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0.7x End Of Life
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From 1st October 2008
PostNuke 0.7x will only be available as a download package from code.zikula.org. New modules and themes for the .7x series will no longer be accepted into the Extensions repository after this date, and devlopers are encouraged to convert their extensions to Zikula 1.0. Any security updates to 0.7x modules will still be accepted in the repository.
From 1st January 2009
Official support for 0.7x will no longer be available. The extensions database and support forum will be archived, and new submissions will no longer be accepted.
On 1st July 2009
Official support for the 0.7x series of PostNuke ends on this date. Security fixes will no longer be provided, though it will still be possible to upgrade a 0.7x website to the latest version of Zikula. In addition, the download packages will be removed from trac and PostNuke 0.7x will only be available via
Generated on June 6, 2008.
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GSoC Interview: Carlos Mauro
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2. What attracted you to the Google Summer of Code as a programme, and PostNuke as a project?
I looked at Google Summer Code as a great challenge. But I do not dare. Until this year, if I did. I applied to several projects related to the topic of usability. And because apply to PostNuke some years ago I work as freelance. Develop some portals for small businesses in my country using postnuke and other CMS. PostNuke is attractive because this was installed in a single attempt. I was surprised. So I think support.
3. Tell us about your project, and how you hope it can benefit PostNuke?
I'm copying what we present in my proposal:
The criteria for the evaluation usability are:
Comparison of controls on Good Practices or patterns Usability on the Web.
Include improvements within the Framework.
Create a guide to improve and documenting findings to the community PostNuke.
a. Usability
To improve the usability of Postnuke i will work graphical interfaces suggested some of the modules and the framwork which are used in the forms. Attempts to put in these modules some good practices and standards for Web usability.
I will Work with what is necessary XHTML, CSS, Ajax whether it is possible to implement and methodically.
b. Accessibility and conformance
For the accessibility i take the the Guidelines and techniques(6). After the programing process. I will make a list for test usability. I will Choose 6 to 7 cms users to test usability with the corrections. The proceeds will help create iterations for each test.
c. Maintainability
Maintenance may accelerate taking intoaccount that at the end of the draft the conclusions will be made in the form of best practices for Web usability postnuke. I will help in the incorporation and supporting of usability guide line in other modules PostNuke.
In the forums I will clarify the tasks of the project and also its scope.
4. What do you personally hope to gain from participating in the Summer of Code with PostNuke?
Many, many experience in knowing more about how a community of developers interested in do make a good product. Learning from good programming practices and especially knowing more about web usability. Of course Social Recognition.
I want postnuke as a milestone in the renewed Internet.
5. Can you see yourself contributing your talents to Open Source projects following the SoC? Will you continue to work with PostNuke in some capacity after the programme has ended?
The GSOC ends after a month of my graduation from college. I hope to finish that time almost all my tasks in the project. I would like to leave a module to test usability. I feel a duty to contribute to the community. I am confident that the project can achieve more significant improvements in its next release and then create or generate support the development of future lines. It should not be discouraged postnuke which has short market ... we see the top, be with them and then jump to heaven.
6. Is there anything else you’d like to say now, as the programme begins?
I would like to see other issues as the framework and its implementation in business or insert google app into the framework. I would like to make a strategic planning for IT postnuke. Devising strategies to make the best CMS, simply: Easy.
Not only is needed to schedule some things to achieve a well-accepted product.Need to know that is what the user wants in the next 5 years and venture into that vision. So I count on your support to work with postnuke .... And of course do my project as realistic as possible in these 3 months in the hope that is of benefit to all.
Lastly, thanks for your time – we in the PostNuke team are excited about the Summer of Code, so thank you for taking part and choosing PostNuke!
We are going ... postnuke to make the Best CMS, the easiest. GEN a social network that seems to make FaceBook a grain of sand in our seas.
I will continue reviewing more documentation and adjusting the project to postnuke with the help of my mentor Steffen Voß and
Generated on April 27, 2008.
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Community News
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Calendars! Calendars! Calendars!
A long time we all lived with PostCalendar - a complex and powerful modules that included Smarty before it was included as templating engine into the core. But the complexity was also the reason why the original maintainers gave up their work and nobody really picked it up again. Robert Gasch attempted to dissolve the code jungle and turned to other projects. Other modules like Zerocal, cal-zone or the pgCalendar addon for Pagesetter never really took off in the shadow of the huge PostCalendar. For a long time nothing much happened until recently several new calendar modules started to grow:
1. Daniele Conca's crpCalendar started off as a simple list of events but it is slowly turning into a full fletched Calendar with day-, week- and month-views. Moreover it supports hCalendar microformats and Content via plugin so you can integrate calendar events into your Content articles.
Download: http://noc.postnuke.com/projects/crpcalendar/
2. TimeIt is attempt to clone PostCalendar with .8 technology. In the meantime version 1.1 RC1 is released which not only offers all the features postCalendar has but also event registration and user events.
Download: http://www.assembla.com/spaces/files/cxTPX-9PKr3lxaabIlDkbG
3. Eventliner is a new Calendar which also imports PostCalendar data and offers day-, week- and month-views.
Download: http://noc.postnuke.com/projects/eventliner/
Good News for Communities
Florian Schliessl released a new, cool community module called ContacList which handles lists of friends. Your user will be able to ask other others for friendship and see their friends birthdays. The module can also be used in other modules to make user profiles aso only visible for friends. TimeIt already supports ContactList so your users can add their events or register and make this information visible to their friends.
Download: http://noc.postnuke.com/projects/contactlist/
Totally Web 2.0
Mark West released a little plugin that allows you to include these little buttons for all kinds of link services like del.icio.us, mr. wong aso. into your modules.
Download: http://noc.postnuke.com/projects/pnwebservices/
Pagesetter Successor
Marco Kundert is still working on his Pagesetter clone. The module will have all the features that Pagesetter has but replace all the stuff that Jørn first implemented in Pagesetter which now has been included into the core by the core features. Guppy will be repleaced by pnForm, the workflows will be replaces by the core workflows aso. Moreover he aims at making Pagemaster easier to use for beginners. Gabriel Freinbichler is already running a test version on one of his sites and he seems to be quite satisfied with it.
Shops
There are at least 3 forks of pnCommerce out there, maintained by Rüdiger Hahn, Jim Hatfield and others the problem now is that they all are very busy with their system and that they need to integrate all forks again to have a common code base again. There were several attempts to reunite the code but AFAIK the project lacks somebody who is really willing and able to put some time into it - who works self-motivated and needs the shop for his own sites.
Robert Gasch is working on a commercial shop. I had the priviliedge to take a look at it and it seems to offer a lot of very advanced features. If you need a shop and you are willing to invest some money into it, you should contact Robert.
Media
Axel Guckelsberger seems to have 50 hour days. His latest project is MediaAttach - finally a real solution for a central media repository. It still has some legacy from it's predecessor pnUpper but it already offers a lot of great features for the handling of media and it is included in Scribite and Content.
Download: http://noc.postnuke.com/projects/mediaattach/
Certainly there is a lot more going on - so if you are working on a project, please leave a comment.
Generated on April 21, 2008.
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MediaAttach RC 1 released
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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.
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Development Update, 2008-01
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.8 Final: the next step after RC3
Since the release of RC3, already a lot of bugfixes have been committed to the repository. The developers have agreed to address all new features to the .9 tree, where the two major changes (UTF-8 and gettext, see below) are already in active development. This should result in much shorter release cycles (and earlier release dates) also, and give module developers much more clarification on what to change in order to make their module work under the new major release. If needed, an final bugfizing weekend may still be organised for .8 final.
The upgrade from .764 installations on certain systems has been improved, by increasing the memory_limit to 64M. However, this only works for php version 5.2.1 and above.
Upgrading to .8 together with some 3rd party modules may raise problems when the modules upgrade process is not failsafe for .8 or if the upgrade function uses core functions of modules that are not available yet. Therefore the upgrade of 3rd party modules in general is avoided by following a white list of core modules.
Most site-specific data can already be easily overridden using the /config and /themes directories. The Multisites module however still needs some futher thought on the best way of running multiple sites from a single install. One method having multiple unrelated (i.e. non table sharing) sites of a single install would be to have config/site1, config/site2 etc., this will be postponed to a next release.
The Tour module is now in a state where it can be translated to other languages as well. Just translate the templates and put them in a subdir with the appropriate language abbrevation, all within the pntemplates directory.
MultiCategorization introduction and issues since
As earlier announced, a last fix for supporting MultiCategorization has been added to the core just before the release of RC3. Since those changes, another small fix was then required to be fully backwards compatible. On the module-devs list, the devs have discussed a lot on how to solve these issues. Chances are great that if the new (already committed) patches do not solve the problems, MultiCategorization might be postponed to later versions in order to fully test the new features.
For more information on MultiCategorization, visit this thread in the forum.
DOM extension to use correct paths in JavaScript
Some javascripts, eg. the lightbox, need to know the path to the system and the entrypoint as well (which can be configured in the settings), otherwise they may fail in case of short urls being enabled. Since dynamic javascript creation might be a performance problem, some inline javascript is added to the pagevars to extend the DOM:
- document.location.entrypoint: will be set to what is configured to be the entrypoint
- document.location.pnbaseURL: will point to the result of pnGetBaseURL();
Any ideas on how to make his more unobtrusive are very welcome!
PostNuke Upgrade Distribution
In previous articles and posts, the term '.8 upgrade pack' was used to represent a full .8 package, including 3rd party modules, to upgrade to .8 from an existing .764 installation. However, the term 'upgrade pack' is not quite correct and misleading, because it implies to be an upgrade package with changed files only, while the main parts remain as-is. The transition between .764 and .8 requires a complete exchange of all files, so the so called upgrade package is a complete distribution.
Now it remains what modules should be in an upgrade distribution, to be able to fully upgrade an existing .764 installation, including new versions of 3rd party modules. These include Downloads 2.2, pnMessages, Polls 2.0, bbcode / bbsmile, Weblinks, EZComments and MultiHook at least. This might need some additional testing with certain versions also.
Core changes and additions in the .9 tree
Mark has already overhauled some core API methods and calls. All systems modules are now using the Renderer Class instead of pnRender. Also, a first pass has been committed in changing all pn* function calls to new object method calls. For example, pnModGetInfo is replaced with ModuleUtil::getInfo and pnSecGenAuthKey is replaced with SecurityUtil::generateAuthKey.
For those who did not know: A class pnCompat.php still includes most oldstyle API calls for backwards compatibility.
GetText and Default DB Charset
Bernd is progressing rapidly on integrating gettext in de development tree, and has added po-files for all core modules. The required PHP version for .9 has already been set to a minimum of 5.1.6, and since version 5.0, MySql supports different character sets and corresponding collating orders. To run an application in UTF-8 (unicode) it is not sufficient to change the character set for PN; we needed to set the database encoding (actually server and client) to UTF-8 as well.
A user who wishes to run his site in multiple languages, needs to decide the database encoding at installation time. The default is UTF-8, because the current iso-8859-1 is restricted to too few language combinations. UTF-8 is a 'no-worry' setting because it will work with any language (as long as it is UTF-8 encoded.
This change is $PNConfig['DBInfo']['default']['dbcharset'] = 'utf-8';
To cache or not to cache, that's the question
Also discussed on the devs-list is the current (and future) state of output caching within PostNuke. Why should any application repeat the same processing tasks on a item that hasn't changed?
Not caching anything is fine if one has got infinite resources to throw at a site (and even then there are limits). But in reality there are finite resources and you need to take steps to ensure that those resources are effectively used. One method for that is not wasting precious resources repeating the same tasks time after time.
The key is effective cache management. Currently we put too much load onto the module to handle it's own caching. Once you then
Generated on March 2, 2008.
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Test PostNuke 0.8 and Intraweb 2.0
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The website is regenerated automatically every hour, so the modifications and updates are not permanent. Now, it is very easy to test the Intraweb modules and PostNuke itself. In the website there are not yet integrated all the Intraweb modules. Only 4 of 15 are available, but we will add the others as soon as we have them available.
There is no excuse not to test the new PostNuke 0.8 or $newname 1.0, you need only to create a new account and begin with your tests.
Generated on March 1, 2008.
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Url rewriting on Postnuke 0.8
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Main principles of the mod rewrite
For information, the URL rewriting is a module that you can activated in your apache to rewrite the links of a site in order to simplify their reading.
The idea is that the Pn Team also thought that the mod rewrite was not necessarily available / activated on all types of servers (particularly on Windows servers). Indeed, the Postnuke team offers rewritings based on tips already heavily used in management systems like blogs.
Before you begin, here is the format of a link without rewriting.
without rewriting
index.php?module=Users&func=logout Index.php? Users & module = func = logout
URL rewriting without mod rewrite
This rewriting reproduced a "virtual" Folders system on your site, links look like this
URL rewriting without mod rewrite
index.php/Users/logout
In terms of mechanism, it is very simple, when your Web server receives a request for a link, it loads instinctively page "index.html". In this index.php, the parameters of the request are recovered via the header (you can look in "phpInfo" there is a field $ _SERVER [ 'REQUEST_URI'] which corresponds to this information).Then these parameters are interpreted , between the first two "/" is the name of the module, between the two others, the function name. Now Postnuke know the name of the module and function to launch.
You can pass parameters too, for instance, if you want to load a forum with id=2, the links will look like this
URL rewriting without mod rewrite
index.php/Forum/viewforum/forum:2
Note that the url rewriting uses ":" to represent the parameters in a url. So you can't pass variables like this "index.php?variable=filter:3". (be carefull if you are using Pagesetter and his filters system).
URL rewriting with mod rewrite
Optimizing the previous version
In the previous example, all links contained index.php ... but it's ugly, and functionally this file contains no
information useful to load the asked module.This trick is useful when you have no mod rewrite, but if one has an "mod rewrite enabled" server,you can use a "lighter" version of the previous rewriting without an "index.html"
Here is an example
URL rewriting with mod rewrite :Optimizing the previous version
/Users/logout
Be careful, if one of your pictures is written this way
test.png"> and you load the page /MyModule/main/. "/MyModule/main/test.png" which will be searched. Note that you can make a rewriting that redirect all links of the form "/*/*/*.(jpg | png | gif)" to "$ 3. (Jpg | png | gif)." (but it's ugly).
Mode file
This url rewriting is the classical version already used in previous versions of the cms, The rewrited links are lists of words (module name, the name of function) separated by dashes. Note that this version uses a large number of regular expressions rules to do the rewriting compared to the other one, which may increase the load of your server Web.
One example here ...
URL rewriting with mod rewrite : Mode file
module-Forum-viewtopic-topic-2903-start-0.html
Note that the "module" which one would have thought there's no point in it, is made for the support of the "old style" loading of modules.
URL rewriting customized
So here is the coolest feature, which allows you to customize the URL rewriting depending on the module you want to load. Just create a "encodeurl" function in your API module (pnuserapi) that takes as parameters, the information needed to create for output a fully customized rewrited link.
After, the loading of each page of the CMS, a "decodeurl" function in the API part of the module takes care to reformat the encoded url in a form understandable by the CMS.
You can find an example of the use of this method in the module "Pages" of values addons
Format of a encode and decode url
function pages_userapi_encodeurl($args)
function pages_userapi_decodeurl($args)
This feature is interesting because it allows us to have the hands on your url, not only before loading the page, but after loading this page, allowing you post-processing actions rather interessant.
This method allow you to
- put keywords in the url: (see Pages module)
- have a single version of your rewrited url : Indeed, through the post treatment you can recalculate the url and it does not conform to your requirements, you can redirect to the good link via a redirect 301 "Moved Permanently headers.
Use case of a url rewriting "no duplicate"
Notes: A small problem nevertheless for the use of this rewriting, which is limited to the type url "user". (more details here)
This article is a translation from this "how to" released on Postnuke-France
Generated on February 25, 2008.
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Intraweb project towards version 2.0
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that work correctly with version 0.764 of PostNuke and we have 4 modules adapted to 0.8 version. There is a website were you can test them (in English). These modules are:
iw_moodle: It allows to integrate Moodle (versions 1.8.x) into the PostNuke (version 0.8) with single sign on between the two programs.
iw_vhmenu: It makes possible to create a vertical or horizontal menu with a lot of configurable options. At the same time it is possible to choose the groups that are going to see the different menu items.
iw_webbox: With this module it is possible to show any HTML content into the web. In this link there is an example.
iw_main: It contains some functions and variables that are used in the Intraweb modules.
Very soon we are going to have a new module available for the version 0.8, but I'll explain this in some days
Generated on February 11, 2008.
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A Warm Welcome to Our Newest Member, Mateo Tibaquirá Palacios
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Welcome Mateo, tell us a little about yourself. Who are you,
where are you from, and what do you do?
My complete name is Néstor Mateo Tibaquirá Palacios, but I prefer to be called Mateo. I'm from Colombia, a very beautiful country with some horrible problems; balanced, eh? I live in Popayán, where I'm finishing Electronic & Telecommunications Engineer Studies with an emphasis in Telematics (Information and Communications Technology). I chose Telematics because I like to program. Growing up, I did not have a computer, and from the distance I hated the idea of using a command line console. Now, it's different; I love my Ubuntu with the Yakuake console; and Eclipse PDT rocks!
At the University, I discovered that I had sufficient skills to write software. I began programming in C++ and Java some time ag
Generated on January 26, 2008.
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Bug-Fixing Weekend - A Review
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started with 65 bugs and 20 patches. After a brief evaluation some of them were moved to .81 or .9 and we started fixing the rest.
Saturday afternoon we still had the number of 65 bugs - because the testers were as busy as the programmers. And even all through the Sunday this number followed us.
All in all we were able to fix ~50 bugs and we are down to 44 open bugs - some of them are partly feature requests and thus are postponed till later versions. The is no priority 5 bug - only 2 upgrade related priority 4 bugs are left. They are regarded as showstoppers and are assigned to Mark West who will fix them in the next few days. So if you want to test wour modules with .8 - pick up the latest SVN version.
While most programmers tried to fix .8 bugs some others worked on their modules: Marco Kundert is in his last throes of his work on pagemaster - a full port of pagesetter to .8 techniques. Jörn and I worked on the next version of "Content". It has pretty much grown but as Jörn fixed some issues in pnForms along the way, we can not release this version before we have either a new RC or a final of .8.
The team is currently discussing if we need another RC or if this is going to be the final. It is only a matter of weeks until we can use $newname publicly so we could release the final as $newname 1.0. The idea was to use the meantime for some further testing with a new RC. Any opinions on that
Generated on January 15, 2008.