PostNuke

Question

Vanessa Haakenson: Kevin first let me thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Tell us about yourself and what attracted you to PostNuke. How long have you been using PostNuke? Why didyou choose PostNuke?

 

Answer

Kevin Hatch: Well for what it’s worth, I’m a professional web developer. I’ve worn a lot of hats over the years with different sometimes-fancy titles, but overall I’ve mainly been a front-end UI guy in most of the teams I’ve been with. Lately I’ve been doing more programming and database development than Photoshop graphics, but I also freelance as a designer to help balance out the creative side.

I was first introduced to PostNuke early in 2003. My workplacewas primarily Microsoft when it came to web development, and my background at the time was much more with VB/ASP and early .NET. But we were starting a change to Linux servers, and it seemed clear ASP was on the way out. It was a coworker friend of mine that originally suggested PHP as a more universal solution, and without any particular preference for ASP I was happy to give it a shot. My experience with C++, Java, and JSP allowed me to pick up PHP pretty easily, and I quickly feel in love with language.

My first PostNuke site was actually an intranet portal. I’d converted all our other sites’ ASP pages to PHP, but we started looking at different PHP content systems to make the intranet development a little easier. I tried early alternatives like PHP-Nuke and phpWebSite, but PostNuke impressed me as a more mature system that also possessed a strong community of users.

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Question

Vanessa Haakenson: What is the easiest and/or most difficult thing you encountered building your site?

 

 

Answer

Kevin Hatch: Funny thing, the most difficult thing about my current site was the choice of methods for publishing the content. There were too many options. I struggled with a number of different combinations of stock and third-party modules like PageSetter. I went all out, creating complex layouts and forms for my pages, but ultimately my needs just didn’twarrant all the trouble. I came back to the basic Sections module for most of the content, and the simpler solution gave me more raw control.

The easiest thing had to be my solution for the column layout using AT-Lite. My original theme was done with Xanthia, but I later tried it in AutoTheme to see how the layout features would work for what I needed. I found AT’s AutoBlock objects to be anabsolute dream for easy block-to-page assignment, and that’s what I ended up using.

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Question

Vanessa Haakenson: When did the idea of a PostNuke book happen? What's the back-story?

 

 

Answer

Kevin Hatch: Early on as I worked with PostNuke I knew it was a project under development. It didn’t solve all my development needs, and I quickly started hacking and extending the code to get the extra features and customization I needed. In order to reproduce those hacks later as needed for other installs or upgrades, I documented the steps I took. I quickly had a great deal of good content collected, and I decided it ought to be posted online in case anyone else wanted to make the same custom changes I had. I wrote up the hacks as walk-through articles, and added them to my website.

I did post links to the guides now and then when answering a forum post that could use them, but just having the articles online ultimately prompted the book. The publisher Pearson Ed was looking to do some books on Content Management Systems, and in searching online for PHP-Nuke and PostNuke resources the editor came across my site. They liked the style and content of the articles, and asked if I’d be interested in writing a full book along those lines. I also have a formal writing background, and said I’d be happy to do it. That was back in November 2003.

After the approval of the book proposal I'd put together, the book itself was written over the course of the next ten months. Things were going fine with it till the surprise release of version 0.75. Sweeping changes were made to the content to add in the 0.75 changes, and some of the existing sections were no longer relevant and had to be cut. In the end there was also an overall length issue, where some of the other third-party modules I wanted to cover were also dropped. There are a lot ofgreat modules out there, but there just wasn’t the room to do them all.

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Question

Vanessa
Haakenson: How
is
the
book
selling?
Are
you
going
to
do
a
follow-up/update
when newer
versions
of PostNuke
are released?

 

 

Answer

Kevin
Hatch: I
know
that in
the first
month over
two thousand
copies
were
sold, but
I don’t
know the
overall
sales figures
yet. I
did secondary
edits earlier
this year
for the
second
printing,
so the
first runs
seems
to have
done better
than their
initial
expectations.
There was
also talk
of doing
a German
translation
of the
text, but
I’ve
not heard
back from
that department
to know
if it’s
gone through.
I've been
very swamped
with
work lately,
so I've
honestly
not been
following
it closely
the last
few
months.

Whether
there’s
a follow-up
will probably
depend
more on
the long-term
book sales.
I’m
up for
writing
it if it
works out.
I’ve
also considered
doing a
shorter
book that
picks up
where PostNuke
Content
Management
left
off. I
think it
would be
useful
to have
a step-by-step
walk through
on the
development
of an API-compliant
module.
In the
first drafts
of my book,
there had
been a
section
at the
end just
on module
development,
but all
that made
it into
the book
was the
short API
functions
appendix.

The book
was targeted
well to
reach a
large audience,
but I do
with I’d
done even
more on
the advanced
side. I
think PostNuke
is a great
core
product,
but I’ve
never built
a site
with it
that didn’t
have third-party
modules
and custom
hacks.
It’s
like how
Firefox
is a great
core product,
but having
the right
few extensions
can literally
change
the way
your
browse.
PN already
does that;
there is
of course
the NOC
and many
great
developers,
but I’d
definitely
like to
see even
more. You
shouldn’t
have
to be a
coder to
get it
to work.
PostNuke
can become
anything
you want
it
to be,
but it’d
be easier
to have
all those
options
possible
in simple
add-on
modules.

---

Question

Vanessa
Haakenson: You
have
a great
site,
KevinHatch.com.
Tell
us
a little
bit about
the site
and how
you customized
it. What
modules
are you
using
for the
site? What
modules
were customized
or built
from scratch?

 

 

Answer

Kevin
Hatch: Well
my main
site’s
running
on PostNuke
0.75. As
I said
earlier
I’d
used a
variety
of third-party
modules
during
the development,
but I’m
currently
only running
AT-Lite
for the
theme.
The pages
have two
main content
areas,
and while
I began
with both
areas in
the “body” area,
my desire
to reuse
the side
column
for navigation
elements
prompted
me to
set it
up as a
separate
block area.
I created
an AT AutoBlock
object
for
each area
I wanted
to isolate,
like "Links" or "Homepage" for
example.
The
AutoBlocks
are displayed
in the
same place
in the
theme code,
but I
control
the visibility
of those
blocks
from within
AutoTheme
on a page
by
page basis
using the
AT Custom Modules
feature.

The
site does
have some
custom
code hacks,
but for
the most
part they
have
been used
to simplify
the PostNuke
install.
I normally
don’t
need most
of
the core
PN features
for my
personal
site, so
I removed
what I
didn't
need. The
links page
is the
most obvious
example.
That is
just the
core
Web Links
module,
but I changed
the display
of the
content
and removed
all
the user
features
that were
not needed
anymore.
I’ve
considered
writing
a
new links
module
from scratch
as well,
but for
the moment
just editing
the
core’s
working
fine, and
I do have
enough
other projects
to keep
me busy.

The KevinHatch.com
site is
really
not finished.
I’ll
be adding
a PNphpBB2
forum for
the application
support
in the
next couple
months,
and I need
to
finally
set aside
a weekend
to edit
and upload
some of
my other
guides
and
tutorials.
I plan
on expanding
the old
programming
guide content
to
include
information
on UI design
and Photoshop.
The site
is also
currently
a hybrid
of PostNuke
and raw
PHP using
server-side
includes
to pull
in the
PN theme
elements.
It was
simply
faster
at the
time to
set it
up that
way,
but eventually
the site
will be
completely
PostNuke.

 

 

---

Thank You

Vanessa
Haakenson: Thank
you
for
sharing
your
thoughts
with
the community
and readers.

 

 

Answer

Kevin
Hatch: I’d
just like
to say
thanks
again to
all the
developers
who’ve
put in
so much
time to
keep this
project
going.
The open
source
movement
for me
has really
re-energized
my love
of online
development.
I
know things
don’t
always
get released
as quickly
as users
might want,
but
the focus
on producing
a quality
product
is quite
admirable.

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About
Kevin Hatch

Kevin
Hatch is a
professional
web developer
specializing
in user
interface
design.
He has
more than
a decade
of
experience
in Internet
development
and has
worked
in a variety
of roles,
ranging
from graphic
designer
and interface
systems
analyst
to webmaster
and network
architect.
These days
he mainly
programs
in PHP
as a webmaster
and application
developer,
and freelances
as a graphic
designer
for select
projects.

He
has a combined
degree
in Computer
Science
and English.
He's experienced
in technical
writing
and is
the author
of a book
on the
PostNuke
CMS. He
currently
lives in
eastern
Iowa with
his wife
and their
nine pets.

 

 

Related Links: KevinHatch.com

Purchase the book: PostNuke: Content Management System

 

 

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About
Vanessa Haakenson

Vanessa
Haakenson
brings
several
years of
experience
in developing
web based
instructional
products.
She is
an Open
Source
advocate
and contributes
her free
time to
managing,
promoting,
and working
with the
PostNuke
content
management
system.
She has
used PHP
for three
years and
has conducted
workshops
on PHP
basics.

Related
Links:

Designs4Nuke.com
(http://www.designs4nuke.com)

 

 

 

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