Antwoord: What is missing in Joomla! 4 to make it a success

Hi Ruud,

Thanks for writing this article, it represents an opinion of many community users and we should talk about it loud.
For me I see no reason to migrate sites to J4 when it will be available.

Just have a look at these discussions:
github.com/joomla-projects/j4adminui/iss...suecomment-581162705
github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/issues/27758#issue-558535090
I am just shocked how the official OSM representatives are boorish and aggressive.

What is the problem?
OSM focus on WCAG standards and have been developing a new backend template which looks just ugly and have huge problems with usability.
Kawshar & co (joomShaper) offered a new back-end template which looks really nice and a lot of people want it. That template (Khonsu) was added to the official Joomla Github repository, but soon the template was denied by someone from OSM since the template does not meet WCAG standards. The A11Y is important, however, Kawshar was ready to comply accessibility standards, but asked more information / instructions, but it took no effect. I do not know does JoomShaper still work on Khonsu or focused their time on another projects.

The current Atum backend template... to say the truth, is not usable and looks like greeting from the past. The authors say A11Y is the law and Joomla must comply to these standards by default, but! I am sure the template must be user friendly to ALL users. By default, it should be designed to be user friendly to the most of the people and have special mode for people with disabilities to be enabled when needed. But I do not want to use the interface for people with disabilities by default since it is just not comfortable. It is like to wear glasses for a person who have no problem with vision. When users attempted to share such opinion, authors and responsible persons started to be very aggressive in comments which means no dialogue.
I am just under high impression after reading that discussion.
Such behavior leads the community to get melting.

If Joomla want positive changes, I would suggest the following changes:
- People that representing the project must be more polite and read what tact is.
- Joomla needs commercial breath. An ecosystem is required to stimulate extension and template developers to create more products which is blood of the project.
- Stop investing in events / travels and diversify funds on building a new ecosystem.
- Less bureaucracy.

I hope such steps will make Joomla better.

Hi Eugene,
thanks for taking your time to respond.
Valid points and agree that Joomla 4 doesn't offer added value in the form of 'finaly-that-is-what-i-always-wanted' features for end-users. Even worse, I fear that it will cost us (the Joomla community) dearly because (and this is my personal opinion) of the investment needed by end-users to upgrade from version 3.

You talk about big changes that are needed, can you elaborate on what these changes might be (from your perspective)?

A good article which shows expectations of a real business instead of religious madness like 'we are all together' - such mantras does not working anymore while the business needs fresh solutions and the new conception.
Technically, Joomla 4 gives no extra special features in comparison to Joomla 3, there is no plan to support 3rd party developers and establish marketplace or/and business solutions.
Joomla is good as a stable and secure CMS, however, the background is catastrophic:
- non-transparent budget
- users' feedbacks gives low effect
- political debates (a violation of Joomla principle to be neutral)
- too high bureaucracy
- some persons that represents the project have a 'rock star' behavior
and etc.

As the result, the community has been melting every year and it is time for big changes to save the CMS.