PostNuke

Site search

Search results

Number of hits: 15

MediaAttach RC 1 released   (News)

Functional features

With the display and delete hooks file uploads become possible in all hook-capable modules.
Many different file types are supported (images, music, videos, archives, documents, ...)
The most formats can be displayed embedded.
Enhanced file information like for example ID3 tags are read and cached with pnRender.
Also emedding external videos (e.g. YouTube, Google or Dailymotion) is possible.
Users can send files to themselves in mails.


Security

Files can be stored outside the web root, which is advisable absolutely.
If this is not possible, a .htaccess file can be created automatically for protecting direct access.
Therefore all access is handled by module functions and permissions.
A quota support cares for bounded storage limits.


Integration

Users can manage their own files in the profile.
With a Scribite plugin for Xinha media can be inserted in the editor easily.
A support for needles in the MultiHook also provides possibilities to include files in other content.
A Guppy plugin for Pagesetter is enclosed as well to be able to define MediaAttach fields.
Also the Content module is being supported by a flexible plugin.
More profound integration possibilities for special modules exist with create and update hooks.


Migration

An import from the file system is possible.
Moreover import options for Downloads 2, Mediashare, PhotoGallery and pnUpper are ready.


Comfort

Direct support for Categories.
Images can be scaled down.
Space-saving multi uploader if JavaScript is available.
Thumbnails can be cut out individually if desired.
The new search functionality is being supported.
The creation of bit torrents for files is possible.
Comprehensive PDF manual.


MediaAttach can be used as easy as every other display hook module (for example EZComments). But if one engages in it, he quickly perceives that the strengths of this module are it's flexibility and it's adaptability. It not only unifies file management and media integration, but can also be used as a gallery for example. Different annexed template sets illustrate several possible applications.
Also interesting is that one can activate MediaAttach also for MediaAttach itself which leads amongst others to the possibility to attach media to other media items.
The module offers concluding dozens possibilities which can all be used, but may not. For this reason it is excellently suited for being employed in project-specific areas and is furthermore in line with our framework idea why it is going to constitute an enrichment certainly.

Links

Download
Bugtracker
Patches
Feature Requests


Have fun with testing and giving feedback :)

Generated on March 7, 2008.

Jørn Wildt Proposes New Content Module   (News)

For the discussion see: http://community.postnuke.com/module-Forum-viewtopic-topic-53152-start-0.htm

Here is what Jørn has in mind:

[quote=Jørn Wildt]Dear PostNuke community

One of the things that always comes up when comparing PostNuke to other Content Management Systems is its lack of real content management. All we have is some old News, Pages and FAQ (and some more) management modules - nothing really fancy. You can add fancy modules like PagEd, Pagesetter, pnWiki and others but somehow they all lack, well, something - something which I find rather difficult to pinpoint. They are either too complex, too simple, impossible to extend and do not integrate well with each other.

I have been doing some thinking about this issue and would like to present some ideas for a new Content system in PostNuke. A framework that newbies can work with right out of the box, an extensible framework, and a framework with well integrated components that are aware of each other. My ideas are by no means rocket science and most, if not all, have been implemented else where - just not in PostNuke.

If you ask me then PostNuke is going to dwindle away unless something serious is done to add a good content framework. Here is my suggestion.

[b]Content Types[/b]
The core component is the "Content Type". For those of you that knows Pagesetter this is exactly the same as Pagesetter's Publication Type. This will be a separate module that takes care of defining content types, editing and displaying content items - but without user navigation! Think of an Article, with it's title, lead-in text, main text and image, as a content item of the type "Article". The type specifies the fields that are available for a single instance of the type - a single content item - a single Article.

Content Types are management by the site administrator (but can also be created by other modules). The admin can choose from an extensible (through plugins) list of field types. Here are some examples (mostly copied from Pagesetter):

- String (one line text), Text (non-HTML), HTML (using Scribite!)
- Number, checkbox, date
- Media files (using Mediashare)
- File uploads
- URL, email
- Computer code (text displayed with line numbers in mono spaced font)
- Category (using PN .8 categories), both single and multiple select.

Now you can create an article as a title (string), lead-in (text), main text (html) - and many other types of content. But there is still no navigation - neither on the admin side nor the user side. All you have is a Content module that allows you to create content types, content items and then display these - assuming you now the URLs. Navigation is delegated to other modules - more on that later on.

The core framework does also handle input form generation: it will auto-generate input forms (using pnForms in PN .8). These can then be copied to another location and re-designed using the standard Smarty templating system.

The core content module handles a few other things: for instance revision history (who changed what and when).

[b]Content Management[/b]
So far there's nothing new compared to Pagesetter. So lets take a look at the admin side of navigation - how to store and locate your content items. I suggest that all content items are stored in a folder structure identically to your standard disk drive. On the harddisk you manage folders and store files in them. In the CMS you also manage folders - but now you store content items in them - indifferently of the content type.

The first challenge is how to handle user contributed content since normal users don't have access to the administrative folder system. Now remember that the core Content system allows anyone (with the right permissions) to add content, but where should it be stored? I suggest a standard "incoming" folder is created for this purpose (much like your mail system). The editors can then keep an eye on this folder and move new content to the right folders.

Actually there should be one "incoming" folder for each content type and it should be possible to specify which it is. In addition to this the system should have a flexible workflow system a'la Pagesetter (now already in the .8 core). So that different editors and authors and admins can be notified when new submissions arrive.

[b]Content Structure[/b]
But there's still not much difference from Pagesetter. So what's the point? Well, enter CoType - this little module, which I'm rather proud of, has some nice layout features that I would like to copy. First of all you have Boxes - elements that can be floated left/right/top/bottom relative to the current content. In CoType you have boxes for media items, program examples, and general text. I would like to extend this so that you can put any content item inside a box. So you can display and Article and put one or more Media type items in boxes as illustrations.

Another thing to copy from CoType is the use of nested content - sections in sections. This concept should be extended, just like the boxes, with the ability nest any content item inside another item. The only problem here is how nested content should be displayed? In CoType you always have sections in sections (in a document) - and there's a well defined standard way to display this. But what happens if you sudden nest a Music album inside a FAQ inside a Media item ... and then box it? Well, that will have to be solved as we go.

I suggest the Content Type configuration lets the admin specify which types of content you can nest inside another.

The system could also enable boxing of other modules contents - assuming some kind of API/interface the external modules have to implement (just like PostNuke's search API).

[b]Content Layout[/b]
The proposed layout scheme is so far rather fixed - something like this:

- Top content item title is displayed inside ... tags.
- Nested content title is displayed in ... (and so on for further nesting).
- All nested content is displayed on one page.
- A small table-of-content is displayed at the top (linking to sub-content anchors).
- Each (nested) content item is displayed with a standard auto-generated template.
- Boxes floated to the left/right are displayed in 50% width (like CoType)
- Top/bottom boxes are displayed in 100% width (like CoType)

This will allow newbies to quick and easy created new content without having to also design their own templates. Assuming of course that the system comes with a suitable default set of content items.

Experienced users can edit and change the auto-generated templates. But these will be recreated everytime the administrator changes the Content Type configuration. So experienced users must copy the templates to another location and then edit them to fit their own needs.

[b]Navigation[/b]
So far I have ignored the concept of navigation between different content items completely. This is because it can be done in so many different ways - and this is mostly where the different types of PostNuke modules distinguish themselves. A media gallery has a completely different navigation paradigme than a News list, a Wiki and a Weblink collection.

So I propose to delegate navigation to other modules. This has already been done with success with a calendar (pgcalendar) and a news archive (pgarchive) for Pagesetter. These two modules takes a specific Content Type and displays it's items a calendar view and a monthly listing view. This combination is extremely strong - you can add all the fields you want on a Calendar item - and still display it using the standard calendar view. Throw in the nested content and the boxing ability and you get an extremely flexible and yet simple Content Management System.

[b]List Navigation[/b]
The basic navigation is simple a pageable list of items ordered by some criteria. You create different lists and then refer these in the URL. For each list you configure which content type(s) to include, the default sorting order, the display template to use for each item - probably more. Including more than one content type gives some problem with respect to sorting.

This implements the typical News list on the frontpage.

[b]Catalog Navigation (collections)[/b]
This is the typical Weblink and File Up/Download navigation through a collection. The hierarchy is mirrored directly from the content folders.

[b]Calendar Navigation[/b]
Displays content items by date in a calendar (see for instance [url=http://www.fgc.dk/index.php?module=pgcalendar&tid=40]http://www.fgc.dk/index.php?module=pgcalendar&tid=40[/url]). You need to specify which date fields to use as start/end date of the entries.

[b]Archive Navigation[/b]
Displays content in lists organized by month (see for instance [url=http://www.fjeldgruppen.dk/arkiv.html]http://www.fjeldgruppen.dk/arkiv.html[/url]).

[b]Menu Navigation[/b]
On thing that frustrates me with PostNuke is the horrible way you edit menus through the Block interface. No - lets allocate a complete module for menu editing and then just select which menu to display in which box (I believe Content Express does this). With the integrated content framework you can now let the editor select content items from dropdown lists or similar - and avoid having to copy/paste raw URLs into the menu editor (this has always been a intellectual bottleneck for the people I have created websites for).

I would also like to see editing of the menu directly in the front-end. The editor should always have an "add current page to menu" icon in the menu. He should also be able to drag and drop menu items without having to jump to the admin interface.

[b]Frontpage Setup[/b]
This is just another idea of what you can do - not necessarily something to actually implement. But the frontpage need not necessarily be a list of latest items as on most portal websites. It might also be a fixed setup based on a grid where you can assign different content items to different locations. For instance Articles to the left, Banners to the right, and a few images at the bottom.


[b]Where to go now?[/b]
Now who's going to implement all this? Good question considering the speed of the core development. I would love to be on the team (and will be) but my time is restricted (especially now that I got my first kid) so I work rather slowly.

Any volunteers?

There's also the question of organizing the code - we cannot have much more than one or maybe two developers on the core Content module. But as soon as that is ready we can take more people in - one for each kind of navigational scheme. Other people can then work on the default content types.

We also need to consider how a system like this fits into the PostNuke distribution. Does it have it's own release cycle? Is it integrated with the core?

Enjoy 8-)

/Jørn[/quote]

Generated on September 4, 2007.

Introducing Your PostNuke Steering Committee   (News)

The six members of the PostNuke Steering Committee are:

Simon Birtwistle [HammerHead]
Simon has been working with PostNuke for over three years now. Originally using PostNuke for a simple, personal website running on the .722 release Simon now runs a number of PostNuke websites for different organizations including the Scout Association. His personal website itbegins.co.uk, although out of date, houses developments such as pnStatus and also copies of documentation written for the project. In real life, Simon is a student, fortunately leaving ample time for his volunteer work with PostNuke, mainly centering on the pnForums and documentation, most prominently in the pnGuide. Simon has been a team member since the summer of 2003.

Frank Schummertz [landseer]
Frank started with PostNuke more than 2.5 years ago when working on pnCommerce. In the meantime his portfolio also contains Formicula, MultiHook, pnMenu and last but not least pnForum and the pn_bbclick / pn_bbcode / pn_bbsmile / pn_highlight hooks in their latest incarnation. Frank has been part of the Development team since 2004.

Franz Skaaning [franz.skaaning]
Franz originally started working with PostNuke around the time of the .722 release. Since then, he has started a number of PostNuke related developments, these include modules such as xFPDF and xRSS and his themes, releasing a total of 13. His presonal site, lexebus.net has over 100 visitors a day looking for support and downloads. Franz joined the PostNuke team a year ago to help out with communication, but outside of his volunteer work provides both PostNuke related and other services.

Franky Chestnut [chestnut]
Franky Chestnut has been using PostNuke since the 0.6x series but got more involved in the 0.7x series. Along with pnConcept.com, his personal blog and development site, he is also the administrator of the official French website: PostNuke-France.org. In real life, Frank is working as a developer for a family-owned business creating software solutions for music publishers. He has been part of the Core Development Team since July 2004.
Anecdote : Although not even his real name, Franky added the "y" to the Frank because there was already too many Franks when he got hooked on PostNuke.

Robert Gasch [rgasch]
Robert has a Computer Science background and has been working on large-scale systems for more than 10 years. He considers himself a pragmatic open-source believer for both practical as well as philosophical reasons who brings with him tangible experience using 10+ programming languages on various platforms in a variety of settings.
Professionally, he has filled diverse roles ranging from being a Unix software engineer for a major RDBMS vendor to an ERP technical & performance specialist for a major ERP vendor to being lead-consultant on multi-million Dollars/Euros eBusiness enterprise implementations utilizing technologies such as Java and WebLogic/WebSphere. Robert has been working with PostNuke for almost 3 years and is the driving force behind the http://www.open-star.org development effort.


Joerg Napp [jn]
Jörg started with PostNuke 3 years ago when looking for a nice Content Management System. In the meantime he developed EZComments,the Title Hack and some other Hacks. He also adopted the Static_Docs module.

The PostNuke Steering Committee has initially identified 3 areas on which we will be focusing our attention.

PostNuke Site Redesign
The work on the new site is being pushed forward and has been given priority. We aim to finish this project as soon as possible, improving the usability and value of the website to both new and experienced users.

Communications
We will aim to post periodic updates on the project's progress to keep you more informed of the work behind the scenes, which is not always easily seen. Additionally, you can now contact the Steering Committee through the contact form on each PostNuke subsite to raise any specific queries you may have, though the forums should still be used where possible.

Development
Shortly an update on development towards .8 will be published giving an overview of the development progress so far and what

Generated on October 6, 2005.

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.

Interview: Cas Nuy   (News)

What are you working on?

My work can be divided into 2 categories:

Add-ons, mainly integration modules for existing web-applications which are not (yet) PostNuke enabled.

My aim is not to fully integrate other applications but to enable single signon. I hate logging on multiple times so the reason is obvious. In addition, most of the time I add one or more sideblocks for PN. I have created integration modules for:

Owl- a document management system There is a PN enabled version called NukeOwl but unfortunately this is no longer maintained. This module comes with a sideblock.

Coppermine- a slick photo gallery. Again comes with a sideblock. By now there is a fully integrated version devlopped by phpNuke developers and I have adjusted my side block to fit in this solution. Having seen my integration for coppermine, I received a request if I could do similar for another gallery called 4images. This one is available also with a sideblock.

Mantis- a bugtracker application was actually on of the first modules I created. Recently added a sideblock.

phProjekt- again upon request. This one comes with multiple sideblocks and also includes Mantis integration within phProjekt.

Looking for a nice knowledgebase, I stumbled across Mindmeld. Although a kind of integration with PN was available, I did not like the way it was done. Created my own version including a sideblock.

phpGedView also created upon request. I have some interest in genealogy and am using TNG myself.

Netjuke was one of the latest. I had been checking out various jukeboxes but neither fitted my needs till I found Netjuke. Still think this is was of the best around. Also comes with a sideblock.

Already some time ago, someone asked for integration of Moodle. Once I found the time for it, things moved quickly. Moodle is a socalled LMS (Learning Management System) and looks very good. Once i made this available, I received a request for ATutor, another LMS. This one has been released shortly (seemd to me a good idea to offer 2 options to the PN community).

In the pipeline are updates for various of the above mentioned modules and also a new one will be released shortly for Zentrack, another bugtracker.

As part of the add-ons, I also created some Blocks. NukeOwl latest doc blocks. When I started with NukeOwl there only was one block which did not meet my requirements, so I added one. NewsScroller, one of the most downloaded on my site. I just did not like all that news on the frontpage and wanted to have a scrolling block. Recently have extended this with ability of scrolling Admin-messages & rss-feeds.

New modules
Feedback module was one of the first, it was just not available so it had to be made (my very first one).

pnChangeLog is the other full module I have created. It allows one to keep track of changes of various objects. This time again, I could not find something that fitted my needs. One of the things I am thinking about is a survey module where you can weigh the answers, save them in between.


Tell me about your postnuke "career".

As soon as i was able to have a broadband internet connection, I wanted to setup my own webserver. I started testing the various CMS systems (alhough having very little
knowledge of this platform) and found that PN was relative easy to use, a lot of modules were available and was having a very rich usergroup.


When did you start working on your own module?

Although a lot is available, there is always something missing. Just for fun, I created a Feedback module and that really was the start. In search of modules i wanted, I also found that there is lot's of good software around although not always postnuked. That's where i started creating the integration modules. The NewsScroller-block was something I wanted to have for my site, so it had to be made. The first true module is my pnVhangeLog module which is still being further developed.


What is your development like?

Given my daily work, there is not much time left. So i work on things I "need", in some cases upon request. The help is actually coming out of the community, there are always people available to help in testing and giving proper feedback. I do not use any specific tools apart from coffee, tabac & music.


What is the biggest difficulty in your development?

Time and knowledge, there are more & more new developments which are difficult to keep up with due to my time constraints.

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

Well i just hope all the new things are very well documented so I do not need to discover everything by myself. Apart from that, performance increases are what i am hoping for. Certainly development of a "standard" bridge function for modules of other nuke related cms would be very nice.

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

Well my modules will follow the core progress so smarty/pnRender will be the things that I will have to look into.

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

Documentation is as always the hardest part.

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

Working together is always we should look at. A good sample is the recent developments around the Coppermine gallery. This standalone gallery had a phpNuked version (fully integrated) and there was pnCPG( single signon for Postnuke). Now the phpNuke port is also suitable for Postnuke. Although most of the work was done by the phpNuke team, at least there was communication from both sides. That is the way forward !

Thank you very much for the interview.

More info on Cas Nuy's work: http://www.nuy.info

Generated on December 20, 2003.

Musician's mp3 portal IndyDisc.com   (News)

The goal of IndyDisc.com is to help independant musicians prosper in a world where increasingly only major record labels have the time to learn and play by the rules of music industry success. The site features a bulletin board, Neilsen Soundscan tracking (Billboard) for indy CD sales, weekly feature articles on significant independant music events, and more.

Generated on November 18, 2003.

Web Logs Emerging   (News)

SEPTEMBER 29 : 2002
Posted by: on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 01:23 AM EST


then i realized what had been told to me before all of this happend.. before the journal came to be... before i dedicated myself to this work.. but only recently has the message become clear.. and it is so papostours.. and i've never even used that word in my writing before.. it is so large.. that it can contain an entire movie.. well it came through a dream to me.. but in sync with the joe satriani new strange beautiful music cd... i tell you there words embedded in those songs... something very odd is going on... well so then as it was quite like a mission impossible senerio.. but undisclosed till now the full context of the notion... but what when we fast... why is this guy going so intirely mad... like noah building the ark... what work is he doing.. taking strange drugs and reporting back his results.. but then control on the fringe.. when i did not have any idea who i was working for.. but that it had something to do with the security of our collective human family.. i've top clerance.. only i'm a chatter box.. i'm a spin artist.. well everything that needs to say.. i say the best way forward.. on every variable of communication i've hit.. even those embarassing things to say.. still the duty to bring them out of the nonverbal unspoken.. proving mature composure in taboo contextual settings.. like not commenting or laughing when someone farts... that was my idea.. just treat it like a natural fuction that it is.. and respect the smell.. go on with the moment like it really wasn't to big of deal... if know one is around waif.. the culturally comfirmed in proper behavior by adam corrolla.. who surely broadens the horizon of politically correct in his own terms.. specifically though i was told directly by central intelligence by media spy wave broadcast that this work needed to be done.. that certain biochemicals had been released into the public domain... that every possible solution was being sought to overcome and survive this attack... that ever dietary tactic that i could foster toward strenghtening the immune system of our species was absolutly nesseccary... what happens when one fast is in pharmonic fequency tonation.. that has a direct effect on every organism on the entire planet... patterning deep at the atomic level.. the immune system of the planet... faced with every weakness culturally and socially presented... opening up to the healing potential of the body is an act of self defense... at the end of this dream... really needed contact... i could find nobody anyplace who was in a position to accomidate me... i was in a fast food resturant... this girl sitting behind me so beautiful in her smile as i asked her if she would give me a kiss and all my obsessive need and hunger for love vanished as i looked into her smiling face... she responded with a very inceptious smooch.. a huge man athletically built with big rings sat down at the table next to her and handed over her food... i was intimidated and said... looking to him in the eyes... o' i'm really meaning no offense... no harm.. i so much needed comfort... he smiled.. and said.. you don't want to get queer about it do you? .... and playfully in a sarcastic way punching me lightly on the arm.... laughed.. slightly backed away in my seat as i was in a booth turned towards there backs leaning over.. then he introduced me... this is my sister.. do you like her? i said she is very lovely... you should get to know her... he said biting into his food... i noticed her pure beauty even more so and as i looked at her became aware a sacrade anceint people.. presence was a blessing... my body began to shake... i looked back over to the man who was her brother.... looking into the gold on fingers that were not there but in my mind... suddenly i felt this was all orchestrated by god.. my attention was becoming cerebral as i thought about this woman who was nothing but love.. the voice in my head reminding me.. a view of all histiory swept my vision... i felt her hand was more than in mine.. i heard a man speaking in a very plain monotone way.. serious like a scientist but a millitary fact based briefing type..... a biological weapon has been released into the human stream... its purpouse is to destroy us... if we do not change in responce.. in a time spoken to the millionth of a second i was told... the moment it would be to late... the thing is i don't know when i was told only now understanding congnitively.... but that when i woke up near tears.. that the last song you saved my life on this cd had ended.. the voice faded through the last note... it felt good... really good to feel that in some way my life could has such purpose

Note: I'VE BEEN LAYING IN THE GRASS AND CLIMBING THE MAPLE TREE!!!

Generated on October 3, 2002.

Postnuke - A Heavy User's Perspective   (News)

other modules as examples and worry about the module working rather than the code looking pretty (and trust me it isn’t pretty!).

The advent of .8 causes me a few worries and I’d like to share them with the developers from the point of view of someone who relies on Postnuke. This isn’t me saying what should and shouldn’t happen (man, I’d be lost in the dark ages without you guys!) but hopefully let you see some of the worries larger sites which can’t afford downtime or loss of functionality have. If Postnuke is to become adopted by bigger corporations these are going to be points they will raise.

With each new release of Postnuke, the ‘coding’ changes. And what I mean by this is that modules need to be recoded slightly differently with each release. It wouldn’t be a problem except that a lot of excellent modules aren’t updated for weeks / months / if ever because the original developers are confused by these coding changes. Heck, I still don’t get all the pnadmin apis, and don’t have the time to really sit down and learn.

However, I understand that as the system progress towards it’s goal, each release is going to introduce changes. And you have started a documentation site which is excellent. However, I know if .8 doesn’t support some of my older modules, supported in .714, I’m going to consider not upgrading, and instead just introduce hacks to do what I need, which will make it even harder to upgrade in the long run.

News needs a complete overhaul, and yes I’m glad to see that happening in .8. News is my ‘bread and butter’ so I need it to be able to work overtime, and whilst many would like some of these features, I’m probably one of those ones who needs them all.

First off, I need next page news. I need to be able to visit the front page see the first x articles and be able to click on an image to see the next x and so on. In a site that publishes a lot of news in a day, it’s not as easy as it could be to see older articles. I also need this to happen whether I’m looking at topics or categories. The “view all articles in this category/topic” is a bad idea. Simply because if you’ve got 5000 articles, the user isn’t going to get a pleasant experience

Sections and news really need to be integrated, but it would be nice if they could be grouped together in some way, neither using topics or categories.


I think we need further options beyond topics and categories and let them be user defined. Maybe someone is giving coverage of an event which covers all topics and categories but needs to be lumped together. I wrote a simple little module for this where I have an event name and then assign urls and titles to it… but I’d like to see this integrated into the news submission.

I also think it’s needed to be able to assign an article to more than one topic/category.

It’s difficult to explain my needs in a way people would understand, so I’ll explain it by example of a music site. Each topic would represent a style of music (but hence there could be times when someone releases a mix of hip-hop and western which would need to appear in both categories). Each category would represent a label. And the 3rd option would be akin to a music festival or awards ceremony where I would want to lump articles from multiple topics and categories together.

Some of my articles contain hardcoded links to previous ones. When things changed from being articles.php to the modules format… it caused me no end of problems because I suddenly had loads of dead links. With integration of news and sections please consider that links not only exist hardcoded within the site but on the wider internet as well, so traffic needs to be successfully re-routed with each new version of Postnuke

Next images. This is something that Postnuke is sorely lacking. I know we have modules like Gallery, but I want to assign images to certain articles. For this I’ve written a module I call imagebank… which is nothing special code-wise. I know this could be written better and integration with things such as scheduled articles and other modules is a bit botched. Now when things like this are suggested a lot of people go on about upload facilities. Personally, I don’t have an issue with creating the images and uploading them via FTP (it’s easier on CPU to do all the image manipulation offline), but I’d like to be able to assign images already on my server quickly and easily (maybe even assign a whole directory which Imagebank can now do).

You can see a demo of this here to get an idea of what I’m talking about:
http://www.action-figure.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4820

And no, I haven’t released it for a number of reasons, the main one being the way it has to be hacked into the core.

Also items such as number of reads information should have the option of being admin only. This takes me an age to rehack. I don’t want my advertisers being able to compare my traffic data with what someone else may tell them/fake.

The collapsible blocks was a brilliant idea, but some blocks should NOT be able to be collapsed. I had to hack that functionality out because I don’t want my readers being able to turn off my advertising! Banner blockers are bad enough.

Now if something could be done with the banners module to allow zoning by topic / module / category, etc… I’d be a happy bunny. I use phpadsnew as a sepereate install and integrated into my theme (with the odd hardcoded block) but it’s not integrated with nuke enough to do the zoning.

I’d like it if the forums and comments were somehow integrated. No idea how this could be done but I do get the feeling that they are very separate entities on the site and hence cross traffic between the modules is very low.

I currently use encompass which I think is an excellent module. I know there is a lot of discussion about blocklayout vs encompass but to me the strength will be in Postnuke being able to use both… it gives me a choice and allow me to select whichever suits my needs best.

Also, everything possible needs to be done to make Postnuke as optimized and as scalable as possible. I want to ensure that whether I have 20 or 20,000 articles the difference in loading speed is as minimal as possible. Whilst my site isn’t hosted on anything grand, it does have it’s own dedicated server, and has got to the point that it really, really struggles. The bloat is to such a level I am now seriously considering moving to another CMS if things don’t radically improve in .8

Apologies if this seems like a long list of I want, I want, I want. I just feel that these are important generic features any large site which depends on Postnuke needs and I felt that by contributing it might share some ideas with you. I truly appreciate all the hardwork the developers do, and wish I had more time, and better coding knowledge to contribute more to the project


Adrian Faulkner

Generated on August 23, 2002.

New site addition to the PostNuke community   (News)

to bring together a wide range of independent forces from computer-generated art to prose and poetry, student news outlets, indy music and more.

The site runs PN Rogue .713, a range of modules such as My E-Gallery and XForum, and alltogether shows the ease of use of the PostNuke system even to the green-ish newbies. Give us a click and find out why we chose PostNuke over any other development system. A special thank you goes to John Cox and his dedication to free and independent web media over the past years, as well as his generous hosting and help with Freewriters.

http://www.freewriters.c

Generated on August 11, 2002.

need work?   (News)

done ASAP. If we are happy with the work and the price there could be more work to follow. Please Email me if you are interested.
jeremy@netlivemusic.com

Generated on June 13, 2002.

Page 1 / 2 (1 - 10 of 15 Total)