Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #110 on: September 27, 2005, 08:52:36 AM »

masterchief
Andrew Eddie
Development Workgroup
Sr. Member

Quote from: kenmcd on September 27, 2005, 04:06:55 AM

Hmmm . . . what is this thread about? . . . hmmmm.
Oh yeah.
When will SEO be integrated?

Right then.  Ken, let me answer the question, again, because it rests squarely on my shoulders.  It's on the table to discuss and devise a solution.  It will end up in a future version of Joomla! but exactly which I am not sure because of other competing priorities which will all be considered on their relative merits.  Believe me, I would like nothing less than solving the dreaded Itemid problem (because it drives me nuts) but a scalable/flexible solution is not simplistic and requires architectural changes.

Let me make this perfectly clear that we are 'hearing' and 'listening' to the issue but I cannot guarantee that the implementation to this, or any issue, will please everyone and there is nothing to say that other 'features' will get slipped in ahead of it. 

I really do not see any point in labouring this topic further as it will not contribute to getting a coded solution done any faster.  It's now a design issue.
Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #109 on: September 27, 2005, 08:30:55 AM »

Saka
Development Workgroup
Full Member

Yes you jumped into conclusions, at least you admit that. The lack of information is not excuse for making accusations, you could have simply asked instead.

Now that you lost your arguments about me holding back core development for personal benefit you keep insisting that there is some kind of conceiled information about core that I am not willing to disclose.
In case you haven't noticed Joomla! is open source. Anyone can read the code, find out the problems and propose solutions. There is nothing hidden about this.

Itemid IS a big problem in core's structure and this problem won't be solved until the database has been restructured. I keep telling you that but you refuse to read again. The workarounds in SEF advance are just patches developed over years, still with many issues that can't be worked around. There is no magic solution that I hide.

Over years I have been working and helping many, many users that kindly asked a specific question. Many solutions and workarounds are posted on the old forums, on my FAQs page etc.
Now that you attacked me (and keep attacking) I am simply not prepared to be friendly and helpful to you. So my debate is over anyway.

Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #108 on: September 27, 2005, 04:09:55 AM »

kenmcd
Joomla! Hero

Quote from: Saka on September 23, 2005, 10:37:01 AM

Quote from: kenmcd on September 23, 2005, 08:51:12 AM

So Title Alias was added to the core for an SEF Advance customer.
It was added for a commercial customer.
Did I miss something here?
This is somehow a mitigating circumstance?
Geez. I must be completely freakin' mad.

It was added for benefit of a potential Mambo user, a BIG one! SEF advance didn't even exist back then.

Gee why am I even explaining anything to you when you twist every word I say and refuse to actually READ what's written.
If you are to use something as argument then get your facts straight first by asking, don't speculate and make things up.

You're right, I did leap to a conclusion there.
No knowing the exact origin of Title Alias, and the time-line of exactly when it was added to the core, and the exact date SEF Advance was created - I formed a conclusion.

Perhaps the lack of information on Title Alias contributed to my misunderstanding.
Before the above posts, I had been trying to find more information on Title Alias.
I did find this deep explanation in the Mambo help site. (and now the Joomla help site)
"Title Alias: This field is not used by core. SEF scripts and dynamic title/meta scripts use it and it may have a future use."
I first became aware of this field due to it's use by SEF Advance and assumed it was related.
Ignorance on my part.
Please point me the documentation on the origin and use of this field and I will be happy to READ it.
- the info on DevShed requiring/requesting this field
- the time-line (assume this is somewhere in the 2003 change log, or?)
- creation date of SEF Advance (assume you will know where I can READ this)
Sorry if I have missed this rather obvious info.

Speaking of my need for READing . . .
Given all the praise I have READ for how well SEF Advance works "right out of the box," I assume you have solved (or know work-arounds) for many of the problems created by the current ItemID system in Mambo/Joomla, and for the problems with various components and mambots. Again I may be wrong, but it does seem like you may know this stuff.

Please point me to the info on:
- SefRelToAbs - how it works, proper use, things to be careful about. 3PD component developers would probably find this very helpful. They could construct their components properly from the beginning to incorporate advanced URL re-writing. Just a thought.
- JavaScript links - from what I have READ in the huge SEF threads in the Mambo forum, there are problems with the links in JavaScript, and that you seem to know how to fix these. Perhaps you could point me to where to READ how to fix these problems.
- Known problems with various components and mambots, and the fixes - from the posts I have READ in the old forum there are many problems, and that you appear to have solved these in one way or another. Please share the solutions or work-arounds.
- ItemID problems - wrong URLs, duplicate URLs - from what I have READ in the old forum, you appear to have solved these problems in SEF Advance. Please share the solutions or work-arounds.
- sef_ext.php files - how they work, constructing for various components, proper use, things to be careful about, samples.

Please accept my apologies if the answers to all these questions appear somewhere.
I have not found any clear and concise documentation of these issues.
In my defense, I did check to see if this was in the SEF Advance manual, but either there is no manual or it is just not publicly available.
I have only READ 400 to 500 of the posts in the old forum regarding SEF.
Perhaps the answers are in the other 700 to 800 posts I have not read.
Please point me to the correct posts and I will READ them.
 
Generally it may be more desirable to have a well organized 2-3 page written documentation, written by someone knowledgeable on the subject, rather than requiring users to sift through reading 1,200+ disorganized forum posts, or wading through 2-3 years of change logs, bug trackers, and tea leaves.
I did READ that you recently released SEF Advance 4.2, and that you have other personal obligations taking your time, so I can certainly understand the lack of documentation on these issues related to SEF over the previous 1-2 years.

From what I have READ, you appear to be the Core team SEF (URL re-writing) guru.
Perhaps you would be the best source of this information.

If not, perhaps you can point me to where I can READ who is.

Note:
I have been READING everything available.
For what ever reason, needed information is not available for reading.
In combination with or because of the other non-reasons provided as supposed explanations - I concluded this was perhaps because the lack of available information helps a particular commercial product.
I may be wrong (and have been adequately informed of such).
Regardless, that is the effect.

I assume open source would also include open information.
Please share with me, and the rest of the planet, the answers.
SEF Advance seems to work, and work well.
These are all issues you have apparently solved or dealt with using various work-arounds.
I have found some of these by READING the old forum threads.
So instead of telling me I am stupid, lazy, ignorant, clueless, or whatever - just provide the information.
Once that happens the debate is over.

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Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #104 on: September 24, 2005, 06:34:42 PM »

masterchief
Andrew Eddie
Development Workgroup
Sr. Member

Quote from: kper on September 24, 2005, 09:27:28 AM

I contributed to the thread merely to say:
"please look at the priorities again and let us know more precisely where things are going on this, how and when."
Partly because I did not put much in to the old forums, but did gain an awful lot out of them.
Maybe that's all I should have said.

Thanks kper.

The horrible thing about any project is that there are so many worthy competing proirities and we have to apply some sort of triage process to them.  Sometimes they will line up with individual wants and needs, sometimes they will be in opposition.

Timeframe?  Many of the dev's are going to be talking about this in the next few weeks.  We have a long list of things to try and "slip into" Joomla! 1.1.  SEF, ACL, JoomFish, U&A and so on are all on the table.  How much we include needs to be balanced by how much tolerance we feel the community has to wait for the new version.  Do we rush 1.1 in it's current state (not recommended) or do we have some breathing space with 1.0 and allow it to bed in (lest we get the crys "A new version! I just upgraded to this one!")?

Personally I would hope we can bump forward stage 1 ACL, provide some pain relief in the area of SEF url's, improve U&A standards, fully integrate JoomFish out of the box, have the installers use ftp...the list goes on.  That's a tall order eh   Let's see what we can pack in before Jan 06.

I don't mind people asking the question of when a feature is to be included but some need to be satisfied with an answer of "we are working on it" without seeing it as a conspiracy.

Reply #103 Omitted

there's a bigger issue here than just sef

« Reply #102 on: September 24, 2005, 01:41:53 PM »

zoomer
New Member

two things here. i'll get to the "bigger issue" in a sec.

first:

wow. it's good to see such a lively discussion on this.. i've been wanting better sef support since day one (before there was such a thing in mambo).. but for my OWN sites, not really for the search-engines' benefit, but for web site visitors.

simple, structured url's within a site are much easier for visitors to use, share, remember, and type in. and when they look at the url, they know where they're at in the site.

http://www.joomla.org/content/view/5/6/
means absolutely NOTHING to anyone or anything except the php core behind the scenes, but
http://www.joomla.org/docs/license
is crystal clear.

and url's referring to components are worse.
http://www.joomla.org/component/option,com_faq/Itemid,44/
what the heck is that? how about
http://www.joomla.org/docs/faq

but the kicker is "home"..
http://www.joomla.org/ would be how joe schmoo would go to the home page of the site, but the software really likes
http://www.joomla.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

i've used what is now opensef on several sites, and i love it's complete flexibility. what i don't like, is having to manually type all that data in on sites with several dozen or more pages, but when it's all done, it's a work of art.

sef is needed, yes. for search engines, it's ALREADY covered with what's in the core.. i'm referring to "people friendly url's", which, i think is more important, because it goes one step beyond just being search-engine friendly, it's called being "people friendly". and we make web pages for PEOPLE, NOT GOOGLE.

ok. so about that bigger issue i reference in the subject....

the main issue here, i think, isn't about sef and ensuring that the sef support in the core is good enough. it's whether the project, as a whole, will be JUST A FRAMEWORK for commercial (and open source) developers to work with; or will the project actually include features that are frequently requested by the community, the users, the regular joes, that use the product.

the core developers need to remember that the end-users, the web site developers, teachers, students, parents, the grandma's, etc, for the most part, are NOT going to be php and mysql experts! nor does everyone have the budget to hire out for help.

so a decision needs to be made: which target audience is this project going to be developed for.... the professional developers and php experts; or the regular guy. will it be a bare framework or a more complete web site management product. right now, it's looking rather bare (always has). many of the commonly requested features should be officially added to the project, perhaps as the (official) "joomla addons' i saw listed in on the forge when i was poking around, with the most frequently requested of those maybe included in the core distribution itself.  you can add things to the core without it looking like JAN (just another nuke).

AND the decision on whether or not to include a feature or component in the official project should NOT be determined by whether or not there is a commercial application (or who's making it) out there already that does the same or similar thing.

personally, i tend to shy away from 3rd party things for joombo, mainly because things have changed too frequently and developers are coming and going all the time. you've got no assurances that the guy's even going to be around at the next rev or not... and paying for one? forget it, unless it's a custom app for a client (who gets the code and exclusive rights or copyright assigned to them).

if i need a feature that's not in joombo (which is my own preferred 'site server' for most projects), i go find a suitable cms that has more of what i need already in place (all told, i work with about a half-dozen ones. i've also written my own basic scripts to manage a couple sites)... other cms projects may not be as 'user friendly' as joombo, but they may have a wider or different selection of addons.. and many other open source cms projects with large communities do not have near the number of "commercial" developers selling addons either; which is more attractive to me and my clients who, for the most part, are small nonprofits, churches, individuals (the joe schmoo's and grandma's), and small businesses with small budgets.

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Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #98 on: September 24, 2005, 08:19:53 AM »

masterchief
Andrew Eddie
Development Workgroup
Sr. Member

Quote from: kper on September 24, 2005, 08:04:39 AM

And I most definitely don't like being set up in opposition to some mythical blind person in such a crudely rhetorical way.

That is what is unfortunate. But I assume it was born of frustration. Which I do understand.

Well, I apologise if I was frustrated (about the placting bit), but I was quite serious about the blind person.  My personal preference is to put compliance with usability and accessibility standards above SEF so that Joomla! can 1) prenetrate those organisations that require it, and 2) actually be able to be used by those people that will benefit from it (eg, via screen readers, etc).  That was the point I was trying to make.

That said, both are on the agenda and require some none-to-small changes to achieve in a reliable and robust fashion.

But on the original charge of conduct unbecoming, I suggest people mail me or the people involved first.
Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #97 on: September 24, 2005, 08:13:00 AM »

stingrey
Q&T Workgroup
Joomla! Hero

If your arguing that this issue is being ignored, you've just had 4 and now 5 Core Members discuss this topic, so you cant use that argument.

The core code written by Emir for URL rewriting allows for extensibility for 3rd party addons well before the idea of making extensibility easier via mambots.  So in this regard Emir was at the forefront of this effort.

As you will no doubt know now, Marko [predator] is now a Core Team member and we have already discussed the SEFBot approach we will be adopting for 1.1 with him (we had already examined this route before this discussion was brought up).

I also totally agree that there are far more important priorities like Usuability and Accessibility than SEF/Human Readable URLs.

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Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #95 on: September 24, 2005, 08:04:39 AM »

kper
Full Member

Well, that's clear then.

Personally, I don't agree with Ken's particular stance or approach, but I do have a perfectly legitimate and reasonable interest in the issue of itemids, the pathway and URLs and their relative development priority (which I place quite high).

I don't mind buying an add-on to achieve my aims - that is currently the best solution.
I don't want to be "placated."
I don't want "pretty" anything.
And I most definitely don't like being set up in opposition to some mythical blind person in such a crudely rhetorical way.

That is what is unfortunate. But I assume it was born of frustration. Which I do understand.

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Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #91 on: September 23, 2005, 10:37:01 AM »

Saka
Development Workgroup
Full Member

Quote from: kenmcd on September 23, 2005, 08:51:12 AM

So Title Alias was added to the core for an SEF Advance customer.
It was added for a commercial customer.
Did I miss something here?
This is somehow a mitigating circumstance?
Geez. I must be completely freakin' mad.

It was added for benefit of a potential Mambo user, a BIG one! SEF advance didn't even exist back then.

Gee why am I even explaining anything to you when you twist every word I say and refuse to actually READ what's written.
If you are to use something as argument then get your facts straight first by asking, don't speculate and make things up.
Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #90 on: September 23, 2005, 09:00:03 AM »

masterchief
Andrew Eddie
Development Workgroup
Sr. Member

Quote from: kenmcd on September 23, 2005, 08:51:12 AM

So Title Alias was added to the core for an SEF Advance customer.
It was added for a commercial customer.
Did I miss something here?
This is somehow a mitigating circumstance?
Geez. I must be completely freakin' mad.

Ken, I suggest you research the Mambo history in late 2003 somewhere about 4.5.0 beta 2 and beta 3, I can't recall exactly which.  You will find your answers there.

Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #89 on: September 23, 2005, 08:51:12 AM »

kenmcd
Joomla! Hero

@masterchief
I am not impugning your integrity - please do not take this as such.
What I am questioning is a situation.
A situation which has likely been created over time.

There is no disputing that there are elements in the core which support advanced SEF components.
How and why they got there is actually irrelevant (but interesting none the less).

Everyone must acknowledge that there are conflicting priorities in all projects - open source and commercial.
Limited resources are allocated with great pain in all cases.

Let's get back to the original question - "When will SEO be integrated?"
I obviously have an opinion why this has not happened in the last 18 months to 2 years.
Whether I am wrong or right, the priority has not been to put advanced SEF into the core.
Or it would have already happened.

The Core Team cannot do everything on the wishlist when desired. This well known.
Contributions are very valuable. But, as acknowledged by the current discussions to create better communications with the Core Team, Core members knowledge and input is crucial to the completion of certain tasks.
There are people working on this SEF issue now who could use the knowledge of the Core Team to complete the task.
My opinion again - certain people could be more helpful to the effort.
The silence is deafening.  
So much of the info needed is just simply missing.

. . . just did a Preview and saw the other posts . . .

So Title Alias was added to the core for an SEF Advance customer.
It was added for a commercial customer.
Did I miss something here?
This is somehow a mitigating circumstance?
Geez. I must be completely freakin' mad.

Reply #88 Omitted

Re: When will SEO be integrated?

« Reply #87 on: September 23, 2005, 08:28:24 AM »

Saka
Development Workgroup
Full Member

Hi Andrew and Ken,

Despite the personal issues I happened to be around and read this.

Just a small addition to what Andrew already said. Title alias field was added for benefit of a large Mambo customer: Devshed.com. We wanted them to use Mambo and they had this requirement so we put it in core. After that several 3rd party components made use of this field. So Ken sometimes it's better to ask than speculate.

Regarding the question how the things are solved in SEF advance I already explained that. Just go up and read. It's a patch on patch solution (patched for years) that doesn't solve the base problem: core's structure.
The patch solution requires support and constant maintenance. In the same time increasing the load. That's why it's not very suitable for core.