jQuery

login panel

The new template got some jQuery love. I’m using a script found in a tutorial at web-kreation.com, which gives really exceptional results. I’m working on a theme for 3mension that will incorporate a panel like this. It’s very easy to install, and I think the uses are limitless. I just need to see if it has to be added to the top of the window, or if it can be added to the top of a block in ImpressCMS

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Image fading

Also, I added a fading effect  to the images of the different supported engines. Not that difficult, and it saves loads of space.

ImpressCMS Theme someday

At the moment, this is only a simple web page which I updated to work with the login feature of ImpressCMS, to imitate the ‘site closed’ feature. I’m working on a template that will add these features in ImpressCMS proper. That will mean the jQuery stuff will be available to the entire site, and the Site Closed page will mimic the design of the site theme. At the moment, ImpressCMS developers are discussing a standardisation of the different CSS classes, in order to make it easier to get themes on the platform. I hope this gets a boost and a first version quickly, as this is really needed.

This release contains many changes, enhancements and new functionality, with the most important ones listed here:

• Totally rewritten Imagemanager, with online editing
• Fully customizable Profile module, specifically aimed at social networks
• Content is now a full-size module
• Autotasks
• AJAX Redirect, no more redirect pages
• HTMLPurifier configuration in admin backend
• Captcha configuration in admin backend
• Themes for the admin area
• Separate home pages are now possible for each user group
• Textsanitizer plugins
• Installer – new look, using AJAX
• Search results page
• Adsense management in admin area
• Centralized Ratings and Mimetype management

The release has been well publicised on several sites:

• The Release announcement on ImpressCMS.org

• INBOX International can’t keep silent either

• The Announcement on CMSCritic.com

• CMSReport.com mentioning the release

• Also our friends at H-Online have noticed this release

This is a significant step, as the logo will be used as the base for the theme created for the website. It will also help with the development of the site, as it is the first really visible part of the site that falls into place.

It seems ImpressCMS 1.2 might come out before the 3mension site goes live. A beta of ImpressCMS 1.2 is forthcoming, and the package should be feature-complete by now. During the wait for answers on the queries for a logo design, I plan to migrate all the work that is done towards that version, in order to have the newly added functionality and enhancements at my disposal.

I am happy to announce that a major part of the core functionality has been written in its basic form. At the moment, it is possible to upload files accompanied by an image, a title and a description. It’s still butt-ugly at the moment, as no time has been devoted yet to the templates that should make everything look nice on the screen. Once the functionality is approaching what will be used on the production site, I’ll start looking at the presentation.

At the moment, the plugin is built with an old Xoops plugin to generate the classes. ImpressCMS 1.2 is still a bit too far off to wait for it to get to a state I am confident with to install on a website out in the open. That’s a shame really, as the IPF framework, in combination with the imbuilding plugin for iCMS 1.2.x is a very powerful and easy-to-use tool to develop with.

I started asking around about the feature set users would like to see. My first victims were on BlenderArtists. I plan to build a bit of momentum on the different forums towards the launch of the beta, which should be next month at the latest.

This is what I call an Infrastructure module. The main goal of it is to provide a service to other modules in such a way that they don’t have to reinvent the same functionality over and over again. In the first release of the module, there won’t be any fancy rating stars or javascript-based animations. The service will simply accept numbers for the individual votes,  and return numbers if the rating of an object is retrieved. All the fancy stuff is to be added later, or even provided by the module, if something weird is needed that nobody else thought about (or wants).

I’ve been working with the latest version of imBuilding in the SVN repository, and although there are some quirks consistent with the alpha-release status, it is working quite well as initial step. Next step will be to get a closer understanding of the do’s and don’ts of the IPF framework.

In ProjectPier, those are items on my current task list. I plan to have a working first version by the end of this month, and propose it to the other icms developers for review and suggestions.

My previous post, a long time ago, I elaborated a bit on the difficult choice between ImpressCMS and Xoops. As I read in the ImpressCMS forums, ‘A line is being drawn in the sand’, and these two CMS packages are each going their separate ways, without regard for compatibility between one another. That means one has to make a choice, and recently making that choice became much more difficult due to the evolving nature of the projects.

All is quiet on the ImpressCMS front…

Where ImpressCMS has been showing the best progress right after the split from Xoops, the situation seems to have been reversed. The Xoops website contains some high-profile messages (the return of former key contributors, mergers again with spin-off branches), while the ImpressCMS site is eerily quiet. This might entice people to switch again to Xoops, and I can’t blame them.

I joined the iCMS development team a bit more than a month ago, in order to have Subversion repository access. As an insider, I have seen what is going on in ImpressCMS development. I must say it’s quite strange that Xoops and ImpressCMS are doing the same things, but for their own platform. Xoops has announced that there is a blue movement going on, which aims to rewrite as much modules as possible using the Xoops Foundation classes. 

At the same time, the ImpressCMS 1.2 alpha release is being prepared, and a huge effort has been done to rewrite as much functionality with IPF classes (ImpressCMS Persistable Framework), performing the same functionality as the Xoops Foundation classes. The iCMS developers are ‘Eating their own dogfood’, as they say. The major difference is that there is no site-wide announcement before the first alpha version is delivered, contrary to Xoops.

Frameworks

ImpressCMS defined the IPF (ImpressCMS Persistable Framework) as the basic class structure that would be the foundation for any development.  The IPF still builds on many classes with the ‘Xoops’ name in them, but that will be changed in the future, I’m certain. Once everything is based on the IPF, one can easily change the underlying system internally without breaking everything that is built on top.

 This is all very nice, and good news for the iCMS people, but I’m trying to build a site here. What does that mean for 3mension? Well, the good news is that iCMS will release the first alpha of the 1.2 branch in the following days. That branch is compatible with the imBuilding module, which will make the build process much more straightforward, and much quicker. Developing a module would become possible in a single day, according to people testing it.

The 3mension site will go online in a short while, with the basic functionality available. Most of the community-building addons will not be there yet, but the upload and description will be. In fact, it will be based on a version of wf-downloads. In the meantime, development will continue on the iCMS 1.2 version, where a tailored platform will be created for the 3mension needs.

The near future

I still have lots of work:

• setup the right combination for the wf-download options
• decide on the new look
• find some testers
• look around for community managers (one for each community, which is defined by a specific engine or a 3D tool)
• setup a bug tracking tool that can be used by the tester team.

Much to do, but a lot of the difficult decisions have been taken. Now, all we can do is go forward.

I installed the DAO class generator from the Xoops modules site. It takes an existing database table, and writes a data access Xoops class that should provide the needed functionality to use the database table in your module. It’s rather old (2004), but it seems to do the job just fine. I couldn’t find posts on the forums with warnings about unsafe or dangerous code provided by the plugin. I’ll keep on the lookout for maybe another generator, but for the moment, this is the one I’ll be using.

I won’t take care of the presentation for these first internal releases. I just want the functionality to be there. Nobody will notice that the page is perfectly integrated in the theme when the functionality isn’t there. The theme and the templates will be started when after a few internal and closed beta releases.

As always, If you are interested in testing the 3Mension site once it starts the closed beta tests, please subscribe on the main 3mension page, which happens to be the only page at the moment.

Some people are subscribing to the announcement list, which is great. All that is also the best motivation to get a first version of the site online as soon as possible for people to try and break it, and to get feedback on the way things are handled and presented.

I have some fairly good idea about the direction I want to choose theme-wise. A first impression is included here. Feel free to comment.

Unfortunately, setting up a website the way I imagined it, even in its most austere form, was not easy at all. Then the job got a bit in the way too, just to make things more interesting. I didn’t give up though, and I’m slowly building up the framework to run 3mension.com .

Firstly, I’ll build a Xoops-based version. I have most of my PHP development experience with that framework, and I think it will be a good exercise and a valid testcase for developing something other than a standard community site with news posts and a forum. Based on my experience, the decision will have to be made after the first version of the site whether to continue with Xoops, or if other frameworks provide more of the needed functionalities out of the box.

Right now, all I want is to do two things very well:

• Provide an easy and efficient upload experience to publishers
• Make it easy for non-publishing users to find the files they need.

That seems to be two trivial goals, but don’t let that fool you. The word ‘easy’ is not difficult to write in a post like this, but it is not so easy to write the code for that elusive little word ‘easy’.

Right now, there is this blog, and a holding page telling you to wait, and to leave your name and mail address if you would like to be notified of the new and exciting things that are coming in the future.