I think it would be helpful to have a wish list here in the forums. I'll start.
1) A Wildflower download utility in in which we can download specific wildflower database tables (possibly a Mysql dump) along with all the files in the uploads directory. It would be nice if it could also upload a previous backup file and install it on or over a fresh install of wildflower.
I think perhaps we should split this wishlist into 2: - WildFlower wishlist (features/updates) [Feature/Patch Wishlist] - more of an administration of Wildflower wishlist [Maintenance Wishlist]
I believe your Wildflower download utility would fall into the second category.
Feature Wishlist: - Choose the parent page upon creating a new page - Create a 'dev distro list' so that when the site is in 'Debug Mode' the emails aren't being sent to the contact email address but rather the 'dev distro list'.
Assets Controler handling folders and subfolders. I was trying this out eariler the thumbnail action of assets woul have to be reworked since it would take / division of folder names to divide vars. I tried urlencoding still no joy (wf is able to delete files assets in folders but I could not get anything to display)
EDIT: I am looking at this - support a whole range of things (can be used with cdn's too) - is described as CakePHP plugin enabling transfer/manipulation/embedding of (media) files in 2300 ways. http://wiki.github.com/davidpersson/media/
Mce lets you resize image which is great. Perhaps within wf the src of resized image could be altered so that the correct sized thumb is source rather than merely shrinking the image
Shadowbox integration (or thickbox) - automatic links to large images
Abilty to insert multiple images - option to set sequence for shadowbox (or alternative jquery plugin)
Youtube insert - supply the token string of content
Also after a quantity of image the sidebar of image whilst editing is going to be in trouble - displaying images by tag and scrolling content could work or listing names and displaying thumb on hover
Solution to this mystery IE error that prevents pages/posts being added also stalls on categorizing posts (maybe this only occurs in my branch)
pdf - uploading them to assets works fine - inserting them would to but currently this is only listing images. My branch can insert links (I have a links & feeds section). Categorizing a link as rss and the link pointing to a feed sets it up on home page with jquery gfeed works like a charm. Next with this is to put some logic in to make a specific rss section and not display them in links. Also in some cases the feeds will only be displayed in admin on dashboard this is currently working but only from config settings in plugins/wildflower/config/core.php - the Icing settings
Both of these could be part of a specific Wildflower MCE plugin made to intergrate tightly (only work within) Wildflower CMS
I want to second this request: - add to main/side menu checkbox option for pages (dynamic menu)
If you wanted to be really fancy, you would have a menutypes table and a menutype column in the pages table. That way, the developer could populate the menutypes table with the types that are supported by the application. You could perhaps put in defaults value with the WF build, like "main, side, flyout, ...". The, the admin (the person that the developer built the site for) would be able to create pages and determine what type of menu the page should be linked in. The menutypes table would not be exposed in the admin panel as it's really just for the dev (wouldn't make sense for the admin to create a menutype that is not supported by the views).
[Admin Wishlist] Add a basecamp like 'hover' functionality.
I like the way the new 1.3 beta has the hover functionality to edit a page, but really that functionality doesn't add a whole lot since the edit button is the same as the edit link.
What would be really nice is if we had a 'hover' that works just like it does in basecamp, which allows you to drag-n-drop a page to reorgnize your list or delete it.
Here's a quick screenshot for those not familiar with it:
I've been trying to do the page tree drag and drop reorder like 10 times. At this moment there is no JS code that can reorder a nested tree without flickering or other bugs AFAIK.
I wish that there wasn't that silly MVC javascript framework that is loaded through cake's MVC. It really breaks Cake's MVC structure. It's like a canon for a rifle's worth of javascript need.
#1 Scale back on unneeded javascript overhead and confusion (jquery is already a wondeful library, why make it MVC? 80% of the application is PHP/HTML/CSS javascript accounts for so little, making it more robust is not worthwhile and in this case, it doesn't fit so well into our existing MVC architecture)
While some of the animations are neat, like when you go to add a page or something from an index action...It's not really typical because you'd normally see an add view with cake. I don't see any problem with going to a different url and loading another template. If you want to requestAction() and have some fancy things go on with AJAX, cool...but it's just another area where Wildflower breaks convention (sorta).
#2 Follow Cake conventions more closely
It seems like Wildflower re-declares or I shouldn't say re-declare, I should say has methods that do some of the same things that Cake already does. Perhaps because when Wildflower was created there was less classes and methods available within Cake? Maybe? I don't know...but Wildflower could much leaner. I know, the more you use Cake the more you dig into the API and start seeing other methods you didn't know exist. Or the more you talk to people on the IRC channel, etc. So it's hard. I get it. Fortunately it's easy to follow...but not when Wildflower strives to break convention at nearly every point.
#3 Refactor and use Cake more, less code.
The idea of moving wildflower to it's own app folder is a novel idea. I think it's inventive and nice because it allows for easy upgrades and such. However, I think Wildflower really pitches to developers. The idea is you're building your application around Wildflower or are extending Wildflower to save you amazing amounts of time (thank you by the way), but we're all developing with Cake. So I don't see much of a reason not to keep everything within the main /app folder and make use of admin routing with "admin" path. I think it'll marry into what developers are doing much better. If it was to be more of a stand alone thing integrated into a Cake app, then I think it should simply go into the plugins folder exactly where the CakePHP framework intended. It'd then also be easy to drag and drop upgrade.
#4 Make use of features Cake provides/follow convention
I think Wildflower at times re-invents the wheel, but it is a VERY VERY good CMS. Taking after the becasecamp interface is also nice because of familiarity. I don't care so much it's not an original idea (though from screenshots of earlier versions of Wildflower, I did like that interface too), but because it's familiar it's great.
#5(not really) I don't wish it had a visual interface to call it's own. While I don't like basecamp, it's a pretty nice looking interface and so is Wildflower's. It's a visual area often forgotten. Wildflower's backend is very pleasing.
I think Wildflower has some maturing to do but will become a TERRIFIC time saver for developers. It has helped me out certainly. While I may be really picky/critical here, I don't want anyone to think I'm unhappy with Wildflower. While I think there's something strange going on with checkboxes....and the MVC javascript...I have only had minor issues building around Wildflower.
So in more than a bullet list of wishes here, that's my wish list. Request #5 I guess would be a menu manager, but I already added it. Integrated just fine into Wildflower. Makes use of ext, drag and drop menu tree. Then under settings page, lets you choose "footer" and "main" menus from parent groups of menu items that you setup. No flicker on the drag and drop, no bugs, works great if anyone wants it.
I may also make a multi-media gallery add-on to the blog, since I am working on another project which is a multi-media blog. More nice drag and drop UI there too.
Thanks for you comments Tom; you make some great points especially #2 & #3
Glad to here you have enjoyed & benefited from wf. The road map of wf is being revised abit more many of the points you have raised are being considered reconsidered.
>>but will become a TERRIFIC time saver for developers and with a but of revision even more so
tom_m: You've got very good points. Thanks a lot for the feedback. Especially that I am trying to re-develop the wheel sometimes. This is so true.
I guess you'll enjoy the next releases, since the main direction right now is to really get to the ground and get back to the basic Cake conventions (admin routing, everything in the app folder, use of the Cake plugins as WF plugins...).
My JavaScript MVC framework requires some cleanup, the MVC is an overkill for JS, I realized that. I'll go more into the direction of just packaging, auto-loading and the ability to include other JS files in your code, so the structure will be more up to you.
I'm about to try Wildflower for the first time, but reading the features list on Debuggable.com, it looks like there is no type of forums setup in Wildflower. Setting up a customer-focused CMS, I think this would be a great addition. Most existing forum software (phpBB, SMF, vBulletin, etc.) are difficult to plug into an external website, and require much hacking unfortunately.