Magnolia CMS

Blog post edited by Zak Greant - "Migrated to Confluence 4.0" Hi! Zak from Magnolia here. In my last post, I wrote about how we're working to share more ... [More] information about what we're doing, especially around Magnolia 5. This post is about the work we're doing on Human Interface Guidelines for Magnolia 5. Background In the weeks leading up to the Magnolia Conference, I'll be working with Andreas W., Antti H. and others to produce rough Human Interface Guidelines for Magnolia 5 Apps. In Magnolia 5, an app is a tool with a very narrowly-focused interface enabling you to work on one set of closely related tasks or one specific set of data. Developers will build apps when they need to add new user-level functionality to a Magnolia 5 instance. An app does not necessarily work on a single, physical data set (e.g. the pages of a site), but may cover multiple physical data sets required to solve the task or tasks it covers. We'll write more about apps in future blog posts. Two approaches, two deliverables We're taking two different approaches to the draft guidelines. The first approach is a traditional structured draft. We have lists of nested bullets, with short descriptions for most of the points. The second approach is more immediate and hands on. We're working to identify four guidelines that stand well on their own and are developing individual documents for each guideline. I'll publish drafts of both approaches within the next week and will work to provide updates every week or so until the conference. Guidelines for the guidelines Here are some of the ideas shaping how we want to produce the guidelines: Show, then tell We should: illustrate principles and guidelines with images and videos, before we explain the guideline or any technical issues. This could look like: side-by-side images and videos that compare different approaches task videos that show how a feature relates to accomplishing a task This approach will: make the content interesting for every serious potential user of Magnolia 5, from authors to designers to developers (instead of being only for developers or designers) make the content more attractive for other CMS users highlight the unique look-and-feel of Magnolia 5 We should make sure to structure content and videos so that more general content is first, followed by more technical content - this should mean that more people see content that is relevant to them. Talk about who and why, then how Talk about: who benefits from the guideline or principle why they benefit, then how to implement This approach will have about the same benefits as "Show, then tell" Share small pieces early and often We want to steadily build M5 credibility, interest and visibility in the months prior the launch. We should focus on: creating small, stand-alone guidelines that are easy to share as individual pieces of content, via or in blog posts our documentation presentations tweets youtube videos A steady stream of well-promoted, easy-to-digest content should help M5 devs and partners learn about M5 with little effort on their part. Small pieces also mean that we can see what features are most interesting (through comments on blog posts, tweet retweets, etc.) Do the important stuff first We may not have the resources to make a complete guide before the Magnolia 5 conference. We should identify the most important guidelines and focus on those first. Bake recommendations into our sample app Many developers will start with the sample application. We should integrate the information we develop in other places: tutorial materials sample code code comments etc. Thank you! As always, thank you for reading! If you have comments or questions, please leave them below or drop me a note at [email protected]. View Online [Less]

News Item added by Zak Greant Hi! Zak from Magnolia here. In my last post, I wrote about how we're working to share more information about what we're doing ... [More] , especially around Magnolia 5. This post is about the work we're doing on Human Interface Guidelines for Magnolia 5. Background In the weeks leading up to the Magnolia Conference, I'll be working with Andreas W., Antti H. and others to produce rough Human Interface Guidelines for Magnolia 5 Apps. In Magnolia 5, an app is a tool with a very narrowly-focused interface enabling you to work on one set of closely related tasks or one specific set of data. Developers will build apps when they need to add new user-level functionality to a Magnolia 5 instance. An app does not necessarily work on a single, physical data set (e.g. the pages of a site), but may cover multiple physical data sets required to solve the task or tasks it covers. We'll write more about apps in future blog posts. Two approaches, two deliverables We're taking two different approaches to the draft guidelines. The first approach is a traditional structured draft. We have lists of nested bullets, with short descriptions for most of the points. The second approach is more immediate and hands on. We're working to identify four guidelines that stand well on their own and are developing individual documents for each guideline. I'll publish drafts of both approaches within the next week and will work to provide updates every week or so until the conference. Guidelines for the guidelines Here are some of the ideas shaping how we want to produce the guidelines: Show, then tell We should: illustrate principles and guidelines with images and videos, before we explain the guideline or any technical issues. This could look like: side-by-side images and videos that compare different approaches task videos that show how a feature relates to accomplishing a task This approach will: make the content interesting for every serious potential user of Magnolia 5, from authors to designers to developers (instead of being only for developers or designers) make the content more attractive for other CMS users highlight the unique look-and-feel of Magnolia 5 We should make sure to structure content and videos so that more general content is first, followed by more technical content - this should mean that more people see content that is relevant to them. Talk about who and why, then how Talk about: who benefits from the guideline or principle why they benefit, then how to implement This approach will have about the same benefits as "Show, then tell" Share small pieces early and often We want to steadily build M5 credibility, interest and visibility in the months prior the launch. We should focus on: creating small, stand-alone guidelines that are easy to share as individual pieces of content, via or in blog posts our documentation presentations tweets youtube videos A steady stream of well-promoted, easy-to-digest content should help M5 devs and partners learn about M5 with little effort on their part. Small pieces also mean that we can see what features are most interesting (through comments on blog posts, tweet retweets, etc.) Do the important stuff first We may not have the resources to make a complete guide before the Magnolia 5 conference. We should identify the most important guidelines and focus on those first. Bake recommendations into our sample app Many developers will start with the sample application. We should integrate the information we develop in other places: tutorial materials sample code code comments etc. Thank you! As always, thank you for reading! If you have comments or questions, please leave them below or drop me a note at [email protected]. View Online [Less]

Blog post edited by Zak Greant - "Migrated to Confluence 4.0" Hi! Zak from Magnolia here. I'm just back in my home town of Vancouver after an excellent, if ... [More] brief, visit to Magnolia headquarters. During my visit, I was glad to have interesting discussions with the people I work most closely with. A major thread in most of these discussions was communication. This post is about how we plan to start communicating more openly, especially about Magnolia 5 and our overall direction. Sharing more information about Magnolia 5 We've been talking about Magnolia 5 for a while now. There have been high-level presentations on the roadmap, architecture, UI and more. However, what we've shared is just a tiny fragment of the work that has been going on behind the scenes. As we approach the release of Magnolia 5, it becomes increasingly important to share information that helps the people who rely on Magnolia CMS become familiar with the changes and improvements that this next release will bring. One of the first new things that we'll share is draft work on Human Interface Guidelines for Magnolia 5 Apps. These guidelines will help designers and developers build attractive extensions for Magnolia 5 that have an exceptional user experience. I'll be writing more about this in a coming post, describing what we hope to achieve and how we hope to achieve it. Sharing more Another key topic of discussion was how we can keep our customers, partners and others in the Magnolia community more up-to-date with what we're working on and what strategies are guiding our actions. Towards this end, we'll be creating a web page that acts as a dashboard for information on our key strategies and policies. Future announcements about changes to our strategies and policies will be posted at this page, as well as being announced the appropriate forum. This change will make it easy for people to keep up-to-date with our plans and key activities. Initially, we'll set this page up on the wiki, as that will give us the most flexibility in testing different approaches to sharing our information. Listening more Sharing is only part of communicating. Another key part is listening. If you've been following blog posts in the Talkoot space, then you know about the interviews that we're doing with our partners. These are part of our work to actively listen more to the people who we rely on (and who rely on us.) I'll write more about this in coming posts, focusing on what we're doing, why we're doing it and how we're doing it. Thank you As always, thank you for reading! If you have input or questions, please leave a comment below or drop me a line at [email protected] View Online [Less]

Blog post edited by Isabelle Dubach - "Migration of unmigrated content due to installation of a new plugin" *{excerpt}This post is a wrap-up ... [More] of CMSday in Paris on June 14.{excerpt}* Written by Magnolia staff member Isabelle Dubach. CMSday in Paris on June 14 was organized to provide a forum where the biggest players in open-source content management systems could meet and discuss. The day emphasised the importance of human connection and the need for collaboration and community. However, the first CMSday was also created to promote open source CMS and present their advantages to novices. Magnolia thrives by fostering a dynamic community, so CMSday was a must to attend. Sales representative Christian Hauser and community manager Grégory Joseph travelled to Paris for the day. Besides Magnolia, there were almost 20 other CMS vendors present in the busy MAS conference halls. Creating a space for personal exchange "A humanist vision of software" - this is what CMSday organiser and Smile CEO Patrice Bertrand thinks is one of the essential characteristics of open source. Bertrand presented a variety of advantages of open source, but humanism stood out in his opening keynote. "Humanist" is a big word and maybe not commonly associated with technical terms, but when it comes to CMSday, one can see what Bertrand is trying to capture by the phrase. It is visibly one of the biggest motivations that drove Smile to organise the one-day conference in Paris: to promote a focus on human exchange. Smile realised that there was no opportunity for CMS enterprises to meet and exchange ideas in person, said Smile Marketing Director Grégory Bécue in the second opening keynote. Mobile revolution The first event on Magnolia's agenda was the roundtable discussion on the topic of the mobile revolution. Christian joined representatives of eZ Publish, Hippo, Typo3 and the Wordpress community to discuss mobile issues. While everyone at the discussion presented some special features of their product (eZ Systems talked about their Rest API, for example), there was a consensus on several trends: the need for a multi-channel approach simple and intuitive usage a focus on personalization Christian pointed out that Responsive Web Design is something Magnolia has done for a long time. Responsive design is about much more than just mobile sites. It covers a variety of devices such as tablets or Web-enabled TV set top boxes. Magnolia 5, the next major release of Magnolia, takes responsive design to the next level, with a new administrative interface that has been designed from the ground up to include support for mobile and touch devices. Christian at the roundtable discussion on the mobile revolution Photo courtesy of CMSday In the afternoon, Christian was interviewed by web TV provider Intelli'n and discussed the latest Magnolia evolutions as well as the roadmap. Christian's interview with Intelli'n Credit: Isabelle Dubach Le Money Mag Showcase Magnolia partner Web-ISI (a part of the Synten group) presented how they successfully migrated Le Money Mag (http://lemoneymag.fr) to Magnolia CMS. Le Money Mag is a website dedicated to financial advice on topics such as work, taxes and renting. More than 6000 articles, files and interviews as well as 200 000 users had to be transcoded and migrated, some rare special data types manually. Synten's Laurent Vartanian emphasized how Magnolia always responded exceptionally well to technical and commercial queries that the client had. Le Money Mag (http://lemoneymag.fr) front page Satisfied Magnolians We think the CMSday was a success: "Smile organised a great event. I also liked the venue", Christian said. Further, he was pleased to meet clients and interested attendees at the Magnolia booth. Grégory was also happy with the outcome of the conference: "We got a chance to show up on the French market, which happens too rarely". What's next? The next conference that Magnolia will present at is Jazoon in Zurich. Magnolia developer Daniel Lipp will speak about virtual presence management on June 26th. On September 4-5, the international Magnolia Conference will take place in Basel. Find out more about the Magnolia conference and sign up here. Explore CMSday more: Watch Intelli'n's interview with Christian here. Download the slides of the opening and closing keynotes. View Online [Less]

South Beach, the Burger King HQ, cruise lines… At first sight, it might seem slightly unusual for a software company ... keep reading

News Item added by Zak Greant Hi! Zak from Magnolia here. I'm just back in my home town of Vancouver after an excellent, if brief, visit to Magnolia headquarters. ... [More] During my visit, I was glad to have interesting discussions with the people I work most closely with. A major thread in most of these discussions was communication. This post is about how we plan to start communicating more openly, especially about Magnolia 5 and our overall direction. Sharing more information about Magnolia 5 We've been talking about Magnolia 5 for a while now. There have been high-level presentations on the roadmap, architecture, UI and more. However, what we've shared is just a tiny fragment of the work that has been going on behind the scenes. As we approach the release of Magnolia 5, it becomes increasingly important to share information that helps the people who rely on Magnolia CMS become familiar with the changes and improvements that this next release will bring. One of the first new things that we'll share is draft work on Human Interface Guidelines for Magnolia 5 Apps. These guidelines will help designers and developers build attractive extensions for Magnolia 5 that have an exceptional user experience. I'll be writing more about this in a coming post, describing what we hope to achieve and how we hope to achieve it. Sharing more Another key topic of discussion was how we could better keep our customers, partners and others in the Magnolia community better appraised of what we're working on and what strategies are guiding our actions. Towards this end, we'll be creating a web page that acts as a dashboard for information on our key strategies and policies. Future announcements about changes to our strategies and policies will be posted at this page, as well as being announced the appropriate forum. This change will make it easy for people to keep up-to-date with our plans and key activities. Initially, we'll set this page up on the wiki, as that will give us the most flexibility in testing different approaches to sharing our information. Listening more Sharing is only part of communicating. Another key part is listening. If you've been following blog posts in the Talkoot space, then you know about the interviews that we're doing with our partners. These are part of our work to actively listen more to the people who we rely on (and who rely on us.) I'll write more about this in coming posts, focusing on what we're doing, why we're doing it and how we're doing it. Thank you As always, thank you for reading! If you have input or questions, please leave a comment below or drop me a line at [email protected] View Online [Less]

So, it’s Friday evening, and all I’m left to do if fix our generated NOTICE.txt files. We’re using the Maven Remote Resources Plugin to generate all sorts of files, like a README.txt, NOTICE.txt and a LICENSE.txt. The Notice file is … Continue reading →

Today, we have published the Magnolia Maintenance Policy. The Policy clarifies what a maintenance release is and states that CE users will have access to maintenance release of the current major version, whereas Magnolia Enterprise Edition customers ... [More] have access to maintenance release of their deployed version. With that we are following in the footsteps of other commercial open source companies like Springsource, who have had similar policies for years, probably for similar reasons.Our desired effect of this policy is thatthe Magnolia community focuses more of its work on the latest releasethe general Magnolia install base is more recent (you wouldn't believe how many 2.1 Magnolia installations still exist somewhere out there!)organizations that need previous release maintenance either upgrade to the latest major version (good) or get an Enterprise Edition subscription (even better ;-))so that in the long run we can minimize (or possibly even eliminate!) feature differences between the Community Edition and the Enterprise Edition. A first step in that direction was done with the Magnolia CMS 4.5 release which has added many features to the Community Edition which were previously only available in the Enterprise Edition.We hope that the new maintenance policy clarifies who we will proceed with maintenance releases starting immediately. For discussions, feel free to leave a comment. [Less]

For most Open Source vendors, their Website is their primary marketing channel and forum to communicate with users, partners and community developers. And so, it’s quite important that the Website meet the vendor’s positioning, messaging and communication needs whilst also Continue reading →

Magnolia Americas is growing! Isa and Greg will join Bill in the new office in mid-July. Our first post revealed ... keep reading