The XOOPS Project is proud to present XOOPS 2.5.5. This release is focused on fixing open bugs and on updating external libraries to their latest versions:
 

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce that a new version, XOOPS 2.5.4 Final, is available for download and testing. The major focus of this release is on updating all Core modules (PM, Profile, Protector) to our new ModuleAdmin GUI, so all of them have a consistent "look & feel".

XOOPS 2.5.4 RC, is available for download and testing. In addition to updating our libraries to their latest versions, the major focus of this release is on updating all Core modules (PM, Profile, Protector) to the new ModuleAdmin GUI for consistent "look & feel":

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce that a new version, XOOPS 2.5.3 Final, is available for download. This release is focused on fixing bugs from previous versions and on security. As a result, over 60 bugs have been fixed, as well as several new enhancements have been added.

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce that a new version, XOOPS 2.5.2 RC, is available for download. This release is focused on fixing bugs from previous versions and on security. As a result, over 60 bugs have been fixed, as well as several new enhancements have been added.

The XOOPS Project is proud to present Alpha release of its next generation Web Application Development platform – the Xoops Engine.

It is definitely the most daring and innovative development in the almost 10 year history of XOOPS! 

XOOPS is one of the most successful Open Source CMS solutions, constantly winning top places in various competitions, and receiving various awards. But it was slowly showing signs of aging that would require major rewrites of the Core. After much deliberation the team decided to rewrite it from the ground-up using a standard off-the-shelf PHP Framework. Following the same thinking as IBM or Apple did when they decided to use standard Intel chips, the XOOPS team believes that using standard components and libraries while focusing on unique value-add, will increase the “speed to market” for XOOPS. This way the team can take advantage of latest Web developments and vast resources provided by the respective Framework’s developers. It's like getting suddenly a whole new team of some of the best PHP programmers joining XOOPS!

It will also lower the entry barrier to XOOPS for people who are already familiar with a particular PHP Framework.

After much research, XOOPS team has selected Zend Framework, the best and most popular PHP Framework on the market. The Xoops Engine will be probably the first and only case so far of  rewriting a major Open Source project using an industry standard PHP Framework.

“We are happy to see XOOPS, one of the leaders in the Open Source CMS space, is using Zend Framework as the foundation of their ‘next generation’ release”, said Eldad Maniv, SVP Marketing and Products at Zend. “We are confident that by leveraging the power of Zend Framework and its vibrant community, XOOPS can achieve its goals and grow in popularity.”

Why did we choose Zend Framework

Last fall, I once again had the privilege of participating as a member of the judging panel for Packt Publishing's Open Source Awards. For the 2010 event, I participated by voting for the category of Open Source CMS Awards. In that award, the winner was declared by the panel to be CMS Made Simple, with SilverStripe as first runner up followed by MODx as second runner up.

I received a lot of inquiries asking me how and in what order did I rank the content management systems. Each of the judges on the panel, selects and ranks their top three CMS from the five included in this category. The judges are given a lot of reign for how they rank the CMS and may consider a number of factors including performance, usability, size and support from community, accessibility, ease of configuration, customization, scalability and security.

It has been my history to be transparent to all with how I rank each CMS as my vote will have some differences to those of the panel. This time around, I find myself hesitant and under personal protest with me providing information on how I ranked the five content management systems.

I question whether we're doing any good by declaring one CMS as better than another CMS. Dean Barker discussed on his blog some time ago this same uneasy feeling you get when you judge a CMS without having some reference to real world requirements. None of these content management systems would I consider losers and all of them remain worthy of future consideration. Yet, I'm disturbed that people will look at the numbers and interpret the results in a ways I never intended my rankings to be used.

My rankings for the Five Best Open Source CMS (with number one being the highest) were:

1. SilverStripe
2. mojoPortal
3. MODx
4. XOOPS and CMS Made Simple (Tie)

I'm not a firm believer in ties when it comes to ranking content management systems. Yet, this year I did just that for XOOPS and CMS Made Simple. All five content management systems that were reviewed I would consider as a candidate for a future project. None of the CMS would I consider a "last place" CMS so I refused to do so. It is also important to note that neither Drupal, Joomla!, or WordPress competed in this ranking as previous winners in this category duke it out in the Hall of Fame category.

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce that a new stable version of the Top 5 Finalist of 2010 Packt Open Source CMS - XOOPS 2.5.0 Final is available for download.

The XOOPS 2.5.0 release is a major redesign of the System Module which has been AJAX-ed with jQuery. Some of the new features are truly amazing, like the visual placement of blocks, and we're sure that the System Admins will love them

Other major improvements/additions include:

• Help System for Admin and modules
• MySQL Dump in Maintenance
• New Redirect messaging
• Column sorting in tables
• Smarty plugin for icon pack
• Smarty plugin for breadcrumb navigation
• jQuery plugins for display popup or manage drag & drop
• File Manager (Plugin)
• Maintenance with Cache Clean-up, and Tables Maintenance
• Visual module ordering with drag & drop
• Visual block placement with drag & drop
• Refactor all PHP code for use XOOPS API
• Use template in the same way that front user, admin side for module can call a main template define in xoops_version.php
• Allow override of template in admin theme like frontend if we set template in ADMIN_THEME
• Manage editor for blocks, comments and for all module if module developper want to use it activate or deactivate system section
• Choose number of line for admin section
• Display or hide tips

For more info and download please click here

We are extremely pleased to announce that XOOPS has received the "Best Technology Award" from the North East Asia OSS Forum for the upcoming X3 version of XOOPS, that will be officially released as Alpha version this weekend. The judges were impressed with X3 architecture, its usage of state-of-the-art PHP libraries such as Zend Framework andSmarty 3, and the direction XOOPS is taking toward becoming a "Web Application-oriented development platform"

The Award will be presented on Thursday, Nov. 4th, in Seoul, South Korea, and Michael Beck, the project manager,  will be there to receive it on behalf of XOOPS.

After that, he will travel to  Beijing for a  XOOPS China Community summit.