Future 7.x Releases

We have lots of features planed for 7.x, but we have not put them to a specific schedule yet. Here's a list of what you can expect in no particular order:

• An entirely revamped commerce system.
  • Products and Subscriptions will become assets
  • More payment gateways starting with PayPal
  • Point of Sale features
  • Discounts and Coupons
  • Direct integration with shippers like FedEx, UPS, Airborne, and DHL.
  • Tax calculation system
  • And a lot more
• The events management system will be revamped
  • Allow imports/exports of data
  • Scale UI to match number of events (works well now for  thousands of events, but not so well for small numbers)
  • Improved checkout
• Ad Management system will be integrated with the commerce system so people can purchase and publish ads on your site without your intervention (provided you allow that).
• Replace the dataform with a more powerful and flexible database building tool. More details to come.
• More improvements to all other assets.
• Plus, all the stuff that gets pushed to the top of the Karma based RFE list.

7.x and Web 2.0

Javascript used to drive user interfaces via AJAX and DHTML (sometimes called Web 2.0) are all the rage in the web development community. WebGUI is no exception to this. This is our current Web 2.0 plan, which will change as we receive feedback from customers and the community.

Phase 1:

All new functionality using javascript components will use YUI. This includes the new calendar asset and wiki asset which are both under development currently.

Phase 2: 

Replace all existing javascript in WebGUI with components from YUI and YUI-ext. If there's no suitable component then convert the code into YUI-webgui (our namespace for YUI javascript components). Examples are the javascript helpers (calendars, color pickers, etc), admin bar, context menus, the asset manager, drag and drop content, etc. You can already see the first part of this implementation in 7.2 in the resizable  text areas.

Phase 3:

Pick off the low hanging fruit in admin mode. For example, there's no reason to refresh the page when using the delete, cut, copy, paste, duplicate, or shortcut functions. 

NOTE: Phase 1, 2, and 3 will likely be a bit of co-mingling. 

Phase 4: 

Implement web 2.0 features in areas that could really benefit from it. The most glaring example of this is the workflow editor. That was intended to be all javascript from the get go, but we ran out of time during 7.0 development. Other areas that could benefit are the user and group management interfaces. 

Phase 5:

I'm not sure if we'll get to this phase any time soon, but the idea is to replace the entire admin console interface with a web 2.0 interface. Though there could be some usability benefits, the main reason to do this is for eye-candy. Many WebGUI service providers (including ourselves) have related the sheer look of amazement people have on their face when they see the drag and drop content positioning, and drag and drop ordering of content in the asset manager. Adding this sort of eye candy to the entire admin console could very easily turn into a deal closer for anyone pitching WebGUI.