Published
2013-10-07 14:06
With the upcoming release of 4.4 and a series of "super extensions" like CiviHR, CivVolunteer and CiviBooking - the power and importance of extensions in the CiviCRM ecosystem is on the rise. A group of us met at the UK sprint today to discuss some of the improvements in the technical and human infrastructure to help ensure that more folks are aware of extensions, that more extensions are shared, and that extensions can be made available in multiple languages. As usual, there's more to do than we can bite off right away - but some of the pieces that we agreed to jump on this week are listed below:
- Get the existing backlog of extensions awaiting approval for automated release reviewed (and approved as appropriate). We're looking to enlist folks at the sprint and remotely to jump on this task. You can find the list of extensions AND post a note that you are grabbing one for review here on the Extensions Forum Board.
- Expose statistics on extension downloads on the extension directory (Mathieu)
- Show extension status (Approved) on directory (Dave)
- Create a new Transifex project for extension translations (Mathieu). We concluded that having a separate 'contrib' type project for this was better than adding them to the core project. Each extension can be set up as a "resource" in the new project. Hopefully Alejandro will also work with Mathieu to initiate translation of CiviVolunteer.
- We discussed ideas for the extension review / approval process and concluded that putting the burden on extension developers to 'ask for' review on the Extensions Forum Board was a good approach to try. This (hopefully) gets more folks involved in the review process and also makes it more transparent. We need to update the information on the forum board AND on the extension directory pages / forms (Dave).
- Having screenshots in the extension listings can help clarify what the extension does. We can add a field to the extension form for this (Dave).
If you want to help with any of the tasks (in addition of extension review) - just chat with the person listed next to the task!
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Comments
Sounds like another solid piece of progress. Extensions will certainly become increasingly important as interest in CivicRM widens and deepens. I had one question about support for extensions:
On drupal.org they have what I think is a pretty good aproach for handling support queries, via the project-specific issue queues. It enables module users to view and post issues and queries, all while remaining on drupal.org, I'm wondering what the plan is with Civi Extensions in this respect: on-site issue queues a la drupal.org, extension-specific forums, or some other approach?
Hi,
Seems that most of the extensions are on github. I'd certainely prefer if requests/bugs are pushed through this channel for the ones I developped, and I'm going to do the same for other extensions.
I think we should display better where the source is (eg the github project) and ask to go there for support/issues. Probably like for civi itself, you can post on the extension forum first to check if this is really a bug or missing feature or just that you didn't find what you're looking for but it's there
X+
Dear all,
thanks a lot for your work on the extensions. I woud like to work on German translations for some extensions, starting with the "Summary Field" Extension. It has already been reviewed by Carlos here.
Could you tell me which steps I should take, to make it available on transifex? Should I contact the extension's developer? Or do I need to ask Mathieu? Or can I, by any chance, do something myself (I don't have any developing skills though...)
Greetings from Bonn
Fabian
A new project has been created on Transifex (this is the Spanish language page), and Alejandro and Mathieu have started documenting the process (Alejandro did some work translating CiviVolunteer at the sprint!). Looks like you'll need to create a new language space there for German and then a "resource" for each extension to be translated. Maybe jump on IRC if you need more help getting started.
Thanks for the reply! I have just requested "German" on the CiviCRM_extensions project and will try to add the Resource for the "Summary Field" Extension once it has been granted.
Cheers
Fabian