Symphony.

Wow, it's been a few years since I last wrote a forum post here. For those that are new, Alistair and I were the original creators of Symphony. Most of you aren't new though, so I don't need to introduce myself to you guys!

Alistair and I have not been actively involved in the community for some time now but we're still the guys that have ownership access to a lot of the support infrastructure (i.e. Github, this website, twitter, email, etc.)

Today, this will all change.

We're officially handing all ownership over to Nicolas Brassard and the team at Deux Huit Huit. They have been the champions of Symphony as well as the open source leader for project; it is time to hand over the reigns fully.

There is however one thing that is worth putting out there for the community to decide. Internally, the Symphony team have floated the idea of decommissioning the website in favour of a more lightweight and modern process revolving around Github (pages, wiki and discussions).

The Symphony website is running on a very old codebase (the membership system is ancient!) and updating it requires a significant amount of effort. However, I also appreciate that most Symphony members have found a home here on this site. The forum is a place certain members frequent and I'm sure some would be sad to see it go. Either way, having your feedback will help Nicolas and the Symphony contribution team decide if time and effort should be put towards updating and maintaining this website.

Lastly, I'd like to thank the community for spending the past decade with the project. Symphony has defined who I am and I'm extremely proud of it. I'm also thankful for the opportunity this project gave me to meet some of most skilled people I know in the industry. I am also proud to call many of them my friends.

I'd like to say it one last time, Thanks Symphony!

Thanks Allen and Alistair for the foundation we still use to build awesome things.

One central point for discussions, documentation etc. is a good point. Github seems to be the right spot.

Many thanks, Allen and Alistair for creating and sharing Symphony. If it weren't for Symphony I would probably never have started learning XSLT, which I still get a kick out of every now and then for general data conversion tasks. Only the other day I used it to get our film and show ratings from Criticker to Trakt.tv... but I digress. ahem

It makes sense to me for available time to be spent on Symphony itself rather than updating a website. Not having this forum would feel strange for a while, but I know I'd manage. ;)

In case a forum is wanted for general discussions as opposed to just Github issues, Discourse is nice. A lot of projects are using it for public discussions, and Github users can log in via their Github account. I've set it up once myself, which was my first experience of Docker, and it's pretty simple.

Thanks, Allen, for everything (which is a lot). I have respect for Nicolas and Deux Huit Huit taking over the "full package" now. This will hopefully help them to focus and streamline all the work that needs to be done. Giving up the current website would probably help in this respect.

There is one aspect, however, that I would like to point out: Most of the discussions here may be outdated, but some of them still contain valuable insights and pointers. I myself have learned a lot in this forum (and from the articles alike). So, if technically feasible, keeping a local copy running at Deux Huit Huit might be a good idea, at least for a while.

But yes, all in all: Symphony can't head for the future if we stick to the past. It's time for the next transition.

I'm still looking to hand over symphonyextensions.com. I'm looking at a January 31st date to switch off the server. I had been in conversation with Allen to set up the site on the same Rackspace server as getsymphony.com (which is almost complete save for some ElasticSearch config) but stalled because of the wider handover.

Do let me know how you want to proceed! I'm happy to assist in getting the extensions site set up on a new server if you can provide SSH/SFTP access. Via http://twitter.com/nickdunn or nick at nick-dunn.co.uk.

That said, the extensions site is old and clunky and only just about works. It's probably too complicated for its own good and could be replaced with something much simpler.

I'd like to say it one last time, Thanks Symphony!

And I'd like to say it one last time - thank you Allen and Alistair for founding, building and sharing Symphony!

Still enjoy working with it on a nearly daily basis and I'm very glad that the project has found a new home at the impressive talented team at deuxhuihuit!

Regarding getsymphony.com I must admit, that though the website looks outdated and quite obsolete/overambitious in certain parts, I assume that it still does a pretty good job in giving interested folks (potential new users (may them be rare)) the best insights and information about the project that are currently available.

And while I think most parts of getsymphony.com might as well (or even better) be managed elsewhere, loosing the forum - as a starting point for beginners, a place for posting symphony related things without knowing/caring about the deeper infrastructure of the project and, maybe even more, as a huge archive of symphony knowledge - would be quite a big loss in my eyes.

In addition to that loosing the "main website" not only won't help in trying to gain/help new adopters, but also might reduce trust in Symphony by potential clients that one tries to convince to rely on Symphony as codebase for a project.

So what about not giving up getsymphony.com as a whole, but stripping it down to it's minimal "core needs" (maybe complemented by a fresh & simple "repaint").

Without any claim to be exhaustive this is what comes to mind when thinking about the most basic needs of such a reduced set of content/features:

• Home (One page, looking good, showing off, selling the main idea & trying to do the best in gaining trust and interest)
• About/Features (One single page promoting Symphony's core principles and features)
• Forum (Wouldn't need to change much - apart from the search feature maybe)
• Download/Resources (One single page for promoting the latest version + an overwiew of all outsourced resources)
• FAQ (Could be reduced and should not try to act like documentation/tutorial-stuff - but some basic answers and a simple "where to find what" would be very helpful for beginners)

Some kind of "News/Blog" feature would surely be nice, but not as long as nothing is written ;)

Extensions and issues already have been completely outsourced. If this could be achived with all the deeper knowledge (documentation, api, tutorials, articles, etc. ) and the more obsolete/outdated parts like ensembles, showcase, hosts, testimonials, members, etc. were dropped we would remain with a simple set of mostly static content that would be a lot easier to maintain (and style/redesign) than the current all-inclusive-version of the website.

If others think "saving" this website in a strictly stripped down, but therefore lot more up-to-date version would be worth a try and we could manage to build a small team/working-group taking care of this I would be glad to help as good as I can (that is: concept/design/frontend). But in the end it will be up to the new owners - Nicolas & Deuxhuithuit - and their plans & visions for symphony's future if there's a reason to keep this website as a starting point for people interested in the project.

By the way: What's the state of https://github.com/symphonycms/docs.getsymphony.com ? Someone working on this? And does this alreay include most of the content of the website?

I would also very strongly wish to at least keep the forum intact including urls and post hashes. It still is a very vital source for a lot of problem-solving.

Of course I’d like to say thanks to all past and future symphony-contributors too, you guys rock!

Allen, I'd like to thank you for all the blood, sweat and tears you have put into this project! you have helped so many adopters along the way (including myself). This is a great tool and long may it continue to develop.

There is a fantastic network of long standing users and new adopters turning to Symphony for their web projects, so I'm confident that there is a future for it in many a devs toolbox. With Nicolas and his team now at the helm, I'm excited for what's around the corner for Symphony once again.

Wish you the best of luck in any new adventures you undertake. I'm sure they will be as successful as Symphony.

Please can we find a way to keep the forum alive, like others have said, there is a value in the information buried in these posts which I and others still rely on to reference snippets of code and best practices with XSLT/Extensions.

Hey Allen,

Thanks for all the hard work and hours you've put into Symphony. Having the full package move with Nicholas is great as they'll be able to be far more hands on than you have been in the last year or so. I still refer to the forum every once in a while, though not as frequently as I used to (easy to note that 5 days have passed since your post). I understand that streamlining things will make it simpler, in particular creating new content more than maintaining an existing working copy. Will hopefully see a reply from the community and see if/how I can help out within the new era.

Hey guys. Just thought I'd poke my head in and say g'day. Thanks to everyone that has made Symphony what it is today, and for those that continue to use, improve and champion it. We couldn't be happier and very grateful for the opportunities that developing Symphony has given us. The community that formed around Symphony is top notch and we feel Symphony is being left in good hands.

Allen and Alistair, I owe you many many hours of play. Symphony is the reason I say "I love my work" every day.

I think it's very important that the website stays.

First, it presents Symphony to all those who don't use GitHub, and I believe it's the majority of its users, especially clients. As @Roman pointed out, losing the website would lower credibility.

Second, the discussions here continue to be my most valuable help resource. When I search for something Symphony related I always add site:getsymphony.com.

Third, it gets new users through the basics. Even if the docs are now on GitHub, the section here can at least provide links. Also, in terms of discussions, GitHub would be an awkward place to ask newbie questions.

I think it would be wonderful if Nick's extensions site gets integrated with the main website.

I'd like to offer my help, too, for any design, front-end, content structuring work.

In any case, no matter what Nicolas and his team decide I will continue to love and use Symphony.

Just joined, but I've been lurking for a while here... It would make me very sad to see this site go. :(

I really love it, it's so simple and well organised, just like the CMS itself. It is powered by Symphony all the way - one of the things that actually drew me here, most websites of frameworks/CMSes aren't actually built with their own framework. Whereever I navigate here, I remain on a familiar site, it's a pure joy browsing it.

A homepage for Symphony without using Symphony sounds like a disaster to me. :(

The only thing that I would change here design wise is making font slightly bigger for higher resolutions and maybe implement an adaptive, mobile friendly design.

Hey everybody! Thanks for your kind words.

I will be migrating the website today :D

A homepage for Symphony without using Symphony sounds like a disaster to me. :(

Never fear that @hax !

I'd like to add my voice in thanking everybody that took part in this project since the inception. Alistair and Allen has done a wonderful job for a long time. I am also thanking everybody that contributed in the past... John, Nils, Nick, Vlad and many others (I am forgetting a lot of them, sorry ...)

I am thrilled to have been chosen and will do anything I can to make this legacy shine :)

So this one will be lost? Would it at least be put online on a different domain with read only access or something?

Any chance the whole site could be provided for download?

I'm learning XSLT, this place is invaluable. Already downloading the XSLT utilities to my PC, just in case.

@hax No, this site will still be available ! And if it does get lost for some reason (which is not my intention) you could still find it on web archive https://web.archive.org/web/*/getsymphony.com

Any chance the whole site could be provided for download?

There are tools for this ;)