Symphony.

I thought it might be an idea to have a thread (perhaps sticky) where users can request an extension whether it be a data source, a major extension for the back-end or even a simple utility.

Whatever it might be, it’d be a good place for the active developers to find what the community wants and help to build around the core so that the community has the platform with the features that it needs.

All thoughts appreciated.

p.s. This comes from my desire to start developing extensions but not having any active project that needs them, therefore being short of ideas for things that would be useful to the community!!

I’ve been talking to Craig about something very similar but more specifically to the documentation. We have a growing, passionate community who are looking to help out but it’s not clear how they can. I was suggesting a list of articles/documentation/tutorials that we’d like and people can cherry pick and write them.

The same goes for extensions. Some of my mine have arisen out of necessity for client projects (Caching, Map Location Field, Form Controls, Order Entries) but others are just “because I want to” (Firebug Profiler, Sitemap, Section Schemas).

Often the best way is to solve a problem you’re suffering. At least that way you have use cases and requirements as constraints and direction.

Some extensions need definite use-cases first. For example there has been talk of collaboratively building a site search extension, but in my experience every single site I’ve build has had slightly different search requirements that a generic extension would never fulfill had those requirements not been known at the beginning.

For my forthcoming Entry Revisions extension (not yet released) I had some basic use cases written out as actions that I then supplemented with words what the data flow would be.

There must be something you need ;-)

You’re right Nick and of course the best solutions come out of personal necessity, but we may be able to find a solution to someone else’s necessity!!

i think this would be a good idea since it will give others a chance to see what the demand is for an extension. personally, i don’t really have any need for any extension at the moment, but if i saw someone else wanted/needed one and i thought it would be within my development realm, I could very well take a stab at learning how to write an extension for symphony.

if i saw someone else wanted/needed one and i thought it would be within my development realm, I could very well take a stab at learning how to write an extension for symphony

That was what I was thinking really. I thought this idea had crashed and burned so it’s good to get some support!!

Yeah, that’s pretty much the reason why I have only developed a few extensions, I simply ran out of idea’s!

This could very well be a very easy way to make symphony grow, as non-tech users would be able to make symphony better by giving good extension ideas!