Zikula Community

• vworld
  

  • Registered: Dec 31, 1969
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  Posted: Mar 20, 2007 - 02:46 PM

  This thread was started to prioritize the list of features most requested. If you have your own list please post to the thread -- but more importantly post to the PN project NOC feature request list. This thread was created to build a consensus among the community to what is most important, if there is currently a solution you aren't aware of, and of possibly extending current modules.
  
  I've taken tastiger's list from another thread and made my comments:
  
  PostNuke Feature Requests
  
  

  • Admin approval of Members
    
  • A simple permissions system - not one where you have to move permissions around to get them to work. If I don't want non financial members to see something I should just have to click one button or check box.
    
  • Personal Home Pages - again linked to permissions
    
  • Personal Ads Module - I know there are some out there but the functionality varies
    
  • Reasonable Personal Profile page where users can have a picture of themselves - maybe a short bio and links to their articles etc - i.e., an improved version of user home page.
    
  • "Yellow Pages" module where businesses that your Community use can submit their details - you could even have this so as a small charge is made for the ad.
    
  • Terminology Module - so as one can list words or phrases that are particular to the community and people can look them up and see what they mean.

  
  
  I know the yellow pages and terminology module can be created in Pagesetter -- what is needed are the field types and I'd be willing to create this within Pagesetter and release it to the community.
  
  Not sure about the personal ads module -- are you talking about a dating site module? This could possibly be created in Pagesetter but the requirements need to be defined. What information is needed? How is it used? I've not setup a personal's site so don't know the details. I've seen one of the dating modules that worked in the past but it wasn't very good. Maybe an option should be taking a good open source dating site script and integrate it into PN.
  
  Personal home pages and personal profile pages -- a definite must have and should be improved. Are there some good examples of other projects doing this well? How does Joomla handle these features? Can we learn from other apps? What about integrating Ajax?
  
  Simplified permissions -- that's a loaded one and although simple to some -- it is not simple to most. Agreed, permissions need to be improved -- but we've got to work within the current structure. What are the limitations? What can make them better? Are there simple things that can improve usability? Examples?
  
  Admin approval of members -- how difficult to implement? What about providing a default setup of permissions that users can plugin to make this feature available immediately? Then we can look into making this a point-and-click option in the future.
  
  My feature requests would be:
  
  

  • More userfriendly search feature
    
  • Simplified permissions
    

  
  
  I'm sure I can think of more as we move forward but I think this is a good start.
  
  So now lets figure out what is available -- give the devs specific ways to improve the features immediately/interim/long term.
  
  I think providing action items is a good way to start and again, above all posting your feature requests, improvements, and suggestions to the NOC PN project tracker.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 20, 2007 - 05:45 PM

  Actually it was my list
  
  Personal Ads - I agree that past efforts weren't really efficient - it seems to be a hard module to build - they just aren't configurable enough - by all means my thoughts would lean towards an integration of something such as Osdate or Dolphin.
  
  I'm not sure I like the idea of over relying on Pagesetter for a loot of things - I know I am not the only one who finds it difficult to follow the instructions for using this particular module.
  
  Personal profile and user home pages - well worth a look at Joomla for those - Community Builder is a 3rd party pugin that combines your profile, personal messaging, forum posts, Wiki articles, news articles, site (Community) connections, Blog entries, visitors book - in fact nearly every function you you need to access from your account on a neat little tabbed page along with your picture or avatar. User home pages also a worth a look at Joomla's 3rd party UHP2 that also links to the tabs on Community Builder - this nifty little setup gives each user or those you grant permissions to 5 pages to make their own - you have admin control over content and can specify the size of each page. It also provides templated pages so the user can just add their text or pics and their pages are up and running. BTW in Joomla you can also specify who views your "Home" page.
  
  One thing I haven't found for Joomla is something similar to v4bJournal - great little module if the v4lib problems are fixed and it doesn't clash with dynamenu anymore...
  
  I feel a full fledged Blog is perhaps overkill for doing something like v4bJournal does.
  
  Permissions - well I would just like to see them work properly - I tried for 4 weeks to get AIuser pages available only to Financial Members - but it didn't matter where I moved it in the list no go.
  
  I know some of you like really configurable permissions on a user basis - but wouldn't it be much more time effective from an admin point of view if I could look at the module on the admin page and select which group I wanted to be able to use it from a drop down list?
  
  On registration - also what should be included is email verification where the user has to click a link to confirm - what would make me happy is Xuser fixed to work with versions above .750.
  
  The terminology or glossary module used to exist in 762 but got left behind.
  
  And please when you talk of donations and such like just remember not all of us are out there making money out of our sites - they are if we are lucky, just covering our costs and in my case it would require a nod from the committee to outlay any cash - one of the main reasons we use OS software
  
  
  So that should get you started thinking - once I have completed the setup of my test site in Jooomla - I will provide a link to both the PN site and the Joomla version and you can see for yourself some of these functions I speak of and compare the setups. Just won't be in a hurry because I have 600+ users along with their assorted news and forums to copy over.
  
  
  Also I forgot to add and it may already be available as I haven't checked lately - but a good integration of gallery 2 is always a handy add on for any Community.
  
  
  
  edited by: tastiger, Mar 21, 2007 - 03:52 PM

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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 20, 2007 - 05:51 PM

  #1 on the list for 99% of my clients would be to have a nice publishing interface, much like WordPress. As it is now, I can install Scribite (great module, BTW) but the rest of the News module could use some improvement as well.

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• vworld
  

  • Registered: Dec 31, 1969
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  Posted: Mar 20, 2007 - 06:16 PM

  tastiger

  Actually it was my list

  
  
  Update ;)
  
  

  tastiger

  
  Personal Ads - I agree that past efforts weren't really efficient - it seems to be a hard module to build - they just aren't configurable enough - by all means my thoughts would lean towards an integration of something such as Osdate or Dolphin.

  
  Yes, I've seen both of those -- you know Cas Nuy builds bridges to some great OS apps. He would be the go to guy on this. (http://www.nuy.info/)
  
  

  tastiger

  I'm not sure I like the idea of over relying on Pagesetter for a loot of things - I know I am not the only one who finds it difficult to follow the instructions for using this particular module.

  
  
  I would have agreed with you 6 months ago but if you haven't looked at the module recently then you're really doing yourself a dis-service. I've taught totally webmaster noobs how to use the tool so it has come along way in usability -- not saying it can still be improved because it could be improved but Jorn is very receptive to suggestions so if you find something that doesn't make sense then let me know. :)
  
  Again, I haven't always been a fan of Pagesetter but it is a very flexible module that it easy to skin and customize.
  
  
  

  tastiger

  
  Personal profile and user home pages - well worth a look at Joomla for those - Community Builder is a 3rd party pugin that combines your profile, personal messaging, forum posts, Wiki articles, news articles, site (Community) connections, Blog entries, visitors book - in fact nearly every function you you need to access from your account on a neat little tabbed page along with your picture or avatar. User home pages also a worth a look at Joomla's 3rd party UHP2 that also links to the tabs on Community Builder - this nifty little setup gives each user or those you grant permissions to 5 pages to make their own - you have admin control over content and can specify the size of each page. It also provides templated pages so the user can just add their text or pics and their pages are up and running. BTW in Joomla you can also specify who views your "Home" page.

  
  
  I defintely would like to see the Joomla modules on a live site. Just a note, I've used the 'account page' on PN as something similar and if you don't realize you can link to any/all user features/modules through the account page on PN.
  
  
  

  tastiger

  One thing I haven't found for Joomla is something similar to v4bJournal - great little module if the v4lib problems are fixed and it doesn't clash with dynamenu anymore...
  
  I feel a full fledged Blog is perhaps overkill for doing something like v4bJournal does.

  
  
  Not sure of the issues here but I like the idea of having a full-fledged blog tool -- in fact I just had a client request these features.
  
  

  tastiger

  
  Permissions - well I would just like to see them work properly - I tried for 4 weeks to get AIuser pages available only to Financial Members - but it didn't matter where I moved it in the list no go.
  
  I know some of you like really configurable permissions on a user basis - but wouldn't it be much more time effective from an admin point of view if I could look at the module on the admin page and select which group I wanted to be able to use it from a drop down list?

  
  
  I normally set-up groups then we determine which items each of these groups have access too. If you have suggestions on specific ways the permissions could be applied within the context of the system then I think they would be welcomed. The example you gave it good -- so each module should have a pre-set of default permissions.
  
  

  tastiger

  
  On registration - also what should be included is email verification where the user has to click a link to confirm - what would make me happy is Xuser fixed to work with versions above .750.

  
  
  Good suggestion -- I think taking the good features from this module and applying it to PN user registration would be a plus. I think this could be a good 'summer of code' project ;)
  
  

  tastiger

  The terminology or glossary module used to exist in 762 but got left behind.

  
  
  Again great candidate for a Pagesetter publication type.
  
  

  tastiger

  
  And please when you talk of donations and such like just remember not all of us are out there making money out of our sites - they are if we are lucky, just covering our costs and in my case it would require a nod from the committee to outlay any cash - one of the main reasons we use OS software

  
  
  Agreed, not everyone has money and thats OK. But remember that you're not going to get alot done without some kind of compensation -- it doesn't always have to be money -- it could be in 'sweat' equity -- i.e., giving of yourself, your time (very valuable), you skills, your feedback etc.
  
  
  

  tastiger

  
  So that should get you started thinking - once I have completed the setup of my test site in Jooomla - I will provide a link to both the PN site and the Joomla version and you can see for yourself some of these functions I speak of and compare the setups. Just won't be in a hurry because I have 600+ users along with their assorted news and forums to copy over.

  
  
  Sure would like to see what features Joomla offers as compared to what can be done in PN. I'm positive with a bit of creativity that anything you can do in Joomla it can also be accomplished in a PN site.
  
  

  tastiger

  
  Also I forgot to add and it may already be available as I haven't checked lately - but a good integration of gallery 2 is always a handy add on for any Community.

  
  
  Not sure but I recently installed PhotoGallery into a client's site and it is much easier to use.
  
  
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• vworld
  

  • Registered: Dec 31, 1969
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  Posted: Mar 20, 2007 - 06:19 PM

  Wendell

  #1 on the list for 99% of my clients would be to have a nice publishing interface, much like WordPress. As it is now, I can install Scribite (great module, BTW) but the rest of the News module could use some improvement as well.

  
  
  Have you ever tried Pagesetter -- again I haven't always been a fan of this module but I've implemented it in two sites easily. And agree with you that the News module could use some improvement. :)
  
  
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• CliffT
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 21, 2007 - 01:31 AM

  Tastiger and I both needed a jobs module at one time IIRC; I still do.
  
  

  Quote

  Have you ever tried Pagesetter -- again I haven't always been a fan of this module but I've implemented it in two sites easily.

  
  
  I tried using Pagesetter to build a jobs module and when I ran into trouble and asked for help, my messages here and at their site went unanswered.
  
  I build sites gratis for non-profits and worthy causes. I don't get reimbursed for donations and other expenses I spend out of my own pocket. I often end up paying for their hosting as well. It was very frustrating for me to offer more than I could afford for the development of a jobs module (pnCareers, I believe it was called) only to see it never come about. I and the others who offered just couldn't pay enough I suppose. But that's another example of a module (phPro) that was working, then got broken by updates and never fixed.

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• Topiatic
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 21, 2007 - 02:02 AM

  Regarding easier permissions. I like the point and click idea to an extent. Maybe a simple interface that allows you to select a module, a group, and a permission level, and then adds 2 entries right above 'Unregistered | .* | .* | Read/Overview' that reads:
  GroupName | Module:: | .* | SelectedAccessLevel
  All groups | Module:: | .* | None
  This would of course lead to some redundancy in the permission table, but it should work. Maybe this can even be done via plugin containing calls to the permission modules API. Or a module in itself that uses the API. That being said, this won't work for such things as multi-group multi level permissions being applied to multiple categories, forums, and threads in a forum.
  
  But I don't know the feasibility of this as I haven't yet looked at the Permission modules API.
  
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• chance1376
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 21, 2007 - 04:52 AM

  I think one thing that could help bring in new users is integration or at least a bridge with Invasion Power Board or Vbulletin. Every so many months you will see a thread around here asking if there is an integration available for Vb atleast (not so much recently) and a few PN based sites I used to visit have switched to VB with a CMS add on or a CMS that can integrate/bridge to it. Not to mention the hordes of their users looking for a good CMS front end on their site that would probably love to get their hands on something like PN.
  
  Features that I could think of wanting in the past that are not in PN is an archiving system for the news. The interface could be similar to the old tix archive module but the content of the articles can be exported out as static HTML pages and removed from the news module.
  
  As said a above improvement to the news module's publishing system. I will agree that scribite helps a lot. Also the inclusion of a tag system would be nice. While my site has topics for blue widget manufacture, red widget manufacture and yellow cog company. There are several themes in each story that can be connected between topic and help with the end users experience. Ifound a PHP tag library some where a while back and saw it posted here or on IR's website but the only one i found in a quick search today was this one for those who might be inclined http://phptagengine.com/. I am not even sure how it is licensed but it was just a quick find.
  
  I agree about a better search system and the change in one of the recent updates..not sure which one when the search started to display results on the index.php ruined the search on my site because of the block lay outs above the news stories people think they just got booted back to the front page and didn't realize they need to scroll down to see the results.
  
  Other comments about some things that were mentioned above is with the user profile take a look at chestnut's advprofile. It is really nice and you can use plug ins to connect module info with the profile like forum post,stories and dynamic user info. Also you may want to search on the forums on his site for Pagesetter and advprofile some one had a really nice looking profile set up that incorporated Pagesetter.
  
  Also for those who haven't looked at Pagesetter or have tried and gave up try going to the pagsetter.net or org..can't remember which works and download some other templates and study those as well as the included one's. It took me a bit to get a simple template and publication of my own together but after that I added 4 new features to my site with Pagesetter alone that would never be done by somebody else on any CMS just because of the very small niche involved. I have a bunch more things in mind to add several I can do with my current knowledge but a few others i will need to find some existing templates to see how different plug ins i need to use work and of course the time to do them. But it is well worth the effort.
  
  
  
  
  edited by: chance1376, Mar 21, 2007 - 04:56 PM

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• vworld
  

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  Posted: Mar 21, 2007 - 05:25 AM

  CliffT

  Tastiger and I both needed a jobs module at one time IIRC; I still do.
  
  

  Quote

  Have you ever tried Pagesetter -- again I haven't always been a fan of this module but I've implemented it in two sites easily.

  
  
  I tried using Pagesetter to build a jobs module and when I ran into trouble and asked for help, my messages here and at their site went unanswered.

  
  
  Cliff I can empathize with your challenge, I experienced something similar but since the module is well documentated I was able to figure out most of my issues on my own while finiding snippets of answers through the Pagesetter forums. Although, I'm sure the jobs module was a bit more daunting than my issues. BTW: a simple jobs module should be easily created by taking phJobs module and using that as a guide.
  
  

  CliffT

  
  I build sites gratis for non-profits and worthy causes. I don't get reimbursed for donations and other expenses I spend out of my own pocket. I often end up paying for their hosting as well. It was very frustrating for me to offer more than I could afford for the development of a jobs module (pnCareers, I believe it was called) only to see it never come about. I and the others who offered just couldn't pay enough I suppose. But that's another example of a module (phPro) that was working, then got broken by updates and never fixed.

  
  
  Your work with non-profits is very nobel. I also donate a portion of my time to causes I support -- and its great to see PN being of use to them. And no offense but I can't see the connection of a module not working as the fault of the PN team. The phPro module was developed by an outside third party -- they haven't decided to maintain the compatibility within the system -- it is unfortunate and the team has taken great care to maintain an upgrade path for module devs but if it doesn't happen then there isn't a way to control that.
  
  
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• kaffeeringe.de
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 21, 2007 - 05:48 AM

  Quote

  And please when you talk of donations and such like just remember not all of us are out there making money out of our sites - they are if we are lucky, just covering our costs and in my case it would require a nod from the committee to outlay any cash - one of the main reasons we use OS software

  I remember a time when hobbies used to cost money. But in the days of free software everybody expect their hobbies to be free - like in "free beer". But the idea of "free software" is a different. Nobody expects you to spend thousands of dollars but it would be nice if some people sometimes offered some money if they really need something.
  
  GF implemented a glossary module with Pagesetter: Fischerlexikon - And he is 14 years old. So don't tell me it's too hard.
  
  Using AdvProfile (or the Profile module in .8), Avatar, pnLastSeen, pnUserPictures, pnMessages, EZComments ASO. you should be able to build a lot of community function - although I admit, that there could be more. I also implemented personal galleries using Pagesetter and advProfile.
  
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• **unknown user**
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 21, 2007 - 06:09 AM

  vworld

  Have you ever tried Pagesetter -- again I haven't always been a fan of this module but I've implemented it in two sites easily. And agree with you that the News module could use some improvement. :)

  
  
  Yes, I have, and I love it. But if the only ingredients I need for a particular site are those included in the core of PN (or at least with the ValueAddons), then I'd prefer to use them. Pagesetter can be daunting for a new user, and they may already be overwhelmed by all the features in PN. If I build a news website for a client, they most likely hired me because they don't want to get into the technical stuff. They just want a site that works and is easy to maintain the content.
  
  For more involved sites, yes, Pagesetter is wonderful. It is by far IMHO the best module for any CMS around. And with all the little addon modules Elfisk has produced, you can make a site that will do nearly anything. You can't get anything even remotely close to Pagesetter that works with Joomla or any of the other CMS.

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• Topiatic
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 23, 2007 - 05:57 PM

  How much of a pain in the but would it be to add the option for mod/theme devs to be able to use normal Smarty tags in templates? Maybe an pnAPIFunc() that can reset the tags for the lifecycle of the module functionality? Or even better teach pnRender to take $pnRender->setDeleminators() with standard Smarty tags as an empty default, or ('{', '}') as optional params.
  
  Does this sound feasable?
  
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• Simon
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 23, 2007 - 10:06 PM

  As pnRender is a subclass of Smarty you can already set the delimiters using the standard Smarty interface should you so desire. We've talked in the past about the pros and cons of the delimeters we are using, but many modules are using pnRender now which makes it hard to change anything.
  
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• AmmoDump
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 24, 2007 - 11:06 AM

  IMHO, if we could make PN more gamer (community) friendly we could attract more users... Gamers build active and triving communites, but PN does not offer good game support, asfaras rosters, memeber managament, ect.
  
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• pnDev
  
  

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  Posted: Mar 27, 2007 - 02:40 PM

  Be nice to have a few of the newer modules like Pagesetter, pnforum and some basic things every site needs like contact modules, moved into the core. Also at the same time dump off some of the old day 1 modules and blocks that may have seemed neat in 2001, but are practically obselete now, things like Currency Exchange blocks and just crazy old stuff like that. ALso pnMessages as a replacement for the basic Messages module. I think things like that would go along way if you could adapt the best modules into the core and dump the junk, to make the user experience both easier and more powerful.

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