K2 and CB - integration ended

Hi there

I just wanted to bump this thread, and get your opinion on it:
www.joomlapolis.com/forum/146-general/233250-k2-27-update-no-more-integration-with-community-builder#280536

JW/K2 have dropped integration of K2 with CB (despite earlier indications to the contrary). I'm in the unfortunate position where ALL of my sites rely on K2 and CB working together - and cannot upgrade to J!3.5+ because of this. So, it looks like I need to drop one component or the other - a massive amount of work.

I have no idea how much work it would be to create a plugin to integrate the two... but JW is clearly not going to do it. Is this something that CB/Joomlapolis might consider creating / maintaining?

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

akasharkbow wrote: Hi there

I just wanted to bump this thread, and get your opinion on it:
www.joomlapolis.com/forum/146-general/233250-k2-27-update-no-more-integration-with-community-builder#280536

JW/K2 have dropped integration of K2 with CB (despite earlier indications to the contrary). I'm in the unfortunate position where ALL of my sites rely on K2 and CB working together - and cannot upgrade to J!3.5+ because of this. So, it looks like I need to drop one component or the other - a massive amount of work.

I have no idea how much work it would be to create a plugin to integrate the two... but JW is clearly not going to do it. Is this something that CB/Joomlapolis might consider creating / maintaining?

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

I cannot comment on their dissusion to discontinue such support.
It is totally up to that project to decide on what they support and what they do not.

I totally inderstand the initial technical decision to move integration from a parameter to a plugin. We have something similar with the CB Authorbot Joomla plugin.

That said, I personally think that such a decision will not go well with users - but it is up to them to express/verify this.

From a CB perspactive we have always been keen on working with other third-party extensions in order to maximize the benefits for our end users.

We have FREE integrations for Joomla, uddeIM, Kunena and K2 (articles, blogs plugin).

The only reason we would have to drop such integration (up to now) would be lack of cooperation with the thrid-party team or lack of API stability or just lack of development from their end.

We have had very good relationships with all third-party devs (including K2 team) that we have integrations with.

So, we are sad that we would learn of such a decision from the K2 devs from a forum post and not directly - but again each team is free to decide how and if they address their user community needs.

We currently have no plans on investing to recreate the K2 missing integration and no decision has been made about dropping existing K2 integrations.

Thanks for your thoughts. This is such a shame.

I have to say, I have been worried about K2 for the past couple of years, with their excuses & total lack of communication for not releasing their K2v3 (which is now nearly 2 years past the initial proposed release date - and still not available).

Their project appears to be dying a slow death. Consistent disregard for their users is pretty much standard, unfortunately. (Unlike here.)

Now, I just need to find a K2 replacement... or move back to Joomla articles...

akasharkbow wrote: Thanks for your thoughts. This is such a shame.

I have to say, I have been worried about K2 for the past couple of years, with their excuses & total lack of communication for not releasing their K2v3 (which is now nearly 2 years past the initial proposed release date - and still not available).

Their project appears to be dying a slow death. Consistent disregard for their users is pretty much standard, unfortunately. (Unlike here.)

Now, I just need to find a K2 replacement... or move back to Joomla articles...

For me it's quite clear that each major Joomla project (and I was counting K2 as such one) should integrate nicely with each other. And each project should be in charge of the integrations on his side. That's what we do with many others. We have done and maintained our part for K2.

I looked up in K2 in which commit CB support got removed:
github.com/getk2/k2/commit/6896a9ff7b9d93cccc82bebbd21b3a07dc06c8cd

And looking at how little it took to have CB support in K2, it's quite un-understandable for me that that support got removed. I also don't see any API that replaces that removal in K2 which would allow to develop a plugin cleanly.

For your site upgrade, besides commenting on the K2 forum thread to continuously show interest in their new K2 CB-integration plugin, I see 3 options:

1. Wait for Joomla 3.6 (or help it get done) that might bring quite richer articles features.
2. Find another CCK or page-builder solution with modern layouts, K2 import and CB support on the JED (most are commercial, so as didn't try any, can't recommend any).
3. Reverse-patch that commit to any new K2 version as long as possible before you install it on your site. With git, you can generate a reverse patch and apply it. Or fork K2 on git, revert that commit, and then pull from K2 master to upgrade your own version with CB support. That's the beauty of open-source and git. This needs a bit of tech knowledge, but that's also something that can be outsourced. I have tried to do that here: github.com/beat/k2 (I only checked that the top right "Download ZIP" button installs as extension, but didn't test it). Warning: That was a personal experiment, no support and no guarantee, and no maintenance. To maintain it yourself: Fork my fork, than merge official master to that branch (no support here too). So that's a temporary possible solution to help in migration of all parts to new solutions.

Hi Beat

Enormous thanks for this, and apologies for taking so long to get back to you. (Making a demo and upgrading Joomla + components & testing everything took a while.)

This works! Thank you a million times over. It will allow me to upgrade my site, and has bought me some time so that if K2/JoomlaWorks does not come to their senses, I can at least take my time switching back to Joomla articles.

You've really gone above and beyond, and I cannot thank you enough. After 10 years with CB/CBSubs, I'm definitely staying for 10 more.

Cool! Glad that it worked

(and glad to illustrate the freedom of open source in practice! With proprietary software it would have been it...

And Welcome for next 10 years