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PostNuke .8 RC1 Released   (News)

PostNuke 0.800 RC1 Core Only Download
Download (ZIP)
MD5: 17d7f2eb16bf4dd886695adefab0e1f5
SHA-1: 624dcb1b29c17150e341878c727ddac83fadeb54

Download (TAR.GZ)
MD5: 9807fe2f3e0ef9f7fa88a3bbb0426815
SHA-1: 354edfc9eff87f77713bc1750cdc77144fcf0bff


PostNuke 0.800 RC1 Full Package Download
Download (ZIP)
MD5: 15718c1d68223bf5fc69b144666741f8
SHA-1: e1901b3d06dce1b82f2dfcde4d2da74e7afb9cf8

Download (TAR.GZ)
MD5: 1d983e5fd18907022fbec598c4ae7111
SHA-1: afb25ef625ce6e1564c40faf1cb29b3c1ea0ee13


PostNuke 0.800 RC1 ValueAddons Download
Download (ZIP)
MD5: 38879b481640289b7b6a605af41638a1
SHA-1: aa10e8f79d038b667aa8638347d3d12a999d8e99

Download (TGZ)
MD5: 4adc34945ae0cf42b3f96408bd21d17c
SHA-1: d4f80e0478bef1721eb29484024a9ed7a1a2e025


Please feel free to use the article below to publicise PostNuke in any web development communities you belong to. It is also published here on community.postnuke.com.


Simon BirtwistleHammerHead

About PostNuke

The PostNuke Application Framework provides a high performance, secure and feature complete framework which both website administrators and web developers can use to great effect in creating unique and attractive websites. PostNuke can be used as a CMS, adapted to blogging, ecommerce or community websites, or for more abstract tasks. It is easily adaptible, extensible and can handle situations in which performance and security are paramount. In this way, PostNuke is a reliable and robust choice for any website administrator.

The most recent version of PostNuke is 0.8 RC1, which represents a feature complete 0.8 version. Once the release candidates have undergone full testing and any remaining bugs are fixed a full release will be made available. This release will be suitable for live websites, however in the meantime RC1 is suitable for testing and development work.

Highlights For Website Administrators
The 0.8 release is more polished and up to date than ever before. With the new libraries for developers, new features should be faster and simpler to develop, reducing deployment costs. PostNuke 0.8 can be adapted to almost any need, from blogs to community websites and new third party modules are being developed all the time, constantly improving what PostNuke has to offer.

Additionally PostNuke 0.8 has a focus on the latest standards: XHTML compliance, Section 508 and Accessibility, and further enahncements have been made to both security, performance and usability.

With all core modules now templated, PostNuke 0.8 is designed to be cached, providing a huge performance boost over dynamically generating every page. Furthermore, with the templating system applied to all core modules designers will find it easier than ever to create a unique look to their websites. Gone are the days of standard 3 column layouts - PostNuke 0.8 includes new themes which are CSS, and not table, based. The new Xanthia theme engine is easier to use and performs better than ever before, while including an upgrade feature making it easy to import Xanthia themes from previous PostNuke versions.

For website administrators, this is the best PostNuke release yet, combining compliance with the latest standards and constantly improving features.

Highlights For Web Developers
The 0.8 release provides an Application Framework to allow rapid development of web solutions using the now stable PostNuke core. This allows third party developers to use the wide range of included API and utility libraries to create their own modules and extend the feature set PostNuke already provides.

Of these libraries, one of the most substantial is DBUtil, providing a cross compatible interface to the database. Selecting, updating and deleting data can all be achieved in one line, and DBUtil, combined with ADOdb will automatically create a cross compatible query for whatever database system is in use. PostNuke .8 has been tested with PostGreSQL, and further databases will be supported in future versions.

Other key features are site wide categories, supported through integration with DBUtil, the PostNuke Forms Framework for HTML forms, and other object based APIs. All of these are new since the 0.7x series and ensure third party development is both quicker and easier, and that compatibility with future versions is maintained.

For web developers, PostNuke will provide an attractive option when searching for a framework upon which complex web solutions

Generated on July 17, 2007.

Fresh & New: PostNuke Net Operations Center (NOC)   (News)

does not not have a nice templating engine like PostNuke - it's more like a 5th grader inventing pnHTML anew. PostNuke 2002 BC :-D

But the NOC already looks a million times better and we would love to get some feedback on it via comment here or the forums.

PostNuke was the first open source project to offer something like the noc to their community. The NOC is the central repository for PostNuke development.

The advantages for modules developers are they can use the infrastructure with CVS or SVN, all the trackers and the forum without having to worry about updating their site or their layout.

Advantages for users, it's the first place to look for modules. And the ease of use because if a user knows how to report bugs or request features at one project they can do this for any other project and don't have to visit multiple sites or create multiple registrations to contact developers.

Another advantage to using a centralized repository is the community doesn't lose modules when developers abandon them. They

Generated on March 20, 2007.

Google Summer of Code 2007: This Year We Want to be Part of the Party!   (News)

Program Schedule and Deadline Dates

March 5: Mentoring organizations can begin submitting applications to Google
March 12: Mentoring organization application deadline
March 13: Google program administrators review organization applications
March 14: List of accepted mentoring organizations published on code.google.com; student application period opens
March 23: Student application deadline
Interim Period: Mentoring organizations review and rank student
proposals; where necessary, mentoring organizations may request further
proposal detail from the student applicant
April 2: List of accepted student applications published on code.google.com
Interim Period: Students learn more about/integrate with their project communities
May 28: Students begin coding for their Google Summer of Code projects;
Google begins issuing initial student payments
Interim Period: Mentors give students a helping hand and guidance on
their projects
July 9: Students upload code to the Google Summer of Code project
repository; mentors begin mid-term evaluations
July 16: Mid-term evaluation deadline; Google begins issuing mid-term
student payments
August 20: Students upload code to the Google Summer of Code project
repository; mentors begin final evaluations; students begin final program
evaluations
August 31: Final evaluation deadline; Google begins issuing student and
mentoring organization payments


This schedule is subject to change and taken directly from Google. For the latest schedule please see Google SOC 2007 Wiki

PN Project Goals
The general goals of Google are recognized and extended with our own goals. In short, we want to improve the innovation within the project by offering students the opportunity to propose PostNuke related topics. We aim to offer students an inspiring environment to do research, access to field experts, the ability to create proof-of-concepts and the opportunity to create working functional tools that can be used with PostNuke.

There is a limited list of program goals defined below. Please keep in mind this is an initial list of subjects we would like to shoot for and the final projects are open for discussion. It's important to understand we need guidelines for project proposal evaluation otherwise we'll end up with all nice initiatives, but no choice between the individual project.

The following are a few examples of the types of projects we'd like to see during the SOC 2007.

Here are a few suggested project examples:



Version management of content. Add features to PN, either via hooks or extensions to DBUtil, to allow control of versions of content items. Additionally add workflow processes via the existing workflow module
Translation management. Currently a translation of a content item is an entirely different and un-related item. A project to introduce a method of translating content while keeping the the relationship to the original item (and hence related content e.g. comments, ratings etc.).
Loudblog rewrite based on PostNuke's API
A second project could be the implementation of a better language system + the import of the old system.
OpenID Implementation
Universally implemented content versioning such that it's possible to revert back to old versions of specific content items. DBUtil contains a feature called object-logging which basically gives you the ability to log all changes to objects as they are altered (and even revert back to old versions of an obejct), but a proper GUI with some nice administrative features would be nice.
Integration of the categories system with the nested-set algorithm. The current implementation is path-based which works and carries with it some proper semantic information, but for performance reasons integrating the nested-set algorithm would probably be a good idea.
Implementation of additional features to the category system on the GUI side. This could be advanced AJAX controls, a better user-side editing system, etc.
Integration with Lucene and other search engines ideally through a generic search-engine interface which can then be extended to other backend systems.
A proper universal web services interface for PN.
A proper test suite including a performance testing framework.
A proper data import/export system with the ability to generate multiple data formats (CSV, XML, etc.) including a proper control GUI.


Project Organization
There will be two program guides (admins) that will provide all mentors and students with help and guidance throughout the project. The structure will be flat so there won't be a lot of red tape in the process. The mentors are expected to work closely with each student to accomplish each project's goal and objectives.

For each accepted project into the SOC program there will at least one mentor and one student. Along with the one-to-one support the student will have access to the developers list so they have access to the entire team to bounce ideas off of in the process.

Overview of Mentor Selection Process
The general "criteria" for mentors are:


Mentor is familiar with the PostNuke project and API.
Mentor is expected to work well with others.
Mentor should have knowledge about the topic he/she is going to mentor.
The mentor is responsible for working directly with the student.


Note, before volunteering you should be aware there is a time commitment. We estimate it will take at the minimum 3 to 5 hours per week of your time over a 3 month period. Mentors should also expect to encounter cultural and time zone differences making this a challenging experience on many different levels especially since this will be a virtual mentor/student experience.

Expectations
Commitment to the goals/objectives of your project, your time, mutual respect, and open communication.

Remember when you were a student -- you were there to learn. This is the same thing -- students are here to learn and may not be experienced in working on a team, and will less likely have experience working with someone virtually so as a mentor you're expected to introduce the student to the protocals of this environment.

Students, remember, no question is stupid, don't expect to know everything, and if in doubt ask! Communication is key in a virtual environment and never take anything for granted especially in text based communication since things can often be mis-read or interpreted.

If you are chosen a mentor then what do you get? You get to contribute to a great project, experience working on a virtual team with an international team of great/inspiring people.

Team/Mentor/Student Communications
This is most likely the most important part of the process -- communication is key especially in a virtual environment. And communicating/sharing will be important to the success of each project. So students are expected to put together a weekly report -- it doesn't have to be anything fancy -- just an email updating your mentor about your progress and any problems you working on or having. Mentors are expected to take the lead in solving any problems that might arise with timing, language or cultural barriers. Note, the default language for the program is English so all mentors and students are expected to be able to communicate clearly and effectively in English. When disagreements or conflicts arise within a project team members are encouraged to resolve disputes amongst themselves. If they can't resolve it between themselves then you can ask a program mgr to get involved to mediate the dispute.

Project Tools & Support
You will have access to the following software tools:


The PostNuke NOC (Network Operating Center) where all project related
resources will be housed
Google Project Page (including wiki)
Mentor Application from Google
Developers Mailing List



Student Info
Google provides some time to allow the student to familiarize themselves with the project and tasks. During this time the mentor can prepare the stucture and any documents that will help the student in the goals and objectives of the project.

Some examples include:


Action/Tasks planning so the student will have a clear idea of milstones
for the project.
Provide the student with your communication expectations - i.e., how can
the student communicate with you, skype, instant messenger, email etc.
Review time committments and goals/objectives for the project.
Model good behavior -- take the lead when you see the student needs the
extra encouragement and guidance.

Generated on March 7, 2007.

Development Update, February 2007-02   (News)

release, and some is part of the current nightly build from SVN. The items that are part of the MS3 package are indicated with a (*).

Installer and upgrade path
The installer for .8 now also checks for a web-user writable pnTemp directory. Before, only it's subdirectories had to be writable. However, more and more modules need a (temporary) writable directory of their own (for example cache directories for image creation or rss feeds). With a writable pnTemp, these modules are now easily allowed to create that directory themselves if it does not exist. (*)
The upgrade path from the historic .7 family has been updated: Some code has been added to migrate blocks placements into the new block_placements table. (*)
Furthermore, old style (legacy) blocks can now be stored in the /config/blocks directory. The specific files do need to be copied manually from the old /includes/blocks directory to it's new location. (*)

Core (API) and environment variables
In the core pnAPI, get_magic_quotes_runtime() was called lots of times for different purposes. With an internal caching method, the result is stored in the global PNRuntime array. Big advantage is that the site's speed has been significantly improved. (*)
Robert has added an enhancement to allow the pnSessionGet/Set/DelVar functions to accept an (optional) path argument (arguments 'autocreate' and 'overwriteExistingVar'). This will allow for easy setting of complex array structures. The change only adds extra arguments to the existing functions and are backwards compatible. At this moment, no direct usage has been committed yet.

PostNuke Object library
At this stage of development, a lot of changes are (and have been) made to the object library. Most of them are 'simple' bug fixes, but some changes are worth mentioning here (additional functionality or changed methods).
In the DBUtil class, there now exists a new method to increment a field with the function incrementObjectFieldByID. This can be used by module authors for updating read counts of content items for example. (*)
Additionally, the function selectScalar has been added (which takes a SQL quesry as argument). This is mostly useful for places where you want to do a "select count(*)" or similar scalar selection.
The utf8 conversion functions (convertFromUTF8 and convertToUTF8) have moved from AjaxUtil to DataUtil when solving a bug to keep the users input in Ajax driven fields as they are intended.
While solving a Google AdSense script bug, where the script tags were automatically cleaned by the safeHTL output filter, a new feature has been added to FormUtil: Before cleaning posted input on an already installed site, the FormUtil now checks if the current user has overall admin permissions. This allows site admins to input potentially harmful tags (javascript for example), but it's their site after all!
Jörn has improved CSS style handling in pnForm plugins, as he has changed some pnForm classes to be derived from pnFormStyledPlugin, which in itself is derived from the original pnFormPlugin.
Because it's better to read the languages directory first for available languages and compare that result against the full list of languages in stead of the other way around, the LanguageUtil has a new function getInstalledLanguages. This now significantly reduces the number of directory checks.
To ensure that most commonly used plugins are found as early as possible, the order in the pnRender class, where the system is searching for plugins, has been modified. The current correct order for the 0.8 distribution is:

system/pnRender/plugins
system/Theme/plugins
config/plugins
current theme-directory/templates/modules/$module/plugins
current theme-directory/plugins
current module-directory/pntemplates/plugins

Furthermore, two new variables can be added to the rendered output page using the PageUtil class. First is 'description', which is default set to the current site slogan. Second is 'footer', with the ability to add custom content just prior to the closing body tag. The latter function is applied as an outputfilter.
Finally, an additional parameter 'display' is added to the pager plugin, which can be set to either 'page' or 'offset'. This is (why am I explaning, isn't this rather self-explanatory?) to allow paging by pages, rather than offsets. It also mirrors the 'show' parameter that exists in many templates (based on the example module) but was never actually implemented.
Last but not least, the Theme class has now added support for a filters section in a page configuration file. This allows for loading of, in the first instance, custom output filters. Note there is no user interface to the functionality the moment.And, why not, the Atom theme has been updated to Atom 1.0

Module modifications
The following modules have been updated for improved .8 compatibility, or just to make administering those modules easier.
The User module now has the long awaited alpha pager for browsing users. (*)
All occurences of the block rendering APIs (read by the Blocks module) have changed from the old style call "return themesideblock" to "return pnBlockThemeBlock". (*)
To the Settings module there has been added a configurable separator for permalinks (*)Furthermore, a switch to globally disable JS Quicktags (which adds a set of buttons for common html tags to enabled textareas) is now part of the Settings module. (*)
Both the Ratings and the Multisites module are modified to meet the new standards of coding and templating. Work still needs to be done to both modules, so testing functionality for these modules may not be that worthwhile as yet. (*)
The Theme module takes over from the Xanthia module in an upgrade. This doesn't mean that it is not Xanthia anymore: it still is actually the Xanthia 3.0 engine (*).
To the Recommend_Us module a display hook has been added. This will add a list of social bookmark links, like the Diggers plugin also does.

Language files overhaul
The language defines in some modules have been reviewed and adjusted to the naming conventions of .8 (see also Dev Update 2006-06). This means that module-specific language defines start with a module-name specific prefix. Additionally, some new general language strings (using the pnML function) have been added to the core language file. The major effect this will have is to subtantially reduce the number of strings that need translating.These changes are applied to the following system modules: Admin, Admin_Messages, AuthPN, Blocks, Mailer, legal, Settings and SysInfo. ValueAddons modules will follow later.

PostgreSQL DBMS testers wanted
The .8 DBUtil class, as mentioned many times before, makes it possible to run PostNuke on different DBMS platforms, like PostgreSQL,

Generated on February 20, 2007.

Development Update, January 2007-01   (News)

be productive and succesfull for all of us. And of course: a finished .8 version of PostNuke is something we are all waiting for.
MileStone 3 is waiting around the corner: A feature freeze so far has speed up the progress and only a few bugs are blocking a release. The next development update will probably be submitted after the MS3 release.
OK, here goes!

API functionality
Introduced is a pnShutDown function to gracefully terminate the application framework. This now replaces all use of exit or die and also fixes some oddities caused by PHP's shutdown process.
Mark has replaced all old themesideblock function calls with newer API call pnBlockThemeBlock. Furthermore, he has added a raw text option to the PageUtil::registerVar (former pnPageRegisterVar) system.
The AjaxUtil is now using internal json_encode() if PHP >=5.2.0.

Object Library and classes
For the SessionUtil / RandomUtil, Drak has put his hands on improving the randomness in the generation of the AuthKey and passwords. This is done by extending the possibly characters used, and the length of the key (length also now being random).
Also, the AuthKey generation makes now use of the (updated) RandomUtil class. A big advantage is that the random data generation is done in one place, so a change will affect the complete system. This is actually with the complete Object Library: changes can be made in one place with the benefit that all calls are updated.
The DBUtil has now a renameTable method and a renameColumn method for easy manipulation of table properties without having to worry about SQL code. The latter (renameColumn) is a quite new function, so there may be some adoDB bugs.
Finally, pnPage.php is converted to the PageUtil class. This means that any 3rd party module developers should update their modules to make use of the new class. A call to (for example) pnPageSetVar('title', $title_var) must be updated to PageUtil::setVar('title', $title_var). The pnPage.php does not remain for backward compatibility. Examples for the needed changes can be found in SVN submission 21099. The Wiki documentation for Page variables still needs updating however.

pnForms: functionality and documentation
Jørn has been updating the pnForms toolkit extensively. Most important is hat the documentation in the files is more complete, and the Wiki documentation page has been updated. A summary:

Added authkey checking to pnForms.
Added min/max validation for integers.
Changed "classHtml" to "cssClass" in "pnForm" plugin for consistency with the other classes.
Added a language selector "pnFormLanguageSelector".
and much more...

All plugins now render unknown parameters "as is", so you can add "onclick" and such like that the system doesn't know of.

System modules: Categories, Search and Blocks
In the Categories system, there has been added support for a 'field' parameter.
The search module is as good as finished, and also displays a sum of all search hits too. An additional parameter is added to allow for searches that aren't going to be performed on a DB. Finally, it is now possible to search in RSS feeds.
The Blocks module has been updated, and now has a user friendly functionality for drag-drop between block positions and placements in one screen. This is done with Ajax technology (thanks Frank for simplifying and enhancing this), so javascript should be enabled to use this (non-js fallback available). Furthermore a XML/XSL block has been added (a generic xml/xslt block and modifier).

ValueAddons modules
Faq: implemented custom short url handler and permalink structure
News: implemented cache handling
Feeds (was RSS): implemented categorisation in admin panel, added short url handler, added title field.
Also, the RSS module is renamed to Feeds to better reflect it's purpose and to prevent clash with rss theme when using directory based URL's.
TinyMCE: Upgraded tinymce to v2.0.9
Reviews, Referers, Stats: Converted to API and pnRender compliant module, updated table management code.

pnRender Plugins
Mark has added an output filter in order to auto-magically title the administration pages, which makes navigation a bit easier.Also, A

Generated on January 21, 2007.

Development Update, September 2006-02   (News)

Design Team
In the past we've discussed the option of having an official 'design team' to work on the core templates and themes. The aim for this team is to enhance usability and aesthetics of the core PostNuke distribution, add further template improvements, write a dedicated admin theme and maybe write an official styleguide for module developers. This idea has been brought up again and the search for members for this team has been started.
Changing the Module names
A mechanism has been added to allow module developers to rename their modules while retaining the existing module id. Before, the modules db had to be handled manually and documentation covering how to rename the module had to be written. Or users had to backup data and then remove the old module and add the new one. In short: "Who wants to do this?"
So you can now add your old modulename to an oldnames-array in pnversion.php and the modules module will detect the relationship between the two modulenames, updating the database accordingly.
The rationale for looking at this now is that there exist a few modules that have misleading or confusing names. Also, the development team would like to encourage module developers to drop the pn prefix for modules. An exception for this are the modules that also exist as a stand alones, like pnWikka, pnMantis, PNphpBB2, ...
For renaming of tables, the a module author can raise the version number and write the appropriate "copy code" for his tables.
Icon sets
The aim of the pnicon plugin is to have multiple icon sets in the future without worrying about image filenames like when using the pnimg plugin. The pnicon loads the icon set config.php file, and selects the filename of the image by a 'type' parameter passed to the plugin.
Comment Spam
In the last couple of weeks, many posts have appeared on the community forums about spammers that login and post comments with their credentials obtained from the user registration mail. To prevent this, a check has been added for the useragent during registration at the User and NewUser module, which is an additional protection against spam-accounts by PERL agents like lwp and libwww. Of course, this is not a guarantee that these kind of registrations do not happen ever again, but it should at least help to prevent it.
Also (but still in test phase), optionally a question can be added to the registration process (comparable with the anti-spam option in formicula 1.0). This Q/A combination is freely configurable in the user administration.
For more information, discussion and Proof of Concept, please visit the forum.
System updates
The Profile module has now enhanced client-side (using prototype-driven validate.js) and server-side (to show messages on the same page) input validation.
The Extended Menu Block supports sorting via drag&drop (using scritaculous) and a utility link is also present in the menu to automatically add the current URL to the extended menu block. This is of course restricted to administrators only. It is also planned to make tree menus using this block.
The categorisation within the Admin area has been changed to a more logical sense. There now exist 7 categories:

'System': Admin Panel, Mailer, Modules, Settings
'Layout': Blocks, Themes, pnRender
'Users': Permissions, Groups, Users, Profile
'Content': Admin_Messages, Categories, legal, Search, blank
'3rd-party': Empty categorie for newly installed modules
'Security': SecurityCenter, SysInfo
'Hooks': Censor

ValueAddons updates
The Sections module has been renamed to the (more suitable and logical) Pages module. Intuitively, this module does what one might guess: serve static information on different pages.
The Top-List module is currently hardcoded to working with just the core modules, and planned is to move it to some sort of plugin architecture (using special plugin API files and call specific functions in them). This is in progress.
Miscellanious updates
We now have a html installation guide with a CSS based on http://community.postnuke.com, and an html upgrade guide is separated

Generated on September 4, 2006.

0.8 Development Continuted...   (News)

New Blocks Module
The new blocks module designed to work with the recoded Themes engine has been committed to CVS. This new module, while fully working will probably undergo some enhancement before the release of .8 MS1 with use of the new Ajax library a priority. All block management is now fully integrated with the Blocks module, from block position tags to assigning blocks to block positions. Despite these new additions, the block management interface remains fairly simple and intuitive, improving usability over the .7x block control system.

PostNuke Ajax Framework
Also newly committed in the past few days is the PostNuke Ajax framework. This framework is already in use within the Permissions module as a demonstration of what can be achieved. PostNuke's Ajax implementation is based around the prototype.js script and script.aculo.us libraries, which as well as providing nice visual effects are fairly easy to implement for the module developer. This framework was made possible in .8 through core changes to the pnInit() function, which can now be passed a parameter determining what parts of the core should be loaded. In the case of an Ajax framework it is important to limit the initialisation process to an absolute minimum of components for performance reasons. Again, with this in mind each module that wishes to use Ajax functionality should use a new Ajax entry point 'pnajax.php' in their modules. This reduces the number and size of files that are loaded with each Ajax call, but does not prevent you from calling other functions in your module should you require them.

Full documentation on how to use the Ajax Framework should be available with the final .8 release, however in the meantime developers are invited to update their CVS copies and look at what has been achieved so far.

Permissions Module Ajax Enhancements
For some time now, the Permissions module interface has been far from ideal, especially on sites where you have large numbers of permissions. In this situation, the PostNuke Ajax library can be put to very good use, as demonstrated by the demonstration currently in CVS. It is now possible to order permissions through a 'drag and drop' interface, create new permission rules, and also test any permission you have written through an easy to use interface all without reloading the page. Furthermore, you can filter permissions by group for an easy review of a single group's access rights on your website.

We anticipate that the Ajax libary can have many more uses across the codebase for .8, and over time these will be implemented. PostNuke now has a solid Ajax framework upon which third party developers can begin to develop their own Ajax-based modules for use with .8.

Use of pn-clearfix Class in Module Templates
For the new Ajax tableless module administration layouts to work correctly in tableless themes (such as the andreas08 theme in CVS) use has been made of a pn-clearfix class. This has been adapted from positioniseverything. While these changes were prompted by the introduction of Ajax sorting to lists in CVS, the class can be applied in any relevant situation.

Module Dependencies System
With the increasing use of hooks modules across the codebase with the advent of complete API compliance, it was necessary to introduce a dependencies system to PostNuke .8. This system allows modules that support or require particular hooks a way of informing the user of this requirement. In PostNuke .8, the core system will inform site administrators if they are lacking a module which can add functionality to their site. Additionally, the system prevents conflicting modules being installed together. It is up to module authors to set module dependencies in their pnversion.php file, stating a minimum and/or a maximum version required. An example of this is in CVS, in the form of the pnCategories pnversion.php file. When the .8 MS1 release is available, module authors are encouraged to look at this system and use it to their advantage when creating modules in the future.

New Password Hash Methods
Through the .8 PostNuke User's module it is now possible to choose the hash method in use on your site. The addition of both SHA-1 and SHA-256 encryption can add security in sensitive environments, and additionally the ability to change hash method can help when integrating PostNuke with other applications. The hash method changes have been implemented in such a way as to ensure you can change hash method at any point, you are not tied to a particular hash method at installation time.

Session Security Enhancements
More security options for sessions in PostNuke .8 are now available. You can now choose whether to sign cookies sent by your website, decide how long forms on your website should be valid for (through the authkey timeout) and finally enable IP checks to ensure session IP addresses do not change mid-session, which can occur if multiple people use the same account. PostNuke also now supports the setting of a secure host name for HTTPS, if your site does not support HTTPS through its normal domain name.

Site Disable Functionality
When disabling your site in .7x it was important to remember to stay logged in, or you would be locked out of your site with the PostNuke Swiss Army Knife as your only way back in. In .8 this changes, now an admin logon form is available on the site disabled screen to allow you to get back in to a disabled site.

In Closing...
At this stage, many of the key features of .8 are nearing completion, and we remain on track for our target Milestone 1 release window of the third week of April. Third party developers are especially encouraged to use this release to test their code for compatibility with .8, as due to the core changes some modules will need updating. Meanwhile, if you are interested in seeing the latest state of the .8 codebase before the Milestone release you are welcome

Generated on April 5, 2006.

pnSEO - Postnuke Search Engine Optimization: Strategies and Methods   (News)

is not right. When I was reading an article in postnuke forum, the term seo came up. That's the time I started working on pnSEO.

I implemented some strategies one Sat. morning at 9:00am and have a tour of Washington DC. When I came back at 11pm, the ranking jumped from page 13 to page 1. What a surprise!

The following are the strategy I developed for promoting CCUS. Hope it is helpful and useful.

Read this: http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

2. Attitude: technique and marketing 20/80
Marketing is crucial to the success of your web site. pnSEO is part of marketing.

I would guess most people in pnCommunity will be like me: technical. Work on technical and enjoy to be technical. We may have spent 80% of our time on technical side. Setup the site, upgrade, add new functions, customization. Make the site look nice. But that's not the most important.

Do you have this experience: you work hours or days to add one module or add one function, or improve the interfaces, but no users are actually cared about it at all. This happened to me many times.

Before you start working on your web sites, think about effective and efficient. You are smart and hardworking, you maybe efficient, but are you working on the right thing (effective)?

Now 80% of the time should be spent on marketing. Start with pnSEO first.

3. Strategies

The following strategies are listed in the order of importance in my understanding.

SEO 1: SITEMAPS and Google Sitemaps.

This is the #1 strategy you should adopt. If you cannot do anything else, do this one.
It will overcome the shortcomings of CMS or dynamic sites such as Postnuke for search engines. It will let search engines to understand how your site is accessed by visitors.

"If your site has dynamic content or pages that aren't easily discovered by following links, you can use a Sitemap file to provide information about the pages on your site. This helps the spiders know what URLs are available on your site and about how often they change." -- google.com

1.1 Create sitemap using google sitemap generator.
. http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html
. Setup a schedule to resubmit your sitemap to google.

1.2 Use snakeseo to generate sitemap for Postnuke site.

SEO 2. use ShortURL and Remove session ID
Even yahoo.com is using short URLs. See http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/middleclassexilesstruggleforafoothold
2.1 Use shortURLs.
2.2 Enable Xnathia theme and enable shortURLs.
2.3 Remove session IDs from your postnuke site.

SEO 3. Title and Metadata
The page title weighs heavily in the algorithms of all the major search engines, so be prepared to spend some time on it.
Page title should be accurate, keywords-rich.
Do not include stop words (and, the, a etc.) in the title. That just wastes space.

Meta tags may not be important as before. However, some search engines still looks at meta tags.

3.1 use pnTitle to make page title relevant to the page content
3.2 use pnMeta
3.3 use Xanthia theme

SEO 4: Directory submission
4.1 Submit to ODP
4.2 Submit to Yahoo
4.3 Submit to other directory services
4.4 Submit to all kinds of search engines

SEO 5. Exchange links with top PR (page rankingweb sites. (LINK100)
5.1 use Web Links module as a repository for all external web links
5.2 Find similiar sites using keywords. We use 'Chinese Community'. ALso try using "Suggest a Link + your keywords"

5.3 Request the webmasters to include anchor text, title that reflect the keywords you are promoting
e.g. Chinese Community
instead of http://www.ChineseCommunity.us

SEO 6. Publish Blogs.
Expand the existence of your web sites in the world wide web. Let it appear in as many places as possible.
6.1 Yahoo - http://360.yahoo.com
6.2 Google - blogger.com
6.3 MSN - spaces.msn.com
6.4 CCUS - blog.chinesecommunity.us

SEO 7: RSS (feeds) submission

SEO 8. Write and Submit articles to many sites, forums, discussions.
Write down the techniques, tips, strategies, experience you have into articles. In your artciles, you can have some links to your web sites. Also your website and keywords as part of your profile.

8.1 postnuke.com. Get involved with pnCommunity. Contribute your knowledge, experience, thoughts to the growth of the community.
8.2 ezinearticles.com

SEO 9. Develop modules/utilities for others to use.
9.1 Join pnCommunity to contribute
9.2 Put your module and URL on their web sites.

SEO 10: Page design

Try to develop some common sense that will help search engines.
10.1 All web links inside have titles and appropriate anchor text
example: ChineseCommunity.us should be changed as
Chinese Community .us
Why? Title include some keywords I am promoting for Chinese Community.us. Anchor text has "Chinese Community" as keywords. Search engines are very sensitive to title text and anchor text.

10.2 All images should include descriptive, keyword-rich alt text.
Don't make it very long though.
e.g.

instead of


10.3 Internal links

1) Every page on your site should link to at least one other page.
2) Include anchor text and title text for your internal links. They should contain appropriate keywords you are promoting.
3) e.g.
go to <a href="http://www.chinesecommunity.us" title="Chinese Community">Chinese Personal

Generated on September 10, 2005.

PostNuke 0.760 RC5 released   (News)

Maksymilian Arciemowicz of securityreason.com and Johann-Peter Hartmann of Mayflower for their cooperation regarding some security issues.

One of the few newly introduced features is the so called "Baseline Security Analyzer", which checks your site for some basic security settings and informs the Admin within the administration how to fix them.

Further updates include Smarty, ADODB, phpMailer also. To take a closer look at all the changes, check http://cvsnotices.postnuke.com. At pndevs.com some of the latest changes and ideas are commented by the developers.

If updating from .750 or earlier, please make sure to follow the instructions in the docs folder very carefully.

Download:
Postnuke 0.760 RC

Generated on August 8, 2005.

Moving on: Better PostNuke ShortURLs   (News)

PostNuke sites well, while making the URLs hard to post to people in email or in forums. For instance, a news link looks like this:
/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=123&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

For some time now, PostNuke users have cried out for better Search-Engine Friendly URLs, and for the past few years, the only thing available has been a theme hack first detailed by Karateka (possibly E. Soysal before that, the links in the article are dead) way back in 2002, since worked on by ColdRolledSteel (Craig Saunders), and consequently me.
The advent of the ShortURL hack has seen sites hosted on Apache servers with the URL Rewriting module (mod_rewrite) enabled get URLs like
/Article123.html

for the above link, where certain assumptions have been made about the default settings for mode, thread and threshhold. A big improvement, but not very descriptive, and it comes at the cost of heavy post-processing of the site's content for links. Also, Search Engines use link keyword relevance in their rankings, and Article123 doesn't say much about the link, except that it's an article with the id 123.
As Karateka pointed out at the time in his article, a problem in implementing friendlier URLs with virtual directories is that all paths in PostNuke are relative, ie relative to the site root folder where index.php is located, and fixing it then would have required extensive changes in the core. That is, a URL like /Example/view.html would result in the browser looking for all links relative to its present location, ie in the nonexistant subfolder called Example, and subsequently it would fail to find the linked stylesheets, images etc, and all links from the page would similarly fail.

Unfortunately this situation has not changed in the intervening years, but as PostNuke modules are becoming API-compliant, they reference the same system function to build their URLs, so fixing this function and other associated functions to use root-relative links(1) will fix all compliant module URLs. But that leaves all other links, like images, Javascript, and stylesheets. The move to templating with Xanthia (for themes) and pnRender (for modules) is also making it easier, since Xanthia templates use a Xanthia variable to reference the theme's image directory path. So fixing Xanthia and pnRender will fix most paths in Xanthia themes. The exception are stylesheet and Javascript link paths and any links in the theme header, for which new path variables need to be introduced, so some updating of Xanthia themes is required. This makes the transition period to PN 0.8 an ideal time to introduced these changes, since few Xanthia themes have been released so far, and core modules are only just being converted to pnRender.
I stopped work on ShortURLs some time ago (before pn0.75) on the advice that a core module was being developed; however I have seen no evidence of this to date, and there is no indication in the upcoming PN 0.76 or CVS that there is anything coming. I got curious a month or so ago, and was somewhat dismayed at what I found.

Since then no progress seems to have been made on PostNuke ShortURLs. In fact, the current Xanthia filter hack has regressed, becoming bloated with complex and wholly unnecessary Regular Expression rules, many badly written with duplication and a number of bugs, especially in the accompanying htaccess file, going from the 15 rules proposed by Karateka to a massive 89. So, I set out to try and fix it, but ended up revisiting the idea of a core implementation using virtual directories to more logically structure the URLs in a way that is not only Search-Engine Friendly, but more User-Friendly.

Along the way, I've also been sidetracked and made a direly-needed new themable tab system for the Administration area based on AlistApart.com's Sliding Doors technique and consequently overhauled most of the Admin templates and a few User templates too, partly out of necessity due to the new Adminpanel, partly because they badly needed it. Those of you who have tried the pn0.76 Release Candidates would know that the templated output in them leaves something to be desired, drab and somewhat unprofessional-looking due to all the styling and CSS-classes having been ripped out, leaving a basic grey and white look with overly large headings and no theme tables for backgrounds. Hardly what you would call of Release Candidate quality. So pnRender and its plugins have been fixed to allow the use of Xanthia-like theme-colour tags as well as a tag for root-relative paths needed for ShortURLs, and the opentable functions have been fixed so that proper themed borders can be used. In fact most of the changes are in fixed templates, plugins, and module files.

My proposed implementation still retain the Xanthia filter for backwards compatibility with older themes, modules and blocks, but has been wholly rewritten and pared down to 24 rules, including a rule to fix all links to be root-relative. As PostNuke is in transition to be fully pnAPI-compliant by PostNuke 0.8, the remaining ones can gradually be removed altogether as themes, modules and blocks are updated. There's also a version for AutoTheme.

This particular scheme is experimental and may be tweaked or improved upon. It seeks to reduce the reliance on the Regular Expression(2) post-processing for links and introduce more user-friendly URLs that have more relevance for people and search engines alike by using virtual directories to visually distinguish sections of the site by module and function, such as
/Example/View.html

and for the News articles introduce Category, Topic, and Title information in the link:
/Category/Topic/ArticleXXX-title-of-story.html

For instance for a news story in the category Computers and the topic Postnuke called "PostNuke Shorturls", you'd have the URL
/Computers/Postnuke/Article123-PostNuke-Shorturls.html

This is a clear, concise and informative link that tells the user and search engine alike something about the link before going there, while retaining backwards compatibility with links of the old ShortURL scheme. It more closely emulates the way we think and organise information, using the folder analogy where we have a clearly-labelled Computer category folder, under which we have the various sub-categories - Topics - with various articles. In this case, we're using a virtual file anchored by the word "Article", clearly identifying it as such, followed by the article number and title. There is backwards compatibility, so that older links for Article123.html will still work.

In this instance I've excluded the News keyword altogether for brevity in favour of the Category and Topic keywords which insinuate News anyway, though there is nothing against being consistent with all the other ShortURLs and having the Module appear first, as in
/News/Computers/Postnuke/Article123:-PostNuke-Shorturls.html

This is for the special case of the core News module though, a more generic method is needed overall for URLs with various unknown parameters passed in the query string. This implementation uses the scheme:
/Module/Function-Param1:Value1-Param2:Value2... -ParamN:ValueN.(p)htm(l)
where the Query string parameters are tagged onto the virtual filename grouped by colons and separated by hyphens, the idea being to use commonly-used characters we might normally use in a list to make it look as natural and readable as possible. It may be a less-commonly used character than the hyphen is needed, like the tilde ~ character, since some parameter values may use a hyphen, in particular usernames. This is not a problem if passed as the last parameter, where it may contain any character. So if the module developer kept this in mind, it might not be an issue. I'm not aware of it being one so far. The PostCalender ShortURL plugin deliberately places uname, if present, last.

The extension is not necessary, but used for convenience. The 3 types used are either one of html, htm, or phtml, the latter useful to distinguish when you want to link to real HTML files on the site. The extensions as well as the option to use ShortURLs or not is set in the Settings panel, though I've only offered the option of html and phtml, since frankly the MS DOS-holdover extension htm annoys me.
Older URLs are marked with a + before the Function name, as in
/PNphpBB2/+profile-mode:editprofile.html

so that the server can translate it correctly. If the directory doesn't actually exist, entering
/Example/

will redirect to the Example module main page (Apache only)
/Example/main.phtml

which in return gets rewritten invisibly to
/index.php?module=Example&func=main

Otherwise, if it does exist, the index file of the relevant directory will be opened.
Similarly, with
/HTML/filename.html

if the file exists, it will be opened, else PN will look for
/index.php?module=HTML&func=filename

It is still possible to tag on query strings like
/ModName/main.phtml?theme=seabreeze

or
/ModName/main-theme:seabreeze.phtml

will both be translated to
/index.php?module=ModName&func=main&theme=seabreeze

There are any number of possible ShortURL systems, the simplest being to simply chop the URL into virtual directories, like /News/123/ from the above News example as some do. Xaraya uses a variant of this for news, though it doesn't use mod_rewrite, so appears like
/index.php/news/123

Again, this is concise, but contains few meaningful keywords other than the module name News. You can combine the two methods for News and have
/News/Category/Topic/123/title-of-article

which works very well, but loses some of the elegance of the above philosophy, since the latter part breaks up the virtual file into 3 with no anchor words, which is not how we organise information.
For generic URLs, there are a number of methods; for instance Mambo, another CMS, use generic ShortURLs like
/component/option,com_newsfeeds/catid,5/Itemid,7/

for a News URL like
/index.php?option=com_newsfeeds&catid=5&Itemid=7

where the querystring values are grouped by commas and separated by forward slashes (virtual directories). It is a ShortURL, though in this case not shorter, and doesn't have any useful keywords, other than "newsfeed", and is not very human-readable. For a generic URL, this is somewhat unavoidable, but can be better than that.
This implementation also contain a way to customise ShortURLs on a per-module basis through a file called shorturls.php placed in the module folder (see the Example module), such as the News URLs, or 3rd party modules like PostCalendar, which instead of the full URL like
/index.php?module=PostCalendar&func=view&tplview=&viewtype=day&Date=20050405&pc_username=&pc_category=&pc_topic=&print=

with the above generic ShortURLs would be rendered as
/PostCalendar/view-viewtype:day-Date:20050405.html

but with customised URLs become
/Calendar/05-04-2005/day.html


The beauty is, though, once we've created the groundwork in the core of PostNuke, any implementation will be fairly easy.

1) Root-relative links: Links relative to the server site root (eg /nuke/filename.html), which stays static, as opposed to relative to the present file (eg filename.html).
2) Regular Expression (RegEx): A complex pattern-matching language that can look a bit like a mathematical formula, used in the Xanthia ShortURL filter at /modules/Xanthia/plugins/outputfilter.shorturls.php.


----------------------------------------------------------------
If this were Mambo, I'd charge you 80 Euros for all this (the price for SEF Advance), but because you're all such nice people (except that guy up the back, you know who you are :) ), I'll let you have it for free.

A PDF of the ReadMe included in the package, but with additional screenshots, is found here (570kb).

I've also written a more technical ReadMe on installing ShortURLs, included in the package under the docs folder, and also found here.

here's a test of the tab system using the Aqua theme. It also comes with an XP-styled theme and the default-CSS-based one. I hope you like it, because it took a lot of work to perfect.

OK, screenshots: Well, no point having screenshots of URLs, so here's some of the tab system and modified SeaBreeze and PostNukeBlue themes' Admin templates instead:

1. The main adminpanel in PostNukeBlue with the Aqua-themed tabs, hovering over the Settings panel.
2. Same as above, but with the Theme Override set under Modify Config and with a tabs.css stylesheets in the theme's style folder. The rounded corners are only visible in Mozilla/FireFox.
3. The Luna tab theme in SeaBreeze, hovering over the 3rd Party tab.
4. The Xanthia Admin tabs using Aqua tabs in PostNukeBlue, hovering on Theme Settings.


And finally, the downloads:
I started out fixing PN0.75, so there are 2 downloads: One for PN0.75, and one for PN0.76rc4. I'll update it once the PN0.76 final is released.
Please backup your site before installing these patches, since a lot of system files are replaced. The PostNuke 0.76rc4 ShortURL package is rather large, consisting of some 400 files in a 1Mb zip file. The PN0.75 package has some 170 files and is around 800kb. Most of the changes are drop-in changes that doesn't necessitate updating of modules, but there are some exceptions in the PN0.76 package, in particular the Settings and Polls modules, where you need to first go to the Module list, regenerate, and update. Specific patches for popular 3rd party templated modules like AutoTheme and PNphpBB2 are included, but only a limited number of 3rd party modules have been tested with this package. No changes are made to the database, but it is still a good idea to back that up as well. You have been warned.

PostNuke 0.75 ShortURL package (833kb)
PostNuke 0.76rc4 ShortURL package (1Mb)

Two of the updated core themes:
PostNukeBlue (249kb)
SeaBreeze (120kb)


Feel free to discuss this proposal in the forums.

Enjoy!


Martin Andersen 8/7/200

Generated on July 9, 2005.

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