Blog

PortlandLabs seeks an individual who wants to teach the world about the power of concrete5.

We need you to spread the word about the many things that can be done with concrete5 by creating ongoing documentation, how-tos, screencasts, example sites, press releases, bylined articles, white papers, and more. You will also train site owners and developers and manage a certification program.

More >>

With over 183,668 downloads of 5.7 this year, its past time for us to get our act together on documentation, training and certification. Weve decided to dedicate each and every Wednesday to this effort until it is done. While we have a lot of writing to do, running training sessions online is a great way for us to produce helpful video content that is tailored to your needs.

Thus Im pleased to announce this new schedule of training classes you can sign-up for. Help us help you, and buy a class to get your answers straight from the horse's mouth!

This nice info-graph from CodeGuard puts concrete5 marketshare above ExpressionEngine's and just a bit over half of Drupal.

That's pretty awesome feeling! Thanks for all the help concrete5 community peeps, it's great to see our baby growing up so well.

Have a great weekend.

-frz

In launching 5.7 we've certainly rocked the boat. Between the dramatically rethought UX, the completely revamped code structure, and the lack of the simple upgrade path we've always maintained in the past, it's no secret we've taken a pretty big gamble with concrete5.

We're going to start having a twice a month virtual meeting to review what's next on our agenda in Git. This will also open our process up a bit so you can influence how the core matures.

• Face-to-face online - we'll use google hangouts, skype or something similar so it's not us talking at you, it's a two way discussion.
• First Wednesday of the month at 8:30 PM Pacific (great timing for our friends in Asia)
• Third Wednesday of the month at 9:30 AM Pacific (great timing for our friends in EU)
• Recorded and shared on youtube later.
• Likely has limited slots, so if you have a question and want to be part of the live aspect - fill out the form below to let us know you're attending.

We've launched some new developer documentation today!

Working With Blocks

This section has more to come, specifically around the need to create block types. That's not quite done, but what is there is a comprehensive look at creating custom templates, including defaulting to a custom template in a package, overriding core block type views, including JavaScript and CSS with custom templates and more. We've also put together a detailed screencast on overriding a core block type view layer, and why you'd want to do something like that.

Additionally, we've consolidated some documentation sections in the header navigation, and cleaned up the Documentation landing page.

Just wanted to let everyone know that there's completely new Concrete5 5.7 developer documentation available [http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/developers/5.7/) We will be adding to it regularly, and whenever we do I'll update the recent additions sidebar, as well as post about it here. The designing with Concrete5 section should be mostly completed, and now we've shifted focus to complete and thorough documentation about building block types and working with existing block types. Stay tuned!

The first pass at Concrete5 5.7 Developer Documentation is now available. This includes background, a full glossary, installation and upgrade information, request and dispatcher lifecycle information and our complete theming guidelines. These theming guidelines contain three new screencasts, detailing theme package creation, custom grid framework creation, and the complete process by which you can make your Concrete5 themes customizable.

5.7 Developer Documentation

There's much more to come, and you can see the roadmap on the documentation page.

Good Monday everyone, we are pleased to release the brand new editors guide for concrete5.7. Over the course of the last several weeks, we have been hard at work not only releasing marketplace intregation with 5.7, but completing the grueling task of 5.7 documentation. Today, we published the editors guide with our sights on completing the developers documentation in full within the coming weeks.

Please take a tour through the new editors guide and let us know what you think! Again, we look forward to publishing the developers documentation in full very soon.

5.7 Editor's Guide

We just released concrete5 5.7 last week (and updated it this past Monday!) We're encouraging everyone to dive into the next generation of concrete5, and, to make that a little easier, we're compiling how-tos, articles, and guides from our own site and around the web focusing on all things 5.7.

## 5.7 Architecture

Here's a video we put together on concrete5's architecture. Some of this may be old news to existing concrete5 developers, but there is plenty of 5.7 info in here as well:

[Watch Architecture Video >]()

## Add-On Development

I originally wrote the following how-tos several months ago, in which I update an existing add-on to make it 5.7. compatible.

### concrete5 5.7 Add-On Development, Parts 1 and 2

[Read Part 1](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/developers/concrete5-5.7-add-on-development-part-1/)

[Read Part 2](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/developers/concrete5-5.7-add-on-development-part-2/)

### concrete5.7 Upgrade Packages

Here's a helpful guide from community member Remo on how to update your add-on packages for 5.7.

[Read Article @ codeblog.ch](http://www.codeblog.ch/2014/09/concrete5-7-upgrade-packages/)

## Theme Development

Here is a series of four screencasts on how to convert an HTML template into a concrete5 theme. This, paired with the add-on guides above, should give marketplace theme developers everything they need to make compelling themes for 5.7, including information on new 5.7-specific features like grid and asset support, and custom area, block and editor classes.

[Part 1: Converting an HTML Template to a concrete5 Theme](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/5.7/developers/themes/converting-an-html-template-to-a-concrete5-theme/)

[Part 2: Enabling Grid Support for Areas and Layouts](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/5.7/developers/themes/enabling-grid-support-for-areas-and-layo/)

[Part 3: Registering CSS and JavaScript Assets](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/5.7/developers/themes/registering-css-and-javascript-assets/)

[Part 4: Adding Custom CSS Classes to Blocks, Areas and the Editor](http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/5.7/developers/themes/adding-custom-css-classes-to-blocks-areas-and-the-editor/)

## More To Do

You'll notice that these four screencasts link in to a new, empty 5.7 developer documentation section. We're going to be adding new developer documentation here, covering everything that's new in 5.7 as well as existing topics, in the hope that this is the best resource for implementing concrete5 sites and solving problems using concrete5.

Start working on getting those add-ons and themes updated, and let us know what topics you want to learn about next.