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About   (Content)

web site and provides the webmaster with a site they can administer with a minimal amount of HTML knowledge through a web browser.

But, PostNuke's functionality can be increased by installing modules, blocks and themes. For example, you can add a forum, a gallery and contact form. You can also change how your entire site looks by changing themes. All of this can be done with just a few clicks in the administration panel saving you hours of time, both in the initial creation of the website and in its day to day maintenance.

PostNuke can do anything from traditional blog websites, to a community members' only website with hundreds of users. PostNuke

Generated on January 30, 2009.

MediaAttach RC 1 released   (News)

Functional features

With the display and delete hooks file uploads become possible in all hook-capable modules.
Many different file types are supported (images, music, videos, archives, documents, ...)
The most formats can be displayed embedded.
Enhanced file information like for example ID3 tags are read and cached with pnRender.
Also emedding external videos (e.g. YouTube, Google or Dailymotion) is possible.
Users can send files to themselves in mails.


Security

Files can be stored outside the web root, which is advisable absolutely.
If this is not possible, a .htaccess file can be created automatically for protecting direct access.
Therefore all access is handled by module functions and permissions.
A quota support cares for bounded storage limits.


Integration

Users can manage their own files in the profile.
With a Scribite plugin for Xinha media can be inserted in the editor easily.
A support for needles in the MultiHook also provides possibilities to include files in other content.
A Guppy plugin for Pagesetter is enclosed as well to be able to define MediaAttach fields.
Also the Content module is being supported by a flexible plugin.
More profound integration possibilities for special modules exist with create and update hooks.


Migration

An import from the file system is possible.
Moreover import options for Downloads 2, Mediashare, PhotoGallery and pnUpper are ready.


Comfort

Direct support for Categories.
Images can be scaled down.
Space-saving multi uploader if JavaScript is available.
Thumbnails can be cut out individually if desired.
The new search functionality is being supported.
The creation of bit torrents for files is possible.
Comprehensive PDF manual.


MediaAttach can be used as easy as every other display hook module (for example EZComments). But if one engages in it, he quickly perceives that the strengths of this module are it's flexibility and it's adaptability. It not only unifies file management and media integration, but can also be used as a gallery for example. Different annexed template sets illustrate several possible applications.
Also interesting is that one can activate MediaAttach also for MediaAttach itself which leads amongst others to the possibility to attach media to other media items.
The module offers concluding dozens possibilities which can all be used, but may not. For this reason it is excellently suited for being employed in project-specific areas and is furthermore in line with our framework idea why it is going to constitute an enrichment certainly.

Links

Download
Bugtracker
Patches
Feature Requests


Have fun with testing and giving feedback :)

Generated on March 7, 2008.

It's All About Distributions   (News)

Where's the HTML Editor?
There seems to be a small rally for a WYSIWYG editor to be included with the core distribution. Realistically, not every web site needs an editor. Some simply do not need the code bloat or overhead with which an editor comes. Furthermore, all editors are not created equal. In fact, if someone does not like or use the editor and wants to remove it, then work is needed to remove it. This is where distributions come into play. One only needs to create a PostNuke distribution with an Editor. Now it will be ready for the masses.
Now there are some real advantages to not including modules into the core. With a smaller core set, there is only a need to update and patch what you use. This also allows modules to add features at a rate independent of the core. Who wouldn't want features faster? For example, if there was a feature added to AvantGo that you really wanted but it was only available in the SVN, one may feel wary about using it. Now, you can have a release version of AvantGo whenever, complete with new and exciting features!
New Blood
Specialization allows new users to get what they need to start their project and start tinkering around with PostNuke, instead of trying to read endless forum threads trying to figure out how to assemble a package to start their endeavors. Specialized distributions should encourage many new website entrepreneurs to stop and take a good long look at the software. Imagine a user stumbles upon PostNuke while researching perspective engines. He looks at WordPress, a nice blog system. He finds Gallery, a nice photo gallery. Next he finds PostNuke with a nice list of different distributions. Next he finds phpBB, a seemingly good forum/portal system. Now which seems more appealing? The system with a wide range of flexibility, yet with specialized distributions or a specialized system with limited flexibility?
I'm a Winner, You're a Winner!
The advantages to separating the core from the modules outweighs the disadvantages. This is why there is a move towards specialized distribution. So people can have what they want and need, not what the core says they are getting. With the reduced core, you are getting more by getting less.
David Pahl

Generated on January 20, 2008.

What's going on?   (News)

know the Core team released RC2 of Postnuke .8 - the Steering Committee's report we are just working on will deal with the details.

2. Jørn Wildt released a first version of his "Content" module:
"Finaly I have finished the first version of my new Content module. With this little goodie you get HTML editing, YouTube video, Google maps and more features out of the box. This module was inspired by Typo3 and the never-finished PostNuke module Publish!" -- elfisk.dk

Content is a module that you can use to create static pages. It supports several predefined layouts (1 column, 2colums + header aso) and you can also add your own templates. In the editor you then can drag and drop content items like texts, images, youTube videos or Google Maps around and place them anywhere you like within the layout.

3. Together with "Content 1.0.0" a new version of Jørn's Mediashare gallery is available. Yet it still needs an installed Topics module to run under .8.

4. pnForum 2.7(.1) is finally released. A test version served the German Postnuke community for months and now he fixed the last bugs and made a public release.

5. Sven Schomaker is about to release Scribite 2.0 - It includes openWYSIWYG v1.4.6c as new editor and new versions of Xinha (v0.94), TinyMCE (v2.1.2), FCKeditor (v2.4.3), a lot of new module plugins and languages.

6. Axel Guckelsberger finished his diploma thesis that discussed the use of model-driven software development (MDSD) for Postnuke and resulted in his "ModuleStudio". Although ModuleStudio is far from complete it is way ahead in terms of modern software development. And if it turns out right MDSD is one of the next big things after object orientation (OO).

7. User ftree started work on a new gallery (pnAlbum) some months back and now published an article about his work. In preparation of the gallery he programmed some basic functions which turned out to be suitable for everyone who wants to program a module. If you want to you can take a look at his work.

8. There's a new pnCommerce team in formation: Rüdiger Hahn, Jim Hatfield, Chris Candreva, Bernd Plagge and some others are long time pnCommerce users and all maintained their own fork of the module. Now they are trying to put all their code together and a new version out for public use.

9. Marco Kundert is still working on his .8 follow-up for Pagesetter called Pagemaster. His first release will be 100% compatible to the latest version of Pagesetter so that you can simply import all you Pagesetter content into Pagemaster. Pagesetter introduced many ideas into Postnuke that have now become part of the core: Postnuke .8 has Workflows system and the idea of Pagesetter's form framework (Guppy) can now be found as Forms API in .8 and the WYSIWYG-Editor is now in Scribite generally available - Pagemaster uses all these features and thus can be much leaner.

10. Robert Gasch is working on a commercial shop module. He allowed me to take a look at it and it looks really great. Robert made his living for the last few years by setting up shop solutions for customers and now uses this experience for his new module.

11. Mateo Tibaquirá released a first version of his port of the standalone Relay AJAX directory management application. Includes drag-n-drop files and folders, a dynamic loading file structure, thumbnail views, multiple users & accounts, batch uploads, shopping-cart/batch downloads.

I am sure I forgot some people and I know there's a lot more going on in Postnuke land. But I'd like to leave some news for further articles.

If you are working on a news-worthy Postnuke project please contact me via personal message

Generated on December 22, 2007.

ScoutSite Project Looking for Volunteers   (News)

One area where I think this could be best put is for Scout Troops. By using the security of Postnuke, the flexibility of it's modules, and a variety of pre-made themes we could build a tool that could help Scouts all around the world.

What Troop couldn't use a calender that tells the Scouts and parents when the next camp out is. Forums where the Scouts can talk about their favorite merit badges. A photo gallery of the canoe trip down the river. Newsletters telling families about the most recent ranks the Scouts have earned. Meanwhile also providing a public webpage that can tell others about your Troop. By focusing on communication, organization, co-operation, and program integration we can address many of the problems that Troops face every day.

With Scouts being a global movement, this project too will be global. By localizing tools for Scouting organizations around the world many more scouts will benefit from our work. This can be an opportunity for current and past Scouts and Scouters to work together to help Troops around the world. Those that have never been involved in Scouting are always welcome to help as well.

Ease of use will be the key to this being successful. By making it easy to use we can help Troops that do not have very tech savvy leaders to administer the site. Meanwhile, by keeping the Postnuke core in tact, more advanced admins can add any Postnuke module they may need. Documentation will pay off for end users as well as any developers that build upon our work.

Privacy and security will be very important. For the safety of the Scouts, and everyone's piece of mind, a strict standard of what information is available to the public will be enforced.

Releasing this as Open Source software is also a way that the work that we do can be helpful even beyond the Scouting community. Many of the same tools may be used by other groups, such as sports teams, clubs, or even keeping an extended family in contact.

If you would be interested in helping with this project please contact me at oik2 -at- hideyhole.org. Please include your name,

Generated on September 23, 2007.

Jørn Wildt Proposes New Content Module   (News)

For the discussion see: http://community.postnuke.com/module-Forum-viewtopic-topic-53152-start-0.htm

Here is what Jørn has in mind:

[quote=Jørn Wildt]Dear PostNuke community

One of the things that always comes up when comparing PostNuke to other Content Management Systems is its lack of real content management. All we have is some old News, Pages and FAQ (and some more) management modules - nothing really fancy. You can add fancy modules like PagEd, Pagesetter, pnWiki and others but somehow they all lack, well, something - something which I find rather difficult to pinpoint. They are either too complex, too simple, impossible to extend and do not integrate well with each other.

I have been doing some thinking about this issue and would like to present some ideas for a new Content system in PostNuke. A framework that newbies can work with right out of the box, an extensible framework, and a framework with well integrated components that are aware of each other. My ideas are by no means rocket science and most, if not all, have been implemented else where - just not in PostNuke.

If you ask me then PostNuke is going to dwindle away unless something serious is done to add a good content framework. Here is my suggestion.

[b]Content Types[/b]
The core component is the "Content Type". For those of you that knows Pagesetter this is exactly the same as Pagesetter's Publication Type. This will be a separate module that takes care of defining content types, editing and displaying content items - but without user navigation! Think of an Article, with it's title, lead-in text, main text and image, as a content item of the type "Article". The type specifies the fields that are available for a single instance of the type - a single content item - a single Article.

Content Types are management by the site administrator (but can also be created by other modules). The admin can choose from an extensible (through plugins) list of field types. Here are some examples (mostly copied from Pagesetter):

- String (one line text), Text (non-HTML), HTML (using Scribite!)
- Number, checkbox, date
- Media files (using Mediashare)
- File uploads
- URL, email
- Computer code (text displayed with line numbers in mono spaced font)
- Category (using PN .8 categories), both single and multiple select.

Now you can create an article as a title (string), lead-in (text), main text (html) - and many other types of content. But there is still no navigation - neither on the admin side nor the user side. All you have is a Content module that allows you to create content types, content items and then display these - assuming you now the URLs. Navigation is delegated to other modules - more on that later on.

The core framework does also handle input form generation: it will auto-generate input forms (using pnForms in PN .8). These can then be copied to another location and re-designed using the standard Smarty templating system.

The core content module handles a few other things: for instance revision history (who changed what and when).

[b]Content Management[/b]
So far there's nothing new compared to Pagesetter. So lets take a look at the admin side of navigation - how to store and locate your content items. I suggest that all content items are stored in a folder structure identically to your standard disk drive. On the harddisk you manage folders and store files in them. In the CMS you also manage folders - but now you store content items in them - indifferently of the content type.

The first challenge is how to handle user contributed content since normal users don't have access to the administrative folder system. Now remember that the core Content system allows anyone (with the right permissions) to add content, but where should it be stored? I suggest a standard "incoming" folder is created for this purpose (much like your mail system). The editors can then keep an eye on this folder and move new content to the right folders.

Actually there should be one "incoming" folder for each content type and it should be possible to specify which it is. In addition to this the system should have a flexible workflow system a'la Pagesetter (now already in the .8 core). So that different editors and authors and admins can be notified when new submissions arrive.

[b]Content Structure[/b]
But there's still not much difference from Pagesetter. So what's the point? Well, enter CoType - this little module, which I'm rather proud of, has some nice layout features that I would like to copy. First of all you have Boxes - elements that can be floated left/right/top/bottom relative to the current content. In CoType you have boxes for media items, program examples, and general text. I would like to extend this so that you can put any content item inside a box. So you can display and Article and put one or more Media type items in boxes as illustrations.

Another thing to copy from CoType is the use of nested content - sections in sections. This concept should be extended, just like the boxes, with the ability nest any content item inside another item. The only problem here is how nested content should be displayed? In CoType you always have sections in sections (in a document) - and there's a well defined standard way to display this. But what happens if you sudden nest a Music album inside a FAQ inside a Media item ... and then box it? Well, that will have to be solved as we go.

I suggest the Content Type configuration lets the admin specify which types of content you can nest inside another.

The system could also enable boxing of other modules contents - assuming some kind of API/interface the external modules have to implement (just like PostNuke's search API).

[b]Content Layout[/b]
The proposed layout scheme is so far rather fixed - something like this:

- Top content item title is displayed inside ... tags.
- Nested content title is displayed in ... (and so on for further nesting).
- All nested content is displayed on one page.
- A small table-of-content is displayed at the top (linking to sub-content anchors).
- Each (nested) content item is displayed with a standard auto-generated template.
- Boxes floated to the left/right are displayed in 50% width (like CoType)
- Top/bottom boxes are displayed in 100% width (like CoType)

This will allow newbies to quick and easy created new content without having to also design their own templates. Assuming of course that the system comes with a suitable default set of content items.

Experienced users can edit and change the auto-generated templates. But these will be recreated everytime the administrator changes the Content Type configuration. So experienced users must copy the templates to another location and then edit them to fit their own needs.

[b]Navigation[/b]
So far I have ignored the concept of navigation between different content items completely. This is because it can be done in so many different ways - and this is mostly where the different types of PostNuke modules distinguish themselves. A media gallery has a completely different navigation paradigme than a News list, a Wiki and a Weblink collection.

So I propose to delegate navigation to other modules. This has already been done with success with a calendar (pgcalendar) and a news archive (pgarchive) for Pagesetter. These two modules takes a specific Content Type and displays it's items a calendar view and a monthly listing view. This combination is extremely strong - you can add all the fields you want on a Calendar item - and still display it using the standard calendar view. Throw in the nested content and the boxing ability and you get an extremely flexible and yet simple Content Management System.

[b]List Navigation[/b]
The basic navigation is simple a pageable list of items ordered by some criteria. You create different lists and then refer these in the URL. For each list you configure which content type(s) to include, the default sorting order, the display template to use for each item - probably more. Including more than one content type gives some problem with respect to sorting.

This implements the typical News list on the frontpage.

[b]Catalog Navigation (collections)[/b]
This is the typical Weblink and File Up/Download navigation through a collection. The hierarchy is mirrored directly from the content folders.

[b]Calendar Navigation[/b]
Displays content items by date in a calendar (see for instance [url=http://www.fgc.dk/index.php?module=pgcalendar&tid=40]http://www.fgc.dk/index.php?module=pgcalendar&tid=40[/url]). You need to specify which date fields to use as start/end date of the entries.

[b]Archive Navigation[/b]
Displays content in lists organized by month (see for instance [url=http://www.fjeldgruppen.dk/arkiv.html]http://www.fjeldgruppen.dk/arkiv.html[/url]).

[b]Menu Navigation[/b]
On thing that frustrates me with PostNuke is the horrible way you edit menus through the Block interface. No - lets allocate a complete module for menu editing and then just select which menu to display in which box (I believe Content Express does this). With the integrated content framework you can now let the editor select content items from dropdown lists or similar - and avoid having to copy/paste raw URLs into the menu editor (this has always been a intellectual bottleneck for the people I have created websites for).

I would also like to see editing of the menu directly in the front-end. The editor should always have an "add current page to menu" icon in the menu. He should also be able to drag and drop menu items without having to jump to the admin interface.

[b]Frontpage Setup[/b]
This is just another idea of what you can do - not necessarily something to actually implement. But the frontpage need not necessarily be a list of latest items as on most portal websites. It might also be a fixed setup based on a grid where you can assign different content items to different locations. For instance Articles to the left, Banners to the right, and a few images at the bottom.


[b]Where to go now?[/b]
Now who's going to implement all this? Good question considering the speed of the core development. I would love to be on the team (and will be) but my time is restricted (especially now that I got my first kid) so I work rather slowly.

Any volunteers?

There's also the question of organizing the code - we cannot have much more than one or maybe two developers on the core Content module. But as soon as that is ready we can take more people in - one for each kind of navigational scheme. Other people can then work on the default content types.

We also need to consider how a system like this fits into the PostNuke distribution. Does it have it's own release cycle? Is it integrated with the core?

Enjoy 8-)

/Jørn[/quote]

Generated on September 4, 2007.

New Shop, New Calendar - Postnuke Community gains speed again   (News)

New Community Modules
Have you seen Florian Schliessl's modules? The central module is pnProfile - an alternative profile module similar to the new core module or AdvProfile (which actually has become the new core profile module ;-) ). pnProfile offers dropdowns, textfields aso.
Demo: technobilder.de.

Another nice community module is Florian's UserPictures. It allows users to keep their own personal gallery.
Demo: technobilder.de

I personally very much like Florian's ClickedMe which displays all the people who checked out you profile. Every user can choose for himself if he wants to be seen or not.
Download: ClickedMe.

To cut a long story short: Florian has released a bunch other modules. A list can be found in his NOC profile.

PostBuddy is a module that copies a very popular function of mySpace aso - you can make people your friend and display a list of your friends in your profile. Cool, eh?

Has anybody tried pnConnections? It sounds like a cool module.

Shops!
Did you see that Bernd Plagge adopted pnCommerce and released a working version? Contact him, if you are interested in cooperating with him! pnCommerce could use some cool new templates.

And pnCommerce has a young competitor! The development team has released a first beta of ShoppingKart. They are very active and keen on making ShoppingKart a cool module. IMHO their templates also lack beauty - but it's a first beta. ;-)

New Calendar
Robert Gasch and a user named "bones" announced to start working on a successor for PostCalendar - I'm really looking forward for that one.

But the grandmother of all calendar modules also has a competitor: crpCalendar. A neat little modules that's made to display a list of event dates - if you don't have too many of them it could fit your needs.

What else?
Did you see that Treverj is working on a cool Postnuke based Web 2.0 community site? Read: Project Updates.

The Spanish community released a Karma Addon for pnForum. You only need dpGraph for it.

Mark West released a new version of EZComments and added Akismet support. Akismet is the spam detection API of Wordpress. So EZComments sends all comments and trackbacks through Akismet to find out if it's spam or not. If you are working on any module that's been spammed - check out the Akismet module API and integrate its features into you module.

InvalidResponse released a first final version of his ElementBB forum. It's a nice and slim forum with great templates. Check it out at his homepage.

Jørn Wildt released a new content module that keeps content in a book like way and is made for team work. It's called CoType and should also serve as an example for a .8 implementation.

Hilope's Scribite is not only a module that adds the WYSIWYG editor of your choice to Postnuke modules. If you look deeper into the possibilities of for examples Xinha you will certainly never work on any site without this module. BTW: The initial development of Scribite was sponsored by the German Postnuke foundation. ;-)

Forgive me if I forgot your cool new module - this article wasn't meant to be complete. I wanted to give a little overview over what's going on right now. If you are working o

Generated on June 7, 2007.

New tools for postnuke community interaction   (News)

All my modules have been developed for NetBiker.de, a postnuke powered motorcycle web community for german speaking bikers. Because of the need of programming some new functions I decided not to re-program one new powerful module.
I decided to program some compact, little modules that can be linked together and be used in any kind of community. So perhaps the modules can alo be interesting for your postnuke community.
As I wrote already - the idea of all modules is to increase the communication and interaction between the community members.

Graphical member search
Whenever community members want to get new contacts they can write personal Messages to other community members. So I first programmed pnMap, a graphical based user search engine. This is not a free module but all other modules are free and open source.

See how active a user ist (last login)
But very often there are many peoples members of a community but not everybody is very active. Perhaps someone has logged in the last time some months ago? If this is the case you do not really need to write an personal mail to these members - you better write mails to the more active members.
So I released pnLastLogin, that loggs the last login of a user. These information can be integrated in a member search as a sort criteria with pnMap or in the profile page of a community member. So you can see who is really actice.

Do you want to know who has visited your profile page?
Did you ever think about the question who visited your profile page? I think this might be an interesting gimmick for all community members. So I released pnClickedMe. This little program loggs who clicks whoose profile page. You can install a little block afterwards on your page that shows a user who has visited his profile page. So many people get interested and want to see who is that person that clicked me? Perhaps this can create new contacts!

Manage friends in a little addressbook
If you have created new contacts, you might be interested to store a list of "friends" with additional information to the contacts. For this you can use pnUserinfo. This is like a little addressbook.

Give your community the possibillity to publish content in weblogs!
If you want to publish some things about yourself, blogging is the keyword. Weblogs can be a really great tool in a web community. pnWebLog for example is a weblog module for postnuke. You also can integrate the newest postings of a weblog owner in his profile etc.

We need faces not nicknames!
Web communities are full of nicknames. But who is the person behind the nic? Mostly user's can upload an avatar but avatars are mostly used for funny pictures etc. But I think in a community that was build up to create real contacts you should be able to see who is the person behind a nicname.
To reach this goal I release pnUserPictures. Using this module you can define picture templates that can be integrated in a user's profile page for example and you can also allow it that users can manage their own gallery. There is not only a category managment possible, usernames can be assigned to the uploaded pictures. So it is not only possible to see the picture, you know who is on the picture. You now can integrate a link in the user's profile that shows with how many other pictures a user is associated. This increases interaction in the community. For all pictures there are thumbnail galleries available. You can install a block that shows the newest pictures and so on.

Give the users the possibillity to delete themselfs - if they want it
Sometimes a user wants to leave a community. Did you ever notice that there is no possibillity in the postnuke core yet for a member so that a member can delete its account with a click? If a user can delete his account himself, the administrator even has less work with such things. To make this possible, I released pnUserDeletion. But before you use this module test the deletion process on an offline backup installation. Some modules might have problems if a user is not found any more in the database.

Invite guests to get registered!
OK - loosing members is not really great but sometimes you can't avoid it. It's better so see the community growing. To invite people to get registered I programmed pnRegisterNow. This module displays a nice javascript popup (no nerving popup...) after a specified number of pageviews. So if a guest surfs in your forum and he opens the 20th page for example, he'll see a popup with an register link and a login form.

The advanced postnuke profile links most of the modules automatically
Now you have seen various modules that can be usefull in a community. But you now say that linking these modules is hard work? No, not really.
Take a look at pnProfile. This is an advanced profile module for postnuke. All modules listed above that are linkable are automatically linked after pnProfile is installed. You can define custom profile fields in pnProfile, integrate user pictures in the profile page, integrate the user's weblog and so on. Take a look at the information page of pnProfile and you will see that using these modules is very easy!

Generated on May 21, 2007.

PostNuke Afrikaans Translation   (News)

All standard modules have been completed and the following third party modules are in progress; Subjects, PostSchedule, Weather, zClassifieds, phPro and myeGallery.
Downloads are available from PostNuke.co.za (register).

Alle standaard modules is voltooi en die volgende derde party modules in ek tans besig mee; Subjects, PostSchedule, Weather, zClassifieds, phPro en myeGallery.
Jy kan dit aflaai by PostNuke.co.za (registreer).

Generated on February 24, 2005.

Interview: Lee Eason   (News)

Tell me about your postnuke "career".
Well, when I first started with PHP it was to build an object translator for
a Flash based order management application I was building. The key was to
keep cost low, so we were using all open source stuff. I liked PHP because
it was fast and very easy to use. Then I started seeing how much PHP was
being used on the web as a language for dynamic sites. That led me to the
open source CMS world, which is where I found PostNuke. I liked how easy it
was to install and extend. I messed with some other systems but PostNuke
was the one I settled on because of its flexibility.

What is your task in within pnCore?
Good question, lol. I don't really know for sure. I'm pretty sure it has
something to do with an article I wrote a while back outlining a PostNuke
module development SDK I have a vision for. It would include a couple of
modules that would work together to help people develop PostNuke modules
rapidly with documentation and support tools all built in.

When did you start programming for PostNuke?
I have not actually started programming for PostNuke yet. I suspect most of
my contribution to the core will consist of input on the project's direction
whenever I can help, and in the writing and development of the SDK's
modules.

What is your development like?
I hope it will be huge. I'd like to see more of the "average joe" be able
to developer, deliver, and support modules they have a need for and can pass
on to the rest of us.

What is the biggest difficulty in your development?
The most difficult thing about developing is trying to create cutting edge
features that will work on any server configuration. I found with
pnFlashGames that subtle differences in PHP and mySQL versions can really
throw a monkey wrench in the works.

Which route will Postnuke in your opinion go in the future?
I think that with the introduction of Xanthia the doors have been opened
wide. The upcoming .76 release also shows us that the developers are
thinking in practical terms, which is great. I would like to see PostNuke
go towards a more business oriented platform, but that is greatly dependant
on module developers providing the functionality to make that work.

What is the weakest/strongest point in PostNuke?
I think PostNuke's greatest weakness is also its greatest strength: the
modular nature of the system. PostNuke relies on third party modules to
deliver a good bit of functionality that every site needs or wants. As a
result, users are at the mercy of the developers of these modules. So if
the modules are buggy then it makes PostNuke look buggy. Conversely, if
they are written and supported well then it makes PostNuke look all the
better. This is another driving force behind my vision for the SDK.

Anything else you always wanted to say about Postnuke?
It never ceases to amaze me how no matter what you do or where you go,
everything is run by individuals. Everyone has their own personality,
complete with their own set of characteristics. This simple fact is what
makes working in a global community like PostNuke so exciting. But you
know, even with all the different cultures and languages the pnCore has to
deal with, module developers and the pnCore team alike all just has to
provide good quality customer support and that will guarantee PostNuke's
continued success. I have always been impressed with the pnCore's customer
support. I strive to offer a high level of support to my module's users as
well; staying positive and trying to be helpful has helped me to establish a
good reputation and a successful project. I only wish we could see more of
that with the third party module developers.

Tell me something about your module work?
I am the author and director of pnFlashGames and pnFlashGames.com.

When did you start working on your own module?
When I first starting using PostNuke I wanted to build a website for my
company and have some tools to help our customers get downloads and
information they needed quickly and efficiently. I could not find modules
that did what I needed so I set out to learn how to make my own modules. I
thought that the best way to do that is just to make my own. So I chose a
fun and easy subject for my first module, a flash games gallery. I found
some flash games to start out with and it just so happened they had a common
high score system (they came from the same author - Paul Neave). So then I
though, if Paul Neave can store high scores in a text file with a common API
for his games, I can make my own API and store the scores in PostNuke's
database for any flash game. Thus, pnFlashGames was born. I never thought
it would become as popular as it is now. I still chuckle when I look back
at my first release.

What features should the Postnuke .8 core have to simplify your
work?
:lol: an automatic conversion script that will take a pnHTML module and
convert it to pnRender.... Seriously though, I'd love the ability to load a
"light" version of the PostNuke API that gives me access to the database and
module API for only the parts I need. This way, I don't have to load the
entire application just to store a score. I only have to load just enough
to get to the pnFlashGames API and make a database call.

Which route will your module in your opinion go in the future?
My community is so fantastic. They are always providing me with great
suggestions and very cool ideas for features and direction. We are working
on multiplayer games, global high scores (site vs. site competitions),
enhanced team functionality (team vs. team competitions), and better quality
and more port projects for other CMS. Currently, pnFlashGames has been
ported to Xoops, Mambo, Invision, and just recently to PHPNuke.

Recently a wonderful thing has happened with pnFlashGames as well. My
company, SourceKit, acquired pnFlashGames and pnFlashGames.com. It's great
news and means that big things are happening with our project. I believe
this is the first time a PostNuke module has been purchased by an
independent company. It says a lot about PostNuke and a lot about
pnFlashGames that a company not involved with PostNuke would see enough
potential and value in a module project to invest like they have done. Best
of all, I still run the project and it is still open source. :) For full
details you can go to the press release on
pnflashgames.com.

What should users of your module regard?
Well, the weakest part of my module is the pnHTML I think. However, I have
addressed that in the short term by using CSS classes in the output whenever
possible and documenting how to use them to customize their look and feel.
I think they are happy with that for now. Eventually I'll port it to
pnRender, but its going to be a lot of work. The strongest part of
pnFlashGames is the traffic generation that comes from it. People like
being on the score board and they will come back to check and make sure
their rank is held. pnFlashGames is an automatic community builder. I
think it is even more effective than a forum because more people will play a
game than post in a forum. Every feature I write is done with that thought
in mind.

Thank you very much for your patience

Generated on January 14, 2005.

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