Web redesign project
Plans are in the works to completely redesign the CiviCRM website to make it much easier to find information and to navigate around. This is a really important project and we could sure use your input so, if you'd like to contribute your thoughts, please take a look at the Information Architecture draft here: CiviCRM.org v2 IA. Additionally, you can view some of the notes from recent conference calls here: Redesign Web Presence. Work on the mockup is expected to begin in mid September, so the sooner we get your feedback, the better. Thanks!
3.0 release cycle and testing
3.0 beta 2 was released on 9/3. If you haven't yet done so, you can check it out here: CiviCRM 3.0 Sandbox. There are lots of new features and there have been major changes in the menus that control navigation. Lobo indicated that there would probably be 2 more beta releases and that the tentative 3.0 stable release date is set for some time around September 23rd. Meanwhile, it would be a great help to the development team if more community members helped out with testing. It's a great opportunity to get involved and to help ensure that 3.0 works as planned.
Rebuilding the unit testing framework
Dave G. said the project is going great so far and he offered big thanks to DharmaTech! There was a training on this for the core team and other interested parties on Monday, September 7th at 6AM PST. The next step is to develop public documentation and write new tests. PHPDOC will be used to document the code.
Standardizing the names for the API
Several people felt that the status of the proposal to standardize names for the API was more or less in limbo because there are plans for improving the rest interface that would impact the plan to standardize the API. Lobo said a lot of work would need to be done to get to 100% standardization. Discussion followed about whether to use contact_id or column_name. If people find places where the reference to "contact_id" is not correct they should let him know and/or submit a patch to fix it. We also need tests that will check API performance and flag bad API's. Dave G. asked how such tests would be constructed and Sarmeesha indicated that she would write a blog post.
Financial matters & CiviCRM
We spoke about the on-going blog discussion on financial matters & CiviCRM. The key issues are to deliver future improvements to make Civi work easier with good accounting principles. it was suggested that there is no single best way to handle the accounting side of things. Many people use Quickbooks and store the data there. Important questions are: how is CiviCRM interpreting a payment that is an invoice? What is a payment? What is an invoice? Is Civi storing the accounting data in such a way that people can use it efficiently? A Skype conference call will be scheduled with 4-5 key players to help move the issue forward.
What else is cooking?
We spoke about plans for the 3.1 release. Dave G. said that the work for contact subsets was in progress and that they hadn't identified any large projects for 3.1. Lobo indicated that usability is still very important. Concern was raised about excluding certain functionality from future releases before folks had a chance to comment or prioritize importance. Lobo indicated that sponsored items rise to the top of the queue. The team will not begin focus on the work for 3.1 until after the NY trip. Dave indicated that he would add a link to the 3.1 roadmap for Jira issues that have been fixed.
Campaigns and petitions
Dave G. brought up the issue on campaigns and petitions. Joe said that much more functionality is needed here but he hasn't been able to coordinate funding for it yet.