Post on 29-Jun-2015
Extension Developer Secrets – How to make money from Joomla
Tim Plummer
Who is Tim Plummer?
Coordinator of JoomlaDay SydneyOct 10th-12th 2014 @ UTS HaymarketSydney.joomladay.org.au
Convenor of Sydney JUG
Author of Learning Joomla! 3 Extension Development
Why Develop Software for Joomla?
• Established market of site builders who are looking for a paid solution
• Very easy to customise– View overrides– Media overrides (if using F0F)
• Object oriented• MVC• Access control (in core)
Joomla Extension Directory (JED) Stats
• Unique visitors per month range from 600K to 4 Million.
• Summer months tend to be lower, winter months higher (northern hemisphere)
JED Stats
JED Stats
• Approximately 1700 Joomla Extension Developers on the JED
• There are hundreds of one extension developers and some with 60 extensions
• Average number of extensions per developer is four.
• 8498 listings (as of 10th October 2014)
JED Stats
• Average of 5 submissions a day• There’s always roughly 160 pending
extensions that were submitted with errors and awaiting fixes
• 3441 support tickets processed in the last year
Joomla
• JED lists both commercial and non-commercial extensions
• No limitations on business model• Must be GPL to be listed on JED
JED is a good traffic source
Like Google, top extension in JED category gets more hits
Ratings and reviews get you to top
What makes a great extension
• Good quality software• Documentation• Support
Pricing
• Most expensive base price is $499 USD• Most expensive pro version is $1,495 USD• Average price is around $29-59 per year
What you need
• Web hosting
What you need
• Akeeba Tickets (also includes Akeeba Release System and Akeeba DocImport)
What you need
• So we are only talking about $180 - $420 per year. That’s not much!
Write documentation in docbook XML format
Phing script then converts this to PDF using xsltproc and FOP
<echo>About to create PDF of documentation...</echo><exec command="xsltproc --nonet --xinclude --novalid --stringparam img.src.path http://localhost/joomla_development/bfsurvey/userguide/ --stringparam body.start.indent 0 --stringparam variablelist.term.break.after 1 --stringparam variablelist.term.separator "" --stringparam variablelist.max.termlength 12 --stringparam section.autolabel 1 --stringparam toc.section.depth 5 --stringparam fop1.extensions 1 --output ${project.basedir}/../bfsurvey-guide.fo ${dirs.bin.dbxsl}/fo/docbook.xsl ${dirs.documentation}/bfsurvey-guide.xml" dir="${project.basedir}" logoutput="true" /><echo>Now running FOP...</echo><exec command="fop -fo ${project.basedir}/../bfsurvey-guide.fo -pdf ${project.basedir}/../bfsurvey-guide.pdf" logoutput="true" /><echo>Deleiting fo file...</echo><delete file="${project.basedir}/../bfsurvey-guide.fo" quiet="yes" /><echo>PDF of documetation complete...</echo>
Now you have PDF documentation
Akeeba DocImport then makes it web enabled
Web based documentation
Support – Akeeba Ticket System
Support – Akeeba Ticket System
Use Akeeba Subscriptions to sell your software
Akeeba Subscriptions
Akeeba Subscriptions
• Some features include:– Integrates with Akeeba Release System– Add/remove users from groups– Coupon codes– Automatic PDF invoice sent to customer
Akeeba Release System
Phing is your friend
• I use Phing to:– Copy files to dev site(s)– Create installable zip package– Create PDF documentation
• Can also do fancy stuff like:– Find and replace text in files– Move/copy/delete files & folders
Now let’s take a look at a new toy
What if I told you that you could write a Joomla Component that can also be used as a standalone PHP application, or WordPress plugin using the same codebase.
Why would you want do this?
• Opening your software to another community of site builders
Introducing AWF (Akeeba Web Framework)
A web application framework for single source standalone web applications, Joomla! components and WordPress plugins.
• GPL• Requires PHP 5.3+
Who wrote AWF?
• Written by Nicholas Dionysopoulos from akeebabackup.com who also has a WordPress blog http://www.dionysopoulos.me/
• September 2014 – public release of AWF
Stand alone installation
Stand alone installation
Configuration file
User table
User log in
Cpanel view in AWF
List view in AWF
Form view in AWF
How does AWF work with Joomla?
• AWF will be installable library like F0F
How does it work with Joomla?
• Need to add some of the standard Joomla files such as XML mainfest, access.xml, config.xml
How does it work (WordPress)?
• App folder contains AWF, and files for plugin
• Helper files provide wrapper to bootstrap the application
AWF is currently in public beta. There are no documentation or examples
written just yet.
Each theme club has it’s own framework to support both Joomla & WordPress
Let’s not make the same mistake with plugins
AWF could be the standard
We can share:• Documentation • Bug fixes• Unit tests• Examples and tutorials
Joomla and WordPress developers can work together for mutual benefit!
Where do I get AWF?
• http://akeebabackup.com/download.html• https://github.com/akeeba/awf
Questions?
Where can I get AWF?
• https://www.akeebabackup.com/download.html
• https://github.com/akeeba/awfTim Plummerwww.timplummer.com.au
@bfsurvey