Aha! I thought there should be some way of turning off user registration, but I'd looked in the Preferences (in the wrong part of them, apparently) and not seen it, so I was trying to find alternatives. Thanks!

A XOOPS site I set up a year or two ago for a client is suddenly being flooded with spambot registrations.

There's not much the spammers can do, because the site isn't actually particularly interactive at all - commenting is turned off, there are no forums, and the registration form isn't even visible since there's no point in allowing users to register - but it's still annoying.

I'm wondering if there would be any harm in simply removing register.php entirely, or at least renaming it so that it could be put back if they ever do decide to allow user registrations. New users could still be added via the admin, if they wanted to add accounts for contributors, but it would stop automated registrations, I would imagine.

Would that be OK? Or is there some other reasonably straightforward way to solve this?

I thought about that, but I'm not sure it fits with how they'd like it to work. They want to be able to have each contest on a separate page, with an intro describing it, the prizes (usually a ticket giveaway of some sort - it's a local entertainment site), etc. and maybe some pictures, and then the entry form at the bottom.

With a block (if I'm understanding this correctly, which I may not be), I could have an entry form in a little box by itself, but I don't know that I could have it appear within an article the way they want it.

The contest articles don't necessarily have to be in the same module as all the rest of the articles, but they'd probably find it easiest to manage if they were. So I'm hoping for some kind of news/articles module that accepts PHP, but I don't know if it exists...


Lynna

Is there any sort of article/content module that will allow bits of PHP code to be executed within articles?

The reason I ask is that a client who I built a XOOPS site for has a PHP script for managing contests that they used with a previous Movable Type site - it's not a MT plugin, it's a self-contained script that lets you set up contests of various sorts and define parameters for them, and then gives you a snippet of code (basically a PHP include statement) that you insert into any page where you want the entry form to appear. And they want to use this on their new sites.

Problem is, AMS and Content, the two main modules the site uses, both remove PHP from submitted articles, presumably for security reasons. Content won't even allow it in an external URL using PageWrap.

I can make a page with an entry form just as a freestanding PHP page, and wrap it in a XOOPS framework using a couple of include statements, but that doesn't leave the client, who is not all that technical, any easy way to edit it, and they need to be able to add and remove contests regularly.

I checked the Modules Repository to see if there was any sort of contest module already available for Xoops, but there doesn't appear to be.

So... is there any module available that will allow a PHP snippet such as the contest script generates to be embedded in an article? Or any other way anyone can think of to do this?

They're on XOOPS 2.0 now, but likely to be upgrading to 2.2 in the future so as to be able to use the FCK editor (since they're currently using Koivi and it's really buggy).


Thanks,

Lynna

OK, so it's not so much that there's anything horrifically wrong with XOOPS 2.2 as that it headed off in a different direction from the rest? Would it be feasible to use 2.2 if I made sure that any modules on it were compatible (i.e from the module packs available or others that said they were compatible -- I know News 1.44 is)? Or are there major bugs in it that are likely to cause problems even if I do make sure the modules are compatible?

I suppose another question is whether there will be any security updates for 2.2. I know most PHP scripts that are actively maintained get periodic updates as security holes are found and fixed -- do you know if 2.2 will be getting these, or only 2.0?

BTW, on that note, uploading images is a must for this site, and I don't think it constitutes a security risk given that the only people using the submit form will be the editors (it's an online magazine). So nobody below the webmasters level of privilege will be uploading anything.

Is there any way to install FCKeditor, in any form, with XOOPS 2.0? Preferably in such a way that it will work with News 1.44 and/or Magazine?

And if not... How bad is XOOPS 2.2? I know it has "NOT RECOMMENDED" all over it on the download page, but why exactly is that? What's wrong with it?

Right now, the one XOOPS site I've built is running 2.0, with AMS and the Koivi editor, but the clients I built it for hate it and are phoning me up on a daily basis yelling at me about how awful it is, so I really, really, REALLY need a new solution for them.

Basically, they need a WYWIWYG editor that doesn't choke on content that's copied and pasted from Word. FCKeditor says specifically on its web site that it can handle (and clean up!) content from Word, so it seems like the best choice, but I don't know if I can install it on the site they have now, or if I'd have to upgrade the site to XOOPS 2.2, and if I did that, would I be causing more problems than I'd be solving?

I developed a XOOPS site a few months ago for a client, which currently uses AMS with the Koivi editor, but the client is very unhappy with that combination (as detailed here).

I don't want to recap that topic, but basically, they don't to do more than very minimal editing online - they want to be able to do the bulk of their editing offline in Word and then just copy and paste it in. And yes, I know Word sucks, and they're beginning to realize it too, but it's still the industry standard Word processor and even if they stopped using it, all their writers (they're an online magazine) would still be submitting their articles as Word documents because it's what everyone else uses. (And no, they don't want to let the writers submit their articles directly online.)

Anyway, a number of people have suggested switching from AMS to News 1.44, because among other things it supports a variety of different text editors. So I've set up a test site with News 1.44 for them to try out, and indeed it does say in the preferences you can pick from six editors - DHTML, Compact, SPAW, htmlArea, Koivi and FCK. But it also says "If you have a 'simple' install (e.g you use only XOOPS core editor class, provided in the standard XOOPS core package), then you can just select DHTML and Compact."

What exactly does that mean? I just installed XOOPS (2.0.13.2) with the install script, and I suppose maybe that makes it 'simple', because when I try enabling the other editors, I just get no editing area at all. I searched online and was able to find FCK and SPAW and download them, but the docs make no reference to XOOPS - they seem to be designed for programmers who want to use them in their own programs, not people trying to use them with an existing CMS. So I have no idea how to install them so that they will work with the News module, and News doesn't appear to have any documentation of its own. Is there any kind of info on this available anywhere?

FCK looks like the best bet because it says specifically that it supports copying from Word and even cleans up Word's awful HTML automatically, but I have no idea how to make it work with News. Someone in another thread said they thought it only worked with XOOPS 2.2 (the one with the "Not Recommended!" warnings all over it...), but the News 1.44 supports it and is supposed to work with XOOPS 2.0.

All I know is, I need to get them some kind of alternative to AMS/Koivi, and soon, if I don't want them to demand I rebuild the site from scratch in a completely different CMS...

A few weeks ago, I finally finished my first XOOPS site, after a lot of headaches getting everything customized the way the clients wanted it. I didn't hear from them for a while and thought everything was OK, but then the complaints started, and now we are having a meeting tomorrow to discuss their issues with the site. I am expected to either be able to fix all these issues 100%, or rebuild the site from scratch in something other than Xoops, which they think is the source of all their problems.

Problem is, I am not experiencing *any* of the same problems! Every time I go there, the site looks fine. In any browser I've tried. Every time I log in, I have no problems. Every time I go to post or edit an article, everything goes fine. I am completely unable to reproduce a single one of the errors they say they are experiencing, and I have no clue how to fix an error I can't reproduce.


Specifically, they say that:

1. Every time they log into the admin, they have to log in twice. Apparently, this is a recent development. Nothing has been changed on the site to the best of my knowledge that would account for it. Has anyone else ever encountered this?

2. They say that some people can't load the site. I have not been able to get any more specific description of this, and possibly they haven't either from the people who've complained to them. They just say that, for some people, the site won't load. At all. Does anyone know what might be causing this? Are there some browsers XOOPS doesn't work in?

3. Apparently the top article on the home page disappeared at one point and they think it expired, despite the fact that none of the articles have an expiry date set. They say they had to repost the article for it to show up again. But when I went into AMS to look at the articles, that article showed the original publication date and number of revisions - it did not appear to have been freshly posted. I have no idea what the hell happened there. Any guesses would be welcome.

4. They hate both of the text editors available for AMS (standard and Koivi), with a passion. They refuse to use the standard editor because they don't want to have to deal with any code - it's got to be WYSIWYG. But they say Koivi is too slow and too buggy. They claim it takes over an hour just to copy and paste an article in from Word. I have no idea how or why it is taking them that long. I've had no problems with Koivi once I learned never to click the Preview button under any circumstances. The only other editor I've been able to find out about is Inbetween, and from the comments on the module page it sounds really buggy. Plus it sounds like it would take major surgery on the site to be able to get it to work. Are there any other alternatives? Note that they have to be able to copy in articles from Word and have the Word formatting (which is apparently in HTML) stay intact. They're very adamant on this.

5. They say that frequently, the changes they try to make to articles in AMS don't take and they have to make them over and over again. I asked if they're remembering to click one of the revision options before submitting, since that's the only cause I've ever run into of changes not taking, and they insist they have. Again, I can't reproduce this error. Has anyone else encountered it?


Now, I'm aware that it's possible that some of these problems exist, as we used to say in tech support, between chair and keyboard. The two people who are predominantly working on articles are *not* very computer-literate. They need something that is basically idiot-proof, and maybe XOOPS isn't it (though it certainly seems easy to use to me!). I may not be able to convince them tomorrow to stick with Xoops. But if I can come up with any possible fix for any of these problems, it will increase my chances. Does anyone have any ideas?


Technical specs on the site:

URL:http://www.juicystuff.ca
Xoops version: XOOPS 2.0.13.2
Theme: modified version of default theme
PHP Version: 4.3.10
MySQL Version: 4.1.14-Debian_3-log
Server software: Apache/1.3.33 (Unix) DAV/1.0.3 mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 mod_gzip/1.3.26.1a PHP/4.3.10 mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7e
Module used for most content: AMS 2.4.1 (with Koivi editor)

Ooh, OK, that does sound cool! Sorry I misunderstood. I will definitely check that out.

My impression of TinyMCE being IE-only was based on trying it in a Mambo site I created early last year, but I guess a lot can change in that time.

Hmmm... I checked it out, but if it's based on TinyMCE, doesn't that only work in IE? I'd really prefer an editor that's not browser-specific - I think at least one of the two people who will be putting most of the articles on the site uses Firefox and possibly both of them.

Also, I'm a little wary that three different image managers will make it too complicated for them. Basically, this is an online magazine, and the two editors will be uploading most of the articles. Neither of them are all that computer-literate, so I need to keep it as easy to use as possible.

The main reason I switched it to Koivi in the first place was so that they didn't have to remember the extend tag the default editor needs, and I figured the WYSIWYG aspect would also make it easier for them. Though as it turns out they do pretty much all their formatting in Word and just copy and paste it into the editor - apparently when you copy and paste from Word, or at least their version of it (but not mine), it includes HTML for the formatting. So I need something really simple and easy to use for them.

And it doesn't appear to be the Word HTML that's messing with this, at least as far as I can tell. That was actually my first thought, but it doesn't look like it is...