Workshop Summary

This is a summary of the workshop at the first TYPOlight User Meeting in Würzburg (Germany). The workshop was held by Peter Koch (aka. Acenes) who is designated as the repository manager. Along with the mandatory technical premises for publishing an extension, there also will be guidelines as “best practices” to follow and which partially got touched in the workshop, but basically were not the core topic of the workshop and will get discussed more in depth as soon as they are drafted.

The repository shall cover all kinds of extensions for TYPOlight such as applications, utilities, libraries, templates as well as down to single files. The goal is not only to provide a central index and download source, but to integrate the repository in the user site backend. Below is an overview of the planned technical layout:

The blue parts will be located at the typolight.org site, while the yellow parts are user sites. There shall be frontends for

• Users: Browse, Search, Review, Rate
• Developers: Maintain own extensions
• Translators: Add and maintain translations

The basic user frontend functions will be mirrored in the user site backend, so it will be possible to browse, search and install from the repository without even visiting the TYPOlight site directly. The user servers will communicate directly with the TYPOlight extension repository database via SOAP protocoll.

The discussed details for the various blocks are listed in the following chapters.

• The repository is designed as a extension bazaar, and not as a development environment. There are other free resources available for collaborative development such as http://sourceforge.net/ or http://code.google.com/.

• Forum links
  • Every extension will have by default a thread in the extensions forum where the repository will link to. As the thread grows beyond a certain post count, a dedicated sub-forum for the extension can be opened.
  • Feedback and help requests need to go into the forum, such entries are misplaced in the reviews and will get deleted there.
  • Users and developers of dependent extensions can sign up to the forum thread (or sub-forum) to get notified.

• Reviews
  • Reviews may only be written by signed up members of the typolight.org site, anonymous reviews will not be possible.
  • The developer shall have an option to add a statement.
  • Any other discussion of a review needs to take place in the forum.

• Rating
  • Most ratings are unreliable information because they can be easily abused, still they might be a helpful decision criterion, if abuse can be minimized.
  • Rating will therefore only be possible from the users backend when the respective extension is installed.
  • Additional limits may be imposed such as how often a vote can be made.

• Documentation
  • The manual will not be included in the repository itself, but instead there will be a link to the documentation.
  • The repository will only include the brief description, and the release notes / change log.

• Commercial Extensions
  • A common conclusion was that it would not be user friendly when every commercial vendor would run his own repository. Instead we want to provide mechanisms who satisfy both, the user searching an extension as well as the vendor.
  • We will not run a shop where the user can buy commercial extensions, instead the repository will provide a link to the vendors site where the user can buy an activation key (somewhat like the the live update id). This ID can be entered in the users backend, allowing him to install or update the respective commercial extension exactly the same way as a free extension.
  • The files will not be hosted in the central repository, but only the required meta information. The vendor will run his own SOAP service for file downloads. A link in the meta information will make download and install requests go directly from the users server to the vendors SOAP service.

• Filters: free / commertial / both / installed (BE only)
• Search: tags / developers / translators / fulltext in title+description / id
• Commercial extensions highlighted by other color
• Reviews (show / add)
• Ratings (show / vote only from BE when extension installed)
• Maintain list of installed extensions / check for updates together with core version check.
• Installation: Dependency display before, and automatically install required other extensions.
• Live Update: Show unchecked version compatibilities before upgrading - let user decide.

• Read “Developer” also as Maintainer, Provider or Owner in this context: It is the one responsible for the repository entry. (Maybe we should choose a better term in future.)
• Developers sign up as frontend members of typolight.org and create extension entries in the repository.
• They are owner of the extension, and are have exclusive write access to the entry. A special exception with limited access are translators, more about that in the chapter Translators.
• Rules will be established under what conditions an orphaned extension can be overtaken by a new owner.
• It is the developers responsibility to check and confirm compatibility of his extension with new versions of the TYPOlight core, or other extensions his extension depends on.
• Show list of dependent extensions.

• Translators can add a not yet existing translation to any extension, and become the owner of that translation with exclusive write access.
• All available translations are merged into the download when installing or updating the extension.

• ID
• Owner (developer)
• Copyright
• License
• Translators (lang + userid)
• Title
• Description
• Search tags
• Image / screen shot
• Category (application, utility, template, style sheet, other)
• Type (free, commercial)
• Release number (major, minor, micro)
• Status
  • Beta
  • Release Candidate
  • Final
• Release notes / change log (current version)
• Links (manual, forum, free files, vendor shop, vendor SOAP wsdl)
• Reviews (+developer statements)
• Download counters this release / total
• Last change date
• First and latest compatible TL core version
• List of other extensions this one depends on, plus first and latest compatible version each.
• Previous releases (manual download and installation only, no live-update or auto-installation)