SilverStripe Ltd. is due to release SilverStripe CMS 3.0 in alpha in October and beta by the end of the year. The biggest change to the current content management system will be the separation of the SilverStripe Framework as it’s own entity. The framework as a stable basis, formerly known as ‘Sapphire’, enables the developer to build more than just traditional websites and potentially build applications for any device and any purpose.
Leading Drupal Firms Announce Initiative to Drive Consumer-Friendly Drupal App Development
This week, Joomla! 1.7 was officially released to the public. New features in this new version of the popular open source content management system include:
"If you’re a developer you’re already five steps ahead of everyone else. Scripting is the new literacy, and the ability to learn and execute on your ideas without relying on anybody else is going to be invaluable as you iterate and experiment on building something."
-Matt Mullenweg, The future of WordPress: Q&A with founder Matt Mullenweg, memeburn.com, July 8, 2011.
Alkacon Software has moved its software repository from CVS to Github. Github is based on the popular distributed revision control system (DRCS) Git. The web-based hosting service Github is very popular amongst Open Source Developers.
Alkacon Software has chosen Git as revision control to keep its software development process based on the best available technology (since CVS is technically out-dated) and to achieve a better collaboration with the OpenCms community.
The source code of OpenCms is now available from Github at https://github.com/alkacon/opencms-core.
As expected, this week the Drupal development team released Drupal 7.3 and Drupal 7.4.
Drupal 7.3, a maintenance release which fixes security vulnerabilities is now available for download.
Drupal 7.4 also fixes other issues reported through the bug tracking system.
Upgrading your existing Drupal 7 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in these releases. For more information about the Drupal 7.x release series, consult the Drupal 7.0 release announcement.
Andrew Lynch posted a fantastic list of 32 Web Frameworks over at memeburn.com. He starts off that list with Ruby on Rails, Django, Drupal, CakePHP...well you get the idea.
Frameworks are built on top of programming languages and provide methods of streamlining some of the more mundane and common tasks associated with web development. In essence, they allow developers to achieve more with less coding, saving both time and money. They provide a range of simple methods that help you connect to a database, authenticate users and build an admin backend, all with a few lines of code.
Be sure to read the complete story so you can see Andrew's review of 32 web frameworks that you have to choose from for your next project.
The ocPortal development team is pleased to announce that ocPortal 7.1 has now entered beta.
ocPortal 7.1 brings full support for HTML5 and for the schema.org meta-data initiative that Google/Yahoo/Bing jointly announced on Thursday 2nd June. This article explains how we have received schema.org, and how we have implemented it into ocPortal.
We feel that schema.org is a very important project, and is perfectly aligned with the goals and nature of ocPortal, so we have scrambled to release a solid implementation (achieved within 3 days).
Not only should schema.org support enhance the Search Engine Optimization of ocPortal websites, it really opens up new interoperability possibilities. For example, look at how Microsoft have been using 'tiles' in Windows Phone, and the recent Windows 8 demo. This is a great example of how semantic markup can be used to create rich interfaces from website data. Because ocPortal now provides this data automatically, in the standardized schema.org microdata format, ocPortal webmasters need not do anything to enable these kinds of interoperabilities.
Specifically, we have implemented the following into ocPortal from HTML5:
And the following from schema.org:
CMS Expo in Chicago last week gave me a great opportunity to learn about a variety of content management systems. I spent most of my time at the conference getting out of my comfort zone by visiting with those companies and open source projects that I knew the least about their products and services. Unfortunately, this strategy also prevented me from visiting with my personal favorite CMS, Drupal. By the end of the conference, I felt I needed to treat myself by attending one of the final sessions in the Drupal track, "Social Drupal".
What key activities should you integrate? In what scenarios might you be smarter to leave the heavy lifting to an outsourced solution? What elements are critically important right now when building your social relevance in the market? Find this out and more at this practical advice session on how you can be using Drupal to capture the Social Media audience which awaits.
My hope for the session was that it would give me good pointers for how to connect my Drupal sites better to the social web. Lullabot's Blake Hall led this information packed session. Blake began the session by pushing his vision that this session should not just be called "Social Drupal" but also "Community Plumbing (without the crack)". The proposed rewriting of the title for this session is a reminder to the audience that Drupal has always been social.
Blake started the session reminding that one needs to take a look at the bigger picture by taking a look as your site's Social Media Strategy. This strategy would include the following elements:
While the big picture is always nice consider it's the details that help determine whether your site is going to succeed. From this point forward Blake focused on specifics and I feverishly did my best to keep up. Some of the notable remarks from Blake that caught my attention:
It was five years ago that I posted in programmer tradition at CMS Report, "hello world". At the time, I expected CMSReport.com to be around for only a couple years which was more than enough time for it to fulfill my purpose. At the time, I had an academic interest in information systems and found that Web-based content management systems were a nice way to put theoretical ideas into practical know-how. This site focused on content management systems in hopes of meeting the few other people out there that shared my interests in CMS.
In that first post, I actually wrote more than "hello world". The full title of the article was "Hello World, New Version". The phrase "new version" was in reference to CMSReport.com not being the first site I created to focus on the CMS. A couple years earlier, I had tried to start up a website called WebCMS Forum. The online forum was intended to be a "place for those with a passion for web-based applications such as portals, blogs, and forums". I spent a lot of time and money on that site, but in the end few visitors joined in as members to talk about content management systems with me. If Twitter had existed back then I would have easily tweeted "WebCMS Forum RIP #failed".
Looking back at it now, I'm convinced CMS Report is a success because of my experience from failing so miserably with WebCMS Forum. Previously, I had tried to build a site for others to express their passion and obsession for their favorite content management systems. Here at CMSReport.com, I took the opposite approach and built the site for the sole purpose to talk about my passion for content management systems. It was a crazy idea to put my opinions at the center of CMS discussions as even now I do not consider myself an expert in content management systems. It was only by circumstance that I later realized people are attracted to other passionate people that ask questions and are willing to go at great lengths to find the answers. If you're looking for the facts you go to Wikipedia but if you're also looking for great discussion from people asking the same questions as you are; it is the blogs you seek.