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PostNuke Recovery Console - Additional Feature Requests   (News)

then perform any repair operations by visiting the file in your browser and following the onscreen instructions, same as the PSAK.

One major improvement over the PSAK is that the Recovery Console has a countdown timer built into it which will only allow the application to be used for xyz amount of time, after which the file automatically locks out further access to the code therein. A realtime graphical timer (Javascript-based) visually shows you how much time you have left to use the Recovery Console. (The Javascript is purely for display purposes, and not relied upon for security.) As the PostNuke system does not make any checks for this Recovery Console, it could easily be left on one's server accidentally and thus, misused. To this end, the lockdown feature might be of some comfort.

A few other items of interest about the Recovery Console:
Aesthetic, CSS-based layout. Nothing hacky, very straight-forward classes.
Consistent navigation.
Fixes that require database, when no database present, are visually disabled for clarity.
Each utility shows the current status of what it's about to fix, before it fixes it, and after.
Inline explanatory texts help you make the proper fixes.
Overview of recovery-related site settings.
Informational page about the application.
Status messages tell you exactly what's going on.
Large countdown timer lets you know how long you have left to use the application.
Self-contained.
Works with PostNuke .8+ (including MS2+)
Highly accessible.

Specific fixes onboard at this time mirror those of the PSAK:
Encode Database Credentials
Toggle Intranet/Internet Usage
Broken Theme Recovery
Permissions Recovery
Disabled Site Recovery / Turning Site Back On
Modules module Recovery

The code is written so that other fixes can easily be added and thus, if you have any suggestions for other utilities to incorporate into the PostNuke Recovery Console, please share them! I'm at a point where I am commenting the file now, and that will take me a least a week more to finalize I suspect, so please post any ideas for fixes you'd like to see and I'll try to get them in for the first release.

Note that this application can be downloaded from here at the NOC, but that it will take a week or 10 days for me to get the first release uploaded.

Cheers,

- Ala

Generated on April 20, 2007.

Kevin Hatch, Author of PostNuke Book   (News)

Question
Vanessa Haakenson: Kevin first let me thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Tell us about yourself and what attracted you to PostNuke. How long have you been using PostNuke? Why didyou choose PostNuke?
 
Answer
Kevin Hatch: Well for what it’s worth, I’m a professional web developer. I’ve worn a lot of hats over the years with different sometimes-fancy titles, but overall I’ve mainly been a front-end UI guy in most of the teams I’ve been with. Lately I’ve been doing more programming and database development than Photoshop graphics, but I also freelance as a designer to help balance out the creative side.

I was first introduced to PostNuke early in 2003. My workplacewas primarily Microsoft when it came to web development, and my background at the time was much more with VB/ASP and early .NET. But we were starting a change to Linux servers, and it seemed clear ASP was on the way out. It was a coworker friend of mine that originally suggested PHP as a more universal solution, and without any particular preference for ASP I was happy to give it a shot. My experience with C++, Java, and JSP allowed me to pick up PHP pretty easily, and I quickly feel in love with language.

My first PostNuke site was actually an intranet portal. I’d converted all our other sites’ ASP pages to PHP, but we started looking at different PHP content systems to make the intranet development a little easier. I tried early alternatives like PHP-Nuke and phpWebSite, but PostNuke impressed me as a more mature system that also possessed a strong community of users.


 
Question
Vanessa Haakenson: What is the easiest and/or most difficult thing you encountered building your site?
  
Answer
Kevin Hatch: Funny thing, the most difficult thing about my current site was the choice of methods for publishing the content. There were too many options. I struggled with a number of different combinations of stock and third-party modules like PageSetter. I went all out, creating complex layouts and forms for my pages, but ultimately my needs just didn’twarrant all the trouble. I came back to the basic Sections module for most of the content, and the simpler solution gave me more raw control.
The easiest thing had to be my solution for the column layout using AT-Lite. My original theme was done with Xanthia, but I later tried it in AutoTheme to see how the layout features would work for what I needed. I found AT’s AutoBlock objects to be anabsolute dream for easy block-to-page assignment, and that’s what I ended up using.

Question
Vanessa Haakenson: When did the idea of a PostNuke book happen? What's the back-story?
  
Answer
Kevin Hatch: Early on as I worked with PostNuke I knew it was a project under development. It didn’t solve all my development needs, and I quickly started hacking and extending the code to get the extra features and customization I needed. In order to reproduce those hacks later as needed for other installs or upgrades, I documented the steps I took. I quickly had a great deal of good content collected, and I decided it ought to be posted online in case anyone else wanted to make the same custom changes I had. I wrote up the hacks as walk-through articles, and added them to my website.
I did post links to the guides now and then when answering a forum post that could use them, but just having the articles online ultimately prompted the book. The publisher Pearson Ed was looking to do some books on Content Management Systems, and in searching online for PHP-Nuke and PostNuke resources the editor came across my site. They liked the style and content of the articles, and asked if I’d be interested in writing a full book along those lines. I also have a formal writing background, and said I’d be happy to do it. That was back in November 2003.
After the approval of the book proposal I'd put together, the book itself was written over the course of the next ten months. Things were going fine with it till the surprise release of version 0.75. Sweeping changes were made to the content to add in the 0.75 changes, and some of the existing sections were no longer relevant and had to be cut. In the end there was also an overall length issue, where some of the other third-party modules I wanted to cover were also dropped. There are a lot ofgreat modules out there, but there just wasn’t the room to do them all.

Question
Vanessa
Haakenson: How
is
the
book
selling?
Are
you
going
to
do
a
follow-up/update
when newer
versions
of PostNuke
are released?
  
Answer
Kevin
Hatch: I
know
that in
the first
month over
two thousand
copies
were
sold, but
I don’t
know the
overall
sales figures
yet. I
did secondary
edits earlier
this year
for the
second
printing,
so the
first runs
seems
to have
done better
than their
initial
expectations.
There was
also talk
of doing
a German
translation
of the
text, but
I’ve
not heard
back from
that department
to know
if it’s
gone through.
I've been
very swamped
with
work lately,
so I've
honestly
not been
following
it closely
the last
few
months.
Whether
there’s
a follow-up
will probably
depend
more on
the long-term
book sales.
I’m
up for
writing
it if it
works out.
I’ve
also considered
doing a
shorter
book that
picks up
where PostNuke
Content
Management
left
off. I
think it
would be
useful
to have
a step-by-step
walk through
on the
development
of an API-compliant
module.
In the
first drafts
of my book,
there had
been a
section
at the
end just
on module
development,
but all
that made
it into
the book
was the
short API
functions
appendix.
The book
was targeted
well to
reach a
large audience,
but I do
with I’d
done even
more on
the advanced
side. I
think PostNuke
is a great
core
product,
but I’ve
never built
a site
with it
that didn’t
have third-party
modules
and custom
hacks.
It’s
like how
Firefox
is a great
core product,
but having
the right
few extensions
can literally
change
the way
your
browse.
PN already
does that;
there is
of course
the NOC
and many
great
developers,
but I’d
definitely
like to
see even
more. You
shouldn’t
have
to be a
coder to
get it
to work.
PostNuke
can become
anything
you want
it
to be,
but it’d
be easier
to have
all those
options
possible
in simple
add-on
modules.

Question
Vanessa
Haakenson: You
have
a great
site,
KevinHatch.com.
Tell
us
a little
bit about
the site
and how
you customized
it. What
modules
are you
using
for the
site? What
modules
were customized
or built
from scratch?
  
Answer
Kevin
Hatch: Well
my main
site’s
running
on PostNuke
0.75. As
I said
earlier
I’d
used a
variety
of third-party
modules
during
the development,
but I’m
currently
only running
AT-Lite
for the
theme.
The pages
have two
main content
areas,
and while
I began
with both
areas in
the “body” area,
my desire
to reuse
the side
column
for navigation
elements
prompted
me to
set it
up as a
separate
block area.
I created
an AT AutoBlock
object
for
each area
I wanted
to isolate,
like "Links" or "Homepage" for
example.
The
AutoBlocks
are displayed
in the
same place
in the
theme code,
but I
control
the visibility
of those
blocks
from within
AutoTheme
on a page
by
page basis
using the
AT Custom Modules
feature.
The
site does
have some
custom
code hacks,
but for
the most
part they
have
been used
to simplify
the PostNuke
install.
I normally
don’t
need most
of
the core
PN features
for my
personal
site, so
I removed
what I
didn't
need. The
links page
is the
most obvious
example.
That is
just the
core
Web Links
module,
but I changed
the display
of the
content
and removed
all
the user
features
that were
not needed
anymore.
I’ve
considered
writing
a
new links
module
from scratch
as well,
but for
the moment
just editing
the
core’s
working
fine, and
I do have
enough
other projects
to keep
me busy.
The KevinHatch.com
site is
really
not finished.
I’ll
be adding
a PNphpBB2
forum for
the application
support
in the
next couple
months,
and I need
to
finally
set aside
a weekend
to edit
and upload
some of
my other
guides
and
tutorials.
I plan
on expanding
the old
programming
guide content
to
include
information
on UI design
and Photoshop.
The site
is also
currently
a hybrid
of PostNuke
and raw
PHP using
server-side
includes
to pull
in the
PN theme
elements.
It was
simply
faster
at the
time to
set it
up that
way,
but eventually
the site
will be
completely
PostNuke.  

Thank You
Vanessa
Haakenson: Thank
you
for
sharing
your
thoughts
with
the community
and readers.
  
Answer
Kevin
Hatch: I’d
just like
to say
thanks
again to
all the
developers
who’ve
put in
so much
time to
keep this
project
going.
The open
source
movement
for me
has really
re-energized
my love
of online
development.
I
know things
don’t
always
get released
as quickly
as users
might want,
but
the focus
on producing
a quality
product
is quite
admirable.

  
About
Kevin Hatch
Kevin
Hatch is a
professional
web developer
specializing
in user
interface
design.
He has
more than
a decade
of
experience
in Internet
development
and has
worked
in a variety
of roles,
ranging
from graphic
designer
and interface
systems
analyst
to webmaster
and network
architect.
These days
he mainly
programs
in PHP
as a webmaster
and application
developer,
and freelances
as a graphic
designer
for select
projects.
He
has a combined
degree
in Computer
Science
and English.
He's experienced
in technical
writing
and is
the author
of a book
on the
PostNuke
CMS. He
currently
lives in
eastern
Iowa with
his wife
and their
nine pets.  
Related Links: KevinHatch.com
Purchase the book: PostNuke: Content Management System  

About
Vanessa Haakenson
Vanessa
Haakenson
brings
several
years of
experience
in developing
web based
instructional
products.
She is
an Open
Source
advocate
and contributes
her free
time to
managing,
promoting,
and working
with the
PostNuke
content
management
system.
She has
used PHP
for three
years and
has conducted
workshops
on PHP
basics.
Related
Links:
Designs4Nuke.com
(http://www.designs4nuke.com)
   



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

 

Generated on April 25, 2005.

Interview: Steffen Voss   (News)

What is your real-life job?

I'm a student and going to be an Englisch/Geography teacher. But I also have a job at the university (http://www.gis.uni-kiel.de) and I help the local youth council with their websites (e.g. http://www.balticsea-youth.org).

Tell me about your postnuke "career". (Why do you prefer Postnuke over other CMS?)

When I worked for a bigger German company I had to maintain the intranet. They used static pages until then but I had heard something about CMS and took a look at Postnuke and was overwhelmed. It did almost everything I needed. So I convinced the head of department to use Postnuke and it became my first Postnuke project. Only little later, friends of mine wanted to relaunch their local website (http://www.kiel4kiel.de) so I helped them to implement that with Postnuke.

Postnuke.de was the first contact I had with the Postnuke community, but as the site was a bit messy I offered my help. The webmaster ranted a lot but never let me do anything but post news and forum posts. Little by little I realized that this endeavor what pointless and started looking for like-minded people in Germany and finally found http://www.post-nuke.net. A reservation for the shunned. Larsneo and others had similar experiences with postnuke.de and built up their own community.

By and by we created a German documentation and had more and more people joining us. This year we established a German foundation and organized the first international Postnuke meeting. So things are going well. :-D

What is your task in within pnCore?

I don't have an official function. I do interview, comment and try to keep contact to the core/module devs and to allude them to what the others are doing. "Networking" I think you can call it.

When did you start programming for PostNuke?

I started programming for Postnuke during the Kiel4kiel.de-project - a module called tinyraffle which you find in the noc in a not finished state. I don't need it anymore - so feel free to adopt it ;-)

What is your work like?

As I said - I read and write a lot in the German forum, I mail with devs and try to keep them together and strengthen the company.

What is the biggest difficulty in your work?

It's often hard to promote Postnuke, because of the special communication strategy the project management embarks. There are a lot of nice people working very hard on the future of Postnuke, but the average user only hears about that when a new release comes.

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

The Postnuke core is already far away from PHPNuke but there are still serious lacks on the user side - content handling hasn't improved since PHPNuke - disregarding modules like pnCommerce, Photoshare, Pagesetter aso. .8 will bring the new and for the time being final core. Next thing should be a concentration on the content side of the project. This is what gives new users a good first impression - not a well written source code. Sad but true ;-)

What is the weakest/strongest point in PostNuke?

The weakest point is the name - The general public always mistakes Postnuke for PHPNuke. The strongest point is the great community.

Are you also working on modules?

Yes and no: I released pnAmazon - a module that allows you to include Amazon product-data into you Pagesetter publications using Amazon Webservices. But as it now does all I need, motivation is little to develop it any further.

Internally I work on a module that does almost the same as pnAmazon with an information system that almost every German university uses (uniVIS) - It allows you to include data such as addresses, lectures aso. directly from the central information system into your page. So the department's page is always as up-to-date as the central system. Maybe I'll release it, when it's more advanced. But I'm still looking for a co-developer for this module.

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

pnRender is a killer. I love it. It does all I need, but Xanthia has to become more user friendly.

What should users of your module regard?

I only include things that are either needed by me or very simple to implement - I'm not such a good coder...

Anything else you always wanted to say about Postnuke?

Postnuke has such a big user bases and too few people, who actually work for it. A main issue for the future of Postnuke is IMHO to activate the community and to make it easier for people to add their work to development, support, marketing aso. Even the smallest help is help.

Thank you very much for you time.

My private homepage: http://www.kaffeeringe.de

Generated on December 20, 2004.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Chooses PostNuke Over Other CMS Solutions   (News)

We were able to very easily modify the functionality of PN out of the box, in-house, to perfectly suit the needs of a corporate intranet/extranet environment and CBF finally went from a period of several weeks of "live preview" state to production today; we have received fantastic feedback thus far.
I have made some changes to various modules to accomodate sub-admins in a corporate intranet/extranet environment, some of which I've already released to the PN community, and the rest are on their way. Unfortunately, the CBF extranet site is not available to view, as it authenticates against CBF's internal network, but I do plan on replicating the site database to some other place on the internet sometime soon, and to also allow people to login and view the permissions schema and distribute the rest of the module changes that help to accomodate a corporate intranet/extranet environment with subadmins.
*****
About CBF:
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is the largest conservation organization dedicated solely to saving the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Our motto, Save the Bay, defines the organization's mission and commitment to reducing pollution, improving fisheries, and protecting and restoring natural resources such as wetlands, forests, and underwater grasses. CBF headquarters is in Annapolis, MD, and has state offices in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., as well as smaller satellite office throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. In addition, CBF also operates 15 environmental education centers throughout the watershed, as well as educational programs and trips conducted upon the waters of the Chesapeake.
CBF was founded in 1967 and is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. It is supported by more than 116,600 active members and has a staff of approximately 180 full-time employees. More than 90 percent of CBF's $19 million annual budget is privately raised.
*****
Thanks, pnDevs, pnCorps and pnCommunity... I thought you should all know that you're helping to "Save the Bay" by all your valuable

Generated on July 3, 2004.

Summer 2003 CPL website contest with PostNuke   (News)

separate CSS entries for all core modules, that can be set separately from the theme. But maybe thats a non issue with the new version.

Using PN .7.2.3, with added modules like PostWrap, and Xuser, really helped due to being a Intranet site, that will have INTERNET access, but maybe not all users will be able to access their mail for site reg, ect... There are over 90 five man teams competing for 300,000.00$ in prizes, and over 900 BYOC spots. These players are coming from all over the world. While many of these teams are aware of PostNuke working great for team web sites, I'm sure there are many who have not seen PostNuke in action.

Generated on July 9, 2003.

Large Pharmaceutical Company Chooses PostNuke as Intranet Solution   (News)

People at Corporate are very happy with the Portal! Kicking some ASP sites butts!
:) I can't tell you the the name of the company for some issues; but, it's running on a Windows 2000 Server (this is because that is the approved O/S!) PHP 4.0 installed and we are connecting to an Oracle 9i Database! Works Perfectly!

Thanks to all of you in the community!
Keep the Good Work together!

Klax000

Generated on June 23, 2003.

Successful PostNuke Phoenix Installation on Windows 2000 Server -- HOW TO   (News)

few hours trying to solve a problem that was just waiting for a reboot. Take my word for it, especially with the MySQL install.

The Config:
Hardware: PIII slot 1, 384 Megs RAM, 1 FAT32 drive(2 partitions), 1 NTFS drive (single partition)
Windows 2000 Server Sp3
IIS 5.0 included with windows 2000
PHP 4.2.3 (via installer)
MyODBC 2.50.39
mySQL 3.23.52

The Details
Windows Server
This is a multi role machine running DNS, Active Directory(AD) and other network services, and IIS. It's basically my intranet, Domain Controller(AD), File Server and development web server. It's locked down behind a router with its own security protocols, so if you hack the router, you still have to hack AD, which grants access through IP first, Domain second and user third. It's pretty tightly locked up, and its a good way to have a fairly secure development platform.

IIS
IIS is configured to run a default site, which is locked down using AD. If the machine dns name is theMachine, I can easily access the default web site using my browser and going to http://theMachine. The default site is basically a default installation with nothing on it and I use virtual directories to point to development file structures - this is documented in IIS documentation. Basically I took a default PostNuke installation file structure and copied it to a directory on one of my development partitions (I used a FAT32 partition -- no reason for it, just thought this may be a useful fact), and made that a virtual directory of the main site. If I name the virtual directory PNdev, I can now access that directory via http://theMachine/PNdev.

PHPDownload the installer version of PHP for Windows (link in heading title) stop the IIS serverexecute the php installer and follow the instructions (pay attention to the checkboxes for what kind of webserver you wish to install it on, there should be one for IIS 4.0 and up)reboot. After reboot run a search for php.ini(because I'm too lazy to look for it in the C:/Winnt folder), and change the register_globals to 'On'. NOTE: DOING THIS POSES A SECURITY ISSUE FOR THE WEBSERVER. Read about it in the PHP documentation. Now you're ready install mySQL.

MyODBC
I downloaded and installed this driver for MySQL because I'm developing some desktop packages that may be using MySQL in the future -- but it's part of the environment and thought I should mention it. Just do it if you're not sure.

mySQLdownload (link in title)and and unzip this file to it's own directory Go to IIS and stop the server!Install using the setup program and use all the default values,( if you install it other than to the default directories, don't come crying to me)reboot
After Rebooting, run a search for the my.ini file and delete it, if you don't find one - good - it means you need to create one.

Creating a my.ini file with winmysqladmin.exe
You will find a folder in c:\mysql\bin\ called winmysqladmin.exe, if you don't find it here, you screwed up somewhere or installed mysql in another directory - run a search to find it. Once you have located winmysqladmin.exe, I would advise putting a shortcut to it on your desktop.
Open winmysqladmin.exe, a window should pop up asking for a user name and password. Enter a username and password that you wish to use, this will be the MASTER USERNAME AND PASSWORD for your mysql installation. You will need this password very shortly, so write it down! Once you submit the info, look in the sys tray for an icon that looks like a trafficlight. If the 'light' is red, mySQL needs to be started. Do this by right clicking the icon, choose 'win NT' and then click 'start this service'. (If you wish to set more u/n & p/w for other users on their own dbs -read about in the mySQL documentation.)

Creating a Database with winmysqladmin.exe
If the traffic light icon is in the tray, open the gui by right clicking the icon, choose 'show me'. If not in the tray, open winmysqladmin.exe by opening from the shortcut you placed on your desktop earlier, or find it again and open it. When it opens, you will see the window appear and then disappear, look in the tray and you will see the traffic light. Right click the icon, choose 'show me'.
The GUI will appear, click on the 'Databases' Tab. Right click on the server name in the upper left frame and click 'create database'. Input a database name and click ok. This will create a new blank database. Now you are ready to install Postnuke.

PostNuke Install Notes
At this point, I am assuming that you have the files in place on the server and will refer to the directory that holds those files as 'POSTNUKEweb'. Some preliminary steps:make sure that config.php and config-old.php both are world-writable.Note that once the install/upgrade has been completed these files can be re-set to read-only.
your config file should be modified to reflect the username and password that you set up during the installation of mySQL. Remember? I told you to write them down!!! It should also reflect of the name of the database that you created with winmysqladmin.exe.
additionally your config.php file should be set to Windows. Do this by changing $pnconfig['system'] = '0'; to $pnconfig['system'] = '1'; on line 48.
KICK ITgo to your post nuke installation (i.e. http://POSTNUKEweb/install.php).
choose the language and click 'Set Language'. If this page just refreshes and you can't get beyond it, you need to change your php.ini file described above in the PHP heading.
when you get to the DB info page DO NOT check box for use with intranets, I check this on my first run through and could not log in after installation, by not checking it, I could log in fine. I have a feeling that its because of the server setup, but it works for me. You can play with this setting after install:make a backup copy of the pnSession.php file (located in the includes directory). Then, open the file in your favorite editor, and find the line (somewhere around line #88) that looks like this:

Code:
if (pnConfigGetVar('intranet') == false) {

You can toggle the intranet functionality by changing the boolean false to true and vice-versa on this line to see how you system/server/nuke responds.


By following these guidelines you can implement PostNuke pretty seemlessly on your Windows 2000 server. I haven't experimented with XP, win2k (non server), or 98, but I'll be sure to post my findings if I do.

Also, thanks to the entire dev team on PostNuke for creating a kickass solution platform --- you guys ROCK (and so does the community

Generated on October 8, 2002.

Development on pnCommunity to begin ...   (News)

Vision:
pnCommunity is a "super-module" or suite of integrated modules aimed at strengthening communication and project management across the entire Postnuke Community - developers and end-users alike. On many levels, pnCommunity should serve as a replacement to SourceForge.net built around the core Postnuke product. While initially built to serve the Postnuke community, pnCommunity will also be an aggressive first step towards a corporate "killer app" which can further strengthen Postnuke's growing foothold on corporate Intranets.

Many of the components listed below exist either as current PN or PHPNuke modules or as other open-source projects. To build pnCommunity, we need to bring the best elements of each of these apps together under a common, tightly integrated platform which further dovetails cleanly into the pnCore.

Preliminary Components:

01. pnCVS
Building on Jan Schrage's work, this will tie CVS release management to project milestones.

02. pnFunctions
A dynamic function library for developers ... similar to the function library found at PHP.NET bur dedicated to PN functions.

03. pnProject
In many ways the spine of pnCommunity, pnProject provides project management tools like task tracking and resource assignment.

04. pnFeedback
Tied closely to pnProject and potentially many core modules, pnFeedback will provide robust tools for generating, tracking and acting on bug reports, feature requests and documentation requests.

05. pnForums
Built on the forthcoming Comments API, pnForums will eventually replace current support and development forums. Tight integration will allow moderators to generate bug reports, feature requests and other key information from forum posts. Conversely, other elements of pnCommunity will auto-generate topics/posts with in pnForums.

06. pnKnowledge
Fed by pnFeedback and pnForums, this tool should help expand and flesh out online Postnuke documentation.

07. pnDevelopers
Developer-specific member list and user details. Think of it as a developer resume which can be used by project leaders. Allows users and devs to rate developers much like the Developer Profile on SourceForge.net.

08. pnPortfolio
The next generation YAPNS. Creates a gallery of categorized Postnuke sites. Provides an announcement tools for new or updated PN-based sites.

09. pnLibrary
A tool for posting and announcing new Themes, Modules and Blocks. Submission to pnLibrary will automatically post a News article in the appropriate PN subdomain and potentially generate a topic in pnForums for discussion of the new release.

10. pnJobBoards
A place for developers to announce their availability and for end-users to post Postnuke related projects/jobs. Think www.guru.com, but Postnuke-specific and tied into pnDevelopers.

11. pnRatings
Built on the Ratings API, pnRatings will allow user rating of the various elements of pnCommunity.

12. pnPrinter
Online resources (particularly documentation) will be made readily available in a printer-friendly format.

To review the first draft of the pnCommunity vision document in it's entirety, please visit developer.hostnuke.com: Dev Forums.

As a final note, this will be no small project. The pnCommunity team always welcomes folks from all corners of the Postnuke community to join our ranks. If you are interested lending your talents to this project, please email Doug Daulton (apakuni@ursastudios.com).

Thanks to the pnCommunity Team and additional project sponsors Gregor J. Rothfuss (Gregor) and Steve MacGregor (Grape).

Regards,

Doug Daulton (Apakuni) - Project Manager
Curtis Hays (stratagem) - Team Lead, Website Services

Generated on June 5, 2002.

The competion?   (News)

more than 25 e-Business applications into one affordable, easy to use package. Build community through interactive participation!

Quickly produce an informative and compelling portal. Or use Dynaportal to power your corporate Intranet, Extranet, or Web site.

Dynaportal leads the industry by integrating the most common portal eBusiness systems into one affordable information management solution.
• Ad Server
• Announcements
• Portal Directory
• Calendars
• Chat
• Classified Ads
• Contests
• Email List Management
• Employment
• Forums / Conferences
• Global Site Administration
• Letters To The Editor
• Links Directory
• Membership Management • Member Web Sites
• Newsletters
• News Publishing
• Personalisation
• Polls and Surveys
• Portal Publication Control
• Product Catalogs
• Promotions / Coupons
• Self Publishing
• Site Info
• Specialty Guides
• Sports Guide
• WebMail
• Utilities

Generated on May 22, 2002.

Updating PostNuke - a users report   (News)

extra catch, I only have FTP access to the online site, no Telnet or shell access and no access to the database. So, it had to work!
I have a PHP script on the online server that will query the database and extract all the data into a set of files (.sql files and restore.php) that can be used to recreate the database when needed. I've never needed to do it, but its comforting to know that I can. I use this script to transfer the data from the production site to the development site.

NOTE: these notes apply to the above upgrade. Your setup may be different.

The first thing I did was to make an installation on the development machine, in a different directory from the old version. Untar the files etc.

Next, make sure that there was a backup of the old installation database, so that I could rollback if needed. I repeated the installation about six times, backing up to the 0.63 version in between, so a script was needed, something like this:
In /var/lib/mysql make a back up like so:
tar czf pn63.tgz postnuke
Have a script like so:

#!/bin/sh
rm -r postnuke
tar xzf pn63.tgz
chmod 700 postnuke
chown mysql:daemon postnuke

Run this script and afterwards run:
mysqladmin flush-tables

OK, so now we have a backup of our 0.63 version of the database, we have the 0.713 files installed (in a new directory), now we need to copy over the extra themes, modules and blocks that the 0.63 installation used. Put them in the same directories in the 0.713 directory.
IMPORTANT: you will need to keep the PostNuke theme in order to make a first login in the new site. After the site is setup and running, you can remove the PostNuke theme if you don't need it.

Check the naming of the images/avatar files. In the 0.63 install, they were 'graphics/avatar/ava001.gif', in the 0.713 install, they are 'images/avatar/001.gif'. The change in directory name doesn't matter but the change in the gif name does, as your current users will have the gif name stored in their profile. The solution I took was to rename them all to the old names, the other possibility would be to run an update on the database (see later for this).

Copy over the old config file from the 0.63 install and rename it to pn7config.php. Check that the config.php and config-old.php files have 666 mode.

We're ready to run the install.php script now, follow the instructions on screen.
Assuming it was successful, we're now ready to log in as an administrator and configure the site to our needs. If the installation was not successful for some reason, running it again will not work because the installation scripts will complain that the (new PN0.713) tables already exist and abort. We can either modify the scripts to delete the new tables (take a look in pn7.php for this) or simply rollback the database as per my instructions above. Thats why we made a backup!

Right, logged in as administrator? No? One problem could be that if you are installed on an intranet or local machine, then PostNuke will not let you log in unless you use a fully qualified domain name, so make sure you have a fully qualified domain name in the location bar. (i.e. using 'http://mybox/pn7/index.php' will not work, you need to use 'http://mybox.domain.com/pn7/index.php').

Administration tasks:
The first thing to do as administrator is to go to the settings page and configure the site as you need.
Nip over to the comments page to change the name of the anonymous user if you need to.
Then move to the permissions page to set up the permissions.
On the blocks page, disable the Reminder block and set up the other blocks as you need them.
My installation ended up with two admin blocks, the first one activated, the second not. I deactivated the first and activated the second. I then modified the block to show adminstration and logout links.
I also added some links to the menu block. The nice thing about PostNuke0.713 is the abillity to design the menu with the items in the order you want, with the labels that you want.
On the modules page, setup the modules that you need.

Some funny things that I noted:

The main menu had three blank items at the start, which I had to remove using the blocks admin page.
The two admin modules as noted above.
The permissions system is quite complex and powerful, I won't make any description of it here, the online docs do a good job of that, but I will note that if something doesn't work the way you expect, then this is the first place to check.
If you add a logout item to the menu, then you would expect it to read something like:
user.php?op=logout
But if you do this, then the logout will just hang. You need to use:
user.php?op=logout&module=NS-User
Double spaced lines, extra '\n\r' and so on, see the note at the end of this article.
addslashes, stripslashes and the magic_quotes_gpc debacle, see note at the end of this article

By now you should have things working the way you want. Once you have everything checked and OK we want to create some scripts. What we've been through above is far too long winded for a real production site, what we want to do now is to dump out the setup and configuration data and create some PHP scripts that will automatically update the database with the settings we need.
There are two approaches to this. The first is to go in to mysql and dump out the data by hand. The other is to write a script to do it for us. I actually used the first method, but if I was to do it again I would use the second method. In fact, the backup script that I mentioned at the start of the article will do this job for you.

Now the site is setup on our development server, its working the way that we want and we have an update script that will load the configuration data into the database. Good. So, now delete everything in the pn7 installation directory. Using the shell script that I mentioned above, restore the old postnuke database to the way it was in PN63 and check that your old PN63 web site is working the way that it used to.

The next step is to have a dress rehearsal of installing the new site. Follow the instructions above (untar the site, copy over the needed files etc) until you have finished the install script and logged in as administrator. Now run the update script that we made in order to setup the site configuration. This should theoretically take care of all that phatzing around and the site will be set up in minutes instead of an hour.

If some things are not working out, run through the whole dress rehearsal again, modifying the update script in between till all the data that you need is updated. The aim here is to make it so simple that the real production site can be updated in a matter of minutes not hours.

When the whole process is running smoothly, you can go ahead and do the real thing on the live production server. You may want to provide a small index.html informing users of why they can't find the site while the update is taking place. Delete the root files first and put up the index.html. Then delete all the old files, ftp up the new ones, do the install, run the update scripts and the world is a beautiful place.

Some More Notes:
Double spaced lines
On the first run through, all my news stories came out double spaced! For every '\n\r\n\r' in the text I now had ''. Not good, especially when you have hundreds of stories. The offending lines are in the install scipt 'pn7.php' around line 97 there are some nl2br(...) function calls. Comment them out. I haven't noticed any detrimental side effects from doing this.
There is also an informative article at http://abooks.com/lines.htm by Ralph Roberts

The magic_quotes_gpc problem
When you run the install script, on the second page, where it checks the permissions on the config files, it will also check the magic_quotes_gpc setting (in the php.ini file) and warn you if it is set to Off. If it is Off, then it will advise you to turn it on.

The magic_quotes_gpc setting is a PITA. In my opinion PostNuke should not require it to be on, its not necessary. On my Web host, the setting is off, and I have no access to the .htaccess files to override that setting. I can't turn it on. So, I have to find another way of dealing with the problem. I think (but I'm not 100% sure, any feedback appreciated) that a modification to the textsanitizer.php script is all thats needed. Near line 85, these two functions should be changed to look like this:

function oopsAddSlashes($text) { if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) { $text = addslashes($text); } return $text; }
function oopsStripSlashes($text) { if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) { $text = stripslashes($text); } return $text; }


Good luck and have fun.
jalal at gnomedia.com

Generated on April 22, 2002.

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