It seems I am a big mover. I decided to move my blog again, this time I decide to go to blogger.com. You will find my blog at http://gestadieu.blogspot.com/
I will try to be more regular (should not be too dificult;-). I will continue to talk about my billing system (a lot is coming very soon) and other things related to Symfony Framework, iPhone/Mac, geospatial and Open Source stuff.
However I will most probably stop working on some projects such as gWidgets and iCal4WP. Why? Basically because I don’t have enought time and probably by lack of motivation. gWidgets was a good start but I did not go fast and far enough, there are now plenty of far better solution based on Prototype, jQuery or Dojo.
ICal4WP is quite unique in it’s category, and I still have a lot of ideas to improve it…but when you dive into MVC paradigm (mainly symfony in my case) and all kind of design patterns, it’s quite hard to go back to a code in “web1.0-style”. It’s not a pleasure anymore to code in WordPress, mixing php and html within class or function. In no way I want to critizise WP, it’s a fantastic solution and it has a large and great community, but I think I don’t have enough time and energy to spend unfortunately. I know some people using this plugin and I apologize for droping my effort here. Of course, as both projects as open source, any of you can take over the leadership if you feel the need. Actually I wish someone can take over the torch and continue the job. Meanwhile I still have a lot of projects in mind and things to do, therefore this blog is NOT DEAD at all, it’s just moving. You know, like some time in real life a move can give you a chance for a new start…

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Hi all,as promised earlier, here is the svn access to my billing system application source code:  http://svn.estadieu.com/cs4u/ . Enjoy it!It was my first symfony project, therefore the code is most probably not perfect I hope it can be useful for some of you. 

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I have been silent in the last few weeks…For a good reason: I have been busy like hell for a new website (french only) on which I was contracted to do all technical developments based on top of Symfony framework. It is now open publicly and you can have a look at http://www.miroirsocial.com/ . It’s a website that aims to share news and start a discussion between unions and human ressources. 

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One of my client wants to change its current DMS used to manage safety, quality and environment documents (and based on MyDMS). After discussions we identify a list of basic features to develop a new version from scratch. One of the key element was to decide the technology we will use, and guest what what came on the top: Symfony.

One of the objective would be to release it later on as an open-source solution since there is no such solution yet in the symfony world. So what is best to start an open-source project than asking you guys what you would expect from a DMS?

Here is a first quick list that we identify already:

Generic

• Open-source solution
• Multi-languages support (I18N),
• Fast search engine
• RSS feeds

Document classification: Categories and Tags

• List categories (folders) and attached documents according to user credential,
• Allow document to be classified into several categories at the same time without duplicating the document itself,
• Tags (keywords) for easy search with tagcloud,
• Organization categories to allow view per department, unit,…
• Notification list on categories

Documents

• Upload any type of documents (can be specified of course),
• Document versioning to keep track of all versions of a document + locking system for edition,
• Document publishing status available: waiting approval, approved, revoked.
• Document security status: public, internal use, restricted, confidential,
• Document types (e.g. ‘Manual’, ‘Work Instruction’,…)
• Expiration system for document with email alert to author.
• Document translation manangement (a document can be in several languages for each version),
• Document can have attached (or linked or related) documents (e.g. Work instruction have the complete list of related records)
• A document can have no electronic document attached but simply a reference to a physical document.
• Notification list per document
• Star ala Gmail to create a list of personal favorite documents

Users

• Simple workflow for reviewing and approving document before publising,
• Comments on document,
• Favorites (stars ala google): user documents to easily find documents user need the most and allow email alert whenever it is update,
• personalized content: list of new document since last login, alert when a user document has received a comment,…
• personal zone to store private documents

Advanced features:

• Full-text search including search within PDF content (Xpdf or pdfstring ?)
• LDAP integration
• Barcode integration (Mozilla Prism based?)
• Drag’n'drop of documents from desktop to the app as well as to move folders, documents,…
• WebDAV support/integration?
• Integration with desktop office tools?
• Option: geolocalization for documents
• dynamic folders (ala intelligent playlist in iTunes) based on criteria. Can be created globally or on a personal view. Can be created based on a specific search.
• Notification messages on dynamic folders change or saved search.
• RSS and iCal subscription for planned events such as time to review a document, expiration date…
• Special type of document: groups of photos (allow a slideshow,…)

I have identified a certain number of existing Symfony plugins that can be useful for such a project, namely:

• sfGuard of course for user management/credentials
• sfLucene for the search engine
• sfFeed2 for RSS support
• sfJobQueue and/or sfPropelNotification to queue up email alert or other jobs such as validation workflow
• A couple of Propel behaviors:
  • Versionable and Uuid for versioning purpose
  • Commentable for comments
  • Nested and Ordering for ordering and sorting (anyway used by other plugins too)
  • Sluggable for clean and meaningful url
  • Taggable for tag support
  • Starable a plugin I will write to have the Gmail like staring system (personal favorites)

Optionally we can use as well:

• 2 more propel behavior plugins: Ratable and Recommendable
• ISBN for books?

Yes, it is now your time: share your view on DMS to see how we can start to build a generic enough solution for all. We are first looking at web-based features, we can imagine to have a 2nd phase for more advanced features that rely on desktop heavy solution…keep this for next year!

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