This week we added three Web applications to our CMS Focus top 30 list.  The CMSs and ECMs listed in CMS Focus are not necessarily the most popular in content management and are not meant to meet everyone's requirements for a CMS. Instead the content management systems that make up this top 30 are what I consider content management "game changers" or "attention getters". New to CMS Focus are the following CMS/ECM: EPiServer, Umbraco, and an unknown CMS called Omeka.

My thanks to all those that made their suggestions to me via Twitter. Besides the three CMS that made the top 30 list, we had enough tweets to call our attention to Enano, Coremedia, Alterian, OpenCMS, SDL Tridion, Jahia, and Nuxeo. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these additional CMSs making their way onto CMS Focus in the near future.

In order to make room the new entries, we dropped three Web applications out of CMS Focus and into our "Hall of Fame". These applications were Gallery (2006-2010), Frog CMS (2009-2010), and SMF (2006 - 2009). All three applications are fine pieces of softweare for what they are designed to do and are still be worth a look. However, our focus continues to shift to more complete information systems and retirement to the hall of fame were long overdue for these applications.

Alex S. wrote to us and and recommended that everyone take a look at MyBB, a Web forum application.

I noticed MyBB isn't on your CMS Focus list.  I would recommend you looking into it as it is an amazing system.  It even just went open source recently.

But, don't take my word for it KDE is now using it them selves.  It's new compared to SMF and phpBB but it's already competing with the best (including IPB and vB).

http://mybboard.net/

I'm not a developer or anything.  Just recommend this amazing forum system with a bright future.

While I make no promises on getting MyBB into CMS Focus, I do think it is time to take a new look at SMF, phpBB, vB, and the new comers.  Perhaps in a couple days we'll see if it is time for another forum application to knock SMF off the top 30 CMS list.  May the best forum software win...

Last week, I mentioned that the the Drupal SMFforum Integration module was no longer being supported by the module's project leader, "vb". Apparently, Simple Machines had not granted permission to the module developer to distribute code found in the SMF application as required by the Simple Machines License. While some discussion followed this announcement at the SMF forums, as well as here at CMS Report, none of this discussion compared to what took place at the Open Source Community.

The good news is that Simple Machines LLC has granted vb to continue distributing some of the SMF code to work with the Drupal SMFforum Integration module. vb wrote:

I am glad to announce that distribution of the smf_api_2 package is resumed due to the express permission granted from Simple Machines LLC.
You can download the new package from http://vgb.org.ru/download.

"Orstio", SMF CMS Bridge Developer, added the following at Open Source Community:

I think we are all happy that we've come to an arrangement that benefits everyone.

Hopefully we will be able to work more closely with vb on the future of both his project and SMF so that code redistribution is eventually phased out by making future versions of SMF more accommodating to this type of integration.

Development of the SMFforum Integration module for Drupal is no longer.  Amy Stephen over at OpenSourceCommunity.org pointed out on her blog that the module's project  leader, "vb", pulled the module due to licensing disagreements with SMF LLC.  Amy references vb's original post at the Drupal forum, but she has a lot more to say.  Amy's an active participant in the Joomla! community, a community which had their own issues with a bridge between Joomla! and SMF.

According to vb's post, an email sent by Michael "Oldiesmann" Eshom, Project Manager, Simple Machines LLC stated that:

The problem isn't with the smfforum.module file or the packages distributed on drupal.org. The problem is with the "smf_api_subs.php" file that you're distributing as part of the smf api package - it contains modified versions of several SMF functions, and you did not ask for permission to use this code or distribute it.

It appears that Simple Machines LLC doesn't have so much of a problem with bridging SMF and Drupal as much as they have issues with their own code being used without proper permission.  The Simple Machines License clearly states that "Any Distribution of a Modified Package or derivative requires express written consent from Simple Machines LLC."  No word on whether Simple Machines LLC would endorse the use of their code if permission is asked.

The Joomla! community just completed migrating their forum from SMF over to phpBB3. Brad Baker posted some of the details on Joomla.org's use of phpBB3 for their forum. In part, some of the move to phpBB stemmed from Joomla.org's discomfort from bridging GPL applications with non-GPL applications. Baker answers the question in his own way.

Why did we move to phpBB3?
Good question, and there is a simple answer. Whilst SMF was great for us, it is not licensed under GPL, and as a result many of our users who like to follow the choices we make were going to run in to integration issues in the future. As well as that, the team at phpBB have been great, with many of them offering to help, especially with the conversion.
In any case, we’re not going back, and the future is phpBB3!

Beyond a few minor tweaks, it looks as if Joomla.org was able to convert SMF over to phpBB with very few issues. Considering the Joomla community forum usually has hundreds of users on line at the same time, this is no small move for a forum to make the switch to new software. Congratulations to Joomla!

In 2006, I helped bring a friend's Fish and Tackle store online using open source osCommerce. The project was ugly in both appearance and code as I was merging a legacy site with an SMF forum together with the osCommerce software. As I indicated back then, while osCommerce was functional I was not pleased with the software. I kept on thinking how much easier this project would have been if I had used what I consider as modern CMS's. Specifically, I was thinking Drupal and perhaps even Joomla!.

I have slowly learned in the past few years that merging applications, applications never meant to be merged together, never really results in a good project. I knew even then I never really wanted to try bridging osCommerce, SMF, and Drupal into a single site. Yes, you can end with something fully functional and even pleasant to the eye, but as the site's Web developer you always have this nagging feeling that something is missing and you could have done better. If I had to do the fishing site over again and decided on using Drupal, I would only consider the eCommerce module for Drupal or Ubercart.

Now that you know where I stand on the issue of bridging applications with fully functional CMS, I was surprised to read a recent and bold post at All Drupal Themes regarding the bridging of Drupal and the Magento shopping carts together.

Thanks to a post at OpenSourceCommunity.org, I came across a conversion tool to allow you to import the SMF 1.1 database into a phpBB 3 site. Information about the conversion tool can be found in a forum post at phpbb.com. By the way, the script is still in beta, meaning that it works but you might find some bugs since it is not fully tested.

It is not that I'm encouraging anyone to convert their site from SMF to phpBB, but it is very nice to have options such as these available. In fact if anyone can point me to a good conversion tool for migrating a phpBB database to SMF, I would welcome the information.

The aim of this article is not to poke holes, or say ‘vBulletin sucks’, but to provide constructive criticism of a successful product, proving that vBulletin is not always the best choice. In places the article compares vBulletin to Drupal, this is the platform The Webmaster Forums will be switching to and represents many of the things vBulletin should—in our humble opinion—aspire to.

Now this was a interesting. A well written article on why one site is switching over to use Drupal's built in forum rather then continue to use vbulletin.

As I mentioned on my forum, a patch for the forum web application, SMF, has been released. Earlier this month, we talked about SMF 1.1 Final being out and how easy it is to upgrade SMF. Installing the patch was even easier with not only SMF's ability to install the package easily but can also the ability to self-download the patches as well through the browser. No FTP or Linux shell required! Something I would like to see in all my favorite content management systems.

The SMF 1.1.1 patch is mostly a bug fixer, but there is a security improvement for a cross-scripting vulnerability found for Internet Explorer users. The changes from SMF 1.1 to 1.1.1 include:

• Fixed potential XSS vulnerability for users of Internet Explorer.
• Changed the way SMF logs IP addresses to make it harder for someone to bypass banning.
• Fixed bug in BBC parsing that could cause an error for people with special characters in their username on certain versions of PHP.
• Fixed apostrophes in smiley location path causing a database error.
• Fixed usage of an array before it was declared causing issues for bridges.
• Fixed Personal Message labels not being properly restricted to the current member.
• Fixed search sometimes returning no results when it should have done.
• The sticky checkbox in prune boards would alternate when it shouldn't have done.
• Send announcements out in slightly smaller chunks.

The complete announcement for the for SMF patch can be found at the Simple Machines forum. The announcement also contains a tarred and gzipped patch for those that need or prefer to upgrade the "old fashion" way.

The final version of SMF 1.1 is out. That's right, as far as 1.1 goes, no more release candidates for this forum software.

SMF is by far one of the easiest Web applications to install and upgrade that I have come across. In fact I upgraded my WebCMS Forum within 24 hours of the release and haven't looked backed. Though, I'm giving a week or two for some burn in time before I upgrade a client's site.

Instead of listing all the new features since 1.0, below are the major changes since SMF 1.1 RC3 was released. Release candidates in SMF are typically stable and introduce new features. In fact most open source projects would actually have given the RCs new version numbers.

Significant changes between SMF 1.1 RC3 and SMF 1.1 include:

• Option to require visual verification when sending a personal message
• Adjusted readability of visual verification system
• Added option to limit number of personal messages that can be sent per hour
• Fixed several javascript errors
• Fixed time offset bug
• Disallowed multiple failures with visual verification
• Made several UTF8 fixes
• Fixed various undefined index errors

You can read the SMF 1.1 announcement at Simple Machines by clicking here.