Content Management

We are very pleased to present you X3, the new Xoops Engine for the next generation of XOOPS powered web application development.

This new Xoops Engine was long time in coming. During that time, we went through different phases of trials and errors, but we believe that we finally have the best combination of features and technologies to strategically position XOOPS as one of the top Web Application Platform solutions.

The new Xoops Engine has been re-designed from the ground up to take advantages of third-party frameworks like Zend Framework and Smarty 3.

Why did we rewrite XOOPS?

XOOPS is one of the most successful Open Source CMS and portal solutions, constantly placing in top places in various competitions, and receiving various awards. But it is showing signs of aging, that would require major rewrites of the Core.

In order to keep us focused on creating a flexible and extensible development engine for developers and a high performance application platform for end users, the development team has decided to use industry-standard frameworks. By doing so, we can focus our limited resources on aspects that make XOOPS unique and special, while leaving standard functionality to be addressed by off-the-shelf frameworks. This way we can take advantage of latest internet developments already included in those frameworks - it's like getting suddenly a whole new team of some of the best and brightest PHP and RIA programmers joining XOOPS!

After much research, we've selected a couple of frameworks at this stage:

PHP: Zend Framework
Template: Smarty 3
JavaScript: jQuery

Meanwhile the multi-engine mechanism of the Xoops Engine will ensure the possibility of adopting other excellent frameworks in the future, like Yii Framework, Dojo Toolkit, etc.

gpEasy 1.7 is now available. The latest release of gpEasy represents months of development and testing from the growing community of gpEasy users. Find out why gpEasy is right for you, download now: http://www.gpeasy.com/Download

New Features Since 1.6

• Missing link management
• Link auto-completion in CKEditor
• Improved multi-site managment
• More flexibly drag 'n drop layout control
• Revamped user permissions
• Better SEO and permalinks
• Integrated Updating
• And More...

About gpEasy

Why Web Content Management Systems are the way of the future, making traditional web development a thing of the past

The Web is an exciting place. With excitement come innate complexity and an overwhelming abundance of choices when defining how to take your website into the future.  Ask web evangelists of today versus evangelists of say 5 years ago, and they will highlight the importance of device support, marketing tools, analytics and focusing on creating great content that will stand the test of time.

Recently, companies like Google and Apple have prompted questions to the public, such as, “Why are we still building things like we did 30 years ago?” These types of provocative questions are spawning answers in the form of new tools, such as the iPhone 4 and the upcoming wave of Google WebOS notebooks. Ask yourself these questions:

• Would you still create artwork using MS Paint?
• Would you still write articles using Notepad?
• Would you still use Netscape as an Internet Browser?

Then why are you still developing websites in the traditional approach?

Let me start by defining what I mean by “traditional”. Traditional Web Development refers to the act of taking a Web Framework such as HTML, ASP.net, PHP and building a website from the ground, up. This includes everything from setting up Database connections, setting up Database Tables, creating separate files for your Contact Us and Products page, the list goes on. Most web agencies that I consult with have control libraries that make this process less tedious and time consuming but this is not addressing the fundamental issue, being, this is a traditional methodology for building web sites. Weddings should be traditional; your grandmother’s brownie recipe should be traditional. Your web presence should be innovative.

Vancouver, BC -- Intranet Connections has released the newest version of its Intranet 2.0 CMS platform with the aims of reducing administration overhead for intranet managers and simplifying the design of site navigation.  Intranet Connections version 10.5 targets small to medium size businesses wishing to have SharePoint-like functionality, but without the price tag or management overhead.

Carolyn Douglas, CEO of Intranet Connections, “Our focus is on ease-of-use and providing SMB’s with an out-of-the-box intranet that they can implement themselves.  Version 10.5 provides intranet administrators with a simple solution that is easy to install, implement and manage on an ongoing basis, without the need for custom development.”

A key enhancement in the new release is the addition of a revised menu builder that features a drag and drop interface to manage site navigation.  The redesigned interface allows administrators to add a horizontal menu to their site, create drop down menus, add menu headers and relocate menu items from the left main to the site header directly through the site interface.   The new menu builder provides more flexibility to intranet managers wishing to customize their information architecture in a simple manner.

This latest release also builds on the popular tagging feature with the addition of a new content tag management interface.  The robust tag administration area simplifies routine tag management tasks such as creating tag groups, moving tags between groups and finding tags with dynamically filtered search results.  Admins can pre-populate and organize commonly used tags so that end users can easily tag and find relevant content.

Also included among the other features of v10.5 are an upgrade of the HTML editor to improve accuracy when composing complex document layouts or pasting from Word, an extranet friendly security model to simplify user-rights administration on intranet/extranet implementations and a new Multiple File Upload tool for improved ease-of-use, stability and performance.

For a long time I’ve been really interested in performance aspects of content management systems and smarter blogging systems. This is the reason for my decision to test some of the popular systems on a workbench and to get some technical information about these systems.

The test was quite simple. I installed the packages on my sandbox server and added a function (cip-bench()) to the installation. Then I ran the index page with the default template and configuration. The data I got from the test was limited on the raw index page after the installation. I picked up 5 aspects for the test:

• The first one was the memory usage of the system
• The execution time
• Executed database queries
• How many database tables exist
• And the last parameter shows how many files are required.

It is interesting to see how different some CMS solve their tasks. I was surprised of some results for example 399 database queries of contenido.

To sum up this test I was impressed by chyrp. It’s delivered with an elegant backend and I think it has got a lot of potential to become more popular and famous. The memory usage of wordpress seems to be improved in contrast to previous versions.

Blog

CMS

Packt Publishing recently announced the finalists in each of the categories for their 2010 Open Awards. While award categories for content management systems are still included, this year Packt is also adding additional flavors of open source projects to be judged. The new award categories include awards for most promising open source project, e-commerce applications, graphics software, and JavaScript libraries.

The Voting for the winners in each of the categories ends on November 5, 2010.  This "public vote" will then be combined with votes by a panel of judges in each category to be announced on November 15, 2010.

SilverStripe released its second update to the 2.4 codebase. SilverStripe 2.4.2 addresses two potential security vulnerabilities and a number of additional bug fixes. However, this version also contains some improvements also worth mentioning.

SilverStripe 2.4.2 contains some significant improvements for supporting SilverStripe on Windows.

Jay Gilmore wrote to us the other day. Jay wanted to make sure we were aware that MODx 2.0.2 was released last Friday. Lots of bug fixes and improvements in this one that you might just notice a performance improvement. You can check out Jay's announcement below or at the MODx site.

MODx Revolution 2.0.2 Brings a Little More Speed and Lots of Little Fixes

Improvement: New default template

New home page

The category page

The Plone community has raised the bar on their flagship content management system with the release of Plone 4. With the unveiling and release announcement of Plone 4, this is proving a busy week for fans of this CMS that runs on the Python-based Zope application server.

"Plone 4 is much faster, requires less memory, and performs well even when serving up massive files. ", says Plone co-founder and Firefox User Experience Lead Alexander Limi. “They [Plone users and developers] also didn't want us to sacrifice what we do well to get there — and we haven't. Plone 4 is not just more powerful — it continues to improve in areas Plone has always been known for: usability, security, and a CMS that is easy to install, upgrade, and looks great right out of the box.”

Some of the significant changes and improvements in Plone 4 include:

• Notable performance improvements
• New theme
• Search and indexing improvements
• Group Dashboards for a Customized User Experience
• Massively improved handling of large files & media
• New, faster folder implementation
• Improved management of users and groups
• Dynamic forms framework based on jQuery Tools
• Improved first-run experience
• Smooth upgrade experience
• Reduced memory footprint
• Upgraded infrastructure

Interestingly, the announcements and even the Plone 4 download page discuss the "under the hood" improvements available in the CMS in preparation for Plone 5. That's right, they're already talking about Plone's future with Plone 5.

For addttional details about the Plone CMS be sure to visit Plone.org.