I have been using Yii since version 1 and now upgraded my site to version 2 and I am very happy with the framework. Works great and incorporates all the features I need.
However looking at google trends or Github trending for instance
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I can see that there is a problem with YII and on the long term it will affect all of us if the number of adopters does not grow. I don’t want to be alarmist but a lot of PHP frameworks have lost interest from users and finally disappeared.
Anyway, Yii Framework is very good and most of the time I read a blog post about which PHP framework to choose, Yii is always considered fast, secure, extensible… but at the end of the review another framework is picked as the best one because it is more popular with a bigger community. Yii is underrated and all the trends are showing it.
One easy thing that should be done is update the yiiframework.com website. If you compare to other big players, the site looks outdated which is kind of ironic when it is a website for a PHP framework.
I know that the new website task has been on the roadmap since 2014 but it never happens.
My questions are:
To the CORE team, is there a plan to update the website in the short term? If yes do you guys need help?
If you do need help
I am pretty sure we have amazing designers in the community, would anyone be interested in working on the yiiframework site?
Waiting to see your comments and hopefully change for the best.
I share your concerns, I have been busy at work so much hardly get any time to spend time on the forums, we do know that the new site has been in progress for very long time I am willing to help out.
I know that the code is on Github but this is why I am concerned: the project seems stalled looking at the contributors graphs. I browsed the new site and one can already tell that the design is not current. A website for a tech company and especially a PHP framework is the first thing you see and the truth of the matter is that it is part of what the user will look at when deciding whether to use a framework or not.
As I said, even if Yii is the best PHP framework out there, without the marketing/sales layer on top of it will not be sufficient. The user will not bother to look further and adopt Yii. I remember when another framework launched his Database Migration Tool everybody on the forum was like OMG this is amazing even though the feature was already on YII for a while. It is like people being amazed about the new waterproof iPhone even though other phones were already waterproof!
Also, when I talked about rebranding the current website I was talking about a CSS/HTML modification, not a complete rebuild of the site. To me, branding must evolve more often than the site itself and remain in line with current design trends.
So my questions are:
I could not find the due date for the new website on github, is there one?
Where are the design mockups so designers can contribute (not me I am talking about good ones)?
Moving forward is there a plan to keep the design up to date without having to rebuild the entire platform?
