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Unified Conent Model

Lightning talk

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What is UCM?

  • A set of APIs
  • An idea about data
  • A chance to reinvent

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The APIs

  • JContent
  • JAuthorisation
  • JDatabaseObject
  • JCacheObject

  • So far ...

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A way to think about data

It's all content

If we treat it that way it's

  • Simpler
  • Lighter
  • More powerful
  • More flexible

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The obvious things

All of the core content components become ... content

Within content there are different types

Articles, Weblinks, Contacts, Newsfeeds, Categories, Banners, Profiles

All in one big core content table with details in the secondary table

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The obvious things

No need for separate MVC for each of them

Concentrate on presentation and what makes them unique

One big table means ... unique ids across all types

Easy buy in for extensions, just define each table as a type and add a row for each record

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Obvious things

Liking, featuring, hit counting, asset tracking built right in.

So what one type has, all types can have.

But each type can have its own fields too.

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Reinvention

UCM means 4.0 will be really different

Let's use this as a chance to think big

We're still using 2007 ideas .. which is fine for now

Let's ask

How should it work in 2017?

Where will the web be?

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Reinvention: Many questions

What do we mean by content management?

How should navigation work?

What should modules be?

How does Joomla! interact with other applications?

What will users expect?

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Keep what is strong

No going backwards, we have to still provide what we do now

Extensible

Dynamic

Managing all important features via a web interface

How can we do that even better?

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Throw out or fix what isn't

Rethink navigation

Reduce complexity that was brilliant in 2007 but not needed now

Do we need to set options in 3 places?

Why only have one component on a page?

Is multilingual really only the ability not to see things in other languages?

Put everything up for discussion

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Core features

Things we have to think about

  • Modules
  • Language
  • Navigation
  • Hierarchies
  • Classification (Tags)
  • Forms
  • Search
  • Usability

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Let's go

Let's start now

Start a team working on this now

Really build specifications

  • User requirements
  • Functional requirements

Let's be not be afraid to say "yes" or to say "no"

Get to alpha as soon as we can

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Let's not be left behind

Let's use the whole 18 months of 3.x.

By 4.0 let's be ready with a field tested, fast, light, powerful, flexible state of the art CMS ... that Joomla 3 users will want to move to.

Give them everything they have now but better and what they don't even know they want and need.

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Let's be the CMS