The Silverstripe developer directory has been a valuable resource in the past, but since the move away from the old forum, and some of the community features on the .org site it seems to be a bit neglected.
I believe it’s still a valuable resource and would like to see it refreshed. I’m not sure what the full feature set would need to be in terms of the account management, I’m imagining a standalone site, maybe a subdomain of .org. We could probably just use an SSO system similar to that used on the forum (where you can log in via Github, etc.), and I believe there’s a common header / navigation that can be pulled in for consistency.
I’m happy to be involved from a ‘community’ perspective, and will be glad to contribute to the project on an open-source basis, but it would be good to have some direction from the core team / SS marketing in terms of how closely aligned to Silverstripe this is.
Hey Tim, this sounds great! In order to keep implementation complexity low, I’d prefer to keep this in the same codebase. @sminnee has actually done much of the hard yards towards upgrading ss.org to 4.x already. I don’t think we should build any new features or changes on the current 3.x codebase. So the first order of business would be to get the 4.x upgrade over the line. We’re all about trimming down, totally agree with you on e.g. limiting the account management feature set. Maybe you’re interested in helping with the 4.x upgrade as a first step?
In terms of overhauling the developer directory, the marketing team would be a bit of a bottle neck. I think we’re generally open to more help on our community sites, we just need to ensure this reflects the Silverstripe brand and has the right look and feel. I’d prefer to give up a bit of control there in order to keep things moving, but we’d need to start with a conversation about where different stakeholders see this going (e.g. get @clarkepaul involved). We might be able to drag up some un-actioned concepts on the dev directory as well. So it’s a bit of a step by step journey, but the first one would be the upgrade unfortunately
The subdomain makes sense but I’m not sure if breaking it out to have its own login is going to work unless you take the showcase with it (they are too tightly coupled). Some additional functionality would be a way for businesses to list potential jobs/positions available for Silverstripe developer-related roles—not sure how well it would be used though, this functionality existed for a while managed by a community member.
No further designs were created for the Developer Network to my knowledge outside of the general look and feel getting a revamp to align more with silverstripe.com and new branding colours/fonts. I’d be keen to hear about what other functionality would be needed or removed otherwise it would be hard to justify putting a lot of effort into it from Silverstripe Ltd side.
It might be more valuable to figure out ways to promote the area more with potential customers as a community.
I did imagine that would be the case. The showcase would form part of the presence for the individual/company. In terms of the login, I think using a common login via SSO would be the simplest way, so there’s not another set of user credentials floating around (as there currently are).
In my mind, the directory is a place for potential customers to find a developer in their area and be able to see what they’re capable of - much as it does now. I’m not sure it needs a complete overhaul in terms of headline functionality, but more to get the logins a bit cleaner, make the ‘admin’ screens a bit more logical and integrated, maybe add a ‘contact me’ button, etc. It’s proved to be a useful source of leads in the past, but it feels like it’s been left behind and is now a bit clunky and disjointed.
