concrete5 workshop

Russell SearlePrincipal Consultant, Psicom

Melbourne Joomla! User Group27 March 2013

Free Open Source Business Apps Group14 Nov 2013

Agenda• Overview• Feature set

• Site builders• Designers• Developers• Enterprise• Marketplace

• Learning concrete5• Demos• Best bits of concrete5• Q&A

Overview

• Content system focused on ease of use• Equally pitched to site builders, designers and developers

• Register sites with community• Browse, purchase and install add-ons direct from online marketplace

• Some enterprise services• Not a mature product or ecosystem yet, but very healthy and promising

Features for site builders

• Leverage content creation and authoring model• Page-centric approach• In-context WYSIWYG editing and page assembly• Lego-style page assembly:

• Page types, themes, blocks, stacks, content, HTML• Drag-and-drop, cut-and-paste, clipboard

• Informal and simple, short learning curve• Straightforward dashboard within easy reach• Comprehensive content authoring services

Features for designers

• Simple framework-agnostic theming• Adapt an ordinary HTML theme

• Add a few lines of boilerplate PHP to the index page

• Bootstrap 3.0, YAML etc themes in marketplace• Artisteer produces concrete5 themes• Theme may include several page types, single pages, attributes

Features for developers

• Standard MVC pattern• Hierarchical folder structure for overrides:

• Custom objects in site root folders override core and package objects in core / package folders

• Theme pages override site page types• Special rules for helpers, overrides of packages and package

elements, and themes

• JQuery, Zend Framework classes, ADOdb layer• Very good documentation and forums• Certification options, community badges• Good opportunity to build marketplace add-ons

Enterprise offering

• Extended content publishing workflow• Internationalisation• Site architecture and stability audit

Marketplace features

• Marketplace is emerging• Some vertical business applications, but not a full range• Most add-ons are UI widgets, content blocks, developer tools etc• Single-site licences, one-off purchases, no subscriptions

• Vertical business apps:• eCommerce with many plug-ins; bridges to other shopping carts• Real estate• Directories, ad servers• Membership, sports clubs• Document library, media library• Events and bookings• Forum, social media …

Learning concrete5

• Getting started videos• Online editor’s guide• Video training tracks for editors, designers and developers

• Online expert training classes (course fees)• Developer reference• How-tos and forums• concrete5 books from Packt

Demos

Best bits of concrete5

• JavaScript front-end page assembly workspace(major improvements coming in v5.7)

• User-friendly HTML5 content assembly• Straightforward development of add-ons• Very good documentation and training

Q&A