WOX (World of XOOPS) Newsletter # 50 (September 2012)

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Please help us spread the word about XOOPS!! .

If you are a happy XOOPS user, let the world know - please blog about XOOPS, share your experiences with others, rate and review us on SourceForge and other Websites. We need to let the world know about XOOPS!!!

And if you're not happy with something in XOOPS, please let us know so we can fix it and improve! Better yet - help us fix it and improve it!

Remember - XOOPS is powered by YOU!!!!

01. Donations

If you like the XOOPS system, and would like to give something in return, you can make a donation to the XOOPS Foundation! Simply use the XOOPS Donation System and use your PayPal account or your Credit Card to donate .

As mentioned above, your donation will be used to cover the cost of our dedicated server, and to promote and advance the use and development of the XOOPS system. The XOOPS Foundation is a registered not-for-profit organization in the USA, dedicated to promote XOOPS! All donators will get the Friend of XOOPS rank here on this website. Thanks to all the Friends of XOOPS for their donations and continued support!

Donations we've got since last newsletter in August 2012:

$10 Anonymous (Sept. 4)
$100 James Kahler: (Sept. 2)

Thank you very much for your support!

02. New XOOPS developments

Current Releases

XOOPS 2.5.5 Final
Modules working with XOOPS 2.4.x (Babylon by XOOPS)

03. Team Reports

In 2010 we've re-introduced monthly Team Reports from our XOOPS Teams.

Core Development Team

Work continues on XOOPS 2.6.0, with the team publishing the Roadmap:

XOOPS 2.6.0 Alpha 1 has been released for testing

Roadmap for XOOPS 2.6

You can follow the development on XOOPS SVN, or you can subscribe to our SVN mailing list to receive updates.

Documentation Team

- Presentation "OOP Adventures with XOOPS"

Module Team

- Several new modules have been updated to XOOPS 2.5.5 Admin GUI. We are slowly getting closer to release of Basic Module Pack
- first modules have been updated for XOOPS 2.6.0

Theme Design Team

- New themes below

Community Coordination/Support Team

Standard maintenance of the Website, and keeping it current.

International Support Team

For list of existing Support Sites, please visit our International Support page. To create a local XOOS Support Site, see Support Site Guidelines. If you would like to start and maintain a local XOOPS Support site, which is a lot of fun and is helping XOOPS by spreading our great CMS to your area and language, you can apply for official status, by using this form (login required).

XOOPS on Facebook: join the main XOOPS group on Facebook

Communication/Marketing Team

WOX newsletter, keeping press informed about XOOPS, additional PR on:

CMS Report
CMS Critic

04. XOOPSers of the Month

Our "XOOPSer of the Month" Award is given to XOOPS members who show extraordinary dedication to XOOPS, and go the extra mile for XOOPS. Sometimes they do something spectacular, but most of the time they just do something everyday, but by doing it day-in and day-out, they make a BIG DIFFERENCE in life of XOOPS community. And we thank them for that!!!

This month, we would like to recognize Cedric Montuy (black_beard) from France, for his work on TCPDF updates, and his contributions to XOOPS France.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I was born in the north of France, in a small town named Armentieres. I grew up in a city calling Hazebrouck still in northern France. After a few moves, I landed in southern Quercy. It is a beautiful region in the southwest of France. I live in the countryside, near a small village called Castelnau-Montratier.

How long have you been programming?

I program since I was 12 years old, I am 37 years old now, so it has been 25 years since I program. I started programming on Amstrad 464 by learning BASIC, then through my studies in electronics, I learned machine language and assembler. Since then, I learned C, Pascal, PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, BASH, and other languages that fell into a little obsolescence. But my favorite is the PHP.

What is your expertise?

I have a lot of experience in marketing and especially programming. Sometimes I contribute to the Debian project. I'm good at securing networks and servers. In my work, I developed a lot of APIs, mobile applications, and I work on SEO semantic. Especially, I like having challenges in software programming.

What got you to XOOPS?

I was looking for a CMS, I've tried several and I ended up adopting XOOPS.

What do you like most about XOOPS?

I like XOOPS for the flexibility in object-oriented design, stability and security of the platform.

In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why?

I contributes to XOOPS in several ways :
- I have created several modules for my clients. At the end of the year, I'm going to release some modules under a free license to XOOPS community.
- frxoops.org administrator, I am committed to revitalize and restructure the site.
- I test some modules and make corrections with the test team to CESAG.

You've been helping with many modules, incl. the TCPDF porting to XOOPS, in addition to helping the French XOOPS community. What are the biggest challenges and opportunities that you see for XOOPS?

XOOPS is good CMS, but it has not evolved with the new standards and new technologies as fast as its competitors. Progress has been made to make up for lost time since last year but it has been delayed. XOPS must quickly adapt to new standards (HTML5/CSS3, etc ...), new technologies (smartphone, tablet, ...), and prepare for the future (web 3.0).

If you could add one feature to XOOPS, what would it be?

I am currently developing a "XOOPS modules download platform" to download and install XOOPS module directly without going through the FTP (kind that exists on Debian or Eclipse). As soon as I finish developing this module, I would put at the disposal of the XOOPS community.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of?

My first site, it was 10 years ago (100% HTML) Since then I have come a long way.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding?

my family, walks in the forest, nature, zen ambiance

You favorite dish and drink?

I love spaghetti bolognese, pizza houses, and lasagna bolognese. And to drink, I prefer to drink plain water.

What about movies and music?

Movies: The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Gladiator and Braveheart.
I listen to all kinds of music except Rap and R&B

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say?

Learn to live in harmony with yourself.
Be happy and go after yourself

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why?

Anywhere and anytime, as long as the place is in harmony with nature and it is quiet

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why?

I always wanted to meet the great love that I've found 12 years ago in my wife. So now I have no preference - I meet people that fate makes me cross and I enjoy every moment

05. XOOPS Innovation Award

Our XOOPS Innovation Award is given to people who create something very unique and very innovative for XOOPS! We are clear that XOOPS can only succeed, when we push the limits of our creativity, imagination, and innovation to "infinity and beyond" . And therefore we would like to recognize people who create this "WOW!" effect, when we see what they've done. The XOOPS Innovation Award is not a monthly award, i.e. theoretically, there might be a month where we won't give one, but we certainly hope that this will never happen

This month, we would like to recognize Martin Logan (playsome) from UK for his work on the Whitlawburn Community Resource Centre website.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I am from Glasgow in Scotland and that is where I currently live.

How long have you been programming?

I've been coding in HTML and CSS for over 8 years, I am more of a front end coder but I do dabble in PHP sometimes if I have to modify something.

What is your expertise?

My expertise is in HTML and CSS and front end design

What got you to XOOPS?

Back in 2004 I was wanting to build a website as a hobby, I did not know anything about CMS’s and at that point I didn’t know much about building websites so I needed a CMS that was easy to use and customizable, I tried a few different CMS but ultimately I stuck with XOOPS as it was the easiest for me to use and customize. That original website I built with XOOPS got very popular (a Michael Jackson fansite) and I have stuck with XOOPSever since for any project that requires a CMS

What do you like the most about XOOPS?

Its ease of use and how easy it is to customize themes and templates even with limited knowledge of HTML/CSS, I haven't found a CMS that is as easy to modify as XOOPS is and I think that it's one of XOOPS' great strengths.

Your recently redesigned Website for Whitlawburn Community Resource Centre looks very impressive. What was the main goal for the design?

The main goal for the redesign was to make a responsive website that looked good on a mobile device. Being a community based charity, it is essential that we can communicate with as wide a range of people as possible, as more and more people browse the web on mobile devices, it was important to create a website that was viewable on a wide range of devices, thanks to responsive design and the power of XOOPS templating, we now have a great looking desktop website and a great looking mobile website without the need for two separate applications.

What was your most important learning from working on this Website?

I learned a few things from working on the website, I learned a lot more about responsive design and HTML5. For me working on any new project is a learning experience as each new project has it’s own challenges, for example with the redesign I had rewrite module templates to use divs instead of tables for layout so getting all that working nicely was a learning experience.

If you could add one feature to XOOPS, what would it be?

Definitely URL rewriting in the core.

What is your major achievement in programming that you're most proud of?

Probably this recent redesign, it was a challenge for me to turn a fairly large website into a responsive site for mobile and modify a lot of templates. I am pleased that it turned out well.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding?

Playing video games and guitar

You favorite dish and drink?

My favorite dish is probably pizza and my favorite drink is of course Scotland’s other national drink Irn Bru, which is a soft drink.

What about movies and music?

I like mostly sci-fi and comedy movies and as for music anything rock, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai and of course anything by Michael Jackson.

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say?

Everyone just be cool to each other.

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why?

I would probably live sometime in the future, anywhere in the world would be fine because hopefully in the future the world will be a better place.

Congratulations to all of our Winners. Starting last year, all Winners will receive a free book of their choice from O'Reilly. Also a free copy of PHP Storm from JetBrain.