The ‘Roadmap’
For a few weeks now I’ve been trying to evaluate exactly what I want to build into Blaze, and where I want to take it. But now, I’ve realized that’s the wrong way to plan this project.
Afterall, although I want to use this system, you’re the guys who want this. You’re the people who are going to be installing it, hacking it, styling it, and hopefully loving it.
So, what do you want Blaze to do? How do you want it to work?
Essentially, this is an open roadmap, where you, the users decide what you want it to do.
I’ve already come up with the basic set of tasks to ‘finish’ the current 0.91 version features, including completing the blog, pages, users, and navigation sections of the CMS.
I’m aware that asking you all what you want could be very dangerous afterall, there’s reasons great engineers, architects, geeks, don’t ask this question.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
- Henry Ford
So, I want to know ‘what’ you want to use Blaze for. What kind of sites, what kind of content you want to manage, and ‘how’ you want to do that.
Please leave your comments, and from them, I’ll look at the recurring points, and come up with a plan to build a kick-ass version 1.0 release.
Which, as always, will be:
- Free
- Open Source
- Sexy
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[…] you’d like to have your input, then head over to the Blaze blog and give me your input! Filed under: blaze | Tags: blaze, cms, collaboration, ideas, […]
Over at Drupal, the CCK (Content Construction Kit) module brings a high level of flexibility to that CMS. This is the same kind of flexibility that drew me to Code Igniter.
So, Blaze should definitely support the creation of custom content types with the ability to add fields of various types. Blaze should handle the database modifications for us for any new kind of content type that is created.
I’d also like to see RSS feeds available on anything and everything.
I would like to use Blaze as a Kick start for any kind of websites. Then have some modules (custom developped or community developped modules) that I can add or suspend how I want.
It could help me to manage basic pages of a website like standard content pages where I can put some text inside and photos (a wordpress or joomla like page editing would be great to add photos and content)
It could also include some basic features everybody would need on a website, like a contact form, a links page, a footer infos editing, and of course RSS feeds for the content.
It could also like joomla do have some features like export to PDF, send to friend, print this page, of page content.
It should have also some kind of user management with different levels and groups (good to see maybe about CodeExtinguisher or some existing things developped by the community?)
Also, I wouldn’t it to be Joomla, let’s be clear! But a CMS on witch I can base my developpement then extend it how I want to a specific application.
CCK would make Blaze look a lot like like EE; While it’s definitely a powerful feature, I don’ t think that that’s the main direction you should be heading.
As for Blaze, I would use it as a lean-and-mean CMS. I want the basic functionality (users, pages) in place.
I want it to run on stock CI, so I can easily extend it using my own modules and CI experience. If a customer wants a (photo)gallery, or some other custom feature, I want to be able to easily add that as a module.
I want a forum to easily exchange open-source modules.
Most importantly: I want it NOW
Commit yourself to the ‘release-early release-often’-principle and I’ll be a Blaze user till they put me in the grave
Last but definitely not least: increase this community beyond yourself. Allow others (like me) to contribute to the core and make great new (optional!) features liek official modules, etc…, whatever…
You are too cool for asking.
CCK and lean user management with permissions/groups.
We know it’s going to be sexy.
I’m Totally agree with Josh
Need only user management …. Another modules will be develop my own.
Regards
OPS i forgot
Will be great, if develop multilanguage support.
Many of my client want sites on the 2 or more language
Multilingual support is a must-have for version 1.0 I’m going to start work on pushing all existing code to support multiple languages, then asking the community for translations.
Another vote for multi-language support, however for both admin and front-end public sites. Also, a centered ‘Media Library’, for low-end users feel confident when uploading files.
And I agree with Jakob: “Release something today to motivate yourself” - Getting Real, 37 Signals.
My 2 cents.
Is there any public SVN?
Elliot, I am sure you saw this. Are you worried about confusion?
http://blaze2.agnitekblaze.com/
Is there a demo? I forget what the url is, there used to be one.
hi, Elliot, one of important things that I wanted from blaze, is that I can use it in my CI projects. you hack the basic codes of CI to make a modular layout, but CI is not modular (that I guess it will be in Version 2.0), but for now , it is not, I don’t like to hack the codes, I want something like plugin, to port into my projects as a CMS.
I want a forum, that’s the big thing, a forum that will easily integrate with my own CI theme.
We have to help for grow Blaze, or if just Elliot works only, this cause project progress goes slow
I would like to use Blaze for a content-centric social site.
Feature wishlist:
Basics:
- multilingual
- multiuser
- fast (cached on front end, dynamic on back)
- basic workflows
- time management (publishes articles at specified time)
Nice to have:
- social aspects (let users create content, comment, rate, vote, etc.)
Fancy things:
- Edit-in-place with Ajax (http://www.appelsiini.net/projects/jeditable)
- Inline image upload (from the content form)
- Smart cropping and thumbnailing of images.
So far it looks great, definitely got sexy handled :p
imho cck shouldn’t be necesary, us CI devvers need to easily be able to integrate custom controllers or maybe modules (matchbox?)
hierarchical page structure is important, or at least navigation. maybe this is already planned, in which case i should read more first
anyway keep up the good work
I love Blaze, it think it is a great idea!
My wishlist:
1. Multi language
2. A good file / image function with upload and sorting.
3. Easy skinning of both frontend and backend.
4. Fast.
5. Compatible with web standards.
6. Possibility to cache frontend pages.
7. Fancy Ajax stuff.
I would like to translate into Swedish, mail me if you need help!
Kind Regards,
Daniel
I am wondering about the licensing.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/uk/
No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Means that blaze is pretty much useless to me as a developer.
can’t wait when the 1.0 released
but i’m still can’t work on 0.91 version
ermm….really sad..
I’d like to teleport my CMS to use CI and integrating it in Blaze, I think, is the easy way to do it.
So this is my wishlist to allow me to do that.
- Gettext support (I already made it in CI so it should work for Blaze)
- Ability to create easily other modules (Forum, Photo album, Guestbook etc)
- Ability to install/remove/activate/deactivate those modules depending of the need of the site
Yes, the project looks promising, but the license is what I didn’t like at all
I think that Elliot should change the licence to let everyone to reproduce, rebuild, build upon and so on and it wouldn’t bring any disadvantage to him 
Add a ACL-type user/group management system and this will be a great “framework” to use to build a wide range of CI-based applications. Great work.
Blaze looks good but with this licence i cant use it.
My wishlist:
1. Open source not open content licence
2. Workflow and roles (Editor, Publisher)
3. Versioning
hi! thanks for asking!
- kiss
- i18n
- user admin with roles
- keep it basic and clean, like CI
- easily extensible by the users themselves to their own needs, like CI
i would use Blaze to have my customers maintain the unavoidable content by themselves, in the CI apps i build for them. so the system could be very basic.
cheers! from another Drupal user
Hi Elliot, how is the Blaze cms development coming along? had many suggestions?
I know this doesn’t have any practical value, but when I saw this in your article:
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
- Henry Ford
I giggled at the thought, ‘with the cost of oil and petrol, I bet most people would see “faster horses” as being more of a tempting solution’.
Sorry…. couldn’t resist.