News: XOOPS RC1 !

Posted by: onokazuOn 2002/1/2 2:05:00 13591 reads
Download Now! With the release of Xoops RC1, the Xoops team is pleased to announce the creation of a brand new Content Management System. This system was originally based off of PHPNuke 4.4.1 and MyPHPNuke 1.8.5. About 70 - 80 percent of the code has been totally rewritten from the ground up. We use object-oriented PHP throughout the whole package, thus the name XOOPS. For the upcoming final version, we are now working on XHTML1.0 validation, support for other databases namely PostgreSQL, and more enhanced modules. Our goal with Xoops is to create a system that will offer ease of use module developers and a full out of the box feature package for the end user. We spent sometime researching other CMS sites to see what some of the most requested modules and features are and have tried to implement them in this one package.

Oh God Another Nuke Fork, Why? While we believe that what the MPN folks are doing is great we felt the communication with the end-users was a little lacking, and the PostNuke team have built a fabulous and large community but we disagree over what should constitute a "core" content management system. We think our approach is geared more towards the average end-user than any of the other content management systems out there. For us, we think it's important to include as many modules as we can with our core package and then create an easy way for module developers to contribute other modules to the system. With Xoops a major part of our core package is a custom and fully supported forum and commenting system. Our forum module is of course swappable, but the one we include with our script is the one that we'll support. As well as the other modules that will be included with RC1 and our final package. Development Process Our development process will be fairly open, with some limits. We want to keep the core development team to a manageable number for the short term. So we want a large community of core system developers, but we'll eventually have to put some controls on it. At this point we don't know what those controls will be or even what the cut off number will be for core developers. Porting other *Nuke themes to Xoops is now a snap. So when you are developing themes for other systems, please remember how easy it is to port a theme to Xoops. We will post detailed instructions on how to do this in the coming days. Modules development will be completely open, and we will provide as much documentation as possible on how to develop modules for Xoops and strive to be as compatible with PN and PHPNuke as possible. Detailed instructions on porting scripts to Xoops will come in a few days. So again we ask php module developers to take a look at our script and consider making your modules available for our end users as well. Ok, you've told us the why and the who, but What is Your Core? Glad you asked. At the moment we feel our core system and features, as of RC1 consists of MODULES/BLOCKS In other systems, block admin is seen as an add-on. With Xoops, block administration is perhaps the most important feature of the site. With our blocks/modules, you can set the access rights by group, set any module in the block to left/right/center position and set your start page based on whatever module you choose. We see blocks as part of a module, or they can also become a module by itself. For example, "Lastseen" module contains only one block and no main contents, while "News" module includes news main contents, admin section, plus 4 types of blocks. This way, the structure looks very clean, and when we deactivate a module, all the relevant data/blocks will also be deactivated. Modules are deactivated/activated from the modules main menu. And when you activate a module, the change will automatically be reflected throughout the site, for example, main menu, search page, admin page, etc. Only activated modules are accessible by the users. In the coming weeks, we will be launching a listserve for Xoops users. Instead of having separate listserves that go all over the place and target different audiences. It's going to be one listserve. We hope it'll be a way for Module Developers, Developers, and Users to communicate with each other. For the time being, we don't want to have separate lists because we feel it categorizes the community and makes it hard to communicate with each other and. One community voice, one product will hopefully become our model. Our goal with modules is to create a system that is as "cross platform" as possible which we think we've achieved with our current release. Any PHP module or script can now be ported to Xoops fairly simply. We will include instructions on how to this in the coming days. USER ADMINISTRATION You can now create user groups and assign admin/access rights to each user group. A user can be a member of multiple groups. Now only a session id cookie is saved in client's PC. No more password, userid, username are saved locally. Also, if a logged in user does not come to site again for more than a specified duration of time (1hr by default), session will time out thus the user is automatically logged out. User can delete himself from his/her page (this is an optional feature for webmaster). When register, a user can choose his/her own password, and an activation key is sent to the user. The user must activate his/her account to be able to login. And admin can see who is not activated in admin main menu. Admins can ban users by their ip address or username. User Ranks/Posts is now applied not only to forums but also to story comments, poll comments, and other comments sections that will be added in the future releases (ex. links, downloads sections). Sometimes, the above statistics will not show the correct data, and whenever you feel the data is not correct, you can synchronize them with DB data by pressing a Synchronize button in Admin section. Admin Section has been reorganized with enhanced usability and look User account page has been cleaned up. NEWS Our news posting system uses the same easy to use interface throughout the entire site. It also includes a fix for the carriage return problem, so you no longer have to worry about insterting
tags in user articles. For our final release we are working on an article ordering system, which will make archiving older articles a little easier on the admin. News is now fully nestable topics, phpbb-like comments system. The system automatically creates dynamically generated nestable navigation structure. So for example you can now have Music - News - Reviews Technology - News - Reviews We hope to have an integrated Newsletter subscription system installed into the core for the final release. XOOPS FORUM We rewrote about 80 percent of the code for phpBB and this is the official forum for Xoops. Our forum is the only forum that combines the best features of phpBB and Phorum into one user friendly system. WEBLINKS Custom weblinks administration system featuring unlimited category depth, screen shots, and ratings. SECTIONS We are working on a new and improved document management system. That will give users the ability to post long form articles with chaptering ability into the special sections. It'll include global user ranks, phpBB like comment system, and ratings. STATS Enhanced stats module based on Visiteurs 2.0.1 from phpinfo.net. DOWNLOADS Customized downloads system featuring unlimited category depth, screen shots, and ratings.