Introduction

The website for Composr CMS version 11 is now open, composr.app . The site is still under heavy construction and will probably remain very basic until version 11 reaches stable (we have a professional design planned for the site). This will be the new site for Composr CMS starting with version 11.

Why do we need a new website?

There are several reasons. The biggest reason is branding. Composr CMS version 10 has been developed, sponsored, funded, and operated by Chris Graham's former company, ocProducts, Ltd. This company is now discontinued, and Composr CMS is moving over to a Bazaar (community) model where the development, support, and decision making power is shifting to you, the community. We are making a new website to move away from the ocProducts branding and to make a new place to call home for our updated the vision of Composr.

There are also functional reasons to this as well. Versions 10 and 11 will exist side by side for some time. This site is not capable of handling two major versions at the same time (between the tutorials addon, the upgrader system, the addons compiler, etc). We needed a separate website for version 11. This also helps separate the two major versions and decreases the chance someone will accidentally install / upgrade (to) a v11 component from v10 before v11 reaches stable.

I have not officially decided yet whether or not version 10 will continue to be supported for some time after version 11 reaches stable. If I continue to maintain version 10, this will buy those running a v10 site more time to plan and upgrade to v11 (which has changed a lot from version 10, especially theming). However, this will come at a cost of taking up a little bit of my time (and, if there are other core developers at the time, their time as well) and therefore slightly slowing down version 11 development. I'm leaning towards continuing to support version 10 (bug fixes only) for at least 6 months after the first stable release of version 11 especially given how long it's been between versions 10 and 11. Please let me know what you think in a comment.

What are the implications given this new website?

Here are some things to note given there will now be a separate website for version 11:

• The site is being hosted under my company name, PDStig, LLC, on my dedicated server. This does not mean PDStig, LLC will become the new ocProducts, Ltd of Composr CMS. My company is only responsible for the hosting and maintenance of the site, not the software. The software will not be under any company jurisdiction / sponsorship.
• The version 11 website (composr.app) will currently only serve as an informational placeholder for downloading/upgrading v11 and its addons / themes and viewing its tutorials. All community content and features, including the issue tracker, will remain on compo.sr until version 11 reaches stable.
• Once version 11 is stable, and we have our professional design live on composr.app, we will begin migrating from compo.sr to composr.app. And composr.app will become the new home for Composr CMS. Don't worry... this is still a long ways away. Expect compo.sr to remain the primary site for several more months at least. And we will give ample heads-up to everyone about the migration.
• When the migration is complete, compo.sr will become read-only until version 10 is no longer supported (that way, the community can still download v10 bug fixes, addons, etc). After that point, compo.sr will be shut down.
• As of my commit from yesterday to version 11, the v11 branch is now using composr.app as its default "brand base url". This means it will check composr.app, not compo.sr, for news articles and updates. Don't worry, when a new test version of v11 is released, I will cross-post a news article on compo.sr so you are informed here as well.

Does this mean version 11 is almost here?

Yes! Well, to be more precise, the first alpha / bleeding edge release of version 11 is almost ready. I expect to have it released within a week or two. It will be posted on the composr.app site, and I will make another news article here as well when it is released.

Caution: Please do not download anything from composr.app until I make a news article on compo.sr. I will be testing the release process several times before I officially announce the version 11 alpha1 release.
 

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That is all I have for you for now. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to comment on this article. I hope to have some more news in a couple weeks, and hopefully that news will be the first alpha of version 11.