I like your thinking.

I would do two things:

1.) contact the developer of the addon you feel does not have adequate information, and let them know how lacking the information is.

2.) Make a running list in this post of addons that could stand to have more information, and be specific.

Ultimately, all of us want C5 to grow and expand, so this is important in my mind.

Chad

i agree that a demo would be great on every block. We should write a whitepaper on how to build a demo that resets every hour so developers can do this. I'd offer to do it for them but I think its a bit more overhead than we can handle at the moment.

I also think we could provide some more guidelines on screenshots. We've actually been discussing the opposite prospective on them than yours - too often the screenshots are of an admin interface and dont even show what the final view template looks like at all!

Great feedback, would love to hear more.

Hello,
Thank you for your responses. I hope you see that I mean this as constructive criticism. In the short time since I started working with Concrete5, I've become very impressed. My coments are meant to be helpful and supportive, with hopes of seeing even more interest in Concrete5.

I also appreciate the fact that we want developers creating blocks, and we want Franz and his team working on the core Concrete5 elements. So I'm happy to volunteer my time to go through the Marketplace and perhaps create a listing of what blocks need what kind of materials.

To Franz: I think screenshots should show both the administrative interface and the actual site views.

I don't want to be all negative here! There are many, many "model entries" in the Marketplace which provide demos, screenshots, full text descriptions, and links to project sites. They make this information available either in actual block entries, or through a link in the developer's profile. They serve as examples to everyone else.

Here are just a few examples of developers who offer model Marketplace entries:
http://www.concrete5.org/profile/marketplace/-/132/...

http://www.concrete5.org/profile/-/602/...

http://www.concrete5.org/profile/-/666/...

http://www.concrete5.org/profile/-/1439/...

http://www.concrete5.org/profile/-/448/...

What would be the most helpful thing I can do as a volunteer to help promote a better Marketplace? Before I dig in and start creating spreadsheets and reports, I want to have a plan that does the most good.

Thanks,
Matthew

it would be handy to have a field in the marketplace submission/edit interface where you can enter a youTube or vimeo URL, and have it create a page for a screencast below the package. that's something else i would mind donating some time on.

Hello,
I've spent a lot of time in the last couple of days really going through the Marketplace. I was thinking of putting together a spreadsheet of issues, but to be honest there are so many holes in the information it's difficult to put it all together.

Generally, let's just say that except for a small number of developers, it's very difficult to get thorough information about Concrete5 add-ons. I'm having a hard time getting a handle on what a lot of add-ons actually do, what they look like from the front and back ends, and where I can find developer Web pages for more information.

I really want to get into Concrete5 and use it for my Web sites, but this weakness in the Marketplace is holding me back.

What can be done about this?

Thanks,
Matthew

I think you bring up a good point, but I think it's a bit extreme to through the baby out with the bathwater. C5 offers a rocksolid core and pretty decent developer process that you will not find anywhere else. Take advantage of that.

If you purchase an addon and it's not what you thought it was because of lack of info, then you are certainly entitled to a refund.

It's just not likely to be a priority anytime soon to "enforce" developer info. Just like it's not going to happen for users to adequately fill out their user info.

My opinion is, if the Dev can't get a good page for their addon up...then they just don't want to sell addons that bad. my2c.

Again, pitch in...help. Contact Dev's and let them know how they can improve.

That alone would be a great value to the community.

You have an opportunity to grow one of the coolest CMS's in existence on the ground floor of growth.

thanks for your feedback and ideas.

Chad

Well said Chad...

Chad,
I totally agree with you about the potential of Concrete5, which is why -- after reviewing the documentation -- I've decided to build my sites with it.

It's just a little frustrating for me to peruse the Marketplace, because there is so much great potential here and such a terrific base.

For me, there are crucial elements that must be available for every site I build: feature slider, gallery, forms, social networking links, comments, tabbed areas, and a couple more. Of course, other people have a different set of "crucial" elements!

Since I don't know enough about CSS/PHP to create my own versions of these elements, the Marketplace is the only way I can get these into my site. But when I go to the Marketplace I'm confused about what I'm getting and I don't know whether it offers what I need or not.

I believe that I am a good test case for Concrete5. I'm a person with intermediate Web-site skills, but with a lot of potential projects. I'm open about new CMSs and eager to make Concrete5 work for me. I'm sure, like me, that other customers are also confused by the Concrete5 Marketplace. Many of them will take a look at the core functions of Concrete5, and they will be very impressed! Then they will look at the Marketplace to see what options are available to build their sites, and they will be confused, and at that point they might move on to a different CMS. That's a shame, because they might move onto something that has much less potential!

I understand that if I'm unhappy with an add-on, I can ask for a refund. But who wants to spend the time figuring out what to try, configuring it, then having to contact developers for a refund?

I'm not sure what the specific answer is here, but I'm certain that more clarity with the add-ons would be a huge benefit to the developers, to customers, and to the Concrete5 project as a whole. If Concrete5 wants to grow, the add-on information needs to be as smooth as the structure of the CMS itself.

Let me reiterate that I say all this because I am so impressed with Concrete5 and its potential.

Thanks,
Matt

I think there is discussion on issuing a one hour reset demo whitepaper for developers. That would solve a lot of your concerns. Not sure about an addon? go try it out!

Here's the bad news though. Unless Frz and Co make that part of the Marketplace release process, many dev's will not take advantage of that. Which sucks.

I personally like the idea of a developer application process where, if approved, a C5 hosted demo is automatically set up per Developer, and any addons affiliated with that developer is installed on that demo account. no need for a white paper in that case. And all addons would have representation in which case every addon page can have a menu option for demo.

my2c

Perhaps we can put the heat on Frz to move that up in the list. I know he sees the value in that.

C

I must say I really like this thread. However we need to back up and think a couple of things through.

1. I am constantly amazed that what we have asked for in the core of Concrete5 (if even remotely fitting in with the roadmap of C5) we do get it in there. It takes time but then, Franz, Andrew and the team can't do it all RIGHT WHEN WE WANT IT. Patience grasshopper. Good things come when we wait (and yes the core team does listen).

2. One of my biggest issues is understanding the concerns of things that seem minor. But then I realize that some of the folks posting requests and/or concerns are not articulating well (or so it seems). Why? Because english isn't there first language. I have to read and re-read some of the posts but that is ok because of the global nature of this project. It is awesome to see how well and how fast Concrete5 is growing. As an example, there is a developer who was at one time on the forums all the time. Then he sort of disappeared. Luckily, nothing was wrong with other than he is developing some really great packages for Concrete5.

3. Since this is mainly open source, the developers can't spend every moment tweaking and documenting their work. They have to make a living too. A dev can't live on code alone. They have to eat. Again, patience is needed here.

Chad hit it on the nose. Encouragingly contact the developer if there are documentation needs. Ask for some demo info from the developer. Not all of them look at these forums everyday.

Matthew you have brought some very good points. I understand and can completely relate. Now that this is in the air, give it a little time. It is amazing how well the community listens to great ideas. It will definately not happen over night but it will happen eventually.

Just this old fella's thoughts on this thread. Thanks for sharing your concerns/ideas.

Bill

Hey

1) The white paper on how to setup an hourly reset demo is our focus for this week's how-to. We're not going to take on the overhead of hosting those demos. Yes, it'd be a nice service for us to offer our developers, but frankly %25 isn't a huge margin and the pain of managing these demos and updating them when theres a new version of the add-on, etc.. You guys should rather have us spending any money we make on marketing. ;)

2) Tony's idea of a link to screenshot in the submission process that creates the right page is a good one.

3) I think as the showscase continues to grow that might help a lot. It essentially creates "recipes" of add-ons that worked in real world scenarios.

4) Some guidelines on the screenshots that need to be included would be easy to enforce in the PRB process.

5) Sets need to be community driven in some compelling way. We haven't quite decided what that is, I don't want it turning into a meaningless pile of tags, but it would be nice for the community to define which add-ons go in which categories instead of it being yet another thing on my plate.

6) (I know! Too many items!) I think there's always going to be some type of learning curve when you're talking about sorting and comparing a few hundred items. We can build the best tools on earth, you're still just sorting through a lot of viable options so it's never going to be painless.

I love the discussion and direction, thx!

I agree Franz. I still am amazed at what you guys have produced.

We have a lot of talented developers doing great things with this CMS. I can see C5 growing even more now that the Marketplace is doing its job and can only improve the ease of use if the course is maintained.

Writing documentation has never been a stalwart companion to the developer. Lots of comments in the code (sometimes) but that never seems to get to the end user. I believe (so far) that Concrete5 and the C5 community is doing a good job getting this information out. Slow yes, well done, almost always. It is a process and some people don't have the patience. FUND IT!! is what I say if they want it NOW (the core team can review it if it ever comes to that and say Yea or Nay).

I have new folks getting more and more interested in Concrete5. I may even wind up going to Houston and NOLA to do some more evanglizing. (I only hope I have a good spell checker for the docs :) )

Slow and steady with bursts of speed is far better than racing to the finish line and keeling over afterwards.

great news on the whitepaper demo tute. Is there a reason why pretty much any "functional" package in the PRB should not be mandated to have a demo now that you are walking through how to do that? It's a HUGE value add in my opinion. Doesn't have a demo? doesn't get released. I Like it!

C

nah, I disagree about the mandate for a demo. it's already a ton of work to submit stuff for the marketplace, and sometimes the demo's unnecessary (like with the free multi-file attribute I just submitted). and if you've got a good screencast it does pretty much the same thing as a demo anyway. If developers are trying to make money off these things though, I'm sure a lot of them will take the time to do screenshots, better descriptions, and a demo or a screencast if they realize that will equate to more sales for them. the process just have to emphasize that point, and point people in the right direction to let them know what's expected.

Tony,
I fully appreciate how much work goes into developing blocks, and how much effort goes into the essential features of Concrete5. In other words, I realize that what may seem simple to customers is actually a lot of work.

The Concrete5 team, I'm sure, will know what should and should not be a requirement in the Marketplace. I'll just speak as a customer: it's certainly in the best interests of the developers to offer more information about their blocks.

Now, perhaps "more information" does not mean that developers have to create demos....
-- Maybe it means more screen shots?
-- Maybe it means better links to showcase sites using their blocks?
-- Maybe Concrete5 could host a "block demo page" running the latest version of each block in the Marketplace (developers just have to submit a copy of their blocks for the page)?

Whatever it is, more information will benefit everyone. Also, I see this as an opportunity for Concrete5 to offer something innovative that separates it from other CMSs.

I really, really like the way Concrete5 works and I see its potential. The community here is excellent. I can imagine this CMS getting more and more attention as time goes on. But my work with it is stalled at the moment because of the concerns raised in this discussion.

It's really terrific that the core team of developers is part of such discussions. That attitude will continue to be attractive to customers in the months and years ahead.

I hope I can help out somehow. For example, I'd be happy to manage a "block demo page" on the Concrete5 site.

Thanks for listening,
Matthew

A screen cast should be attached to each add-on. Nothing better than seeing it in operation visually. I have this on one of ours and plan to to it for the rest.