4 ms·

Thanks for the valuable advice :) I did work on Drupal 5 and FileMaker (wrote custom modules to publish and submit data to/from FileMaker on Drupal sites) and

Thanks for the valuable advice :) I did work on Drupal 5 and FileMaker (wrote custom modules to publish and submit data to/from FileMaker on Drupal sites) and some custom work for Wordpress a few years ago along with jQuery tweaks (although never really had the time to learn jQuery from scratch .. it was more of reverse engineering/hacking than development) As far as my background, I am a developer vs. a designer, with a masters in computer communications and an interest in security. i just started perusing HN recently and plan to be active with the community in my bid to learn and possibly offer my knowledge and assistance to the community. Is there a good site/reference that would list needs and wants for CMSes or Open Source projects? THe problem for me with freelancing is that I don't really have any recent projects for a portfolio site (plus most of my work was confidential) Thanks again.

gexla 16y ago
A good site/reference for needs and wants for a CMS or open source project? This is tricky when you first get started because you haven't had enough experience to know the pain points and missing parts of the CMS. Once you get a bit of experience, you will know what is really needed but missing. Here are some other tips though. Find highly popular add-ons which are horribly outdated. Wordpress has a list of add-ons and shows the ratings, numbers of downloads and other information. If the plugin is way outdated (perhaps doesn't even work with the latest version of Wordpress) then you might have a good candidate for something to recreate and keep maintained. Alternatively you could find add-ons which are working with the newest versions and perhaps even somewhat recent but appear abandoned. Look for hugely useful and popular add-ons or features for one CMS which has no equivalent in another CMS. In some cases the feature / add-on might only be feasible for a certain CMS but in other cases this could signify a need. Check through feature request areas of the forums. If someone is requesting a feature which could be added via a third party plugin, then you might have a candidate. If there are 100 "me too" replies to the thread, then get to work!
- desigooner 16y ago
  thanks for the tip .. i'll definitely try and do the same once I'm comfortably re-acquainted with wordpress and possibly drupal..

gexla 16y ago

A good site/reference for needs and wants for a CMS or open source project? This is tricky when you first get started because you haven't had enough experience to know the pain points and missing parts of the CMS. Once you get a bit of experience, you will know what is really needed but missing. Here are some other tips though. Find highly popular add-ons which are horribly outdated. Wordpress has a list of add-ons and shows the ratings, numbers of downloads and other information. If the plugin is way outdated (perhaps doesn't even work with the latest version of Wordpress) then you might have a good candidate for something to recreate and keep maintained. Alternatively you could find add-ons which are working with the newest versions and perhaps even somewhat recent but appear abandoned. Look for hugely useful and popular add-ons or features for one CMS which has no equivalent in another CMS. In some cases the feature / add-on might only be feasible for a certain CMS but in other cases this could signify a need. Check through feature request areas of the forums. If someone is requesting a feature which could be added via a third party plugin, then you might have a candidate. If there are 100 "me too" replies to the thread, then get to work!

desigooner 16y ago
thanks for the tip .. i'll definitely try and do the same once I'm comfortably re-acquainted with wordpress and possibly drupal..