WOX (World of XOOPS) Newsletter #7

While 2007 was quite eventful (see our first ever XOOPS Annual Report 2007), as you could see from our Plans for 2008, we have quite ambitious year ahead of us, and we'll need all the help from the whole XOOPS Community to make them reality. But we are confident that together, we'll be able to make it.

New XOOPS developments:

XOOPS 2.0.18.1 Released
XOOPS 2.2.6 RC released
XOOPS 2.3 is being worked on - check out the Alpha 2 code
XOOPS goes PHP5
dev.xoops.org has been reinstalled and is being tested, before it will be officially open again.
Xoops documentation for developer

AWARDS/Recognitions

The last few months were very exciting. We've got three major recognitions:

Selected as Top 3 CMS by Adobe Edge

5 Stars from Germany's CHIP

2007 INFO Award in Brazil

showing that XOOPS is finally gaining the recognition around the world, that it deserves. We are confident that with release 2.3 and then 3.0 XOOPS will secure a permanent place among top Content Management Systems (CSM).

We are also happy that today, April 7th, 2008, XOOPS was ranked as the #30 project on SourceForge, out of 173,885 Registered Projects.

XOOPSer of the Month

This month we would like to recognize JAVesey, our main Forums Moderator, and a BIG help. John spends countless hours helping XOOPS users, directing them to the right solutions.

John, thank you very much for everything that you do for XOOPS!!! You help is very much appreciated.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?
I'm originally from a village called Disley, which is about half-way between Manchester and Buxton, Derbyshire. I now live in Cardiff, South Wales. I came here to University in 1983 and have been here ever since. I'm married and have two lively young boys to cope with

How long have you been programming?
Programming? Wassat?

The first programs I wrote were in Fortran IV on a VAX VMS whilst at Uni. Then absolutely nothing at all until I got into websites about 10 years ago. In truth, I do very little programming at all, although I have recently bought a copy of "Learning PHP & MySQL" and am working my way through that.

What is your expertise?
I'm not a computer/php/code professional at all. By profession I'm a Chemist and I specialise in Air Quality/Health from a regulatory perspective.

What got you to XOOPS?
I coach a junior football (i.e. soccer) team and the team's website is a XOOPS site. I saw it, looked about the web for details and stumbled upon http://www.xoops.org. I started building my own XOOPS site in the autumn of 2006 and this went "live" at the start of 2007 - http://www.llanmon.org.uk/. The theme used is an adaptation of the Black2 theme from http://2bcool.net/. I merged it with a well-known XOOPS theme so that the bottom blocks work and changed a few of the graphics. I call it "Cool2BeBlackHue" which tells you which themes it's made from

If anyone wants it they can contact me!

What do you like the most about XOOPS?
I like the http://www.xoops.org community best, everyone was very helpful when I was asking some rather elementary questions in the beginning. Like all communities, there are the occasional arguments and these can be depressing at times, but by and large everyone "rubs along okay" for most part.

As far as the code goes, I like the permissions system and the fact that there's always more than one way to do something.

In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why?
I guess that I contribute by giving my time to the community, moderating the Forums and trying to point folks in the right direction for modules and solving problems. It's for others to say whether my time is well spent!

What you you major achievement in programming that you're most proud of?
Programming? Wassat?

The only thing that I've done, apart from the theme, was to make a very minor hack to xcgal to allow keywords to be entered when uploading more than one picture. Don't think I broke anything doing it, so that's an achievement!!

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding?
My website gives the game away........bellringing!! That's church bells rung in the "English style", i.e. full-circle ringing. It's mainly a UK thing, but there are towers in the USA, Australia and some of the other former colonies (not being provocative, honest!), too.

My other passion is motorbiking.

You favorite dish and drink?
Curry washed down with a cold beer. End of!

What about movies and music?
My favourite movie is Bladerunner (the original version rather than the Director's Cut), but I do like all the James Bond stuff too.

As for music, too much to list - everything from Frank Sinatra to Opera. I love anything that I can play my air guitar to or sing in the shower - and that usually ends up with "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin. So cool.

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say?
Make the most of your life, See things that you want to see and do the things that you want to do when you have the chance. Don't spend your life pursuing money to the exclusion of everything else - you can't take it with you.

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why?
This is the hardest one of all........the truth is that I can't decide. Long ago we had more simple lives but there were wars, sickness and disease. Now we live longer and can do more but we're ruining things for future generations.

So I'll vote for "Wembley Stadium when England won the World Cup"!

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why?
Can I meet two people at the same time? George Bush and Tony Blair so that I can tell them what I think.

New/Updated Modules:

X-Torrent 1.32 - Final Release
WF-Channel V2.02 Full Released
MYQUIZ 3.0 in development
X-Soap 2.3
Article Management System (AMS) 2.42 FINAL!
MatchDart 1.5
Classified Ads 1.1 RC1 Security Release
x-Cake 1.1 (CakePHP for Xoops)
Content 1.0
XPETITIONS module
XoopsLifeType 1.0.2 RC
CBB 4.0 Alpha Release
MakePayment v0.62
xf guestbook 2.5 unofficial edition
Yogurt Social Network 2.9 BETA
Releas of umfrage 1.0
Xoops*Visit v1.0
Xoops*Hack v1.2 RC
News 1.56