Separation of CMSMS MLE Fork from cmsmadesimple.org

[cyberman]

I'm working as web integrator in europe since 2001, and since then, only 2% of the website i've worked-on are not multilingual!

Why? because here in Europe, and particularly in my country Belgium, everything is in multilingual from jam package to any official papers...
It is impossible to get in touch with large audience without multilingualism.

Multilingual is not an option! It is an obligation

Second that - if CMS made simple wants to play in a professional CMS league that is a need! And as all know 70% of CMSms users are in Europe.

CMS made simple can NOT renounce to 10 % of user base.

And this user base does not count only with 10% ... it counts a lot more. Native CMSms installs will be often used by small clubs, unions, churches and so on which want to make a website by themself, means hobby webdesigner.

But most of MLE users are professionals cause bigger firms needs international support! They work with it. It is an important tool for them. They have to make money with them. MLE could be a good entry point to the professional CMS world.

And the fact, that Alby has currently no more ressource to maintain it, is an efford to dev team to use the existing MLE ressources and merge it with CMSms.

[moonoo]

HAd put a feature request in with the AdvancedContent module..

This to me seems like a good user friendly way of going about things..

Look forward to seeing how it's being done.

The Multilingual page titles was the thing that was baffling me.. how to resolve that ol chestnut as Multilingual.. I spose a oneline=true wysiwyg=false field would suffice, but making the CMS filter on this and display the right menu text is beyond me right now.

Look forward to what you propose JeremyBASS and thanks for helping resolve this with CORE features. It means a lot to Multilingual users to know people are working on resolving this issue for the good of the community. And that's not to say others have not... MLE provided the slickest approach, so if the AdvnacedContent approach can bridge that devide and give our users the best experience in managing their content... I for 1 will use this CMS more.. and secondly promote it to all of the Multilingual design based community I'm in touch with.

[faglork]

http://screencast.com/t/C4JHEvqwNb

Nice work, Jeremy! This looks very promising. If you need a beta tester, count me in.

Cheers,
Alex

[Gregware]

Well I feel sorry for Alby, I hope he get a nice works and all of good stuff in his life.
I apologized if i get a bit rude with my message... 

[Ted]

I apologize for not being involved in this conversation, but I'm currently pulling really long work days in order to keep my head above water.  As usual when that happens, CMSMS has to go to the bottom of my priority list -- it's a an unfortunate fact, but this project doesn't unfortunately pay the bills.

Anyway, I'm not sure what my specific opinion would do the change the situation.  The message at the front of this thread was posted by a member of the development team, so we have to stay united on tough decisions.  Unfortunately, because of the reasons listed, it has to be this way.

I see a lot of discussion about just "putting in" his changes, but it doesn't quite work that way.  Nothing was accounted for in the module API to handle it, and it was hit or miss if modules would work in the first place.  I think it was a neat little project, but it's not something that we can just tackle lightly, account for everything, and make sure everyone is still happy at the end and we don't make a TON of support work for ourselves.

Plus, if Alby wasn't going to have time to upgrade it to 1.9 (which is a LOT of work), then someone else would have to pick it up and do it, or it becomes another headache for us with people asking us why it's not updated, even if no one else in the dev team had anything to do with it.

We're trying to streamline operations, not make things harder for ourselves.  We have a lot on our plates, and as we grow, it gets more and more difficult to keep everything going.  Tons of support questions for a fork (set of patches, whatever) that we have no idea about isn't going to help anyone to keep things moving smoothly.

We will get the multilanguage stuff in.  Someone will most likely make a module to emulate it for the time being (with the URL changes in 1.9, it should now be possible with core APIs), and we'll do it officially in 2.2.

Speaking of 2.x (again, something brought up a lot in this thread), I realize it's taking forever to do this, but you have to realize that we're really just a couple of PHP coders and there's a LOT to do.  Efforts to get more developers involved have been mixed so far, so we're still trying to limp along with what we have and try and grow the project at the same time -- all in our free time, of which I have very little of at the moment.  It's a LOT and we're doing our best, but we're stretched pretty thin.  Recruit us some good PHP developers and we'll find stuff for them to do to speed it up. 

I'll personally apologize that it has to be this way, but it does.  Plus, I'm going to back the team on these kinds of decisions...  it's just the way it is.  We knew it was going to cause issues, but it's been in discussion for well over a year, and it was time to just handle it already.

[cyberman]

usual when that happens, CMSMS has to go to the bottom of my priority list -- it's a an unfortunate fact, but this project doesn't unfortunately pay the bills.

I can accept this - bills must paid first.

Plus, if Alby wasn't going to have time to upgrade it to 1.9 (which is a LOT of work), then someone else would have to pick it up and do it, or it becomes another headache for us with people asking us why it's not updated, even if no one else in the dev team had anything to do with it.

And what is with the other three (?) MLE team members (Peciura ...)? Have you talk with him?

We will get the multilanguage stuff in.  Someone will most likely make a module to emulate it for the time being (with the URL changes in 1.9, it should now be possible with core APIs), and we'll do it officially in 2.2.

Why do you want develop a solution which exists and you (or another) one have no time to develop it? Why do you want to reinvent the wheel a second time?

For now we are talking over 2 years about 2.0. How long should users wait for 2.2 for this professional feature? One year or two years again? Or maybe three years?

So I have only to say "Good night CMSms" (with MLE support)! Till than all MLE users would be going to another CMS and MLE is like an old hat.

Someone in this thread talk about 90000 + MLE downloads. If there are only 1% active MLE users that means we will loose 900 users. USERS, not installs! And as I've said they are mostly professionals (web agencies and so on) with a lot more of installs.

This counts more than ten awards.

Users are not only somebody, users are CMSms clients! Think a little bit more professional!

And to the last - I HATE VAPORWARE!!!

[Peciura]

... we have to stay united on tough decisions ...

I believe in it at the first place. Personally i agree that dev team is pissed off by questions related to CMSms-mle-fork and
some (handfull) modules are not quite compatible to it though i do not agree to the rest of arguments and conclusions.

ATM we have:
a. Forum created by Alby for mle.
b. We still have irc.
c. CMSms is lacks only 2 features to work like CMSms-mle-fork:
  language parameter in url (session and cookies does not really fit the bill)
  template key to have differnt template versions for each language.
d. It looks like there are some people willing to build module that would replace mle-fork

CMSms-mle-fork is written as temporal solution and does not always meet good codding standards. So it can not be ported straightaway to core. I believe core team will solve multilag question in more flexible and universal way.

All this thing is too emotional for both sides. Either way we will not live without multilang for a long time. It is just another task to solve.

[cyberman]

As usual when that happens, CMSMS has to go to the bottom of my priority list -- it's a an unfortunate fact, but this project doesn't unfortunately pay the bills.

OK Ted, it's me again. As I said I can really understand your decision.

BUT: No one has said you should do it for free!

If you think the time to create a MLE 1.9 is over your free time counter do it more professional.

Be a Bill Gates, be a Larry Page, be a Mark Zuckerberg, be an American - and make money.

I think if there's a real need for a special version (for instance MLE, but there are other editions thinkable) it make sense to provide it for a fee or a donatation. On this way you can do it like other big firms like RedHat, which makes money only with support - so open a paid forum area for these special versions.

If you go longer on this brain way you could think about an App Store where professional coders can provide their modules - maybe only the licence must be changed - and you will get a percentage. Apple shows that it works.

On the next you could create a template store - CMSms has real good designers - and so they will get the chance to provide their professional templates ... and you will get a percentage.

Ted - earn the fruits of your wonderful work of last 7 years. If you let MLE die you give away pure money. And hear what our sweet marketing girl says .

[calguy1000]

The MLE issue is now resolved.  Some people may not like the decision, but it's a decision made by the dev team, and it has been implemented.
We're now moving forward.

Jeremy and possibly others are working on implementing a more workable, longer term solution to the MLE issue in the 1.x series of CMSMS.  Why more than one? well if you talk to 5 people you will get 5 answers as to how it 'should work'... if you talk to 200 you will get 200 somewhat different answers (it's surprising but that's the way the world works).  Will one of those solutions be part of the core? we don't know yet, but certainly not immediately.

As far as the concepts of 'requiring a fee', and an 'app store', and 'paid support'... various things are in the works.  But will take a bit of time to come to fruition.

I now consider this thread closed, because to continue would just be just flogging a dead horse.

[sleiron]

thank you all for the exchange of opinions so far.

@Alby: thanks for your work on MLE - I really appreciated what amount of work you put into this project over all those years - and how you integrated control of MLE into a very user friendly admin page. GRAZIE!


I don't know if the following is useful to anyone, it's just my personal summary of the last few weeks regarding this topic:

a) I still think CMSMS needs a 'complete' MLE solution - better yesterday than tomorrow. Solving MLE with other approaches from now on for US, really doesn't make it easier/better for obvious reasons.

b) We all appreciate the work on the new v1.9 - it will be a great release! For single language websites we still want to work with it. (and are keen to see the next steps)

c) What about supporting MLE Installations that are already in production/deployed/online? We need to support our customer base - and therefore we will still be active on this side and we have one big favor to ask:

@Admins of the forum: if you could leave the content of the MLE boards (read only is ok) like it is now, so we can still use it as reference. As we know now, NEW disscussions will take place over at http://www.xme.it

@all: if you know a skilled php developer - remember that CMSMS is looking for help - there's a ton of work todo - spread the word. I think it's a great way to contribute to something really useful. As of now we don't have the resources to get actively involved ourselves with development - we concentrate on testing and giving answers on the forum, helping with tips&tricks or docs.

d) What about NEW websites that need multilanguage support?

We've been asked a lot about supporting/integrating wordpress - but instead of investigating and supporting yet *another* cms we will work with TYPO3 for MLE inqueries from now on (which we have been using for enterprise customers on the high-end already).

If you are just starting NOW with CMSMS and need MLE support it's best if you look into @JeremyBass's work on the advanced content module or other approaches mentionend in the forum.

thanks
Sandro

[raroman]

@Ted, Calguy: Thank you both for your inputs in this thread and for your excellent work with CMSms!

I now consider this thread closed, because to continue would just be just flogging a dead horse.

As Alby and Sleiron have said, new discussions concerning MLE will take place on http://www.xme.it.

@admins: With this reply, I risk pissing you off. But:
I know you're working hard with upcoming releases of the core. The roadmap still states multilanguage planned for 2.2. Shouldn't we open a discussion on this topic in the CMSms forum?
A thread where opinions such as:

As usual when that happens, CMSMS has to go to the bottom of my priority list -- it's a an unfortunate fact, but this project doesn't unfortunately pay the bills.

OK Ted, it's me again. As I said I can really understand your decision.

BUT: No one has said you should do it for free!

If you think the time to create a MLE 1.9 is over your free time counter do it more professional.

could be discussed? I think the demand and the potential for multilanguage is greater than the priority it currently has. Fundraising for a more speedy deployment should be discussed somewhere, IMHO.
I'm a newbie, so I can't go about opening new discussions...