Enable 3rd-party development of content blocks

Teetime

I would like to see SM enable 3rd-party development of content blocks, and create a "store" similar to the phone app stores, where we could shop for these addons. Or, perhaps a better example is the Concrete5 marketplace. Concrete5 is a content management system development environment I've used, and interestingly, one of their addons is a "Content Block Designer". Obviously, these aren't SM content blocks, but perhaps SM should spend their development time on a similar concept so they can leverage the world's developers.

I would imagine the store would quickly populate with useful fee-based and free content blocks. It could be a win-win for developers, users, and SM.

What kind of blocks do I imagine these developers creating? For starters:

- Additional forms (jotform, google forms, etc.)
- Richer video blocks that include schema.org markup for improved SEO
- Richer photo display widgets like sliders, parallax slider, etc.
- Blogging tool
- Calendar
- Panorama viewer
- Responsive table builder (good for price lists, etc.)
- Accordian style content

Most of the above are already available for Concrete5 in their marketplace. Sure would like to see something similar for SM.

leftquark

An excellent suggestion Teetime. The problem with 3rd party "stores" is that a lot of these become littered with outdated plugins that don't work and just cause frustration. We want to always be able to update SmugMug, innovate, and make a better experience for you, and we cannot ensure that 3rd party content blocks will always work with the improvements we make. What happens when the developer of the 3rd party content block you love and rely on decides to stop supporting it and you're left without another option? We'd like to get better at pushing out new content blocks in the future and we think that keeping them to ones we can ensure will always work with your SmugMug site will make you happier customers. I'm always willing to be convinced I'm wrong, but I've already seen upset SmugMug customers when their 3rd party uploaders and wordpress plugins stop working and anticipate this would be similar.

Teetime

leftquark wrote: »

An excellent suggestion Teetime. The problem with 3rd party "stores" is that a lot of these become littered with outdated plugins that don't work and just cause frustration. We want to always be able to update SmugMug, innovate, and make a better experience for you, and we cannot ensure that 3rd party content blocks will always work with the improvements we make. What happens when the developer of the 3rd party content block you love and rely on decides to stop supporting it and you're left without another option? We'd like to get better at pushing out new content blocks in the future and we think that keeping them to ones we can ensure will always work with your SmugMug site will make you happier customers. I'm always willing to be convinced I'm wrong, but I've already seen upset SmugMug customers when their 3rd party uploaders and wordpress plugins stop working and anticipate this would be similar.

Aaron, your point is a good one, and I've experienced that with Concrete5 to a certain extent. My thinking is you do these two things:

1. You provide content block developers with an API that you don't intentionally break, and if you do accidently break it, you fix it. If the developer goes outside or around the API, it is between the developer and the client to resolve. That should be made clear in the store terms and conditions.

2. You let the community police the store, exactly as is done with Concrete5's marketplace, and with the phone app stores, through the review process.

Yes, there is risk that I may use a 3rd party content block that stops working down the road, but I think the upside of a larger selection of rich content blocks is worth the risk. My experience at the referenced stores is that when one app or content block stops working, someone is incented to create a replacement pretty quickly.

BTW, when Concrete5 made a significant architectural change a couple years back many 3rd party content blocks were broken. The community responded with new versions - some immediately, some quite a bit later. I think the same is true of the transition from old SM to new SM - there were a lot of things that required new/different techniques and the community here was very instrumental in helping each other work through those changes.