extensions.Siliana.com

Hi all,

Things are moving forward, though we've been delayed by me travelling most of this week. I can now announce everything is ready and we are preparing the move for sh404sef to its new home. The launch is scheduled for next monday, september 7. I will make another and final blog post here on monday (late on monday, don't expect it waking up in the morning) to provide you with links and more details about the new organization.

Please note that in preparation for the switch, I will make the forums and documentation read-only, while they are moved. They will stay on the current server for reference anyway.

Best regards

Yannick

Hi all,

First, I'd like to say I am 100% overwhelmed by the number of incredibly nice comments on posts and various emails I got since the announcement of last monday. Let me thank you all who have taken the time to come here and other places and post thankfull and positive comments on all that was done over the last few years.

Among all the messages I received, some of them were offers to help in providing a long term solution to sh404sef development and support and I'd also like to thank all the people who sent such proposals.

As hinted in my last post, I do want to continue sh404sef development, for

a/ I like it very much,

b/ i still have many ideas to enhance it,

c/ I do not want to let down its many users.

Yet, I cannot spend the required free time anymore. However, I can now announce that I am talking with a well established Joomla company, and we should very shortly find an agreement allowing sh404sef to continue to exists and, of course, expand in the future, with me as main developer. There are still a few details that need to be worked out, but we can consider this a done deal and that's why I am annoucing it today.

Over the week-end I will start preparing for the move. Within 2-3 days, we will finalize the details of the new organization and I will post again to keep you updated.

I'd like to add that I was really afraid the extension would just disappear though it is so much widely used (FYI : http://www.sigsiu.net/statistics/joomla_statistic.html). Honestly, I am relieved that I could find a continuation solution so quickly, one that will allow me to make new versions of the software, something I have not been able to do for most of 2009 basically.

We'll be in touch :)

Yannick

Hello to all,

It has been quite some time since I last posted here, and now is a time for some update and also some change. Those of you who have been using sh404sef over the last years, and came back to this site in recent months may have noticed a "change of pace" in both new releases and also in my posting in the forum. Those of you who are new have found that basically you were left on your own.

Despite recent improvements in native Joomla 1.5 SEF urls handling, it seems sh404sef is still needed as the downloads have never been so high. The software is decently stable and is used in a very large number of web sites. I cannot estimate this number, but it's certainly in the tens of thousands.

I do think it matters very much to provide some way of continuing sh404sef, especially to all the professional website creators among you, and ensuring it's longevity. There has been a large number of requests for a professional support scheme, for instance, something I have not been able to provide. I am now trying to organize a continued development/support scheme and I will be in touch with several people in the Joomla world for this, and will post back here with news as soon as more information is available.

However, and for various reasons which are strictly personal, I have to admit I cannot any longer spend time working on sh404sef.  I don't have 20 to 30 hours per week available for sh404sef and time has come for me to move on, so I am hereby announcing that I will no longer develop or support sh404sef, as I have been doing since 2006.

Of course, there are some consequences for the numerous users of sh404sef.  As urls are such an important matter for sites - one url, one page - it is a very difficult task for a webmaster to switch to another extension or to Joomla standard SEF, without the risk of loosing rankings.

As mentioned above, I am trying to organize the continuation of sh404sef with other people. Preliminary contacts are looking good, there are interested people, and hopefully it should only be a few days, at most weeks before I can come back with more details. If you are a user, there is no rush right now,  the site and forums here will continue running as usual, except I will of course remove the donation page.

Such a Joomla extension requires a very high level of commitment, as it is intimately  tied up with both Joomla and  its thousands of extensions. I think I have provided this level of commitment for 3 years, and it has been a very rewarding experience for a newcomer to the open source world such as myself.

I'd like to thank all the people that have shown support and help over the last years, especially the forum moderators team, who have helped greatly on the support side of things in the past months, as well as all translators.

My best regards to you

Yannick Gaultier

Hi all,

Just an update to let you know that a new version is available from Joomlacode. This version provides a couple of low-level scurity fixes, so upgrading is advised.

I hope development will restart over the summer, currently lack of time prevents me from providing new features, though I don't lack ideas!

Cheers to all