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…
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.
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.
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:
Optionally we can use as well:
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!
