Core Addons
We have been hard at work to unify the set of addons installed by default in new projects, whether you're working with Divio Cloud or the django CMS Installer.
A short history lesson
Back in the old, old days, django CMS included a set of useful plugins providing some basic functionality for handling text, images, links and so on - even Flash-based content, which will give you an indication of just how old those days were.
However, while this was handy, it didn't really represent the django CMS way. django CMS was intended to be utterly flexible, and not decide for the user how their system should handle content. In fact, some users had to disable the built-in plugins because they had their own preferred and alternative plugins to manage those kinds of content.
So, when version 3.0 was released, they were no longer included. Instead they were spun out into their own applications and repositories, to be installed according to the user's taste and not our assumptions.
Now there was a different issue: how to make it easy for a user (especially a new user) to set up a django CMS project that included useful functionality, so they could get started quickly and enjoy a good experience.
The Divio Cloud provides a deployment platform that makes setting up ready-to-launch new projects, including useful addons, as easy as possible. A different solution, for self-hosted sites, has been the django CMS Installer, a tool to set up a new django CMS project along with some sensible optional addon applications.
The problem
The problem was that there has been no agreed set of addons to include, so project setups included different sets of addons, all popular in their own right, but confusing to new users who weren't sure what they ought to be installing.
We've been working to simplify the situation, and to designate a set of addons that users can install as sensible defaults, knowing that they will work reliably and will continue to be developed.
We've called them the Core Addons for django CMS. You don't need to use them, and for many of them alternatives exist, but they represent a good way to get started with a reliable project set-up. We recommend them for new users of django CMS in particular. If you build start a project on Divio Cloud or using the django CMS Installer, this is the set of addons you'll have installed by default.
The django CMS Core Addons are:
- django Filer
- django CMS Admin Style
- django CMS Text CKEditor
- django CMS Link
- django CMS Picture
- django CMS File
- django CMS Snippet
- django CMS Style
- django CMS Video
Other addons of note
At present, the django CMS Installer continues also to install djangocms-inherit and djangocms-column. They won't be officially maintained by the django CMS project, but they have good community support.
Deprecated addons
Some older plugins that you may have encountered are now deprecated and we advise against incorporating them into new projects.
These are:
We'll be developing migration paths to help users who have these installed in their projects move to newer, official core addons that provide the same functionality.
Enjoy the new set of Core Addons
From now on, any new django CMS projects you create using the Divio Cloud or the django CMS Installer will be furnished with this new set of addons by default, to help you make a fast and productive start with your new site, confident that you'll be relying on reliable and well-supported components.
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