sutibun
commented
8 years ago Maybe recount
- what went well?
- what went wrong?
- what was surprising?
- what were the lessons learned?
- what will we do differently in 2016?
Closed sutibun closed 8 years ago
sutibun
commented
8 years ago Maybe recount
sutibun
commented
8 years ago Maybe we can call the video: "The 2016 State of Backdrop CMS"... Similar to the State of the Union
sutibun
commented
8 years ago And don't bring in any agenda! Off the cuff. Well, maybe the just the listed questions above (or others you come up with).
biolithic
commented
8 years ago I agree for this next meeting!
"And don't bring in any agenda! Off the cuff."
On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 7:56 PM, Steven Villaverde notifications@github.com wrote:
And don't bring in any agenda! Off the cuff.
— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/backdrop-ops/backdropcms.org/issues/156#issuecomment-168868898 .
docwilmot
commented
8 years ago Excellent idea, and I'd agree completely if this wasn't the week before a major minor release!
Maybe the two weeks from now instead?
sutibun
commented
8 years ago Oh, it's not a secret what's going inside v 1.2.3
kk.
How about scheduling an additional meeting on top of the regular ones on Thursday? A special recording done annually on the first week of the new year.
sutibun
commented
8 years ago oh, maybe you're implying they'll be tired from releasing Bd releases... ah kk, nm then. 2 weeks fine. Thought you meant there won't be time to discuss on the regular time slot.
docwilmot
commented
8 years ago Actually its 1.3.0 coming out on the 15th (https://backdropcms.org/roadmap#1.3.0) But its still a really good idea, maybe we could do both. Up to the sketches and lamptons.
quicksketch
commented
8 years ago Hi @sutibun! I saw this when it came in and didn't get to it. It's not going to happen today, but I absolutely agree! We need a retrospective podcast/videocast sort of thing. Honestly I'd love if we had a stand-alone podcast that was separate from weekly meetings that could tackle particular topics. I'm not up for managing such a thing, but I'd love to be a regular guest. :wink:
jenlampton
commented
8 years ago Good idea. I think we should do one after the next major release of Backdrop: 1.3.0! I agree it shouldn't be our weekly though, it should be something special :) Maybe we can start Backdrop Retrospectives after each major release? That would be fun :)
sutibun
commented
8 years ago Either or. Maybe a blog post is another alternative (though might be more work for you guys to write than to talk)
biolithic
commented
8 years ago @sutibun
Hi, here is a rough draft of an overview of Backdrop 2015. It contains some editorials/comments from myself that could be removed. Others can add to it too!
WHAT WENT WELL?
Core Releases 1.0 - initial release 1.1 - More tokens and a token UI Pathauto administration theme in core - 1.2 - Built-in rich-text editor, based on CKEditor Date Link Email responsive pages 1.3 - many UX improvements
Partners Thanks to the following companies for providing sponsorship through services and products which may be used by Backdrop contributors to build and improve the project:
BrowserStack for interface testing across desktop and mobile browsers. (Contact info@backdropcms.org for access information.) JetBrains for use of the PHPStorm IDE for development. (Contact info@backdropcms.org for a license.) GitHub for collaboration and code management tools. Travis-CI for continuous automated testing.
1000+ Twitter Followers We have a marketing team!
Modules 157 contrib modules that haven't been merged into core or deprecated
Themes 19 contrib themes were attempted and shared
Layouts 4 contrib layout sets were attempted and shared
Some Successful Projects vrsites.com bootfitters.com debenrowingclub.co.uk createhope.co.uk pluris.be
Things said about Backdrop last year:
Kalabox It's not a contradiction: Backdrop is going forward fast.
Origin Eight Kudos to Backdrop
Synaptic Blue No surprise @backdropcms is attracting a lot of positive attention. The value & purpose is clear. What do you think?
https://drupalwatchdog.com/volume-4/issue-1/backdrop-cms http://www.7sabores.com/blog/backdrop-primeras-impresiones http://friendlymachine.net/posts/drupal-8-and-backdrop-cms-brief-comparison https://www.isovera.com/blog/random-thoughts-backdrop-cms https://www.lullabot.com/blog/article/porting-drupal-7-modules-backdrop http://technology.berkeley.edu/news/bdug-feb-23-luke-mccormick-backdrop-cms http://www.meetup.com/The-Fox-Valley-Drupal-Meetup-Group/events/220302159 http://mikeschinkel.com/blog/the-decline-of-drupal-or-how-to-fix-drupal-8/ https://speakerdeck.com/shrop/hello-backdrop-cms http://www.drupaldise.com/en/news/backdrop-cms-overview http://randyfay.com/content/why-i-donated-backdropcms http://drupalfanatics.com/feeds/planet-drupal/2015/01/07/drupal-watchdog-backdrop-cms http://www.jenlampton.com/blog/introducing-backdrop-cms-drupal-fork http://pingv.com/blog/backdrop-forking-drupal http://www.unleashedmind.com/en/blog/sun/the-world-is-flat http://develcuy.com/en/backdrop-courageous-drupal-fork-nate-haug http://devcollaborative.com/why-nonprofit-developers-and-decision-makers-should-track-backdrop https://tag1consulting.com/blog/how-maintain-contrib-modules-drupal-and-backdrop-same-time-part-2 http://www.innodus.com/blog/jorditr/futuro-drupal-drupal-8-backdrop-o-drupal-7 http://yellowpencil.com/blog/drupal7-vs-drupal8-vs-backdrop/ http://www.realstorygroup.com/Blog/2603-Drupal-forked-is-that-a-big-deal-in-the-CMS-world http://drupalsouth2014.drupal.org.nz/sessions/coding-development/introducing-backdrop-cms-drupal-fork#.VV9GJZNViko http://alexrayu.com/blog/should-i-upgrade-my-web-site-drupal-8-all http://alexrayu.com/blog/drupal-7-vs-drupal-8-beta-7-performance-tests http://www.chapterthree.com/blog/drupal-8-and-the-enterprise http://alexrayu.com/blog/should-i-upgrade-my-web-site-drupal-8-all https://drupalwatchdog.com/volume-5/issue-1/build-it-backdrop http://www.trinoco.nl/blog/backdrop-cms https://civicactions.com/blog/2015/feb/02/first-look-backdrop-cms http://dougvann.com/blog/put-your-content-center-stage-backdrop-cms-10-here http://drupal.stackexchange.com/questions/152341/when-should-i-use-backdrop-cms-rather-than-drupal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3qtSpJfy-g http://quicksketch.org/one-month-retrospective-backdrop-cms
WHAT WENT WRONG?
The inability of the community to discuss the roles of themes and layouts other than personal preference.
There were several factors I believe are confusing the theme vs layout distinction:
Drupal/Backdrop leadership may be more "developer centric" than "design or profit centric". This is not wrong, but an indication that of where our strengths and weaknesses came from. As a loose example, put a marketing type person in charge of Facebook and they might be concerned first with calls to action and how to fit advertisements on mobile. Put a developer type person in charge of Facebook and they might be concerned first with how to extend the API for other developers and how to charge money for major use of the API. Both people are concerned about Facebook and money, but thinking in different ways about it.
We entering a post-Internet-Explorer world where it is actually OK to not support old browsers unless demographics demand it, so what's next for the web? Not many people know this.
The general front-end world is in a state of flux and differing opinions.
I (in America) have browsed websites on virtual reality devices, Google Glass, televisions, wearables, tablets, phones, laptops. Is there a new normal browsing situation? Still, it filters to about 80% large screen, 20% phone usage for me (I'm an office worker, but for non-office workers those numbers might be reversed.)
The phrase "mobile first" is now "a thing" instead of just a phrase? In this case, hardcore discussions about desktop page layout may not really be fruitful for all Backdrop websites to be built in 2016. As an example, my parents are definitely near retirement age and read all of their news on their phones or 600px wide tablets. They love reading their news on websites on their phones while watching TV at the same time. If you are building a news website for them, putting 100% of resources towards desktop layout is not wise since they will almost never look at a desktop monitor again in their life in their non-working time. Now let's discuss "the younger generation", who definitely have never grown up with smartphones ;) When do they read the news? When they are on the train going to work, in Uber/taxi going to a meeting, while they are at the meeting (secretly), while walking, while waiting for something, while eating, while they are in the restroom, while they are watching a long cut scene in playing a video game, etc...People do use desktop layouts, but for our community to argue and die about which theme or layout should decide which 1280px or 960px or 100% width is right are not really in touch with the numbers or user stories in every situation. "I don't know whether this grid should be 9-3-4 or 8-4-4. It's so hard!" "What is the majority of traffic?" "Phones." "Ok, the grid should be 1 column. Problem solved! Also, 8-4-4 for the minority." In this specific case, data was used to help guide this decision that the grid didn't matter for the people that used the product. For an organization doing internal content sharing (Word documents let's say), the website should focus on desktop design and layout and grid.
a selling point of Drupal is "there are 5-10 layout options and none are wrong". "What is your preferred way to build a Drupal site?" "Use Panopoly", "use just React partials in blocks", "just edit the .tpl files", "make an in-house distribution of Drupal that changes everything", "whatever you want". This works great for in-house projects to choose and develop the best option, but for hiring support for an older site it is slow/expensive. I have worked in mainly Drupal support; sites are rarely alike theming-wise and documentation is rare. A selling point of Backdrop maybe more along the lines of "we will tell you THE way to layout your site". In this case, hiring support for existing Backdrop sites would be easier -- you know what you are going to buy. The Drupal people that were pro-Context module or pro-their own distribution for developing sites might feel feel turned off by being told, "You must use Layout module for site layout. That's the rule." For a time, I thought Context module was a good tool. However, an HR person hiring maintenance or support doesn't have the time to keep up with every new trick of the system, they might just know, "The system is built with Drupal. I must hire Drupal person. Please fix these bugs on our current system." without a response, "I only work with Page Manager and custom modules, not Panels, I don't know your system of doing things in Drupal." This doesn't really apply to someone like the Seattle Seahawks NFL team who probably has tech Drupal people on staff/maintainer contract, but not every website has developers on staff -- some are just built and then someone else later comes in when an issue arises to try to make sense of it.
module-izing design/layout is not a concept in most modern CMS's... Now, we generally say, "What is your site design (singular)?" Now comes the Backdrop idea of being able to change the site layout or design anytime for any page for any user/role by non-technical person and "it just works". This really isn't explored much but could be beneficial for ad revenue, personalization usability, site admin ego, etc...
WHAT WAS SURPRISING?
People co-maintaining or offering to co-maintain projects so easily -- can't think of any friction here.
CivicCRM integration was pretty quick.
http://www.amazon.com/Migrating-Drupal-Backdrop-Todd-Tomlinson/dp/1484217594
Docwilmot, Graham and Wesruv kicking butt on improving core.
I thought I was going to be a rockstar and do all the things, but I had to take time off to take care of my health issues, so that was a surprise to me.
Aside from Radix, people didn't finish porting or use existing Drupal themes. We may have thought once, "We'll port 150 modules and 150 themes from Drupal." Well, we ported 150 modules but we didn't port the themes. Porting from other CMS's or toolkits is actually a faster way to publish a Backdrop theme. D7 has been successful with its themes, D8 has been successful with Twig and its way, but Backdrop theming might not fit into either.
WHAT WERE THE LESSONS LEARNED?
The blog won't just happen. We had to schedule blog posts to write for news section.
To increase community aspects, possibly title nights of the week: "Module Mondays" "Theming Tuesdays" "Working Layout Wednesdays" "Talking (documentation?) Thursdays"
...ie... "I don't like that we don't have references/ecommerce/mailing lists/some favourite module." "We'll get to it sometime" vs "That's why we have Module Mondays -- to do it then." (Note: this is just a rough idea -- don't take it as fact.)
Write up documentation for users/editors in addition to programmers?
Discuss/decide on CMI workflow management?
Porting modules that used Ctools was initially hard and undocumented.
We probably need a place to talk about collaborating on modules/projects. For example, person A ports link module and person B also ports link module. Person A wants X module ported. Person A starts module A and person B finishes it. These things happen randomly on Github issues, maybe it should have a dedicated home?
On average, more contrib projects will get done through paid work than community spirit in the long term. Some features can be built in our free time, but more features will be built by some outside person saying, "let's hire a developer/company to build site X in Backdrop" and then parts of that site might flow back into the community.
Tie flexbox source ordering into Layouts so that you get "ok, menu here, sub-menu here, body field here, sidebar content here, three columns here, ad here for desktop -- great!" but also the UI for phone layout, "the mobile layout should be menu, body, ad, sidebar, three columns, sub-menu". This is a tricky idea though.
Now that we have layouts separated from themes, and CSS grid is coming, integrate that into contrib layouts when it receives majority browser support (possibly mid 2016). It will help simplify layouts and themes in people's minds.
Figure out a way to do recommended modules. Perhaps in info files? This takes the place of distributions (Drupal) or monolithic themes (Wordpress). Mind shift to "download this, and that works well with it" from "download this big package...but don't disable any feature or change anything or the whole site might go down!"
Views or Field UI redesign -- can it be done? (by Wesruv or Jen Lampton :) )
Polish up or prune existing contrib projects for 1.4
Do we need to work more on multi or non English support than we are? (get audience info from analytics to support this?)
Here is a cool video by Peter Anderson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU3wlCETHcM Are there any more?
sutibun
commented
8 years ago Nice. Publish to the blog?
Though this gives me another idea. What if everybody here (well those willing) answer the questions like @biolithic did and then we can gather the community's answers and publish them on the blog. We can gather a wide range of answers which could serve as a record from the community as a whole. (which we could review next year to see what progress was made)
biolithic
commented
8 years ago I think don't publish to blog, gather some answers from everyone and trim mine down a bit.
On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 12:19 AM, Steven Villaverde < notifications@github.com> wrote:
Nice. Publish to the blog?
Though this gives me another idea. What if everybody here (well those willing) answer the questions https://github.com/backdrop-ops/backdropcms.org/issues/156#issuecomment-168867715 like @biolithic https://github.com/biolithic did and then we can gather the community's answers and publish them on the blog. We can gather a wide range of answers and could serve as a record.p which we could upon next year in review.
— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/backdrop-ops/backdropcms.org/issues/156#issuecomment-173471899 .
jenlampton
commented
8 years ago I don't know @biolithic I'd love to see "get to know the community" type posts on the blog, perhaps even in interview format :) Maybe these aren't exactly the right questions for that kind of post, but there's some good stuff in here!!! @sutibun do you want to work up an interview series of questions? We could put you in charge of interviewing community people and writing up the blog posts! (if you were willing) I'll create another issue for that though...
serundeputy
commented
8 years ago Some thoughts off the cuff;
PR process is good, but on some of the larger issues where there are a number of ideas and active developers, there is not a convenient way to combine the work of multiple developers. Maybe make a separate branch for those issues? That way devs could collaborate in a central place; I think that may have been done for ‘Rich Text Editor’ at one point, but I was not directly involved in that issue.node, taxonomy and menu positions. I tended to stay out of these issues, but they do give me pause to change everything from node to content sounds dangerous to me, but could be that I’m just nervous, but part of me thinks that if you just change the word then someone else will come along and dislike the new word just as much as the other word. Same with menu positions person A moves it here and person B moves it back … meh.8.x branch of drush or just building up the command set from scratch. I’ve currently been working on both approaches and I really enjoy working in and with drush, but sometimes it feels like if the 8.x branch takes a turn we could be in a weird place.sutibun
commented
8 years ago Nice @serundeputy
I'm interested more in this 2015 review post. I'll make that my first blog post. I was going to write on something else but that can wait. I like this 2015 review from the community. It's timely too.
Since it already started, let's stick to here. If any one else is interested, can you please post your answers to the following questions.
In your opinion:
- what went well with Backdrop in 2015?
- what went wrong with Backdrop in 2015?
- what was surprising?
- what lessons did you learn from using/working with Backdrop?
- what will/should we do differently in 2016?
- If you had to give Backdrop an overall grade for 2015, what rating would you give it where 1 = terrible and 10 = perfect! (Taking everything into consideration from the good, the bad, the missed opportunities.) [added after the fact]
I'll take what you guys write and make a post out of it. I have an idea. Hopefully it will turn out ok. This is open to everybody but Jen and Nate. They can answer in their podcast/video. This is more for everybody else.
@biolithic I was hoping you could edit your answers a bit. I understand some parts but your English isn't strong (i.e aren't complete sentences or a lil' ambiguous) and some parts are a bit hard for me to understand. If not, that's fine but I just don't want to misinterpret.
I'll give it a few days so others can join.
serundeputy
commented
8 years ago @sutibun :+1:
@klonos @graham-72 @docwilmot @wesruv @mikemccaffrey anyone else willing to share?
klonos
commented
8 years ago So much I want to say, but no time unfortunately. A quick stab at it...
docwilmot
commented
8 years ago there's probably more, but:
what went well with Backdrop in 2015?
what went wrong with Backdrop in 2015?
what was surprising?
what lessons did you learn from using/working with Backdrop?
what will/should we do differently in 2016?
Graham-72
commented
8 years ago We (well mainly you guys) did an amazing job in 2015.
My one area of disappointment is that WYSIWYG is not quite perfect yet, and I am a bit embarrassed about letting my clients loose on it. I want to be able to say to them 'here is your lovely new website, built with an excellent user-friendly CMS, and this is how you add text and images to make new pages. No problem!' Well, I do say it, but with one or two health warnings.
@quicksketch did a great job giving us a much better integration of CKEditor but there are those follow-up issues to get right https://github.com/backdrop/backdrop-issues/issues/1087. I am excited by what @gifad is doing https://github.com/backdrop/backdrop-issues/issues/1560.
This is way beyond my skill set, so I can only wait with deep longing and a little frustration.
klonos
commented
8 years ago
- our issue queue grew to 27 pages, 600+ issues, while delayed PRs grew to 3 pages
What do you expect with so many of us lame non-coders filing feature requests (and all these META issues) every second and only a few of you guys trying to fix/implement everything.
I wouldn't worry too much so long as major bugs are fixed. I see the rest of the queue as a really long TODO list that don't expect to get down (or even close to) 0 ...ever. The issues are there for us to fix as we find time and energy. I wish I had the time in my life to put code where my mouth is.
biolithic
commented
8 years ago Also, there are two kinds of people posting issues. On one end of the spectrum are people like jenlampton who will file issues anytime a question arises "to remember to come back to later". Then there are people like me that might find Views AJAX functionality fails silently in some area so I'll just work around it (by turning off Javascript or some fix) but I won't file an issue. Only if the module blows up the database or contains hate comments in the code or something I'll remember to file an issue. So, maybe somewhere in the middle is a good balance for number of issues.
On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 2:37 PM, Gregory Netsas notifications@github.com wrote:
- our issue queue grew to 27 pages, 600+ issues, while delayed PRs grew to 3 pages
What do you expect with so many of us lame non-coders filing feature requests (and all these META issues) every second and only a few of you guys trying to fix/implement everything.
I wouldn't worry too much so long as major bugs are fixed. I see the rest of the queue as a really long TODO list that don't expect to get down (or even close to) 0 ...ever. The issues are there for us to fix as we find time and energy. I wish I had the time in my life to put code where my mouth is.
— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/backdrop-ops/backdropcms.org/issues/156#issuecomment-174219342 .
sutibun
commented
8 years ago @biolithic @serundeputy @klonos @docwilmot @Graham-72 one last question would like to add (since this came about so random)
If you had to give Backdrop an overall grade for 2015, what rating would you give it where 1 = terrible and 10 = perfect! (Taking everything into consideration from the good, the bad, the missed opportunities, etc)
If not many ppl give a grade, gonna leave that part out.
PS: Thinking gonna wait for more replies until Tuesday. This way can give me time to write it up. My goal is to hopefully get this out before we enter Feb.
klonos
commented
8 years ago what rating would you give it where 1 = terrible and 10 = perfect!
Hmm... difficult to say and would need to split this into various sections (like UX, features, ease of use etc) and then figure an average. I think perhaps an 8.
serundeputy
commented
8 years ago If you had to give Backdrop an overall grade for 2015, what rating would you give it where 1 = terrible and 10 = perfect! (Taking everything into consideration from the good, the bad, the missed opportunities, etc)
I agree w/ @klonos really hard to put a number on it, I'll try anyway:
8.7 to 9.1
commerce area, but others I use a lot on a regular basis, nodequeue, metatag, migrate, feeds, we need a reference solution paragraphs or the new core initiative, xml_sitemap, workbench, better_exposed_filters. Oh, we need a menu solution too either superfish or nice_menus
5.4 to 6.19.7 ; we need more people, eyes and voices :)7.0
quicksketch
commented
8 years ago This is open to everybody but Jen and Nate. They can answer in their podcast/video. This is more for everybody else.
Ha! Well I love this idea.
These comments have been fantastic! Thanks everyone for posting and @sutibun for posing the questions in the first place. :heart: :heart: :heart:
Graham-72
commented
8 years ago @sutibun hi! How are you? I have missed your contributions. Where are we on this issue? I guess we are all too busy to bring it to a conclusion.
quicksketch
commented
8 years ago Yeah time to close this up. Thanks again @sutibun for your great conversation.
klonos
commented
8 years ago I miss our two friendly members of the animal kingdom. The monkey is one and the panda is the other. I know form his blog that @BWPanda is busy with important personal matters, but haven't heard from @sutibun for a long time. I imagine he's hanging from a tree, chewing a banana and watching Backdrop from a distance, but will find the time/energy to write one of his notoriously long comments that I had to postpone reading for the weekend when I had time 😄
Anyways, I will go through this issue at some point to see if there are any actionable items. ...besides adding an annual calendar notification to do this each year that is. Perhaps we should copy-paste the comments in a blog post in backdropcms.org and publish it. It would be nice to have users that have registered on the main site interacting like this.
ghost
commented
8 years ago Hey @klonos! I'm still around, reading from a distance. Yes, just got married and settling into a new life and house with my beautiful wife. I'm working on a new website for my business which will be built in Backdrop, so should be around more when I can get back to that in the coming weeks.
jenlampton
commented
8 years ago Congratulations @BWPanda !!!
klonos
commented
8 years ago @BWPanda ...yeah, I kinda "stalked" you through your blog when I found out that you live in NSW (I'm in VIC myself) and so I know about the "ordeal" you had to go through before you two finally got together. Similar situation I am going through myself (having to spend ~85% of every one of the past 2+ years away from my Mrs and my 4yo daughter), so I feel you. Glad that the bad things are over for you guys and wish for only good things ahead. Congrats on the wedding!!! 🎉
Why?
Every Bd meeting is always about what's happening now or will occur in the future in Bd design and/or dev. Let's take some time off and switch it up. If we don't look back, we won't notice or even appreciate how far Bd has come.
Maybe this can be annual tradition.