellent questions Robert!

I haven't seen or heard anything other than what you stated above on how well 1.6 extensions will be supported by 1.7 out of the box. I'm specifically concerned (that's a harsh word for this sentence, but lack of a better choice of words fails me at the moment) about the separation of cms and framework, if it will affect the extensions and how they will function in 1.7.

The plan is that the cms+platform is 100% backward compatible with 1.6. That means that all the API that is available in 1.6 is still available in 1.7. If it turns out that it's not, don't panic, it's a bug and should be fixed. API marked deprecated in 1.6 is still in 1.7 so there's still no urgency (yet) for developers to make the change. However, we have added a new logging class that should help developers find deprecated features.

I'm sure this will be difficult to answer fully until we have something to test, as in 1.7 beta. Is the Beta release of 1.7 being planned for a june 10 (give or take a week or 2) in preparation for a GA release of 1.7 in July as previously planned?

Yes, give-or-take, we are on target for a beta (or maybe two) in June and GA in July.

It would be helpful to 3rd party devs to have an installable package to test with before the actual release in July.

Mark and I have talked about actually releasing a non-production alpha test release soon to both raise awareness and also allow dev's to find glitches in the platform merge.

Hope this helps.

[masterchief]

I merely wanted to suggest that perhaps some more such information could be provided on a regular basis without too much effort - and that this information could perhaps be made more comprehensive and easier to find.

This thread is part of that information campaign. I also posted on Facebook, Twitter and the Joomla 1.6 group on J-People. This is about the time in the process that we'd start promoting the new version. You haven't missed anything, it's just started.

For instance, I suppose that the development team is currently busy testing version 1.7, and would be in the position to provide a preliminary assessment about if the upgrade from 1.6 seems to go seamlessly or if we have to prepare for a more complex upgrade procedure

I've still got to talk to Sam about it - haven't forgotten

- and whether some selected of the most common 1.6 extensions work or not in the new version.

As I mentioned to Robert, the target is 100% backward compatibility with Joomla 1.6, so any 1.6 extension will "just work" on Joomla 1.7. We think we've got it pretty right but we will need either developers or community people to test extensions from now until the GA release. If a problem is found, the process is not to panic or reach for the blogging software, but to log the issue on the bug tracker.

Does that help?

[Robert_Vining]

Thanks again for your time Andrew! Looking forward to the double secret handshake Alpha edition!

[CHCG]

Thank you MasterChief, you've been more than patient with me - and have provided a lot of valuable information. I will now sit tight and wait for more information as it is revealed.

Again thanks to you and everyone else.

[psrch]

...but I'm hoping the 1.7 update will be done through the update manager in the same manner as updating from 1.6.2 to 1.6.3.

One question about this: Although new sites I've done have used 1.6, I've been holding off migrating all my existing sites to 1.6, since it's a short-term between 1.5 and 1.7; I imagine that there are a lot of people who also did that. Will there be any process built-in for updating 1.5 sites to 1.7? Or will I need to go through the same process I did when I upgraded them from 1.0 to 1.5?

[masterchief]

One question about this: Although new sites I've done have used 1.6, I've been holding off migrating all my existing sites to 1.6, since it's a short-term between 1.5 and 1.7; I imagine that there are a lot of people who also did that. Will there be any process built-in for updating 1.5 sites to 1.7? Or will I need to go through the same process I did when I upgraded them from 1.0 to 1.5?

There will be no official upgrade path (yet) for 1.5 to 1.7 unless Matias Aguirre supports it in his upgrade component (which I don't think would be hard to do).

I can confirm the upgrade from 1.6 to 1.7 (and future versions) will be done using the installation manager in exactly the same way as you'd do 1.6.2 to 1.6.3 - that should be a relief to everyone

[chrisjclay]

Mark and I have talked about actually releasing a non-production alpha test release soon to both raise awareness and also allow dev's to find glitches in the platform merge.

Thanks for the 1.7 updates Just wondering where I should be looking for the alpha version, assuming you decide to release it? Would an announcement be made on the main Joomla site, or should I just be checking the forums? I'm loving 1.6 and am looking forward to 1.7 and beyond...

Cheers,
Chris

[CHCG]

Thank you for the good news, MasterChief.

Wouldn't it be possible for the dev team to publish that information somewhere where it is easy to find for everybody on the official Joomla site? Could save everyone a lot of time. Just a thought...

[masterchief]

Just wondering where I should be looking for the alpha version, assuming you decide to release it? Would an announcement be made on the main Joomla site, or should I just be checking the forums? I'm loving 1.6 and am looking forward to 1.7 and beyond...

I would imagine we'd do any release announcements on www.joomla.org. And thanks for the kind words

Wouldn't it be possible for the dev team to publish that information somewhere where it is easy to find for everybody on the official Joomla site? Could save everyone a lot of time. Just a thought...

Slow down tiger, I only just found out myself, and we are still 7 weeks out Upgrade instructions and other information about releases will come out with the releases themselves. Each release will probably have more information based on feedback and comments and certainly this thread is a way of taking the temperature of what questions are out there.

[CHCG]

I don't want to seem annoying, and will (hopefully) let this be my final contribution to this thread, but doesn't what you say in your last post underscore my point, that details about the next-coming release is unnecessarily difficult for interested users to find when "hidden" in forum threads?

If many are weary and worried about the update/upgrade procedure for 1.6 to 1.7 (which it seems to be), and if these worries are uncalled for because it is already known to the dev team that the update/upgrade will on the contrary be straightforward, why not make this comforting information known by publishing it as an announcement somewhere where it is easy to find for anyone interested?

It seems to be a small effort for making many worried users happy (I think) and saving moderators and others a lot of annoyance from people like myself.

Also, in my book seven weeks is by no means a long time for planning ahead.

This about that.

[g1smd]

I have to say that I have found it quite difficult to find information such as this on the site.

Other open source projects, not mentioning any names, seem to have their information about future releases prominently featured in various ways.

[masterchief]

Ok, so on a couple of points:

Starting to promote the end of a 24 weeks cycle, 8 weeks in advance (one-third of the cycle) is quite reasonable. We would welcome people that would like to volunteer their time to promote more often. If that's something you'd like to do, let me know.

There are a number of information sources for information ranging from mailing lists to the J-People site, to the community site. However, a "status" page would nice. Anyone that would like to help design it with the information they think would be what is need and where it would be best located, please let me know.

Finally, remember we are volunteers doing this on our own time - we do our best to try and suit everyone but sometimes it doesn't always work out that way

[CHCG]

Again thanks MasterChief. Perhaps I can help with the status page that you propose. Maybe there is someone else that can share the task?

Where do we go fram here? Do I PM you?

[masterchief]

Just an update. I spoke to Matias Aguirre, the author of jUpgrade, and he's definitely going to be prepared for 1.7 so that's great news. He is going to need some help so if you are a dev with a bit of spare time, or someone that can just help test migrations, I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... tion/11658

[CHCG]

Haven't heard anything further from you regarding the idea of posting news and announcements about the course of developments somewhere. Any ideas?

[ionut]

Mark and I have talked about actually releasing a non-production alpha test release soon to both raise awareness and also allow dev's to find glitches in the platform merge.

Any news about the alpha release?

[g1smd]

At what point is the 1.6 code forked to become the lead in for the 1.7 branch?