Upcoming v9 release

[girish]

Directus 9 is moving away from PHP and is being rewritten in nodejs. Apparently, there is no automatic migration path as well. Read more https://directus.io/articles/introducing-directus-9/ .

What we will do is to create a separate Directus 9 app once the upstream stable release is out.

[ruihildt]

Interestingly that makes them even more direct competitors to Strapi, who are also node based.

[marcusquinn]

Wow, that feature list looks serious!

Big fan of what they've already done but this looks like market-leading stuff for anyone that's ever had to design database structures.

Highly recommend watching and getting involved for all those interested, at its very least it's a database design tool that anyone can use to at-least describe what they need a system to do to developers — and the describing part is often half the work, as describe & build in one process really does sharpen the mind for what makes sense.

[doodlemania2]

@marcusquinn Been using it for a number of systems since we got 8 on CR. It's fantastic. Hopefully there's a way to migrate the databases at least!

[gensmann]

I did a quick an dirty custom version for my self. Most like done wrong since it's my first time doing a custom app, but feel free to use it to do it correctly or just play around.

https://github.com/consalsa/cloudron-directus-9

[atrilahiji]

I'm holding out until v9 to start using it. Exciting!

[marcusquinn]

@atrilahiji It seems you're safe to do all you might need with v8 and it be transportable, just, as they say, permissions setups would need re-doing.

[chris]

@girish any news on when v9 is coming to cloudron?

[girish]

@chris I think they are still in beta - https://github.com/directus/directus/releases

[doodlemania2]

@girish that's correct - still in RC.

[atrilahiji]

I could totally see this most recent RC working as an unstable release tbh.

@gensmann I forked yours and made a couple of small changes: https://git.atrilahiji.dev/atrilahiji/cloudron-directus9-app

Testing it and with what they have left to add in v9 it seems like it should be good to go.

So I'd recommend unstable now -> stable when it is fully released

[atrilahiji]

@marcusquinn If I can use Node instead of PHP for anything, I will

Im pretty sure I have an irrational hatred for all things php at this point. Some thing I just have to suck up and use but directus is finally switched over.

[marcusquinn]

@atrilahiji I think the issue with php is more to do with the vast amount of apps coded using it without consideration for performance at scale.

Wordpress is a great framework but the plugin market is 90% crapware, and really lets the side down.

I've been stuck into EspoCRM for the last few months and it's a complete breath of fresh air - old school standards and vastly out performs any other app I've used.

There are plenty of gems, it's just with volume comes so much noise. Speed is my number one feature need, because if that is considered in everything, the language really doesn't matter because fast performance usually comes from the mind of someone that writes beautiful code too.

[atrilahiji]

@marcusquinn Fair enough. I am now moving more towards static html+js+css served via a golang app. I am super impressed with the performance of golang in general. For sure, a fast language can always be slow if the code is poorly written. I think for me PHP can be faster and from a syntax perspective I just cannot stand it. But thats more subjective lol

[marcusquinn]

@atrilahiji I'm looking at the same, with Gatsby as a front-end for EspoCRM managed content through the REST API.

As much as I like Directus as a developer backend, Espo is turning out to be all that and a lot more as a both developer and user back end.

Best I can recommend is if you like Directus then EspoCRM awareness of all it's capability would definitely not be a waste of your time. The way it stores all customisations in the /custom/ folder for easy replication to other instances is super useful. I'll share more when I reach a decent milestone but I'm basing a lot of my business on it now, including CMS strategy.

[atrilahiji]

@marcusquinn For sure! I'm open to give it a shot. I've just (so far) been loving the experience of using Directus and having the documentation in-app in v9 is incredible. I've even considered building templates for my consulting business for Gridsome projects that are built to easily integrate with Directus. As things grow I've been looking at EspoCRM to manage things because my current method isn't quite scalable to more clients.

[atrilahiji]

Back to the topic at hand though, I'll keep updating my fork of @gensmann 's package and feel free to fork it for an official package if you want. I'd say v9 is noticeable better and more usable than v8. Definitely a good upgrade for anyone using v8.

[doodlemania2]

@atrilahiji I've been using them both. v9 is amazing in many ways!

[girish]

@atrilahiji where is your package?

[atrilahiji]

@girish oh it’s on my personal git here https://git.atrilahiji.dev/atrilahiji/cloudron-directus9-app

[marcusquinn]

@atrilahiji Nice, think I love about Directus is it's ability to adopt databases from any other app. Great for adopting projects that have good data structure but outdated interfaces or lack of integration options.

[atrilahiji]

@marcusquinn Yes! My only disappointment so far is the webhooks which don't let you add anything in the request header to make requests to secure endpoints. I wanted to have this work with DroneCI. This is why I made MiddleWhere as a little "adaptor" I guess to move from auth header authentication to a token passed via a querystring in the request URL.

[doodlemania2]

@atrilahiji the directus dev is amazing - suggest opening an issue on the repo - he's helped me several times!

[atrilahiji]

@doodlemania2 I made one and was informed it was a duplicate! So I guess they are aware but im sure they have other priorities first.

[atrilahiji]

Updated to RC 53.

[ruihildt]

I'm thinking of using Directus for creating a simple portfolio/ecommerce backend.

Does anyone has experience and know if it would be a good fit?

[atrilahiji]

@ruihildt I don't see why not. Its a matter of building out the data model in Directus appropriately. After that you would just access the API from your app via REST endpoints or their GraphQL API.

I've used it for my portfolio website and it worked out nicely though.

[atrilahiji]

I'm working on standardized templates for Vue client sites that use Directus as a template for my consulting business. Many of those I will keep private BUT I will look into making either a guide or template or both that is publicly available.

Needless to say I'm a huge fan of directus. It can be made as simple or as complex as you need