Commercial Module Ideas

[Pete]

Hi folks

I've worked on a number of projects over the years where I've got various chunks of code I think would make some really nice ProcessWire modules. They do lean more towards commercial modules though as they are quite complex and I need to be able to support them and there would be improvements over time.

I'm trying to gauge interest though before actually choosing one, so if you have ever come across a client wanting any of the module ideas listed in this poll please do vote and comment if you come across a need for these regularly (possibly you won't with the first three as they're all quite niche :)).

Other ideas are welcome of course if you regularly have a need for something - I'm not afraid to admit I'm trying to build up some recurring revenue here!

[pwired]

There have been, and still are, requests for adding sqlite to PW. Perhaps that would give you something to work on commercially.

Besides sqlite database, how much would it roughly cost to add xml database to PW ?

 

[arjen]

An event / accommodation booking system with payment (i.e. Omnipay) would be awesome and a real benefit to the PW ecosystem since they often have a more bespoke implementation. The Helpdesk and PM is so overly crowded and feels more SaaS to me.

[Pete]

4 hours ago, pwired said:

There have been, and still are, requests for adding sqlite to PW. Perhaps that would give you something to work on commercially.

Besides sqlite database, how much would it roughly cost to add xml database to PW ?

 

I'm not sure about different database backends - there would be so much to check over to make sure it all behaves, the installer would have to be altered to allow the choice and during installation and so on. I know theoretically PDO makes it simpler in that all queries should theoretically work the same if your server has the right PDO module installed for SQLite etc, but I don't know enough about SQLite (or why people want something different?) to pursue it.

I know even less about XML databases - I only became aware they were a thing when I Googled it just now ? Seems like an odd choice for a database engine when there are so many others out there? Maybe I just don't know the use cases.

Either way I'd prefer to stick to what I'm more familiar with and use most of the tools that are already part of ProcessWire to build something.

[Pete]

1 hour ago, arjen said:

An event / accommodation booking system with payment (i.e. Omnipay) would be awesome and a real benefit to the PW ecosystem since they often have a more bespoke implementation. The Helpdesk and PM is so overly crowded and feels more SaaS to me.

I hear you. The PM system idea comes from me using and loving most of the features of ActiveCollab but becoming annoyed that at times it doesn't do quite what I want it to and could just do with a custom field here and there. Plus they really ramped up the price of self-hosted from the original £99 about 10 years ago as they're trying to push everyone to the cloud, and I suspect whilst everyone seems to be heading to the cloud there are still a lot of companies who would like more control over their data. But that is a big project.

The event/accomodation booking on the other hand... I pretty much had the bulk of this done several years ago for something that never came to fruition, but I didn't think there would be enough interest to be honest! I may dig out the old video I put together for it later on so you can all see where I was going with it - it had all the booking/customer administration done and would probably just need some tweaks here and there for the new PW admin theme as well as input from other interested parties on any features I may have missed.

Thanks for reminding me about Omnipay - I keep forgetting that exists. I tend to lean towards Stripe by default as there are no PCI compliance issues if you use the JS popup to pay and it looks like they allow you to use that in Omnipay so would be worth looking into in order to support other payment methods more easily.

[pwired]

Quote

Maybe I just don't know the use cases.

general: sqlite and xml databases add greatly to portability
range: xml database works very well up to the 500 pages website range
speed: xml database makes a website much faster compared to sql

 

[wbmnfktr]

Your ideas sound more like complete site profiles or ready-made applications than modules. ? Which is fine btw.

As soon as there are ideas in my mind I'll post them here.

[Pete]

2 minutes ago, wbmnfktr said:

Your ideas sound more like complete site profiles or ready-made applications than modules. ? Which is fine btw.

As soon as there are ideas in my mind I'll post them here.

Yeah, some of them are so complicated they'd be better as standalone apps/profiles definitely. I can't imagine the more complex ones really being easy to install as modules as they'd be made up of half a dozen themselves ?

[dragan]

With all the hype around headless CMS, maybe a new GraphQL module? The only one we already have, uses an abandoned PHP library, and is much too slow for productive use imho.

[Pete]

Holiday bookings - here's a video (no sound, so might have to guess what I was doing in places!) showing backend management of calendars (so in this example two holiday cottages/apartments) and different fee structures per cottage/apartment throughout the year for different seasons (though I'd probably approach that differently now).

For the backend I made it possible to click and drag so you can select an odd number of days for a booking as a member of a sales team if you're taking a booking over the phone. On the frontend calendar (not in this video) the customer can only pick from pre-defined dates that are availble. You'll see some dates has bookings (Burlingham - my surname) and clicking on those takes you to the booking details - obviously customers viewing the frontend wouldn't see the other booking details ?

It doesn't show the whole parment process but I think that was because it wasn't working with the Reno admin theme at the time I last looked at this code in 2016.

I think to be honest I'd forgotten how interesting some of the things were that I'd done on here that the event calendar is probably the one to do first, followed by this accomodation booking one.

[B3ta]

20 hours ago, dragan said:

With all the hype around headless CMS, maybe a new GraphQL module? The only one we already have, uses an abandoned PHP library, and is much too slow for productive use imho.

Probably someone with experience in graphql can build a similar connector plugin for PW like https://github.com/jasonmccallister/craft-hasura

Do you think that it would be a good idea?  

[arjen]

Looks great Pete! I'm not sure a full blown site-profile would be advisable. I would see it more as Padloper with seperate modules. But it is a large thing nonetheless indeed.

[dragan]

@B3ta I'm not sure if Hasura would be a good candidate; apparently it runs on PostgreSQL (after a quick glance).

[B3ta]

24 minutes ago, dragan said:

@B3ta I'm not sure if Hasura would be a good candidate; apparently it runs on PostgreSQL (after a quick glance).

Indeed, I haven’t realized that Craft works on PstgreSQL too. The good news its that they have plans for it in the future, according to their github response on Github.

https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine/issues/1035

[bernhard]

On 4/12/2019 at 4:27 PM, Pete said:

Yeah, some of them are so complicated they'd be better as standalone apps/profiles definitely.

I vote against a site profile approach... ?  I guess I'm biased (I simply don't like site profiles at all), but how should any of the mentioned ideas work as a site profile? How would your customers get updates? What if they needed customizations? What if they want to integrate it in an existing project?

Besides, I wonder if there is a market for commercial modules at all. Since Friday, the event booking suggestion got 15 votes. If 10% purchased such a software, that would mean 1.5 purchases... But maybe someone that has already released commercial modules could provide some insights.

I think what PW would need is a good way to handle exactly what you mentioned above as your challenges:

On 4/12/2019 at 4:27 PM, Pete said:

I can't imagine the more complex ones really being easy to install as modules as they'd be made up of half a dozen themselves ?

That's what @LostKobrakai has (kind of) tackled some time ago with his Migrations module and what I have started to tackle with my version of it. I think a proper way to handle such things would be the best addition to PW. This would also make it possible to have a proper workflow for staging/dev setups that have been discussed over and over again here in the forum.

[Pete]

For the event ones you could do it with modules no problem - there would just be a few modules required - the first 3 would be the same for each of the 3 booking systems on my list:

• Customer Management
• Payment System
• Core Booking Module
• Specific Booking module for the first 3 items on my list (events/accomodation/hotels)

I'm actually happy to even get 15 votes for that top one ? I wouldn't see this as just PW modules either - I'd put together a website with a pre-bundled version (with site profile and modified PW installer so all the required modules are there from the start) that I can market as its own system to go up against other event booking systems out there. Upgrades aren't a problem - no more so than they usually are for Pro modules anyway.

If all I make is half a month's wages overall and it takes me half a month to finish the first one then I've not lost anything by trying.

[wbmnfktr]

Let's face something I had to deal with lately in a similar way.

When it comes to things like payment, customer data and reliable processes that end in a contract of any kind... I need a solution and partner that is reliable and liable. Don't get me wrong here. I think you are good developer with lots of skills and experience but lets say someone uses one of these modules/profiles and there are critical problems with it. Either payments don't work properly in any kind, privacy flaws or whatever.

Who is to blame then? Who is in charge? 
Where would you see yourself and your modules in this?

a) Foundation/base for further development

b) Full out-of-the-box ready-made solution

c) Somewhere in-between

I ask because of potential risks on your site. So it's absolutely not against you or your ideas but something I personally would be careful with.