Typo official weblog

Guess what? We’re not dead, and we’re even working on Typo next minor release which should be 5.0.4.

Last week-end, we finally added tag administration, after integrating Cyril Mougel’s tag autocompletion. You can now edit tags, delete them, and you will soon be able to merge them.

We’ve also fixed some of the remaining bugs, leaving Typo with only 3 open bugs now. We now there’s still much to do, and we’ll run extensive tests to find remaining naughty bugs.

There is still lot to do and guess what ? You can even help us submitting patches (and tests, never forget tests).

Doc

We know how much our doc is outdated, and the next release will change this for 3 major docs:

• Typo user guide.
• Typo install guide.
• Typo theming guide.

Converters

If we had to find a single common point between our doc and our doc, it would certainly be not being up to date at all. Wordpress and Movable Type have evolved as we were evolving too, and converters were left aside since 4.0.

We now need to update these converters to reflect last Wordpress and Movale Type version, and allow people to switch from them to Typo. A migration doc should also be written.

Multiple users

Multiple users has been on our TODO list for a long time now, and is still slowly going its way. It will be made in 2 times : multiple users with profiles and grants, then per users settings for the whole blog.

More admin tweaking

I’m still unsatisfied with the current admin and plan to improve it a bit. I’ve asked a designer frend of mine to help make the current one cleaner while keeping it the way it is, which mostly implies CSS tweaks.

I also want the admin to be the simplest possible, following the Habari project path I really felt in love with in terms of usability.

And last but not least, more dashboard information.

Choosing a version number for Typo has always been something difficult that may have seem curious or anarchic to some of you. What is the difference between a major and a minor version, why have we skipped major version 3 and did we go directly to 4.0 ? All that sort of questions you may have and never dared to ask. Or maybe you just don’t care and you’ll keep reading just to make fun of my English.

Why did we went from Typo 2.6.0 to Typo 4.0?

Ever heard of Typo3 PHP CMS? No? Now you know.

Why did you go from Typo 4.1.1 to 5.0?

Typo 5.0 came up with Ruby on Rails 2.0 which is, for many reasons, a really big version upgrade of our beloved framework. It may have been the most important Rails version migration of Typo’s life, and this justified the version number upgrade as well.

What is the difference between Typo 5.0.1 and Typo 5.1?

Typo 5.0.1 is a bugfix release to Typo 5.0. We’re going to deliver these bugfixes at regular times, every 2 or 3 months, or for special reasons :

• The release fixes some critical bugs that make the application crash.
• We’ve fixed a security breach that may compromise your blog or your server.
• We’ve fixed a huge amount of small but soooo ennoying bugs and want to release the new version before our due date.

The next stable version we plan to release is Typo 5.1, which will have some minor releases, 5.1.1, 5.1.2 and so on. It’s easy, isn’t it? Last but not least, minor versions (like 5.1.2) may add new cool small features here and there. It always comes as a surprise.

If you're following the trunk, you may have noticed that many plugins have moved from the core to svn:externals. Source have been relocated into the new Typo official plugins repository. As I said a few weeks ago in The futur of Typo sidebar plugins, we're only going to keep a few plugins in the core. The complete list is:

• Archives.
• Amazon.
• Categories.
• Static.
• Tags.
• XML Syndication.

And now, what's next? As we now have our official plugins repository, I've been thinking about giving Typo a plugin manager. The manager will get a XML file with the official plugins list. Users will install plugins in 1 click. How will it work? Very simply. The plugin manager will just run script/plugin install myplugin, and here you are.

A French translation is avaliable on my personal blog

Between 4.0 and 4.1, there were lots of changes in Typo sidebar plugins architecture. Plugins have been rewriten to become basic rails plugins one can install with script/plugin install {#PLUGIN_SOURCE_URI}. This is aimed at removing some sidebr plugins from the trunk and create an official Typo plugin repository.

Why should we do this? After all, the more functionality you have in a program, the better it is, isn’t it ?

Well, this is not always true. Here are the 4 main reasons :

• Typo is somewhat heavy for what it does, and too many plugins is part of the issue.
• People need to wait for a Typo release every time a service changes its API. This won’t happen anymore. We just fix the plugin and users can update.
• I don’t think users use both Delicious AND Magnolia. And I wonder how much people really use the xbox card stuff. If code is not used, it doesn’t need to be there.
• We want to give plugin authors some visibility. The repository and plugin directory will help this.

Here is the plugin list we’re going to keep in the trunk :

• Archives. This one will be activated in the default install.
• Amazon. It may seem odd to keep it, but it’s the best example we have of interaction between a Typo text filter and a sidebar plugin.
• Categories. Activated in the default install.
• Recent comments
• Static. A Typo developers blogroll will keep being activated by default.
• Tags.
• XML syndication. Activated in the default install.

We’re starting moving the less used plugins tonight, with Audioscrobbler and Xbox Live. The whole change will be done step by step before the next release.

We know that it may break blogs using the trunk, just like this one or my own blog, and some people will complain. Please, before doing so, remember that running off the trunk is always at your own risk.