Jentla Certification for Joomla Extensions
At present, there is no standardized specification for Joomla extensions, particularly components. The goal of the Jentla Certification process for Joomla extensions is to provide Joomla business users with a range of extensions that can be trusted to fulfil the promise of their design. A formal certification process will lead to higher quality extensions. It is also an important step for Jentla in deepening our relationship with the Joomla community and enhancing Joomla’s credibility as a business ready solution.
There will be five specific aspects of certification: code quality and security, application design, usability and accessibility. Code quality and security testing will be free to test via an online self-service site. Hundreds of smaller Joomla developers without the technical or financial resources to build extension testing processes will be able to get a clear understanding of how their application compares to these two certification standards. They can choose to list their results on the certification site when it reaches an acceptable level. Joomla site builders will be able to peruse the list of partially and fully certified extensions and make more informed choices about what suits their needs.
There will be no negative listing for failed extensions. The certification process is entirely opt-in. Developers with certified extensions will be able to use the certification as a mark of trust for commercial gain.
Areas of testing
Summary of main areas for testing:
Code Quality: Using the C.R.A.P. Index, it is possible to analyse and predict the amount of effort, pain, and time required to maintain an existing body of code.
Code Security: Using an automated security scanner based on the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) standards, extensions will be proactively tested against a series of exploits and receive a detailed audit report.
Jentla Extensions
There will be a secondary standard for creating Jentla multisite aware extensions. For example, how to convert an image gallery to record the sites an image has been published to. The majority of the work to make an existing Joomla extension multisite aware is in the standardization of the extension interface so it can be remotely managed via the Jentla Manager.
Project Team Leader
We have engaged Andrew Eddie, Joomla Founder and Production Leadership Team member, to lead the certification process. Andrew will be creating the certification requirements and training materials for how to build extensions as a best practice. He will also be creating the requirements for appointing extension certifiers.
Several very large developers currently do not release their custom Joomla extensions because they are judged in the Joomla Extension Directory on a peer review basis. Often low skilled users rate complex extensions poorly because they do not understand how to implement or use them. With an objective extension certification process, more credible developers will enter the Joomla extension creation market.
Timeline
The extension certification process is now underway. The code quality and security tests will be available in September and the remaining certification tests will be available in late October.
