In the Joomla world, iCagenda is an essential extension for event management. Solid, scalable and designed with the user in mind, it powers thousands of sites around the world. But who really knows its creator, Cyril Reze? A self-taught developer based in Brittany, France, Cyril cultivates discretion as much as rigor.

Hardly ever in the spotlight, he prefers to let his code and his passion for user experience do the talking. In this interview, he opens the doors to his career, shares his challenges, his future projects and his vision of Joomla. A rare encounter with a committed, humble contributor, always driven by the desire to move the community forward.

Hello Cyril,

Many Joomla users are familiar with your extension, but we don't really know much about you. Can you give us a quick introduction?

Hello Joomlers, I'm Cyril (@cyrez on GitHub) and I live in Southern Brittany, France.

I've been developing iCagenda since 2012, and I'm particularly interested in UX/UI. I'm also keen to improve accessibility, both for my extensions and through a personal CSS framework project called Breezy CSS that I've been working on for 2 years and hope to launch this year as a free open-source project.

Outside of programming, I enjoy nature, the ocean, watching movies and TV series, spending time with family and our 3 children, hiking, art, reading books or DIY and gardening.

Oh, and I've got 4 cats!

What was your first encounter with Joomla?

I started using Joomla in 2009 to create a website for my partner to showcase her artwork.

I tested many CMS, but my final choice fell on Joomla for its vision and values, as well as its eco-system and wide choice of quality extensions.

Since then, it's been my favorite CMS for creating websites requiring powerful management.

When did you start developing? At the same period before or later?

Wow, that was a long time ago! I started coding in Basic when I was 13, on a MO5 and a scientific calculator. It was to create simple games for me and my friends. I think a lot of developers in their forties started that way.

What led you to create your Joomla extension in particular?

At first I was creating sites for clients, then one day in 2012, I needed to integrate a simple event manager. At the time, I couldn't find an extension that met my expectations on JED. Looking elsewhere, I discovered a new beta project on the Italian Joomla forum called xCal. I started helping to develop it, initially at the GUI level. Then by improving the code and fixing bugs. After 6 months, the original developer didn't have the time to work on it any more and left me in charge. That's when iCagenda was born, with a total overhaul of the code but keeping the initial spirit of simplicity and clarity.

What challenges did you face? How did you overcome them?

The biggest challenge was that I wasn't a PHP developer before using Joomla. I learned as I went along, often by looking at the core code but also the code of other developers. It was quite studious at first, and I spent so many hours sometimes just doing a tiny bit of code. In short, I was slower than my ideas at the very beginning. It's clearly easier today, after 13 years of continuous development of iCagenda, to achieve the desired result.

Did you start earning a living quickly or was it complicated?

I was taken for a ride!

When I added iCagenda to the JED in August 2012, it was only a free version. And the interest was huge and took me by surprise. I didn't think so many people would use iCagenda.

Six months later, I launched a commercial version (while keeping a free version) and within a few months, revenues were greater than I could ever have hoped for.

Is this still the case?

With the COVID pandemic, revenues dropped dramatically (not surprising for an event manager). So I had to find more customer projects, and it wasn't an easy time, with the added frustration of not being able to work on iCagenda development as much as I'd like.

I thought things would get back to normal afterwards, but that wasn't the case. Is it the current context that's difficult, or perhaps the difficulty for some with the transition from Joomla 3 to Joomla 4 and beyond?

I'm trying my best to motivate and help iCagenda users to make the leap to J4/J5, because it's a real evolution. That's why, for the time being, I'm continuing to develop a multi-platform version that works with both J3, J4 and J5.

Are you in contact with other (independent) developers? How can this kind of collaboration work?

I really enjoy talking to other developers. Whether it's via GitHub, forums or Joomla events.

But I confess to being discreet and not too talkative. I think I even exchange with some people via the networks without them suspecting that we've already met in real life!

What are the most common misconceptions about your extension?

That it's not a Google calendar like other extensions are (and do very well indeed!). But it's an event manager with registration capabilities. The aim is to publicly display events on a website, not to manage a personal calendar.
However, users in general understand what iCagenda offers and how it can meet their needs.

What is the one thing people don't know about your extension?

Then I don't know. If anyone knows, I'd be curious to know the answer!

What are the topics people always ask for support?

I wouldn't say there's any particular topic. It's very varied, interesting, constructive and enriching.

From a simple request for help in using the software for a specific need, to a request for a new feature, not forgetting bug reports or the need for customization.

And if there's a recurring question about the use of an existing parameter, then there's room for improvement. I like to develop in such a way that it's simple and logical to use, without having to read long documentation.

What I can say about support is that even though it takes time, the feedback is inspiring and iCagenda (and therefore also Joomla) users are great people!

Do you get a lot out of the Joomla community?

I get Joomla CMS and that's a lot! Joomla wouldn't be possible without its impressive community of passionate people.

What is your involvement in the Joomla community?

I contribute on GitHub whenever I can. It's not regular, and it's a bit harder since 2020 because I have less free time. I've been contributing more actively to Joomla 3 for the moment, but as soon as I discover a bug, I get down to proposing a pull request myself to fix it.

I expect to contribute a bit more soon. Giving back is important to me.

What do you think of Joomla's ecosystem?

There are a lot of nice, competent and passionate people in the Joomla community. It's great! And I love it!

If I had one comment to make, which I've noticed recently (wanting to get a bit more involved), it's that there are a few organizational shortcomings and it's not always easy to volunteer or know exactly where help is needed. But it's also probably due to a lack of volunteers in certain Joomla fields. I understand that. I'm not talking about the CMS, because it works very well for development. But in other areas of Joomla, like communication for example.

How do you see your future with Joomla? Do you have any surprises up your sleeve?

With experience, I'm feeling a bit more confident (you know, imposter syndrome) and I'm going to see where I can get a bit more involved in the Joomla project.

As for iCagenda, I've got a roadmap for the next 2/3 years and I'm not about to stop!

I've also started work on other extensions. The first to be added to my catalog is iC Login, with a free version that lets users connect to your website with an email address instead of a username. A commercial version adds the possibility of logging in with a modal window, and new features will soon be available in a new release.

For extension developers who use Transifex to manage the translations of their extensions, and who want to generate language packs for their users, I'm preparing a J4/J5 version of a cTransifex fork that I made for my own needs under J3 when development of the latter was halted. It works with the new version of the Transifex API and improves performance. For those interested, remember the name: iCtransifex, available by this summer.

And I've got lots of ideas in the pipeline!

Anything else you’d like to say to our Joomler friends?

Only 2 words: Thank you!

Cyril's extensions site : 

https://www.joomlic.com (main website, all extensions)

https://www.icagenda.com

https://github.com/cyrez