Cobalt 8 future and roadmap

We created branch for developing Cobalt 8. As usual I will not say the day of the release even approximately. But I can tell you what you can to expect to see in new Cobalt 8.

Roadmap

Those are new outstanding features that we plan to implement in new Cobalt version.

• Versioning. This audit trail feature will allow you to keep track of changes of records. Who made those changes, when. You will be able even to compare records in special compare view. Just two versions of the same record in vertical table list template. And of course you will be able to role record back or force.

  Along with existing notification system Cobalt will be ready to be used in Government projects and Enterprise organizations where audit trail is a must feature.

• I/E. Built in Import/Export tool will allow you to export records type as CSV or XLS file. Or import from CSV.

• Comments improved

  • Comment as record type. It something like post another Cobalt article as comment for current one.

  • Comment adapters. It will make easy to integrate comments with any comment system. We plan to supply following adapters with Cobalt 8.

    Built-In comments, Custom comments, JComemtns, JomCommetns, Komento, Facebook comments, DisqUs, IntenceDebate

    Or suggest your own adapter.

• Advanced rating system. This will includes special rating field with same features as in core record rating, plus user rating. Also additional parameters like average rating. For example average rating of this user based on all ratings of his articles within one section.

• Facebook and Twitter integrations. Main idea is content restriction. Something like "Twit to read full article" or "Like to download file". This awesome feature suggested by Maik Kaune, will help you to promote your site quickly and efficiently.

• SEO enhancements. There is number of SEO features that would be nice to have on board. Something like microformats. Or google rating recognition. Or google event tracker for all JS links like bookmark or follow. There will be a lot more of new SEO enhancements that will make your site ranking easier.

• Analytics. Something like we had in Mighty Analytics. Few reports for user to see on activity of his records. SSI of course will have sale progress report.

Those are, only main advantages of new Cobalt coming this fall. There will be much more like public user article edit, save template parameters per section or type, …

Integrations

Along with Cobalt 8 development we plan to start developing of integrations.

First and most important, we consider to integrate with other templates. We will integrate with RocketSprocket and create basic template overrides for RocketThemes.

Next most important integration for us is a JomSocial.

And then everything else.