Welcome Mautic 7!

Ekke: Hello Leon hey here we go again.

Leon: Hello ekke yeah a long time no see.

Ekke: Oh actually not so long because we sat here last week.

Leon: Not that successful recording though.

Ekke: No in fact we had to replace our recording equipment and now here we are February 2nd welcome to modic cast number 56.

Leon: 56 already it's what we doing this a while aren't we.

Ekke: Yeah um you may have noticed that we want to talk about modic 7 today at least that's what the absolute title promises.

Leon: It's the elephant in the room.

Ekke: It is it definitely is um before we do that let's do a quick round up what's new in in the modic tech space,

Ekke: been modding 7 and then everything Community Etc afterwards.

Leon: Yeah sounds good.

Ekke: Okay I'd like to start with Mark who gave us a plug-in that many have been waiting for for quite a while and that is um the MGM via API option,

Ekke: it's called the modic mgl mgl API plugin.

Leon: Handy name.

Ekke: Yeah is it not um.

Ekke: Well MGM is uh for those who don't know is the the language that our modic email themes are programmed in,

Ekke: and that is then later turned into traditional HTML CSS so that that's a cool thing uh the other thing is that normally emails are created in the modic web interface,

Ekke: but there is an option to create an email through an online interface and API.

Ekke: However if you did that in the past um you would not be able to later edit this,

Ekke: you could create that email uh but that would immediately turn into HTML and if you're in the M&M World you you you lost you cannot edit the email.

Ekke: And so this plug-in fixes this and for everybody who is using external email editors but still wants to fix or modify things inside of modic or change uh,

Ekke: you're welcome uh thank you very much Mark.

Leon: Yeah cool plug-in and I'd say rather Niche but for those who had the issue of not being able to edit their emails afterwards it's very very good.

Ekke: Yeah all these API things seem Niche but but those are the people who are serious about using modic.

Leon: Yeah yeah I'd say we stick to the modic plug-in space and go 1 up to the modx6 plugins because more and more plugins on modx6 have been released.

Ekke: Uh maybe I should have mentioned that the other the mjml plug-in is more like 5 only at this point okay sorry for that.

Leon: No problem so let's go to modic 6 um for example the friendly capture plug-in by Daniel band has been released for more like 6

Leon: um I'd like to

Leon: take a moment to talk about friendly capture because I think we've talked about it in the past but uh it's 1 of those alternatives to Google recapture for example

Leon: and we're using it ourselves and we're pretty fond about it that it's now working on modx6 it's a good alternative to this Google hosted recapture for example.

Ekke: Yeah Daniel has been pretty active in maintaining it recently so Props.

Leon: Yeah pretty cool also our housekeeping Plug-In or of zero plug-in and the account-based marketing company plugins are also available on modic 6 now which is.

Ekke: Yeah this is the loafer plugins and more to come but but also for example koosman has long long time ago updated his plugins to modic 6 and probably is on the way to modic 7.

Leon: Yeah I mean there's we're talking about more like 7 and the first couple of more ex 7 plugins hit the surface for example the um woocommerce connector by doc bite marketing I think we talked about it also already,

Leon: is now available for modx7 um our modic plugins are mostly available for modx7 elite those who are public.

Ekke: Also have so many of them.

Leon: Okay we're working on when this episode airs there's more,

Leon: but also uh 1 more I'd like to mention is the Amazon SES plug-in by E tailor,

Leon: which is pretty handy and Nifty because it cannot only send emails out but also can handle the bounces that come back in but the release is quote unquote not heavily tested so I'd,

Leon: if you're planning on using more like 7 in production and using Amazon SAS you should maybe spend a minute and test it.

Ekke: I mean that that's not only handy Nifty is is really bread and butter for for those who who rely on it so yeah I personally it would be very conservative there.

Leon: No rubber test twist and have to fix once in production.

Ekke: Okay 1 thing I I I think we did not bring up is that that finally we managed to get some of our plugins the loiter plugins into the mic Marketplace,

Ekke: which has been pretty empty in the past so so we're at a point now where more plugins can be found there and if you never played around with that uh maybe it's more fun today.

Leon: A lot more fun.

Ekke: Give it a shot ya yeah uh that that's more and maybe in the next episode we can talk about more more,

Ekke: plug-in features specs tutorials Etc I'd like to focus on 1 thing today um and that is this whole process of feature which is that we brought up in the past.

Ekke: Because that that's only part in a chain,

Ekke: um so if you have a good idea for a new feature and either you want somebody to implement it or you want to implement it yourself Etc,

Ekke: if it's isolated go ahead and do it if it is uh closer to the core or if you need external help or funding whatever um then there is a,

Ekke: a process that might make sense for you to to follow and the process is to First bring it up in the forums ideally in the feature which category,

Ekke: um make sure it's it gets hammered well their new ideas come in.

Ekke: Some ideas may be questioned and improved on,

Ekke: uh and eventually it it's it turns out okay this is what really makes sense for more and then you move on to the community hubs Community domotic org,

Ekke: there's a section called proposals and uh as a member you can create a proposal and say Hey I want more Tech to change in this in that way and here is a forum thread where all this has been discussed,

Ekke: and um.

Ekke: Please come on board and give it a thumbs up and then that's exactly what happens that that people review that and maybe discuss it even further in the events eventually this moves to accept it and that means,

Ekke: that if this concept has been accepted and you go ahead and implement it then there's a very good chance that it will make it to the Core,

Ekke: uh or it may may even be the case that the court team says yeah cool idea we are going to do that ourselves or whatever um.

Ekke: I I would like to to just link to the proposals section in the show at this time and there's good stuff in it so so leave it to everybody themselves uh to,

Ekke: uh discover the ideas in The Proposal sections and of course in the future wishes.

Leon: They're talking about good stuff I think we talked about the good stuff we think that n8n is in the past and there has been some traction regarding modic and and and usage I think.

Ekke: Uh usage I don't know I'm sure for from anecdotal evidence I'd say yes there's a lot of traction there are people who use other local know good things like make or tape,

Ekke: or or um what's the other 1 red node uh whatever um but for us,

Ekke: n8n is totally the way to go in Safe self-hosted Way and um there has been a more node or you could say a modic adapter for n8n longtime,

Ekke: or for many years already we had this interview with this uh Tech lead of of the internet and project like 3 years ago.

Leon: Around about a couple of episodes back.

Ekke: Yeah here in the mortgage um and for those who,

Ekke: never really played around with it uh more those those tools like n8n or others uh have this concept of interconnecting different platforms like here's a mautic here's a webinar platform here's a CRM,

Ekke: and uh everybody's talking to everybody but not directly but through this interconnecting tool Um this can uh,

Ekke: assess the the individual interfaces it can work on the data in between,

Ekke: do all the things you want maybe you send a message to slack or email or whatever in the process,

Ekke: so that's really super powerful and and good stuff and what happened now is that that 1 of the the people who concentrate on and and that's in this case,

Ekke: Max.

Ekke: Max whatever's there sorry buddy um,

Ekke: he uh published a an improved version of the modic node,

Ekke: modic adapter uh which really includes every sort of interaction you can think of it's it's a huge list of inter API interaction,

Ekke: and uh you know very much thumbs up for for this being released.

Leon: Yeah massive Improvement.

Ekke: Yeah it makes life way easier for people who use modic with n8n.

Leon: Yeah pretty cool I'd say we wrap it up and talk about the elephant in the room more like 7,

Leon: yeah it's been released woo modic sound.

Ekke: This is a boo or a boo.

Leon: Edition

Leon: and that really was a group effort I think about it if I read the stats correctly over 50 people over 3,000 commits 12 months of work so really a lot of,

Leon: people working on it together pushing modic 7 to its release and um I'm quite fond that it's now released it's it's been a while since we've talked about.

Ekke: I never found out why why it's named after those stars like.

Leon: Neither do I if I'm honest but um.

Ekke: Maybe because so many people involved or.

Leon: So many stars on GitHub who could have thought.

Ekke: Yeah oh yeah well yeah.

Leon: Um I mean it it brought a lot of features um and I'd like to pick 2 of those and talk a bit more in detail because I,

Leon: biggest 1 or the 1 that was most known or is most known is the campaign Import and Export feature which is now live and modic 7.

Ekke: Uh we did bring that up time and again but maybe you could explain briefly how it really works what what would I do with it.

Leon: Yeah sure um the the main concept is pretty similar to exporting a contact for example you can in the campaigns overview now click on the checkbox next to a um,

Leon: campaign or the 3 dots that I said and say export this campaign and then a zip file will get downloaded and,

Leon: we have a new Cog icon um next to the create a new campaign in the same campaign list overview which now has a new button called import,

Leon: and if you click on import you can um yeah choose a file or pad drag and drop um put your zip file into the modic,

Leon: and then the campaign will be created with all the,

Leon: yeah campaign steps and all that needed custom field segments for example that are previously handled in that campaign so it doesn't just take the campaign and puts it by also all

Leon: relations and everything that is needed to make the campaign work and run is also important.

Ekke: Yeah so that's a huge difference you just exporting and importing a single contact,

Ekke: because that's just the contact and in this case it it just brings everything it needs and uh which can add a lot of complexity because um.

Ekke: There may be similar custom Fields uh which we don't know of there may be whatever themes or or emails with with the same name what have you but the team solved all that and um.

Ekke: I I played around with it obviously it's not not in production anywhere but we have been testing or playing around with it for for month many months now.

Ekke: Uh yeah big big big deal I mean specifically if you want to have just returning things like maintenance campaign or,

Ekke: in campaigns or whatever things that you want on every system um so we just open the drawer import from there uh and be done that's cool the other thing is is,

Ekke: really deal deal changer that you can now take a campaign from the live system bring it to the staging system,

Ekke: play around improve whatever bring it back to the life life system it is even merged in cases um,

Ekke: so wow it it I know it's just the first step but but it's now finally in the core and I'm very happy.

Leon: Same about that and the other thing I'd like to talk about is the new projects feature that was introduced in modic 7,

Leon: um

Leon: to say I just also spend a minute explaining what projects really do um it's basically another or a real good option to sort your,

Leon: objects and things in Mark that you have,

Leon: for example if you're running a marketing campaign and you have 2 emails that belong to that campaign 1 more the campaign 2 segments,

Leon: and 1 Dynamic content for example you could previously all give them the same category to try to,

Leon: make that clear that they all come together but it did not really do the deal very good and now you can um mark them in a single project

Leon: and under the project menu tab you can find your create a project and everything that you've organized through that project for example email campaign,

Leon: 1 and then everything you gave that project will be unlisted there and you have a very nice overview of what is all part of this email campaign 1 for example so it's,

Leon: it's a new approach and a bit more holistic approach um,

Leon: in comparison to categories and I think it's in on a higher level than just adding categories here and there and try to sort your things using that.

Ekke: I think it would be interesting to really adopt your workflow to that and say okay I have to work on the Black Friday campaign,

Ekke: so my starting point is now not the dashboard and and I'm not going to the email list and flip through the 500 that I have and then all the forms Etc and,

Ekke: uh everything isolated but instead my my starting point and in core working point would be this project overview,

Ekke: um and then I can um work on the form and and integrate the form to the email and all that all in 1 place which is,

Ekke: uh sounds like a cool concept I mean from from,

Ekke: keeping the overview it's already definitely a cool thing but but as a core element of of your workflow your daily day-to-day,

Ekke: uh life uh that might change things um well I I I have to try myself.

Leon: Yeah same I mean if tested it here and there but I seem to we don't use modic 7 and production it's not like I've been dealing with it every day so.

Ekke: That's 1 thing yeah but but then many people,

Ekke: have their habits and are slow in in embracing new ways and better ways I mean ask me,

Ekke: I mean using my phone like I did 5 years ago I guess um but in this case might be really interesting to to just give it a chance and and uh try it out.

Leon: Yeah,

Leon: and there's also just not those 2 major things that came in modic 7 but a lot yeah minor for example user facing and design Improvement I think,

Leon: it's 1 of the first things you you see when you open mic because it now looks different again compared to mic 5 and mic 6 but also a lot of work under the hood um upgrading symfony

Leon: from modic 2 to 77 so modic 7 can work on it and just a lot of improvements you don't see but you will feel in the future.

Ekke: Yeah definitely yeah the the other thing is that this is only 7.0 we have uh 3 feature releases to come,

Ekke: um and that is really the concept here that uh bring it all it all to the new platform have the all the breaking changes uh behind us um have the the technical latest and greatest,

Ekke: and now um we have a lot of features in the pipeline which are in many cases ready um,

Ekke: and so we we know are in the final stage of of uh reviewing merging bringing stuff into 7.1 maybe 7.2,

Ekke: and from our side alone there there's a lot of major stuff other things coming as well let me just give you a couple of examples we have spent quite some time in in making the Builder and editor,

Ekke: much much better because that's what so many people complained about in the past so um yeah we we,

Ekke: I think there there are some some really great improvements uh hopefully that's going to be in 7.1.

Leon: Episode 2.

Ekke: Um the other thing those company marketing plugins the ABM plugins um.

Ekke: Today that's a sweet you can find it in Marketplace hopefully it is going to be in the modic 7 cor anytime soon.

Ekke: Uh or this thing that we decided in Brock process last year and it's a Sprint to get rid of campaign forms versus standalone forms and just merge them into 1,

Ekke: form.

Leon: Great change.

Ekke: Um yeah that's also about to be merged this week I guess I hope.

Leon: I think this Wednesday should be merged if nobody.

Ekke: That is this week yeah or um Dynamic web content versus Dynamic email content or dynamic content is it called.

Leon: Mhm.

Ekke: That's 1 thing that came from aqua and and uh I hope that it'll also make it into 7 so so this is not like you can,

Ekke: do more with uh just 1 uh Dynamic content on 1 form

Ekke: but you also cannot do less and it makes life way easier and the other things like like here are new features that of course makes more much more powerful and there's a ton of those.

Leon: Quite excited about all these feature releases.

Ekke: Yeah little fun story I think we did touch on postgres in the last episode,

Ekke: uh and in the context of proposals I noticed that the proposal for um bringing postgres support to modic 7 was accepted.

Ekke: And uh there is a at least I think it's more than proof of concept but there is the code to do it and uh,

Ekke: there's a willingness to bring it to modic 7 and maybe there's going to be a surprise for everybody in the postgres world.

Leon: A cool example of like we we started this episode talking about proposals in general or 1 example we talked about last week did,

Leon: could make it into the kouros is on the way and how that worked and how this idea popped up from the Forum made its way to a proposal,

Leon: pretty cool to see that this is how it actually works it's not just Theory.

Ekke: Yeah and again in my mind this,

Ekke: this is uh wealth of of new things with more 7 and in parallel having it a very robust and and shiny thing,

Ekke: uh May well be the the greatest modic really is ever.

Leon: No I'm done that's a way to be.

Ekke: No as as great as it is of course everybody's asking or discussing now what is the best strategy to uh Bring It live and um.

Ekke: Maybe you have to step back a little bit and then say yeah we now have more than 7.0 but we also have uh 6.0 and we have uh 5.3 and we have the modic 4 which is in eltz and an extended,

Ekke: AKA paid long-term support but still is out there.

Leon: Mhm for more equations at the same time.

Ekke: Parallel yeah so you want to ask are you crazy no it's it's conscious thing it's a 1 time thing um and I'm sure we did bring that up before but I want to reiterate on that um.

Ekke: When we decided on the new release cycle we said okay we need to catch up with the underlying software so we need to do do the modic 6 and the modic 7 before we really,

Ekke: um Can can get into the Rhythm so let's do it fast to do do this uh,

Ekke: to large jumps and um.

Ekke: Do we just uh skip 1 version uh or know that was the options and we said no we not we're not skipping modic 6,

Ekke: we have to do or we want to do it and to give people the option but we are only doing 6.0 we're not doing any feature releases their um so.

Ekke: In terms of what should I use there's multiple things 1 is uh waiting for modic 7 might make sense waiting for modic 7 uh.

Ekke: The last feature release might sense the last feature release is what we call the long-term support version,

Ekke: so that will receive bug fixes and security fixes for many years but it is going to be feature stable um that also means.

Ekke: Hopefully no new bugs or anything.

Ekke: So really really think really production oriented thing that you can rely on for many years to come.

Ekke: Uh so that the LTS so our strategy would always be to wait for that LTS version.

Ekke: Everybody in production in in our world here is on modify we we as a company are not using modic 6,

Ekke: because of its positioning as is virtually so that's 1 strategy and if if somebody says we need a new mod mic today we still spin up a modic 5.

Ekke: And that that's totally fair we we can.

Ekke: Put all the features that we need or almost uh into that and all the fixes and we are unmodified that's the way it is others um who spin up a new mic,

Ekke: or start a new project might have done that on modic 6 fair enough no problem with that uh you could even do it on most modic 7 maybe with 72 or something so to make sure that,

Ekke: the initial uh hiccups are are ironed out um but there's another dependency in that is external plugins we did.

Ekke: Celebrate early in this episode that that we now have so many modic 6 uh plugins out there but but also modic 6 is more than a year old,

Ekke: and for more X7 we also celebrated the the fact that that the first plugins are coming out from what X7 and I I love that but uh,

Ekke: especially all this email connection but also other things like CRM connections,

Ekke: they may not even be there they may uh not be as tested as you needed to be for production so,

Ekke: we're always in the con conservative side but but uh your mileage may vary strategies may vary uh you just,

Ekke: better be be better do a conscious decision and not not just uh hop on 7.0 just because it's out there.

Ekke: Yeah what else maybe a little anecdote um.

Ekke: Again related to this account-based marketing company marketing plug-in Suite um.

Ekke: If we really make it into the core I'm more than happy but then it also don't us that uh oh,

Ekke: oh long-term support that that means that there will be new no new features we will be bound to this,

Ekke: core feature freeze and in in this Dynamic environment of company marketing,

Ekke: cannot give our users new features for all those years that they will be on modic 7.

Leon: That's bad.

Ekke: It is yeah um.

Ekke: And yeah long story short we we came up with a concept uh like this we we still want the core merge but we also will um publish a an additional plug-in called the beta plug-in,

Ekke: which is there to just bring you additional features as as long as they're not breaking with the previous features um.

Ekke: And you can also that plug-in and I have access to the new features and then when they are all,

Ekke: very established and solid and proven uh then they can make it their way into modic 8 is that not great.

Leon: It's a great plan it's a really good idea I'm quite excited how it plays out in the future and if we can make it into the core before modding 73 which I'm quite positive about that.

Ekke: Yeah honestly I think the concept is not so unique so but only afterwards it dawned us that that uh well this in the end what others do as well like like in in the iPhone you can flip the switch and say give me the beta updates and so on.

Leon: Yeah so why not bring that concept to more like right.

Ekke: Yeah yeah what exactly has that I'm not sure it's going to be used but but the beta plug-in for for stuff like this uh I think that's that's under our our own control and and very valuable.

Ekke: Ah so mk7 uh shall we move on to community.

Leon: I'd say so let's rev It Up

Leon: in the community we have some new council members I'd like to tell you guys um 2 to be precise 1 is sitting right next to me it's called Aki.

Leon: Renewed his seat and is still a member of the council re-elected but we do have a new council member which is Sven during our good fellow friend from Hamburg.

Ekke: Yeah uh yeah he's following up to to pratik

Ekke: who is leaving the council thank you so much for for serving pratik um for those who are not so sure what we are talking about here more the council is the community elected uh like like board

Ekke: um so it's it's in charge of of the high level fate of of modic from Financial to strategic,

Ekke: um is also there to but I not only like supervised but also to do things to to work on certain committees Etc,

Ekke: to represent a little bit we typically have this uh panel in in the mic conferences and and,

Ekke: uh give reports and so on so it's it's a strategic,

Ekke: thing um but but in a free and liberal open source project like ours of course it is very important to have that,

Ekke: and I'm happy that Sven is on board and uh greetings to Hamburg.

Leon: Greetings also um we're recording this episode on the 2nd of February and about 10 days is the mic general assembly for this year taking part at.

Leon: 1 p.m. UTC if I read that correct um

Leon: the general assembly is basically the the heart and soul of getting together in a community and making decisions for all the morek members so if you want to take part.

Leon: Maybe pick in what is picking discussed and chip in your ideas and vote on things you need to be a member like we talked about last episode that membership is a very valuable to the more community.

Ekke: Yeah you need to you should be a member anyway and if you are a member yeah you're very much invited to join the general assembly.

Ekke: Goody what else do we have before the general assembly I have high hopes that the first certification track will finally be published.

Leon: Ooh quite excited about that.

Ekke: Definitely it's it's not for You Leon I'm so sorry.

Leon: No do you think I'm not a Dev.

Ekke: It's for Developers.

Leon: I'm not.

Ekke: Yeah give it a try but yeah no it's it's a perfect way for a mic developers to um to learn um,

Ekke: and also to prove your skills,

Ekke: you know obviously um there there is a large catalog of of questions there have been heavily worked on to make sure it's good questions the things that they that make sense,

Ekke: um and that that people should really know and like always in in these things or in these certifications in the preparation you learn ton of things,

Ekke: that you feel maybe superficial to be honest but then you find out oh the half of that is something that actually uh improves your day-to-day,

Ekke: life in this case your developer life.

Leon: So when we're in situation.

Ekke: Yeah so yeah do check that out the other thing to check out is the conference videos we we mentioned that before I know that they have been ready for multiple weeks now just not published the the plan I understand is to publish them,

Ekke: uh bit by bit so 3 here through their,

Ekke: and uh I'm very certain that before the ga we we will see the first 1 dropping out.

Leon: Quite excited about it.

Ekke: Yeah,

Ekke: for everybody in the German speaking countries um we're going to have the next uh in-person meetup on March 17th,

Ekke: 28 to 18 so that's uh 2 days it's going to,

Ekke: pretty sure it's going to be interesting there's going to be more like like an entry-level part of it and then they a deep dive bar camp for for for everybody basically of course we're going to have a nice networking social event,

Ekke: and uh I'm totally looking forward because as you know we all love those in-person events and,

Ekke: meeting new people welcoming new people or or seeing people the first time that have been around for many years but also meeting all the friends that you make over time the more the community.

Leon: Yeah also very happy about the German Meetup.

Ekke: Mhm yeah um anything else we should touch on today.

Leon: I don't think so I think we we are through for today.

Ekke: Okie dokie then let's uh um keep the fingers crossed that our new equipment did hold up.

Leon: Yes yeah.

Ekke: If so um then uh people do give us feedback we always love your questions and and uh also criticism um if not then you're never going to hear this.

Leon: And we're going to hear each other on the 3rd of February when we have to redo this hopefully not.

Ekke: Okay anyway uh thanks for listening uh talk to you soon stay safe bye bye.