As I'm building my first major module, I have to (as a result of the project it is tied to) document everything, comment all code, log all hours, etc. A "Diary of a Developer" if you will. You can see said log here:

http://www.felocity.org/archives/cat_netproject.php

As I get more into the project, the posts will probably become much more detailed. What looks clean and usable I will then port back over here courtesy of my two best friends, copy and paste.

[Edit:] Oh, and the forums are so very much your friend here. A good week of lurking, searching, and reading, and you will find most everything has been discussed to some degree. Everyone is really good about including code examples too.

And so, a few hours later it is done.

SymantecAlert v 1.0

Your basic little configurable virus data module.

Uck, that's a mouthful. Incidentally, I forgot for a while hope to set options for blocks. I will probably come back here ot the wiki and write something on ModuleConfig settings and block $options and why/how they are different.

Anyway, about that module...
http://www.felocity.org/files/xoops_2.0.5.x/symantecalert.zip

Will probably post to downloads too once I get some feedback.

A slightly related vein that may be helpful.
Symantec AV Research has moved to a JavaScript printout that looks like this:

<script src="http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/js/vir.js"></script>
<script src="http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/js/tools.js"></script>
<script src="http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/js/advis.js"></script>
<script src="http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/js/vir_display.js"></script>
<script>
var symSshow = '0';
var symBORDcolor = 'ff0000';
var symLmax = '12';
var symBACKcolor = 'black';
var symFONTcolor = 'ffff00';
var symLINKcolor = 'ffffff';
var symTshow = '0';
symDisplay();
</script>

The three javascript variables are easily overridden and can be tied to your theme's CSS. If you need some help getting this working, let me know and I'd love to help. I use something really similar to this on an Intranet site since all updates are then handled by the 3rd party. Just be sure to keep on top of their site in case they change addresses or something like that.

~J

[Edit] For reference, variables are:
symSshow - show search box (1 = yes, 0 = no)
symBORDcolor - border color of symantec box
symLmax - number of "Latest Threats" to display
symBACKcolor - background color for box
symFONTcolor - font color for box
symLINKcolor - link color inside of box
symTshow - show latest tools (1 = yes, 0 = no)

[EditEdit] I think I might do this now, my programmers instinct has kicked in. Let's see what we can make happen.

I would check Table xoops_modules to see if the module was partially loaded. While still in development of a few modules myself, I haven't seen how gracefully ARMS exists when it fails its install. I would check your tables though, and drop xoops_arms* and then make sure arms wasn't loaded into your module table.

Hope this helps!

What does everyone use for their coding / html authoring? Personally I use Textpad (textpad.com) since it has pretty good syntax hilighting as far as plain text editors go. However, it sometimes doesn't quite color the PHP right. I also use Macromedia Dreamweaver for quick and dirty first-generation pages. On a Mac, I have never found something I am happy with, so I always fall back on Simpletext, or log into a unix box and go with vi.

What does everyone else use for their web site wheeling and dealing?

You can cut down on the clutter in your Blocks screen by turning off Block Access Rights (System Menu -> Groups -> Modify) A group that doesn't have access to a block will not even have the choice of the block being visible on the Blocks page. I use this to cut down on a lot of my clutter, the only person who has all the blocks on the Blocks page then is the webmaster (who sees all by default).

Hope this helps!

I work with people from the Pacific US to Europe. To make sure everything was working, I asked my provider (who uses a cluster server) which server is responsible for timestamping and dating. While there are redundant data centers elsehwere in the US, the time is handed out by the server in the Atlantic US. I set the system wide time zone as such (System Admin -> General Settings -> [Server Timezone]), and then left [Default Timezone] to GMT. This has fixed most time issues on the site.

Didn't seem to work. I am getting a feeling something in XOOPS is overridding the override. -_-

Incidentally, on wrapped content, using $xoopsOption['show_rblock']= 1; when the block's display isn't set on "all pages" also doesn't seem to be working. It's a strange thing.

Thanks! Eventually I am going to move the groupware backend (for admins to work on releases), the BitTorrent Tracker, and the IRC bot things into modules, but that requires time that I am unrelentlessly throwing at the groupware module. :)

I'm having a similar problem where I want to drop all my right blocks on say, the forum, but on all other pages (including a few that are currently just wrapped with the XOOPS mainfile.php, header.php, and footer.php) the right blocks also vanish. Adding $xoopsOption['show_rblock'] = 1; to the wrapped pages didn't seem to do the trick either. I am guessing there is some other way to do it, but I can't think of one offhand.