Content Management

Serendipity 1.1.1 was released to fix a few bugs. This is the first update to Serendipity 1.1 since it was first released at the end of 2006. The 1.1.1 update does not include any security fixes so you may not even need to update unless you've experienced one of these bugs:

• Windows IIS server cookie/session authentication problem when not running via HTTPS
• Change execution order of trackbacks to properly send them when a failure occurs
• Display proper plugin permissionship restrictions when the admin user is not part of the group that is restricted
• Fixed a bug that some plugins were not able to properly execute in the entry detail view

In a blog post at the Serendipity site, Garvin also commented on the feature improvements that can be expected for Serendipity 1.2. Users of the weblog application can expect the following in Serendipity 1.2 once it is released :

• Improvements on the authentication/plugin API sequence to better support future plugins like OpenID.

Team Mambo released Mambo 4.5.5 which is a maintenance update for the 4.5.x series of the content maintenance system. All Mambo 4.5.x users are encouraged by the project leaders to upgrade to 4.5.5 which will avoid the possibility of your site visitors experiencing display issues in IE7. Fixes in the maintenance release includes:

• IE7 fixes
• RSS and  search engine optimization fixes
• com_syndicate config parameter fixed
• SQL injection fix in cancel edit functions

Mambo 4.5.5 downloads are available at SourceForge.

I came across a very good article with regards to taxonomy titled, Search in Focus: Implementing a Taxonomy by Penny Crosman.  The article is a month or two old, but I haven't run across it before so maybe others haven't either.

Version 0.8 for the forum application, bbPress, has been released. This software is a "plain and simple forum" PHP application with roots out of WordPress.  New features in this version of bbPress include:

The Newbie Issue

I received an interesting e-mail the other day through the contact form at my site regarding the social bookmarking "features" I have for my posts.  The questions asked to me are quite common among new users of any Web content management system.  While the questions in this particular e-mail I received would be more appropriate to be asked and answered in the forums at Drupal.org, there were some things in the message I felt the need to address though my blog.

What really keeps an open source project going? I think it all starts when someone in the open source community asks the tough questions. Take for instance this one, "Has XOOPS lost its appeal?". The project will evolve depending on how the project responds to such challenging questions. In this particular case, those closer to the open source project asked in a proactive response, "How do we give XOOPS appeal and user satisfaction?".

I mentioned not long ago reading that there are an estimated 1700 applications on the market for content management systems. In an ideal world, I would love to cover them all here at CMS Report. In the real world, I just don't have time to put focus on every single thing involving content management system (CMS).

One of the easiest ways to change a well written theme in a Web content management system is by tweaking the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). To be honest, I'm horrible at theme development. I prefer to focus my time on function, administration, and content of the information system. However, any bit of information that helps you tweak those themes you downloaded for that CMS is good news, right? After enough tweaks, you can may just have a theme with a style you can call your very own.

This fork of Joomla to improve accessibility interested me

Accessible (a8e) Joomla! is a Joomla! fork that conforms to accessibility guidelines and web standards. A8e Joomla! will follow regular Joomla! releases. The project should implode when regular Joomla! finally conforms to the standards.

Accessibility of Internet sites is very huge within the federal government and addressed by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, 1998.

Matthew Mullenweg announced at Wordpress.org that WordPress 2.1 "Ella" is available for download. Some of the new features and changes listed in this version of WordPress that I think users will like include:

• Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again. I'm a habitual browser closer before saving my work...so this will be a big one for for me!
• A tabbed editor that allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
• The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
• You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.
• Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our queries with a fine-toothed comb.
• Pages can now be drafts, or private.
• Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
• A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.