In this issue: Herko's Word Site of the Month: Forge.Novell.Com YAXS - New Sites Using Xoops2! New Modules New Themes New Hacks Xoops International Support Sites Calling all Module Developers! Giving back to the Community Herko's Word This is the 5th edition of the World of XOOPS Newsletter, where we recap what has transpired in the past month (or so). Again, the past month has been an active one for the XOOPS project. The XOOPS project made the top 3 (!) of SourceForge.net's Most Active Projects list, and was featured in the SourceForge.net monthly newsletter! The release of XOOPS 2.0.7, featuring many bugfixes and a few security fixes marks an important milestone in XOOPS development. From now on, the core development will concentrate on the next major release version: XOOPS 2.2. 'What happened to 2.1?' you might think. This version numbering scheme follows the Linux Kernel version numbering, where the odd numbers are reserved for alpha and beta releases -for development purposes only-, and even numbered releases are stable versions fit for production environments. Thus, XOOPS 2.1 will be a development release where developers can test and get to know the changes and new features, and when it is considered stable, it will be released for the general public as 2.2. XOOPS 2.2 will in itself not have a ton of new features. The work that is being done is a refactoring of the core classes, making them a lot more flexible, giving module developers a better platform and clearer API to work with. For a more technical explanation of what is going on, please read Skalpa's draft reference for the X2.2 core, posted on the SourceForge.net project forums. The Module Development Team is also seeing some changes. Catzwolf quit the team because of personal health reasons, and Mithrandir has taken up the challenge of making sure that the best XOOPS modules are being developed. Mith is a long time regular here, top poster, developer and even a core developer, so he knows his business. The upcoming weeks will most likely be a little more quiet then usual due to the vacationing everyone needs. The XOOPS 2.2 development will continue to go on unimpeded, as well as the Module Development Forge. We have some big plans for the XOOPS.org website (FAQ, module repository, theme library, site redesign and restructuring), as well as for the development sites. We'll be working on that very hard, and can use all the help we can get. I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed to the 2.0.7 release (the list is long!), released a hack, module and/or theme (see below for the lists), made a donation (also see below), and to those that helped the people who had questions or needed help on the forums. It's not for nothing that we say: XOOPS: Powered by You! Herko Site of the Month: Forge.Novell.Com Interview with Paul Jones of Novell. cblue: When did Novell become interested in Xoops and why? Paul: Almost two years ago, Novell's Developer Services was looking for a way to help Novell third party developers share ideas and solutions. We also wanted a way to get better feedback from these developers. The proposal to create a code collaboration website was then formulated. One problem we had was that we needed the site up and running in less than three months. We searched the internet for open source projects that did things similar to what we needed. We found three or four that we liked. One of the options we found was the xoopsforge module. We chose to go with xoopsforge because the xoops foundation was the cleanest architecture out of all the options we looked at. cblue: Would you explain Novell's current relationship with Xoops? Paul: Novell's current relationship with xoops is similar to most xoops users. We use the product. We love the product. We submit patches or ideas when we need changes or have enhancement ideas. cblue: The Novell's Forge Modules are a contribution you gave to Xoops, what other contributions have you given to Xoops or have planned to give in the future? Paul: The forge modules we use are actually Barry Black's. He took ownership of the xoopsforge modules a year or two before we started using them. We have enhanced them (I think) quite a bit and tailored them to our specific needs in some cases. As for future plans, we are in the process of evaluating our options so I don't have any concrete information to give right now. cblue: What type of modules would you like to see in future versions of Xoops? Paul: So far, every time we have needed a module, it is already available. cblue:According to news articles, Novell seems to be doing quite a bit to contribute to Open Source and Linux. What new projects do you know of that Novell is currently working on concerning Open Source? Paul: Novell has a lot of initiatives on the table right now with our move into the open source world. I can not say much about them, but watch the news, I think you will hear Novell's name a lot more in the future. Novell has great products to help any company from the desktop to the data center. Thank you Paul for your participation in this interview! - cblue YAXS - New Sites Using Xoops2! American Leaders Bath Pubs Bristol Pubs Chivo.nl City of Sint-Niklaas in Belgium EQ Ferienland-deutschland.de German Wireless LAN Security Portal Hyperpod.net Jaque.net Jekif.com KickassAMD LinuxVAR PC From Scratch Power-Dreams The World Of Niuniek Volcano Boy Vote For Vanech WorldTech USA Xoops-Tips XtremeFreeware New Modules If you have a module, and want to add it to the XOOPS Module Repository, please contact Francis via PM, and tell him about your module. And of course a big thank you to all the developers out there who produced these wonderful modules! A Slot Management System v1.1 A Slot Management System v1.2 Buoni&Cattivi Chess Updated Version Comments Search Module FlashGames 0.9 RC1 Language Tool myEd2k Wiwi 0.5 WordPress Module Release 0.1.4 Xoops2 Donations YaBBSE 2 Xoops Database Converter New Themes 7Dana Rose Theme Absolute Themes BMX Theme Borg-Theme Ferrari Theme Light_Blue Theme Light_Green Theme Light_Purple Theme LOTR Theme O1A XFSeries Theme Pale Horse Theme SCAC Theme Xoops Brasil Theme v0.0.1 New Hacks NOTE: Use hacks at your own risk! They may render your XOOPS system unuseable or may prevent you from upgrading! Auto Login Hack for Xoops 2.0.7 Catzwolf's Evennews Bugfix Comment Navigation Bar Description Hack Flash And Reals Button Updated Save Password for Multiaccount Hidden Forums in NewBB Multiple "Main" Templates Xoops Multilanguages 1.4 XoopsMyPoll - Clone of XoopsPoll Xoops International Support Sites Arabic Support Brazilian Support Chinese Support Czech Support Dutch Support French Support German Support Greek Support Italian Support Japanese Support Polish Support Portuguese Support Romanian Support Russian Support Spanish Support Taiwan Support Have you made a hack for the XOOPS core (not any of the modules!)? Please submit your hacks to the core system to the XOOPS Patch Tracker on the SourceForge.net project pages. Calling all Module Developers! This is a general call to all module developers out there. We have set up and opened a XOOPS Module Development Forge website, where you can develop your modules in the presence of other module developers. The Dev Forge site is a SourceForge.net clone, meant for XOOPS Module Development projects only. Membership is restricted to developers, but when you're a member (by being part of a development project -maybe your own modules?), you get access to the developer-to-developer forums, security releated information, and you can share your experience with the other developers, as well as learn from them. So sign up now with your own module development project! Giving back to the Community As you can see in the 'Make a donation' block, the number of people donating money is growing and growing. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them publicly for their continued support: 18 Anonymous, thomasjo, coterian, dwilson, kevinv, munkus, tadashi, dunkgreen, tuff, davidd, zack, kjs222, herko, Jan304, gstarrett, YourHelp, Philroy, ozboof, ronhab, sunsnapper, Panos, dlh, pygmeae, philou, yoshi, jamesmac, glenn, awreneau, gnagis, sirTanksAlot, deepsoul, madfish, porkie, chappy, alexon, bd_csmc, dr3vil, dreamgear, dobephat, johnakin, ocean, mytobaba, RuudV, juanc, _zx81, st_nick, tl, wf4sure, menochi, Wilco, felocity, bmmolloy, JohnCVermont, gruffbear, hlint, shivaji, Surpass Hosting, wpj1, jgrimm73, dantom, longhair, claydoh, jayjay1, kalle65, otello, davisk, fatman, wraith (2x), lelandm, albania, oddb0d You can recognize the contributors by their 'Friend of XOOPS' rank. You can join their ranks by making a donation using the PayPal button on the xoops.org website! All donations are put back into the development of the system and the maintainance of the xoops.org websites.