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pnMeeting 2007: The Videos are Online   (News)

Of course we recorded all presentation but sadly the software wasn't able to capture the desktops which leaves us with much less informative videos. But maybe you can nevertheless gather some information from it or at least feel the atmosphere of this years meeting.

Mark West's Keynote
Jørn Wildt explains pnForms
Robert Gasch on CategoryUtil
Robert Gasch on DBUtil and the Object Model in .8
Mark West: Porting an Open Source Template to PostNuke .8
Jørn Wildt Proposes New Content Module
Albert Perez Monfort introduces the "Intraweb" project
Mark West talks about .8/.9
Axel Guckelsberger on EasyDist, EasyInstaller & the ModuleStudio
Joseph on Beat Boxing

We hope you enjoy the presentations anyway ;-)

Generated on September 18, 2007.

Packaging PostNuke - An Overview of Distribution Methods   (News)

distribution will come empty, ready for you to expand. There will also be a greater sense of structure to the PostNuke distribution.

Having said that, there will also be disadvantages. The main PostNuke distribution will have nothing other than the basic framework to run a site. You won't have any of the old content modules, hook modules, or anything to allow you to simply download and use PostNuke. This is where the targeted distributions come in. On PostNuke.com, we will be distributing a set of targeted distributions aimed at different audiences. These targeted distributions won't necessarily contain just core modules, third party modules can also be included. How third party modules could be included and what quality control measures would be implemented is still under debate, as having code not directly maintained by the Core Development team in the official distributions brings its own problems.

So what sort of distributions could we see? Well, there's plenty of scope for distributions of all kinds. For example, some categories could be:

Content Management Solution
Business Portal
Community Site
Blogging Tools
Gaming
Demo Distribution

This list can be extended as necessary.

Of course, the targeting doesn't just stop at modules. We'd like to see a new set of themes in the core distribution, and these can also be targeted. In addition to a few core themes, each distribution could have several themes intended for the specific audience of the category of site chosen.

So, as necessary, each different distribution can include forums, content modules, a helpdesk, blogging utilities, the list is endless. And, thanks to this new approach to distributing PostNuke, users should find it easier to start off with PostNuke. Rather than downloading the core distribution now, seeing some content modules with some obvious gaps in functionality, much of what a user could need for a specfic type of site should already be available to them. Furthermore, the demo distribution can include a selection of modules that best give an idea of the huge functionality PostNuke provides, hopefully attracting more and more people to experience the power of a PostNuke website.

None of this is set in stone, but this article should give you a fair idea of what is to come and how the distributions will

Generated on November 20, 2005.

SQL-injection in module Download (PN0750)   (News)

on text:

- --- 1. SQL-injection in module Download ---

Given SQL-injection not critical since exploit works only under rights of the manager (mysql)

The Problem in file "modules/Downloads/dl-viewdownload.php".

- --------
if ($show!="") {
$perpage = $show;
} else {
$show=$perpage;
}
...
$result =& $dbconn->SelectLimit($sql,$perpage,$min);
- --------
varible $perpage.

$perpage at request is not checked. If substitute in parameter $show (amount element on page), for instance, "0" or "-3" or "asdf" or anything bad, importance will not is checked

Decision:

Install the new version PostNuke 0.760 Если you do not be going to to move to version 0.760, that decision following:

in file dl-viewdownload.php, in function viewdownload(), viewsdownload() copy code:
if ($show!="") {
$perpage = $show;
} else {
$show=$perpage;

on following code

if ( (isset($show)) && is_numeric($show) && ($show >= 0) ) {
$perpage = $show;
} else {
$show = $perpage;
}

In the event of invalid parameter will is issued importance by default, taken from deskside (thanks TAndrew)

or following decision - in file dl-viewdownload.php, in function viewdownload(), viewsdownload() copy code
$result =& $dbconn->SelectLimit($sql,$perpage,$min);
change on
$result =& $dbconn->SelectLimit($sql,(int)$perpage,(int)$min);

Empty page will is issued In the event of invalid parameter

Generated on August 31, 2005.

Interview: Carl Slaughter   (News)

Where do you live?

Bethalto, IL USA
Where in the world is Bethalto, IL, USA

What is your real-life job?

IT Manager/Supervisor for a Credit Union

Tell me about your PostNuke "career".

PostNuke was what I started with and I liked it, I have tried others but PN is what I'm most comfortable with and frankly I do not want to learn another unless its REALLY great, and I do not see that happening ;-)

When did you start working on your own module?

Jan, 2003

Please describe to the community what your development is like?

It’s really only I and Batpuppy (Patrick Peay). I do most of the coding and Patrick does the debugging and HTML.

We never intended it to be as big a success as it is, we just wanted a good forum module for our own PN sites. And well the rest is history ;-)

I use HTML-Kit, along with tools like Power Desk Tools, with file find, and Xampp for local web testing. For release development we use TortoiseCVS, and UNIX command line tools for file compares.

What is the biggest difficulty in your development?

The difficulty only rests in your own abilities and desire to learn as much as you can about the PN core, along with keeping with the changes. Knowledge of PHP, HTML, and cross browser coding is a must as well. You have to develop skills in every area, then of course you develop your own personal abilities to bring your own ideas to the code as well, remember there is usually 100 different ways to accomplish the same thing, but only a few ways to do it right ;-)

What features should the PostNuke .8 core have to simplify your work?

Module aliasing. Lower overhead for modules (usually the module's fault) however the PN core has a good amount that is has in memory then if you have a significant module like PNphpBB then you start scraping the top of the RAM ceiling.

Which route will PostNuke/your module in your opinion go in the future?

As PNphpBB matures it will become more and more integrated into PN, we will streamline the code and do away with all unused code from the core of phpBB. Possibly fork the entire code, because currently we have kept the same basic code of the current phpBB release so we can apply phpBB specific patches and admins can easily add mods designed for phpBB. This will eventually not be an issue as more and more people are writing mods for PNphpBB directly.

What is the weakest/strongest point in your module?

PNphpBB is a module version of the popular phpBB forum it does its best to stay true to all the features and functionality of its stand alone counterpart as well as offering those who use phpBB the ability to migrate to a CMS environment. Its weak points are since it is a port of a stand alone module, it has a lot of redundant code, its own DB functions, template/HTML output code and functions that are not necessary due to the fact it is contained within PostNuke as a module (login/registration is not used).

Thank you very much for you time.

Visit Carl and the pnPHPBB forum project at http://www.pnphpbb.com

Generated on December 16, 2004.

Brazilian Portuguese for 0.726 with over 60 modules!   (News)

supposed to "hit and run", because there might be some files which are heavily hacked -- yes, you can do that to translations, too :-)

That's because I used for quite some time pncUserHack (affecting NS-User, NS-NewUser and NS-Your_Account) and some News hacks. Also, Extended Topics and AT Lite Blocks might have different defines. But, anyway, that won't stop your site from working, of course. And bear with me, as this is a one man job.

But, please, send me your patches, so I can clean it up and release a FULL CORE COMPATIBLE TUpInUKIM, ok?

Here's the listing of modules included:
******************
* Módulos (63) *
******************
advanced_polls
All_Stories
Archive
Autolinks
Blocks
Censor
ChangePassword
ContentExpress
Credits
Downloads
dq_helpdesk
Encyclopedia
FeedBack
feproc
fetax
FormExpress
legal
MailBag
Members_List
Messages
Modules
News
NS-AddStory
NS-Admin
NS-Admin_Messages
NS-Banners
NS-Comments
NS-Ephemerids
NS-Groups
NS-Languages
NS-LostPassword
NS-MailUsers
NS-NewUser
NS-NewUser*
NS-Past_Nuke
NS-Referers
NS-Settings
NS-User*
NS-Your_Account*
pagesetter
Permissions
photoshare
phpBB_14
pn_bbclick
pn_bbcode
pn_bbsmile
pnTresMailer
PostCalendar
Quotes
Ratings
Recommend_Us
Search
seminars
shortnews
Stats
Topics*
UpDownload
Web_Links
xuser
* => modules duplicated in the pack due to hacks:
pncUserHack
ExtendedTopics

******************
* Blocks  (28) *
******************
admin.php
banners.php
big.php
category.php
emldaonline.php
ephem.php
error.php
finclude.php
fxp.php
i-featured_article.php
linklist.php
login.php
menu.php
online.php
past.php
phpBB_14.php
phplive.php
poll.php
progress.php
radio.php
recent_and_top_news.php
rss.php
rss2.php
stories.php
thelang.php
topic.php
user.php
whatsnews.php


Download link: http://prdownloads.sf.net/pnlanguages/pnlanguages-x_brazilian_portuguese-0726-tupinukim-A-beta.zip?download
Release notes (in Portuguese, pretty much the above info): https://sf.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=239437
Project page: https://sf.net/projects/pnlanguages

Generated on May 20, 2004.

Interview: Franky Chestnut, pnConcept.com   (News)

Hacks
dWl Mod Suite - This was for pn0.713, it was inspired from modifications that were done on the Downloads and Web Links modules at phpNuke. There is an All Page and that would be the only real important thing about this one. It was one of my first hacking I made. And to think of it, I still use the all page on my site [demo] but I think that is all that is left of the modifications. Also in this hack, I made it so there is a listbox with the title instead of just a field when you wanted to modify a link or a download. Little things like that. People should not use it today... all files comes from pn0.713.

pnMailUserHTMLHack - Another modification of the pn0.714 Mail User mod. All it did was to give the choice to send an email to a user in text or in html.

pncUserHack - None the least, this is my most popular work. It began with only the possibility to choose the password you want when registering and today, you can add dynamic fields, list, checkbox, define required fields, moderate registration and so on. Lots of options with the mail because for a time, the goal was to give admin the possibility to use PostNuke on hosting without mail function. But as users were asking more and more... it became what it is today.

pncUserHack was made with pn0.723 so I do not recommend it for newer version today. The future is unknown for this one, it depends on many things.

Blocks
Block Your_Avatar - My first block. It shows the avatar from your profile and a list box to change it directly on the block. Today, this one makes me laugh.

pncPaypalContribute - A pnAPI block that shows a Paypal button for donations. The email and currency can be choose in the administration for this block.

Mods
FeedBack- This was my first module and it still work although I think it was made for the pn0.6x or pn0.71x series. I took the Recommend_Us module and made it so it sends an email to the admin and it was my first experience. I saw later 2 or 3 modules that had the same name and we're doing the exact same thing. I thought it was funny but it was for everyone an easy way to start I guess.

pnUser_Points 0.22X - This one will disapear and I'll be glad because it never quite fully worked well. Not that it is a bad module but it doesn't work very well when your database becomes medium or large. The way it was written, it was using so much ressources that most of the time, the module couldn't update itself like it was supposed to do. What I did to put the 'x' after the 0.22 is that there was no administration in the original one. So you had to change the configuration directly in the files. And for me, I thought that it wasn't very..... actual. So I made the administration for the configuration and I added the possibility to clean the table where data was inserted. I also made the initialisation so people didn't had to insert the table by hands anymore.
I remember that I didn't want this one to go out with my name on it but since I didn't had any answer from the original authors when I finished it, I release it as it was. And people kept the association and came to me for the support and the future version.

Next version will make this one completly obsolete. 100% pnAPI, much less ressources, Groups points and Archives.

pncPopMessages - That one is a copy of the original Admin_Message but with a block include that would pop a message. I made a copy because I want to separate the original Admin messages from the messages that would pop.

pncGroups - I made this one because I didn't want to add manually users that would help us on PostNuke-France.org on various things. Documentation, support or even administrate a part of the site. So the module is giving the hability to the users to register for a group with all the permission fuss. You also can make a group open or close, define how many users can register for a particular group and so on. 2 blocks were included, one to show groups information and the other, the list of users in a particular group.

pncSimpleStats and pncSimpleStats Xantia - These are my last ones. While working on the pncUserPoints and discovering that ressources may not be a problem like the old User_Points was, I made this little Stats module with some some functions that were for the pncUP. For each category (news, comments, reviews and xforum), it shows a page with the list of users and the amount they proposed or wrote. No database, always getting the most recent count.
The Xantia version was my way of practicing with the new pnRender Engine and to give the result to the users. It is templated.

Upcoming
pncPaypalMod - Just my personal Paypal mod that won't do a zillion thing. The pncPaypalContribute will be moved to this mod. The goal is to make a simple mod that will show the list of contributors but won't have many functionality. I know there is probably 10 out there but I'm a programmer and I like to create my own. I just want something basic. I have a working version under a desk somewhere but never had the time to finish it. And.......... it will be free ;-) (No pun intended ha ha ha !)

All other upcoming mods are reactualisation, pnAPIsation and for some, templated of the existing ones : pncUserPoints, pncGroups, pncPopMessages, etc...

I also made the decision to concentrate on simple modules whatever they will be. I want them easy and fast to create and give them to the community so they can learn with various examples. And since we are near a new era (brrr) with the Xantia and pnRender engine coming, all will be templated for the occasion like the pncSimpleStats.

Voilà ! That is about what I've done and probably worth mentioning...


Where do you live?

I live in Paris - France, but was born in Canada.

What is your real-life job?

I work as a technicien and programmer on a professional software for music publishers. Mostly done in MS Access.

Tell me about your postnuke "career".

I'm not quite sure when I started but I'm a survivor of phpNuke. At first, I didn't like PostNuke (0.60 I think) and went back to phpNuke. But later, I felt that it wasn't serious. If I remember correctly, the only reason was the huge modules pool that was available for phpNuke then. But after a time, when you see that you will only use 1% of what is available, you take a peek behind other doors. And I came back to PostNuke (0.62) to make more tests. And got hooked.

As I wasn't very up-to-date about 'collaborative' programming, I was curious to discover how it was done. I made lots of tests with other CMS but was constantly driven back to PostNuke for various reasons or even to take a break. Then I got tired of testing and it was a natural decision to stick with PostNuke. The code under the hood had more common points with what I was exploring than the others.

With time, I was getting better at answering technical question and had a big presence in the french community. So David from Boomtchak ask me to co-administrate. When Boom went down for a time, another french support site went up and I was there again (Kaintech). I even been asked on Envolution-france but I didn't stayed long. Then the administrator of PostNuke-France ask me to take the lead because he couldn't stay, I took the opportunity and I'm there since then.

So I guess that for the french community, I'm known for the administrator hat, and for the rest of the world, for the lines I wrote.

When did you start working on your own module?

It was soon after deciding that PostNuke was the CMS I would stay with. Since I'm an self made programmer as that I didn't know much about php, I started by modifying already existing modules. That is how the UserHack was born. All it was doing at the time was giving the hability to users to choose their own password when registering. After that, I did various hack on the Downloads, the Web Links and when I gained confidence, I added an admin interface to the User Points mod and my first module was a FeedBack module. (Although many people made the same one, I didn't know at that time).

What is your development like?

I'm the "cliché" I guess, I work alone and like to be alone in the dark with a bottle of wine, my cigarette, and far away, the tv on. Yes, late at night when the bottle is empty, there are consequences on the coding. I won't say that it is the reason of course, but I try to make every line of code readable. Much needed at the end of the night. In fact, I think I put more time on how the code looks than how it looks when it is rendered. He he !

I like to consider myself the one that sometimes touches the soft spot of people. This is without being pretentious of course. I don't do very big things, I'm not the great programmer and my background may be slightly light, but the small things I do, people have been waiting for them. Like the first UserHack. When people were eager to have the possibility to choose their password at registration, I did it. When others or myself wanted an admin for the User Points, I did it also. And so on... I think that is mostly how I made my name.

I also rarely do something that I won't use myself. So many things I did were things that I wanted for myself in the first place. By chance, others were thinking the same.

The only tool that I consider worth mentioning is my code editor (if I can name it) : Crimson Editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com), great syntax highlight, no crappy tabulations since the editor changes them in spaces and makes files readable the same way for everyone. I can't bare it anymore to read some code from others and taking half an hour only to make it clearer to read so I can understand it and fix or make modifications if needed. That is why I take my time to make my code so everyone on any computer sees the same thing.
You can also change code in files directly on your host with the ftp functionality. Perfect for newbies. Pros will probably move on to something that suits them more.

What is the biggest difficulty in your development?

I saw someone write "Time"... and that would be the same for me. It is not a PostNuke related problem since I am probably part of the rare ones to be happy that PostNuke is slow in development. I work hard in my professional job and I rarely sleep more than 3 or 4 hours a night so I'm very slow on creating any new things for PostNuke. People will say I never quite meet deadlines I propose and it's true (PostNuke related of course).

What features should the Postnuke .8 core have to simplify your work?

Good documentation and clear examples for newbies, intermediates and advanced users and developpers. I learned everytheverything from what others did and I'm still and will always be in a learning mode. The Example mod is a great start but when I have wanted to do something just a step more complicated, It has taken me awhile to find out how to do it. I have searched the smarty doc, and the Xantia code for a long time just to do something a little more complicated than what the Example mod was doing.

Which route will Postnuke/your module in your opinion go in the future?

I will follow its evolution and I have already started doing so. As I stated, I have already made a pnRender enabled module with the pncSimpleStats for practice and also to give another example for others and... I'm not sure but I think it may be the first non-official module done that way. And I intend to make more mods that are simple so people can have a look at them and say : "oooh, that I understand !".

What should users of your module regard?

I guess that one of my strong point is evolving with what the users want or doing the little thing that users were waiting for. When I look at my pncUserHack, between the first and the last ones, there are so much differences, it is freaky... but it is all what the users wanted at that time.

My weakest point would be the time I take to make something but that it is not something I have control over...

Anything else you always wanted to say about Postnuke/your module?

I know that there are developers like me hiding or keeping a low profile. I, myself, am often trying to keep a low profile because whenever I do something, it is always a great battle for me to support what I do because of time constraints. That is why I don't do much publicity. But I do my best to gain confidence about what I do and I hope to be able in the future to give more time to PostNuke, helping or coding. I hope that open minded developers that do have the time will get out of the dark and share their knowledge, skills and talent and contribute more to the development, documentation, support, etc.

Actual pnDevs are really, really great... but to give them a chance so they don't loose their mind, giving them a hand would be great.

Thank you very much for you time.

My pleasure ! And hoping my english wasn't too bad ! ;-)

Franky’s Homepage:

Generated on February 10, 2004.

Web Accessibility - An introduction   (News)

Accessibility - In General
According to the German federal law on equality of treatment of handicapped
persons (BGG §4) ", constructions, means of transportation, technical
commodities, systems of information processing, accustic and
visual sources of information and communicative systems are accessible when they
are accessible and usable for handicapped persons unaidedly, in the usual way
and without special difficulty."
Basically, accessible web pages aren't only accessible for the average user
at his desktop pc with the latest browsers. Web-accessibility is not only considerate
of the various utilities that handicapped persons use to perceive a web page,
but also of users with older browser versions or with special access hardware.
Some figures to give an idea of the size of this group (statistics from Germany):

10% of the male population is color-blind. Web pages with low contrasts
(eg. black fonts on dark-blue background) is for them practically unreadable.
"Press the green button to verify" is meaningless to them.
5% of the population is blind or visually handicapped. They use special utilities
and hardware like Braille-displays or screenreaders.
11% of the population is older than 65.
5% of internet users don't use Windows, but MacOS, Linux, PDAs or cellphones.
Numerous sites, especially large ones, still have up to 20% users visiting them through 4th generation Netscape
browsers.

If you don't only aim at gamer kiddies with 19" displays, you should start
thinking about whom you exclude with your killer design. A blind person for example,
who cannot use a company`s internet pages, will choose another vendor. But what
can a blind person do when his registration office's internet site is not accessible?

 
The Legal Side
Since May 1st, 2002, the ordinance for accessible information technology
(BITV) became effective. All federal institutions are obliged to make their internet
sites accessible - in the sense of the word used in this article. Governments are called to work out
similar state laws which oblige state and municipal institutions to follow accessibility guidelines.
BGG and BITV are based on the EU action plan "eEurope 2002", initiated
in 1999 and finalised in 2000 by the European Council. eEurope aims at 3 main goals:

A cheaper, faster and more secure internet
Advancement of internet use
Investment into persons and abilities

The latter comprises the participation in information technology of as big
parts of the population as possible. Summarised under the term "eAccessibility",
access to eCommerce, eGovernment and so on is to be made possible. This was to be
implemented with the adoption of the Web
Accessability Initative's guidelines.
 
Guidelines for Practical Use
Already in 1999 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and made it quasi-standard for accessible
internet design. Since then many of the rules have proved too restrictive,
irrelevant, incomprehensible or simply not representative of the state of technology
anymore. Some of them even turned out to be not internationally applicable.
For these reasons a version 2.0 is in the making. Since v. 2.0 is still in development, this
text will only relate to WCAG 1.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1 are split up into 3 priorities:
Priority 1: A Web content developer must
satisfy this checkpoint
Priority 2: A Web content developer should
satisfy this checkpoint
Priority 3: A Web content developer may satisfy
this checkpoint
If you violate a regulation of priority 1, many people will be excluded. A violation
of priority 3 regulations excludes only few. There are 14 main regulations, with
the priorities attached to all of their subcategories:

1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
2. Do not rely on color alone.
3. Use markup and style sheets, and do so properly.
4. Clarify natural language usage.
5. Create tables that transform gracefully.
6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully.
7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes.
8. Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces.
9. Design for device-independence.
10. Use interim solutions.
11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines.
12. Provide context and orientation information.
13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms.
14. Ensure that documents are clear and simple.

There is also a W3C-list of suggested Techniques
for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.
 
Testing Accessability
Several tools exist for testing the accessibility of your website:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AAA-Conformance
http://bobby.cast.org/
http://www.cynthiasays.com/
As a result you receive 3 levels of conformance:
Conformance Level "A": All Priority 1 checkpoints
are satisfied
Conformance Level "Double-A": All Priority 1 and
2 checkpoints are satisfied
Conformance Level "Triple-A": All Priority 1, 2,
and 3 checkpoints are satisfied
Internet sites of German federal instititions have to fullfil Double-A conformance.
Recommended is Triple-A.
 
Not only for handicapped persons
A main problem with accessibilty is that a web site must cater to the needs of two different interest groups: On the one
hand, handicapped persons that already have to use the latest browser version
in cooperation with their hardware and utilities, and on the other hand, users
with old browsers.
This problem is however a perfect focus area for the idea behind CMS-es: The separation
of content and layout. It becomes possible to detect the user browser client, and in a manageable way offer
a classical HTML 3.0 page or a modern HTML 4.01 page, with the same content.
Practically speaking, modern web design means above all to do without tables for layout
use. Tables have always been a crutch when it comes to creating layout, and more so today than ever.
Modern layout is created via CSS. A nice example of how accessible
design can be created can be found at http://www.inknoise.com/experimental/layoutomatic.php.
This also shows that accessible web sites do not have to be plain text.
Tables should only be used the way they were originally intended: For example
as an address table with columns and rows, column heads and so on. Used this way, also
the tools of blind persons can make sense of them.
 
Accessibility and Postnuke
Making a Postnuke site accessible is practically impossible: While themes can
easily be created with CSS, you will fail at the modules, which excessively
use hardcoded tables. Not until the introduction of the Xanthia Templating Engine
in Postnuke 0.8 will it be possible to make your site accessible for everyone.
Then you can start developing accessible templates for all API-compliant modules,
something which is currently possible only with third-party modules that use smarty, like
PostCalendar or pnCommerce.
Until then the possibilities are limited when it comes to making at least some of your content
accessible: The AvantGo module - originally designed to make the News accessible
for PDAs - can also be used for accessibility. There seems to be an extended
version of the Avantgo named Extravantgo, but during my researches the download
page was inaccessible ;-)
German version of this article: post-nuke.net

Generated on October 8, 2003.

Interview: Chuck Steel   (News)

What module(s) are you working on?

I have written several modules myself that are publicly available including the Steel Knowledge Base, a simple database module and a task manager. I have also written some modules for work (our student technical support group uses PostNuke) and on a contract basis. My current project is a Reviews module that will include categories.

Where do you live?

East Berlin, PA.

What is your real-life job?

I coordinate technical support for the students at Gettysburg College, which means that I run our student helpdesk.

Tell me about your postnuke "career".

I looked at some of the other systems available and PN seemed to have the most documentation for programming modules available. I prefer to be able to find information on my own, rather than asking for help, and that didn't seem as likely with some of the other systems. The documentation that was available for PN at least gave me a starting point. PN also seemed to have a very active user community.

When did you start working on your own module?

I can't remember when I started my first module. Sometime during the 2002-2003 school year, I guess.

What is your development like? Do other people help you? How do you work together? How big is the impact of the community on your development?

Most of my development is done alone. I have been using DreamWeaver but will switch to something else once my development machine becomes linux. When I program at home I generally sit in the living room (wireless, yay) and watch TV at the same time. We have done some group projects with varying success. Our best approach so far has been to have one person develop (and document) the API functions and then have someone else work on the other areas. I am very concerned with interface consistency, so breaking things up too much becomes difficult. The community is a wonderful resource, although there aren't a lot of active module developers in the forums, so if you run into something really difficult, you might be out of luck.

What is the biggest difficulty in your development? And why? Is it a Postnuke inherent problem?

Time. I actually find that the PN environment makes some of the development work a lot easier. Once you understand the pnHTML functions a lot of the work becomes much less cumbersome. I wish I could use them in all of my web projects now.

What features should the Postnuke .8 core have to simplify your work?

I find the permissions system very hard to work within. It works well for module access, but if you want to have permissions on individual items that are dynamic, the permissions table could grow very rapidly to an unmanageable size. I could also benefit from functions to work with groups. I have written functions to determine if a person is a member of a group, for instance, but if that type of function was in the pnAPI, life would be much simpler.

Better support for html output. Some of the pnHTML commands don't support all of the parameters for the given tag. One example of this is that URL doesn't support a target, which means that if I want a link to open in a new windows, I have to output the html for the url manually. If you are going to implement functions to output html, it should be reasonable to make those functions fully support the given tag.

The security settings where someone gets logged out after x days. I think that this should be based on my last login. If I login to a site everyday, then I don't think that I should be asked to login every so often. If I don't visit a site for a while, then maybe.

What should users of your module regard and what is the weakest/strongest point in your module?

I wish that users wouldn't complain about small bugs not being fixed in something that they are getting for free. I don't know if this is common amongst open source development or not. Also, I provide forums on my pages to discuss problems and just like the forums on postnuke.com, no one bothers to check for previous threads that might help them. And my forums
aren't even that big, most of them don't even go to a second page!

Anything else you always wanted to say about Postnuke/your module?

I really enjoy PostNuke. I use it on several sites and while I occaisonally have issues, it has made my life and work much better. Right now my biggest complaint is that there isn't a paypal donations button on the postnuke site. I would love to throw a few bucks towards the development efforts, even if no one is throwing any my way.


Thank you very much for you time.

No, thank you.

Generated on September 18, 2003.

Sushiraw entertainemnt : Label website with PN   (News)

This website is still in dev mode since I still have to integrate my cafepress store and desktop customization site all inside the PN architecture...
I also had I great numbers of links and I'm rebuilding this database...
yeah!!!

Generated on July 11, 2003.

OSCOM Open Source CMS Conference   (News)

Register: http://www.oscom.org/Conferences/Cambridge/Registration.html on the conference web site.

The Third Open Source Content Management Conference will take place at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA. The registration desk is located at Harvard Law School's Austin Hall Main Lobby and is open daily throughout the conference from 8:15 AM to 5 PM. Details on rooms for each session will be added later. The program is subject to minor changes. All speakers listed here have confirmed participation.

Zoom

Generated on May 1, 2003.

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