mojoPortal 2.3.1.9 has been released. A number of image related features went into this new release. Some of the new features found in mojoPortal 2.3.1.9 include:

• Easy content animation/slide shows - You can enable it in the settings of an Html Content instance and it will create a slide show based on the content using cool transitions that you can also configure in the settings. The animation uses the jQuery Cycle Plugin. It can rotate images paragraphs or any html content.
• Integrated Image Cropping
• Bulk Image Upload in the Image Gallery - Bulk upload was added to the Folder Gallery in the last release and now the same feature has been added to the the Image Gallery.
• Integrated Twitter Widgets
• New Configuration file for TinyMCE - More control over which plugins and toolbar items are displayed is provided via an xml config file.

Additional details and more information on the features included in mojoPortal 2.3.1.9 can be found on the official announcement at mojoPortal.com.

Raphael Mudge sent us an email on his latest project, After the Deadline.

I'm a computer scientist working to fill a gap in current CMS feature sets.  It isn't a new social or wireless feature.  I'm working to bring spelling, style, and grammar checking to web applications.  The technology is available for WordPress and the Open Source TinyMCE editor.

After the Deadline is an exciting plugin that adds a much needed feature often missing in most CMS rich text editors. After the Deadline currently supports plugins for TinyMCE and Wordpress. Some additional bullet points behind the plugin include: 

• Corrects spelling with 90% accuracy
• Checks 1,500 words for misuse
• Finds grammar errors
• Improves writing style
• All plugins are licensed under the LGPL

I've been using the contributed Drupal module WYSIWYG API since last Fall. Although the module is open source and free (offered under the GPL), I feel like I got it for a steal at $30 USD.

One of the most frequent criticisms by new users of Drupal has been that the content management system doesn't include a rich text editor (WYSIWYG) in its core. Historically, the core developers have opted to include an RTE option through contributed modules.  While the use of non-core Drupal modules for implementing WYSIWYG in Drupal is fine, the development pace, availability, and implementation of a particular RTE module (FCKEditor, TinyMCE, etc) has often varied when major versions of Drupal are released.

The Wysiwyg API attempts to improve the implementation and consistency of RTE's in Drupal. The module is capable of supporting any kind of client-side editor as long as there are support files available to integrate the external library with Wysiwyg API. Editors currently supported by the module include FCKeditor 2.6, jWYSIWYG 0.5, markItUp 1.1.5, NicEdit 0.9.0, TinyMCE 3, TinyMCE 2, and Whizzywig 55 (download).

Up to this point much of the work has been done by Daniel F. Kudwien (known as "sun" in the Drupal community). Since Daniel has invested a huge number of hours on this project he has asked users of the module to voluntarily contribute to the project financially. For someone like me who is not a developer, nor has a lot of free time, giving financially is way of showing appreciation for the open source products you use.  Even the smallest financial support can help the community and future development of the software.

If you're not comfortable with donating to an indivudual developer in your open source project, if available, you should consider taking membership in the project's association or foundation.  For instance, this week I'll be renewing my membership in the Drupal Association.  Many of these open source groups such as the Drupal Association use the membership revenue to support the maintenance and growth of the infrastructure that Drupal.org runs on, as well as to produce various conferences and workshops around the planet.

I'm spending time Friday and this weekend upgrading the software I use to run CMSReport.com. You'll have to excuse the mess as I'm working with a lot of themes/modules for Drupal 6 that are still under development. Feel free to report problems below, but note that the WYSIWYG for comments is currently offline. working but considered under "test mode".

Bryan

I'm in the middle of switching the text editor on CMS Report from FCKeditor to TinyMCE. Both are fine WYSIWYG editors, but I have seen some problems lately so this is a good time to try something different. The text editor is available to those who have open a free account here at CMS Report. The CSS in the Drupal theme I'm using isn't quite compatible with the TinyMCE editor so I'll be doing some tweaking in the next week or so.

During the past few months, I've been getting inquiries about how to place an ad on this site. If you are one of those people, I'm sorry if I haven't gotten back to you in a timely manner. I've been a little more focused on just getting the content out there as well as working on some usability issues for visitors here at the site. I plan on looking at some options and in a couple weeks should have a "how to place ads" page up here at CMSReport.com. If someone would like suggest an option, please feel free to leave a comment here or send an e-mail through the contact page.

As always, I'm open to suggestions for improving the site as well as criticism. A lot of people in IT don't like to hear complaints, but I'm not one of those people. Without good quality criticism, it's difficult make necessary improvements.

In case you missed the news, the Website for FCKeditor is now using the Drupal content management system (CMS). FCKeditor is a HTML text editor with a WYSIWYG interface and is commonly utilized in Web-based applications. The following was posted at the FCKeditor site:

We're proud to announce that, from today, the FCKeditor web site is running over Drupal, one of the best Open Source CMSs out there. After a long research, Drupal has proved to be the best solution to handle our half a million page views monthly, with flexibility and reliability.

This important change will make it possible to provide even better services to our community.

Ironically, the Drupal module for the FCKeditor hasn't been fully released for Drupal 4.7, the latest version of the CMS. The module documentation for 4.7 cites that the "integrated file management needs lot of manual configuration". Luckily for Drupal 4.7 users, the Drupal module for TinyMCE has been available for some time. TinyMCE is an alternative HTML text editor and in some ways could be considered FCKeditor's "main competitor". Here at CMS Report...we like both editors fairly evenly.

Last night, I was up late doing some administrative work for my sites as well as writing some posts. This was my attempt to procrastinate working on an osCommerce site that I promised someone would be done by the start of October.

One of those posts I made was Drupal related and available via an RSS feed for Planet Drupal to ingest. Unfortunately, I found that TinyMCE (a WYSIWYG editor) had changed my absolute links to relative links in the post. This caused references to links and images back to my site to not display properly for anyone aggregating from the RSS feed I provide. This particular issue with TinyMCE and associated Drupal module is not so much of a bug as it is a configuration issue that can easily be corrected.

As I was troubleshooting the problem I was also monitoring new posts arriving at Planet Drupal. As midnight approached, three additional posts appeared from Planet Drupal. Those posters seen at Drupal late in the evening were from pingVision, Earl Miles, and Bryght. Prior to my post, Greg Knaddison has made a post in the early evening hours. Interestingly, there has not been a single post put on Planet Drupal during the day (relative to CDT). In fact, if updates are made on Planet Drupal during the day, many of those entries take place on the other side of the world and late into the night for them.

I started to wonder how many of us spend the day working on information technology (IT) for someone else and come home to work more on the computer. Often my most productive time on the computer is late in the night once the family is asleep. My contributions to open source communities are very minor compared to those who put out real code so the rest of us can run the great software we do. I wonder how much the others have sacrificed with family, friends, and sleep to spend time with the open source communities. While I have singled out Drupal, so many people from so many open source projects are burning the midnight oil with little in return financially. Why do they do it? Why do you do it? Why don't I do more of it?

I'm using Firefox 2 Beta 2 for the first time, so far so good. I had to stop using Beta 1 as every any time I tried to make significant changes when creating text, Firefox would crash on me. I'm using TinyMCE, a WYSIWYG for the text area, here at CMS Report. If not for the session restore feature...Beta 1 could have been even more frustrating. The original announcement from MozillaZine below.

MozillaZine: Mozilla Firefox 2 Beta 2 Milestone Released -

Mozilla Firefox 2 Beta 2 has been released. This milestone for developers and testers includes a visual refresh of the theme and user interface. Other features new to Firefox 2 include phishing protection, search suggestions, session restore, support for JavaScript 1.7, Live Titles for bookmarks (using microsummaries) and a new Windows installer.

For more information, refer to the Mozilla Firefox 2 Beta 2 Release Notes, and the release announcement at the Mozilla Developer News weblog, which includes download links.