Zikula Community

• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Helper
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 842

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 02:24 AM

  Just a small, unscientific poll here guys. In this thread, consider for a moment some functionality you wish you had for your PN site. In a perfect world where you could conjure up a module with a wave of your hand, what module would you create? In essence, describe the module you wish someone would make for PN. This can be for personal uses, or something you feel the PN community needs in general.
  
  I'll add mine a little later in the thread, though I've made my thoughts known in the past.

  • 
  •  
• MMaynard
  
  

  • Rank: Expert
  • Registered: Mar 15, 2003
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 1221

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 03:23 AM

  Really a hack of an existing..
  Sortable news.
  
  --
  Zikula Themes

  • 
  •  
• CliffT
  
  

  • Rank: Helper
  • Registered: Mar 30, 2003
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 683

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 03:28 AM

  Really pie-in-the-sky . . . . .
  
  A real integrated membership management module, including paypal subscription, webmail for certain members, and project management.

  • 
  •  
• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Expert
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Apr 02, 2010
  • Posts: 1208

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 04:06 AM

  Wow. Tough question. I was going to say "an integrated auction module with every possible feature you could imagine in an auction module." But now, after reading CliffT's idea, I think I'm leaning more towards his suggestion. :D

  • 
  •  
• markwest
  
  

  • Rank: Team Member
  • Registered: Mar 18, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 6606

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 04:13 AM

  CliffT

  A real integrated membership management module, including paypal subscription, webmail for certain members, and project management.

  
  
  But, of course, there's more than one module here ;) - a minimum of four that I can see; membership management, paypal gateway, webmail, project management. The last one can probably be broken down into task management, reporting etc.
  
  For me... I don't know as I tend to write the ones that interest me....
  
  -Mark
  
  --
  Visit My homepage and Zikula themes.

  • 
  •  
• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Helper
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 825

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 06:45 AM

  pnMedia, and a Hyperlink normalization/filter
  
  Filter would allow for multiple domains and would prevent problems such as...
  http://forums.postnuke.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=36851
  
  Normalization would allow site wide changes to be made in a more efficent fashion...

  • 
  •  
• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Senior
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 2204

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 11:35 AM

  ..a time continuum transmogrifier would be nice.

  • 
  •  
• HalbrookTech
  
  

  • Rank: Developer
  • Registered: Dec 31, 1969
  • Last visit: Jun 01, 2010
  • Posts: 6859

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 11:46 AM

  House cleaner :)
  
  --
  Home Page | Find on Facebook | Follow on Twitter
  

  • 
  •  
• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 367

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 01:24 PM

  Wendell

  Wow. Tough question. I was going to say "an integrated auction module with every possible feature you could imagine in an auction module." ...

  
  
  Well, don't give up hope yet on this particular wish. I know it has been awhile since I registered the module name of pnAuctionSystem, but I am working on the module. I went ahead and registered the name last year because I really liked the sound of it and wanted to be sure and have that name reserved for the module. I then worked some on laying out data structures and pondering all of that to hopefully have a good solid foundation upon which future releases could be made adding features while needing only minor data structure modifications. Also, I knew .750 was close to coming out and knew of the very great benefits it would bring to module development, so I wanted to wait for that to be able to take advantage of the enhancements that were being made to PostNuke itself.
  
  I have just started coding and of course I am moving a bit slow since this is my first ever PostNuke module, but I certainly plan to keep working away and make the module into something hopefully we can all be proud of. If you would like to see what written material I have made available and what public forum discussion has taken place so far about the module, feel free to drop by http://www.irarichar…pBB2&file=index&c=5 and input your thoughts or comments.
  
  Once I get a bit further along in coding on the module I plan to make a posting about what features and options I plan to have in the first release. I'm just being cautious at this point as I don't want to over-commit on the first release and as a result never get it out.
  
  Hope this helps.

  • 
  •  
• HalbrookTech
  
  

  • Rank: Developer
  • Registered: Dec 31, 1969
  • Last visit: Jun 01, 2010
  • Posts: 6859

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 02:49 PM

  Ira,
  I'm looking forward to something to play with on this. Have you considered making the product listing and bidding system seperate modules? I can personally see more value in just the bid system than the listing aspect of things. The listing system could be used to power auctions or shopping carts, the bid system could be used to either bid on items or bid for jobs.
  
  --
  Home Page | Find on Facebook | Follow on Twitter
  

  • 
  •  
• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Expert
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Apr 02, 2010
  • Posts: 1208

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 03:37 PM

  ooooooohh I think mhalbrook is on to something here. I wish my coding skills were more advanced...

  • 
  •  
• markwest
  
  

  • Rank: Team Member
  • Registered: Mar 18, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 6606

  Posted: Jan 24, 2005 - 09:46 PM

  Michael's approach there is something i'd certainly encourage. So many people are either looking for or writing A SINGLE module that will do everything. Modules then get so large they become a maintainence nightmare and usually, as a direct result, buggy.
  
  Once the module grows to this size the develper also then starts looking for a way to create sub-components for thier module to help reduce the complexity. i.e. they end up developing a module system within a module system.
  
  If you start from the base of a postnuke module being a component - a black box with input and output then you can create a much more structured and scaleable application.
  
  PN is now at the stage where there already many re-usable components. A comments system (EZComments), ratings, bbcode etc. are all available as seperate re-usable systems. With a number of system modules being API compliant in .760 you can, for example, manage group memberships with a single API call, work out if someone is online, find out what browser thier using etc.
  
  All of these mean the developer can focus on thier primary goal. So to take CliffT's paid membership solution there would be two components (PN modules) needed. The first would talk to paypal handling purely the payment side of things. The second would manage the membership itself e.g. duration, renewal date etc. The membership component would simply have to call the groups module API to add and remove users from the paid membership group.
  
  I think once you break this down the project becomes all lot more approachable. Then as a by product you have a paypal gateway that can be re-used by other modules.
  
  -Mark
  
  --
  Visit My homepage and Zikula themes.

  • 
  •  
• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 186

  Posted: Jan 25, 2005 - 02:02 AM

  I completely agree with Mark and now that I've taken up progamming modules again, that is the tactic that I am taking. The problem, however, is lack of documentation. Not all of the modules that are mentioned are easily understood enough to make incorporating them into your module feasible. It may be easier to write your own quick and dirty comments system, for instance, than dig through the EZComments module and find the functions you need to call, etc.
  
  That said, I haven't really been working with module development for a while, and maybe the situation has changed. Hopefully it has, since it would make life much easier.

  • 
  •  
• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Softmore
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Oct 21, 2009
  • Posts: 367

  Posted: Jan 25, 2005 - 03:46 AM

  mhalbrook

  Ira,
  I'm looking forward to something to play with on this. Have you considered making the product listing and bidding system seperate modules? I can personally see more value in just the bid system than the listing aspect of things. The listing system could be used to power auctions or shopping carts, the bid system could be used to either bid on items or bid for jobs.

  
  
  In the beginning I had not considered this, my mind was focused on the overall objective of an auction system and I really was not seeing beyond that. However, as I worked on layout out the tables and structuring the data this concept started to creep into my mind. I started seeing even more need to split things out by function about two nights ago when I started trying to think about the configuration options to handle the various types of bidding.
  
  I think what I will do as my next step is work further on the data layout for configuration options, with the view clearly in mind now that the bidding portion will actually be a separate module. From there I can then review my data layout for the other tables and do some re-vamping to change table names/field names from auction to more generic bidding terms to allow it to 'make more sense' under the hood when used in alternate areas like bidding for jobs or projects rather than items on an auction.
  
  After I have put some further thought into this, I will likely make a separate posting of the types of things I see needing to be included in it so that I can get feedback from you folks to ensure that I am on the right track.

  • 
  •  
• **unknown user**
  
  

  • Rank: Expert
  • Registered: Mar 16, 2002
  • Last visit: Apr 02, 2010
  • Posts: 1208

  Posted: Jan 25, 2005 - 04:21 AM

  Thank you, irasmith, for taking on this challenge. Based on the articles you've written and your attention to detail, I'm sure the new module will be awesome. :)

  • 
  •  
•  
•  

Users on-line

• 0 users

This list is based on users active over the last 60 minutes.