Symphony.

18 months ;-)

OK, this is just a few months, isn’t it?

:-)

18 months of using it every day.

18 months of using it every day.

Yes, master!

Fazal’s post is a very good one — a logic explanation. Unfortunately I think many shop around for a CMS with a predisposition to disregard anything they’re not familiar with. Symphony doesn’t follow the trend in terms of features, since the core is very light. Do you think this puts people off?

I’d like to keep this thread alive to encourage thought on how and why Symphony could gain more exposure.

Symphony doesn’t follow the trend in terms of features, since the core is very light. Do you think this puts people off?

A lack of visibility with respect to the extensions available as well as the ends possible with Symphony put people off. There are a number of really simple things that we can do to help tackle this, from exposing the breadth of sites/companies/people that use the system to providing case studies covering a wide range of implementations.

The other common issue I’ve come up against is people mistaking Symfony for Symphony. With any luck this issue will solve itself as we become more popular.

We should have a large counter on the homepage of the number of installs. I know that not every site can be put on the showcase, so perhaps the emphasis should be on quality and variety.

Either that or put a random site from the showcase on it so that the homepage always changes.

We should have a large counter on the homepage of the number of installs

Number of downloads, or number in the showcase?

It’s a good short-term solution, but efforts should extend beyond the Symphony site itself methinks.

How about an extension that sends home anonymized usage reports (and a checkbox in install.php to enable or disable it on installation)?

Going slightly off-topic:

The other common issue I’ve come up against is people mistaking Symfony for Symphony. With any luck this issue will solve itself as we become more popular.

Based on the information I gleaned from this site, Symfony began development in 2005. Symfony 1.0 was released in 2007.

TypeWorks started its development in October 2004 and changed its name to Symphony March 2005. Symphony’s 1.0 was released December 2005.

The dates are quite close. We didn’t know about the existence of Symfony until around 2007.

Annoyingly “symfony” appears #2 when searching for “symphony” on Google — the Symphony CMS site #7. D’oh.

We can our search positing as a community - get out and put up as many incoming links as possible :)

@nickdunn: Based on my search on Google, we’re #4. How did you get #7?

We’re #1 with the following terms:

“Symphony CMS”, “Symphony Web”, “Symphony XML”.

But at the end of the day, unless someone already knows about our product, the above terms aren’t super important.

The term “XSLT CMS” ranks us #1, that’s an important one.

On Google UK it’s #7. I can’t see the .com, keep getting redirected to .co.uk. The position isn’t so relevant — more the annoyance that symfony appears above Symphony when it’s spelled differently. Google’s spelling dictionary works wonders!

The old Overture site is on the first page for “XSLT resources” which is good.

I’ve got a laundry list of promotional ideas. One of the big ones is that I think we need to continue to enhance the Extensions area. Because the core is so lightweight, it’s all the more important for people to be able to see what can be added on. I think we need to look at categorizing extensions. We might need a shortlist of featured/recommended extensions. We might also think about using screenshots more prominently.

I think the discussion about ensembles is relevant here too. I’ve got lots of thoughts on that, but those will have to wait for now.

I think we need to look at categorizing extensions.

Definitely. Both on this site and in the admin interface, with version compatibility information.

A while ago someone suggested creating a “CMS” ensemble. I don’t remember who it was, but the general consensus was that Symphony was a cms, so such an ensemble would be unnecessary. Now that I’ve deployed a couple dozen pre-packaged, templated Symphony sites, I can see some value in the idea. If we came up with a list of the most common questions, demands, or perceived missing features and put together an ensemble with them, that might ease otherwise savvy CMS users into Symphony. The idea would be a quick-start ensemble rather than a tutorial ensemble. Bau, you’re the Ensemble Czar now,right? What do you think?

On the far end of that idea, I use a theming system in my Symphony sites, but that would probably be way too confusing for someone trying to learn the basics.

…and in the admin interface, with version compatibility information.

And update alerts…

We used to have update alerts when it was Campfire Services.

Used to look forward to seeing that green icon shine.

We might also think about using screenshots more prominently.

I think Screenshots and screencasts of extensions working are essential. This falls into that area of documentation that Symphony is lacking. A lot of times, I don’t really understand how an extension works or its purpose. It may use a technology or terminology I don’t know about. A screenshot or screencast really makes things clearer for new people – especially when you use Symphony specific terms like datasource, select box link etc.

With the core being so light, extension docs are really important. If a developer can’t see how the extension works quickly, they might assume Symphony isn’t right for them and move on to another CMS.