Probably the most important discussion of all, is the Core roadmap. Kazu and a few others are continually striving to enhance the Core, make XOOPS faster, more Object Oriented and better serving the module developers.

Kazu has been working on XOOPS 2.1 Core for some time now, and he's implementing the following features/changes:
- rewrite of the kernel, so it is more object oriented and faster.
- added a global category class.
- added TrackBack support.
- dynamic user profile.

In my personal opinion we should look at language management, the caching system and the administration interface.

Please tell us what your wishes are, and how you see them in the core.

Herko

Hi Herko,
I'm also very interested in this multilingo thing. Now I have only two languages, but in the future maybe more.
If it is possible I would like to have it all in one database, because when I want more then one database I have to pay more to my host company. More databases means to me also more work, because I have to make my own backups (the host doesn't do that on a regular base)
2) I would like to have a possibility to include html files without problems. Now I have to try many modules, none of them fits my needs. From what I've read on this site it seems to be difficult, but anyway that's what I want.
3) A deeper look into security issues on one hand, making it easier for users (like autologin) on the other hand.
4) An extension of the groups right system, giving the admin more flexibility.

Aloha

My wishlist:

- Multiple templates on categories and/or articles/downloads etc.

- To make the articles/whatever more searchengine-friendly (ex. the mod_rewrite hack)

- Multilingual features

- Well documented functions (too early to mention?)

- XML-Export of content

- WYSIWYG-editing as part of the core working on different browsers

- Content available for offline-browsing

- Extending XOOPS by adding userdefined forms

greetz
francis

Hi Herko,

I am looking forward to the first release of 2.1!

Since I am currently working on a couple of custom modules and I see a lot of XOOPS users also working on customizations.

For that reason one of the most essential items on the wishlist is a good documentation on the changes in XOOPS 2.1 in comparison to 2.05.

With kind regards,

Martijn

Hello,

What's the dynamic user profile?

For me I'd like more stuff for the users to have to play with. Buddylists, bookmarking (for news, forum postings within XOOPS), group mail, sentmail/deleted mail.

All the usual portal stuff I suppose.

Andrew

I'll categorize mine based on what area it effects.

Administration

- A smarty based admin area (This would allow theme creators to also create backend themes). Not super important but the sooner we make the switch the better.

- When changing a block setting, return the user to the last group setting they were on. It's really frustrating changing something for a group who is last in the list, make one change to a block and your back viewing the first in the list. You then have to select the group again and again every time you make a change to a block.

- A better DHTML editor. I have to give a hats off to the boys at Invision, their posting editor allows you to actually highlight a word and press the button to bold, hyperlink etc. But it's not a big clunky WYSIWYS either. Which I think is perfect for things like forums, news and so on. However I do agree with the above that XOOPS should also have a WYSIWYG editor available for use also. Catz editor is pretty good but it'd by nice to have a universal editor like that in the core... but I guess this is more a module need then administration.

- An easy back-up system. Something that would back-up both DB and web files and package them in gzip file for DL.

Modules

- I'll just mention the WYSIWYG again incase no one read my above rambling.

- Documentation. I know this is in the works but it's really a must. Right now I tend to find functions by looking at others code but I'm sure there's some beautiful functions lying around no one uses cause they don't know they’re there.

- A url rewrite function. As someone mentioned above, a function which allowed for URL write and could be used both from PHP AND smarty. This way when you link something it can be rewritten in a universal way. Just something like:

$myts->urlrewrite("My word or image", "http://mysite.com/modules/wfsections/article.php?articleid=1", "target", "title", "option");

and the above would produce something like

http://mysite.com/articles/articleid/1/

Which mod rewrite could then revert back to the orig. URL. Perhaps there's a better way but you get the idea. THis is key item I think to both SEO and moving one step closer to separating us from the other CMS's out there.

btw, I think skalpa already has an idea similar to this in the works.

Themes

The biggest thing for me as a theme developer is being able to tell from within smarty what module the user is currently viewing. I hacked this for my site but to have it built in would be great (And not all that difficult). Having this allows you to theme differently for each module by using different CSS files based on the module name, and even use different images.

I have lots more but my fingers hurt from typing this much.

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WFSection 2 will be a giant leap forward about all this.
Catz made a recent post about it, maybe you can tell us what features you really need, and we can talk about it there.

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We do you mean here ? If it is the possibility to create custom content types, you'll have to wait, but I hope we're going in the good direction.

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Well, I don't agree 100% with that one. However, being able to change its appearance is needed, so I choosed an intermediary option.
1) The admin is a sensitive part and messing with it is not good. So changing the admin layout should be a bit restricted.
2) When using smarty, the content is sent once everything has been processed, while in the admin it is sent without buffering (so you see things as they are done), and this is an useful feature.
So: I created a way to allow people to customize the admin interface by making a small php script (one function for the header, one for the footer).
However I can't tell you to get it already coz it requires a new config option to be added, so that means it wouldn't work with the actual versions (and in fact, talking about this reminds me of the fact I haven't sent the changes in CVS).
Also, having the outer layout non-smarty enabled doesn't mean you can't use smarty for what's in the "content zone", but it will be to module writers to choose it (in fact they can already...).

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200% agreed. I've just made a post on the coreteam site so say how I think this is an important point. And anyway, waiting for that, the 2.1 release cycle will evolve. There will be an alpha version quite early, and incremental updates. That means we'll be able to tell about new features as they arrive, and maybe this can help making a better documentation in time.
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Actually, it's still in my mind. But the day I manage finding the way not sleeping anymore, you'll have it
Seriously, as 2.1 won't be here right now, consider it's planned for it.
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It's already there !
Check <{$module.directory}> and <{$module.name}>
Also, theme writers may want to try "Smarty debug" mode in PHP or insert <{debug}> in their templates to see all the defined variables.
In short: this means we really need a technical documentation.

Skalpa.>

Well I think XOOPS is great the way it is, but personally I'd like to see

TOTALLY REVAMPED SECTIONS or a SEPARATE DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

That allows for Unlimited Categories, User Uploads, Chaptering, and unlimited category.

DEACTIVATING READS FROM ADMIN SYSTEM

I've been lobbying for this for several versions now, hopefully we'll get it for 2.1. But I think it's important
that site admins are able to activate or deactivate, or
set group permissions on the Read/Views in the forums and
articles. I don't think it looks professional to have the number of "reads" on display, and if you are just starting a new site, and people see that your articles or forums are getting (3) page views, I don't think that incourages participating. Like I would like writers and maybe the pr folks that I deal with to see the Reads/Views, but I don't want anonymous or regular readers to see that information.

BUILT IN USER POINTS SYSTEM

One of the most popular features on my site was the old User Points Mod, which doesn't work in the 2x Series. This feature would be completely customizable, allow us to assign points based on posting activity, and allow site admins to randomly change the start and end dates, etc...
The system already tracks all this activity, and we already have to the Top Members block, it's just a matter of adding more functionality to it.

UNLIMITED HEADLINE CHARACTERS

Characters in the headlines need to be unlimited. I hate being forced to change my headlines because they won't fit into the headline box.

THEMES

The only thing I'd like to see with the themes is to create 3 or 4 standard theme packages (A Corporate Package, a Magazine Layout Package, and?), but allow site admins to customize the colors, fonts, button navigation, etc., from within Xoops. Similar to how PHP BB and other apps do it. I think this "simple" feature will really open up XOOPS Themes to non-designers.

The ability to set different theme sets based on Categories.
Similar to how the old PN did it. I haven't used PN since the first few versions, so I don't know if they still have this feature, but it is very usefull for distinguishing sections.

CATEGORY/SUB CATEGORY GROUPING AND BETTER URL PATHS

I would like a way to really properly group all the various
news categories. So for instance I would like to have
users click Movies in the Navigation menu, and then have a
dedicated Page (with its own theme) for Movies. And then on that Home Page you have all the latest Movie Information nicely organized by Interviews, Movie Reviews, Movie News, etc.... And then if Someone clicks DVDs, or Technology we would be able to have something similar. As it is now, there's no way to do that.

Better URL Paths, that will make it easier for other sites to automatically index our contact. So if we tell someone that all our Movie Reviews are under Movie Reviews, all someone would have to do is link or write search scripts that pull content from "www.yoursite.com/moviereviews " right now the url path is really messy, and it's one of the reasons that my partner Google News, MRQE and other such indexing services is having trouble indexing our content, because it's properly categorized in the URL string.

MENU NAVIGATION

Automatic DHTML Menu Generation and the ability to put navigation on either the side or a top - drop down system (ala MS)

META TAGGING

A cleaner, more intuitive metatagging system. A way for the module to automatically generate metatags based on the actually documents, and not the static catch all way that it's doing now.

MAIL USERS AND REAL NEWSLETTER FUNCTIONALITY

I would like to get a Newsletter or Mail Users function that actually works. To this day I still can't get the Mail Users thing to work all that well. I would like to be able to send out a weekly newsletter with the option of sending it in HTML or Text format, Send A Specific Page (i.e. homepage, or maybe a special non-linked custom designed newsletter page, etc...) And then have automatic opt-out process.

A Quiz/Contest Module

A contest module would be pretty cool. A way to randomly select winners based on correct answers, after they post a certain number of times.

Win free stuff, visit us online at
http://www.eclipsemagazine.com

My 2 cents:

- Easy customization of main menu (add new itms, or reorder).
- Incorporation of html and php pages.
- Image Manager don't show images more than certain size, for quik load.

Xoops is great!

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Gotcha. Well there should be a little more flexability then there is now is all. Whether it's smarty or some other route.

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Might have been Preditor then.

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See!! I went and made my own hack cause I had no clue it was there. Are you sure it was there in 2.0.3? I swear I did a smarty debug on each module looking for any current variables I could use and saw none. Is it possible this was only added in 2.0.5 after sending my hacks to Catz?