Articles - Page 229

Not All Heroes Wear Capes. Here's Why CMS Is Your 'Unsung Hero' in 2025

janus-boye

The first bugfix release of the JAMWiki 0.9.x series, JAMWiki 0.9.1 (code name “White Duck”) is now available for <a rel="nofollow" href="http://downloads.sourceforge.net/jamwiki/jamwiki-0.9.1.war">download from Sourceforge</a>. This release is a minor release that contains only bugfixes and one new feature; no changes have been made to CSS, the database schema, or any other area that would require special attention when upgrading. All users of previous JAMWiki 0.9.x releases are encouraged to upgrade.
New Features
<ul>
<li>Support added for the {{DISPLAYTITLE}} magic word.</li>
</ul>
Bugfixes
<ul>
<li>__NOEDITSECTION__ was being improperly stripped from topics.</li>
<li>Fix a potental JDBC error with <code>FORWARD_ONLY</code> result sets when parsing deleted topics.</li>
<li>Case-insensitive topic names and deleted topics were not being properly updated in the cache.</li>
<li>Exclude redirects when calculating the number of articles using the <code>NUMBEROFARTICLES</code> magic word.</li>
<li>Upgrade to Lucene Search 3.0.2 to resolve a LockObtainFailedException error.</li>
</ul>
Learn more or download JAMWiki from <a href="http://jamwiki.org">http://jamwiki.org</a>

JAMWiki 0.9.1 released

mike-johnston

The MediaWiki team have announced the first stable release of the 1.16 series. This new version encompasses the following changes since 1.15.x:
<ul>
<li>Watchlists now have RSS/Atom feeds. RSS feeds generally are now hidden, since Atom is a better protocol and is supported by virtually all clients.</li>
<li>It's now possible to block users from sending email via Special:Emailuser.</li>
<li>The maintenance script system was overhauled. Most maintenance scripts now have a useful help page when you run them with –help.</li>
<li>AdminSettings.php is no longer required in order to run maintenance scripts. You can just set $wgDBadminuser and $wgDBadminpassword in your LocalSettings.php instead.</li>
<li>The preferences system was overhauled. Preferences are stored in a more compact format. Changes to site default preferences will automatically affect all users who have not chosen a different preference.</li>
<li>Support for SQLite was improved. Some broken features were fixed, and it now has an efficient full-text search.</li>
<li>The user groups ACL system was improved by allowing rights to be revoked, instead of just granted.</li>
<li>A new localisation caching system was introduced, which will make MediaWiki faster for almost everyone, especially when lots of extensions are enabled.</li>
</ul>
By default, this new system makes a lot of database queries. If your database is particularly slow, or if your system administrator limits your query count, or if you want to squeeze as much performance as possible out of Mediawiki, set $wgCacheDirectory to a writable path on the local filesystem. Make sure you have the DBA extension for PHP installed, this will improve performance further.
You can learn more or grab a copy from the <a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki">MediaWiki website</a>.

MediaWiki announces first stable release of 1.16 series

Symphony CMS has seen a new release with version 2.1 being let loose on the public. From the brilliantly funny press release by Craig Zheng of the development team:
<blockquote>
The Symphony team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Symphony 2.1, codenamed Hot Wallaby Ba—oh, wait, that’s right… we don’t do codenames here. Sorry.
More secure than ever, and so stable we should be sweeping horse manure out of it, Symphony 2.1 is the last major build in the 2.* series. As of this release, development focus shifts primarily to Symphony 3, and the 2.* series will see only critical bugfixes and security updates in the form of minor point releases (2.1.*).
Symphony 2.1 is a flagship release as it represents the culmination of all the development that’s gone into Symphony 2 over the past few years—it is faster, more powerful, more efficient, more stable, and more secure than any release to date. We recommended that all websites running Symphony 2.* be upgraded immediately (remember to backup first).
And be sure to act now! The first 100 people to update their Symphony installs will receive a free voucher1 for an awkwardly lingering embrace from Allen and/or a rare white wallaby.
</blockquote>
You can grab a copy from their <a href="http://symphony-cms.com">website</a> or <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/symphony-cms-review/">read our review of Symphony CMS</a>

Symphony CMS 2.1 released

<a href="/start-social-bookmarking-site-hotaru-cms/">Hotaru CMS</a> is an open source php content management system that has been in development since last summer. What makes it stand out amongst the crowd is it's ability to quickly create a social bookmarking site with minimal effort.
Yes, we know that Drigg, Pligg and other products exist in the market, however, they only serve a single use whereas Hotaru can do social bookmarking, magazine sites, blogs and more. This separates it from the pack as far as we are concerned. This is not to say that Pligg and Drigg are not great products, but they are heavily geared towards a single purpose.
Let's take a look at Hotaru shall we?
Installation is fairly straight forward and easy:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/hotaru-cms-setup-mozilla-firefox_2010-07-28_09-09-21-580x394_pncfwv.png" alt="Hotaru CMS Setup" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/greenshot_2010-07-28_09-10-12-580x394_nytxpi.png" alt="Hotaru CMS Setup 2" />
As you can see, it's a fairly straightforward process that's only 4 steps long and should be easy for most users.
Once the installation has completed, you can get started playing with the admin dashboard.
It's important to make sure you read the manual so that you know what steps you should take during and post installation. The manual (and others) can be found on their wiki at <a href="http://hotarudocs.com/Main_Page">http://hotarudocs.com/Main_Page</a>
Your first steps after installation should be to grab / install whichever plugins you would like to use for the site. For the purposes of this review, we uploaded the social bookmarking plugin pack. Now, this plugin pack contains a number of plugins that need to be enabled and some of them rely on others within the pack.
One thing we would recommend the developers change (and this is fairly minor) is to alter the plugin installation process so that if you select a plugin that relies on other plugins that exist but have not yet been installed, it provides an option to install the dependencies for you. Currently it does not do this.
As we said though, this is a minor annoyance and certainly not a strike against the system since you should only need to install a plugin one time.
On a positive note, we were very impressed with the fact that we could download packs of plugins geared towards altering the site instead of having to figure out which ones we needed on our own. This is something we'd like to see more systems actively provide. Drupal, for instance, provides a similar functionality with <a href="http://drupal.org/project/installation+profiles">installation profiles</a>.
Settings for the system are easily configured on a single page within the settings menu:
We also noticed that the developers went one step beyond the norm and included a handy menu that allows a number of handy maintenance functions such as the ability to quickly close the site for maintenance, manage your site's cache, debug, optimize and even empty database tables!
For a developer, these are nice additions to the CMS and it's good to see they thought to include them.
<h3>Overall thoughts:</h3>
Pros:
<ul>
<li>Great maintenance functionality.</li>
<li>System is very fast and relatively easy to install / setup.</li>
<li>Availability of plugin packs to quickly add functionality to the site.</li>
<li>Plenty of uses for the CMS, all of which are easy to get started with.</li>
<li>Integrated caching.</li>
<li>Default install validates 100% XHTML 1.0 Transitional</li>
<li>Excellent documentation.</li>
</ul>
Cons:
<ul>
<li>Would like to see plugin dependencies installed automatically.</li>
<li>Still a bit new to the market (only a year old) but it is growing well.</li>
</ul>
Check it out at <a href="http://www.hotarucms.org">http://www.hotarucms.org</a>
What have your experiences been like? We'd love to hear from you in the comments below!

Hotaru CMS Review - Build your own Social Bookmarking Site!

We were recently contacted by the developers of a unique CMS called Hotaru (japanese for Firefly).
Hotaru is an open source PHP content management system with well over 100 plugins available to help you develop the perfect site. It has been in development since June of 2009 and has seen numerous updates since this time.
The Hotaru forums appear to be quite active with approximately 15 or so themes available for the system and plenty of plugins to extend it in a variety of ways.
While there are numerous ways this CMS can be used, the one we found the most intriguing was it's ability to act as a social bookmarking site:

With an active community and the ability to function as a magazine, blog, static or social bookmarking site, it's very versatile.
You can check out this cool new system by visiting their website or even better, test out all four types of sites that Hotaru is capable of by visiting their demo page at: <a href="http://hotarucms.org/demos/">http://hotarucms.org/demos/</a>
We will be following up this post with a review later today, watch for it!
**Update: Check out our review at <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hotaru-cms-review/">Hotaru CMS Review</a>

Start your own Social Bookmarking site with Hotaru CMS!

Canto® Software today announced the availability of an update to the Cumulus product line that includes significant feature additions to Cumulus Sites, the company’s browser-based Web publishing and file sharing tool, released in March.
New to Cumulus Sites is an option that sends email links that enable users to download requested files at later times so they can close browser windows without having to wait for large-file downloads to complete.
File sharing via Sites has also been improved. Collection links can now be viewed, edited and reused, so users can see which settings were used, and more quickly re-share files. Embargo dates can ensure shared files are not available until specified times, and new social media sharing options make it easy to post files to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and 12 other social networks.
Flash movies and MP3 files can now be streamed from within Sites, and PDF files can be previewed at full resolution without additional plug-ins or software. An in-browser slideshow feature has been added too.
New Sites interface design flexibility means administrators can disable the filters and category views, show files as lists, choose mouse-click behavior, show file info as tooltips, and more.
New to the Cumulus Native Client is an option that enables users to create and email collection links—a feature previously available only in Sites. This enables users to take advantage of Sites’ easy file sharing while working inside the Native Client.
Support for InDesign CS5 has been added so that Cumulus systems that include InDesign Extended Pack functionality can now parse InDesign files without the need for “tag” files. In addition, referenced images and extracted document text are now associated inside Cumulus with the layout page on which they appear. This means it’s easy to find an individual InDesign page just by choosing an image used on the page, or by searching for text the page contains. It’s also now easy to quickly see all images on a selected InDesign page.
Cumulus 8.1.2 is available free of charge to customers on maintenance contracts, and is recommended for all customers.
Updates can be downloaded from the Canto Customer Portal: <a href="http://customer.canto.com">http://customer.canto.com</a>
Learn more about what’s new in Cumulus Sites and Cumulus 8.1.2: <a href="http://www.canto.com/new"> http://www.canto.com/new</a>
About Canto &amp; Cumulus
Canto has been dedicated to helping customers fully utilize their digital assets since 1990. Canto Cumulus is a cross-platform solution that enables companies to easily organize, find, share and track their ever-increasing numbers of digital files, in any format. Canto’s worldwide network of certified developers offers an impressive assortment of plug-ins that enhance the Cumulus product line further.

Canto Upgrades Cumulus Sites and Cumulus

During the numerous interviews we've conducted over the last few years, one of the questions we've continued to ask is “How do you define the term, CMS?”. We often ask this question because each person within the industry has their own interpretation of what it should mean.
Here is a collection of some of the responses we've received to this question:
Joseph Wykes, President of Percussion (<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/interview-with-joseph-wykes-president-of-percussion/">interview</a>):
Over the last few years there have been many shifts in how people use this term. We have WCM for web, WEM for experience or engagement management “suites” etc. Most of it is driven by vendors trying to carve out a space for themselves in the market.
We are pretty comfortable with sticking to the term web content management as a definition that supports publishing content out on to the web. However, clearly the concept of “the web” has morphed from your static company site, to reflect new channels and communities like Facebook and mobile.
So today we think much more broadly about where that content winds up then the old year 2000 view of the web. But at the end of the day, companies need to push content (and much more than ever before), in many forms, out into many more digital channels. For now, and the foreseeable future, a web content management system is your best platform to achieve that goal.
Navin Nagiah, CEO of DotNetNuke Corporation (<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/interview-dotnetnuke-corp-ceo-navin-nagiah/">interview</a>):
Linguistically, it means any system that helps you manage content – creating, storing, indexing, archiving, publishing, and distributing content.  I think both ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and WCM (Web Content Management) are content management systems.
There is a distinct difference between the two today.  ECM is what is internal to an organization. It is about managing information and processes inside a company. It is about document management and records management.
WCM is about managing the publishing and distribution of information.  In one sense, WCM is about revenue and ECM is about net profit or the bottom line.  WCM is about maximizing reach, while ECM is about internal process efficiency.
However, as people use web applications and portals for managing internal information such as document repositories and Web 2.0 tools such as wikis for collaboration and content creation, it is possible the lines between the two systems will blur over time.
Michael Siefert, CEO of Sitecore (<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/interview-sitecore-ceo-michael-seifert-2/">interview</a>): 
I feel compelled to say that I sincerely dislike the term. CMS does a really good job of defocusing everyone on what is important, namely measurably driving your online success. Content doesn’t help you do that. Management of content doesn’t help you do that either. And system surely doesn’t.
 
Secondly, the term is ambiguous since it is used as a cover for both the area of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and WCM (Web Content Management). From a business perspective nothing could be farther apart. ECM should help you be more efficient in your internal business processes. WCM should help you measurably driving your online success. A lot of businesses unfortunately still believe that it is a great strategy to centralize the management of all content in a CMS. There is a big difference between the processes of creating and managing a legal contract, to creating persona optimized content that will dynamically drive a personalized experience for the marketing department. The only thing in common here is that you can use a keyboard to author your text.
Even with this ambiguous term, Sitecore is selling CMS for a broad range of clients with great success. We will change the name when the customers, market and analysts are ready to suggest a new industry term.
Bill Rogers, CEO of Ektron (<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/interview-with-ektron-ceo-and-founder-bill-rogers/">interview</a>):
A CMS is no longer about just managing a piece of content on your Web site. A CMS should be able to allow a non-technical user to manage any asset on a Web site that they wish to interact with, whether that is a piece of content, a picture, a video or information that is pulled from other sources. The CMS should allow marketing teams to launch online campaigns and manage rich internet applications. As I say, in the future Web sites will be mash-ups of information and functionality pulled from multiple locations. A scalable Web CMS solution should be able to display and manage that information regardless of where it is coming from.
Matt Mullenweg, Founder of WordPress (<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wordpress-cms-founder-matt-mullenweg-interview/">interview</a>):
 I’m not crazy about the term content management. I don’t wake up and say “I want to manage some content today!” I want to blog. I want to podcast. To the extent WordPress is a competitor in the CMS space I think it’s because we try to re-examine common assumptions that traditional bloated CMSes make.
<hr />
As you can see from the various responses, a CMS can be defined in numerous ways. It truly depends on each individual's unique vision for what the term should mean.

What is a CMS?

CMS Summit 25

Find out at CMS Connect 25, August 5 - 6 in Montreal, Canada. Seats are limited.

CMS. Content. AI. Where is it all headed?

#ffffff

Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC), the preeminent provider of enterprise content management (ECM) software, today announced the availability of Web Site Management 10.1, featuring usability enhancements to accelerate common tasks and make it easier for website managers to integrate with corporate information and resources along with a sample project that speeds up delivery of new websites. It also offers integration points to many consumer social applications including Facebook and Twitter as well as enhanced native social capabilities with Open Text Social Communities.
The latest release of Web Site Management is the next iteration of Web Solutions 10, a major release introduced last year. A key member of Open Text’s industry-leading portfolio of Web Content Management (WCM) products, Web Site Management is a powerful, easy-to-use Web site application that empowers employees to keep content fresh and relevant and offers extensive multiple-language support and social tools.
“At the core of an engaging Web experience is vibrant, relevant content and an immersive social community integrated with internal business processes and infrastructure,” said Lubor Ptacek, Vice President of Product Marketing at Open Text. “Web Site Management makes this possible with rapid implementation, a strong reputation for usability, and a useful set of integrations with content sources. As demonstrated by the release of 10.1, our strategy is to continue building on these strengths.”
Faster and Easier One of the focus points for Web Site Management 10.1 was to not just make it easier for editors and administrators to complete website management tasks, but to actually accelerate daily editorial work. For instance, a new redlining component allows editors to quickly and easily make an editorial assessment of page content. Enhanced drag and drop capabilities allow editors to change the order of content in lists and visualize results of edits immediately. A new asset management panel with SmartEdit, and drag and drop speeds up work with digital assets.
On the back-end, Web Site Management 10.1 features a number of enhancements to servers for management and delivery of content, including a new graphical user interface that aligns the different server components. A new online help for administrators offers advanced search functionality and a clear navigation structure so information can be found more quickly and easily. Also contributing to lower support and training costs and allowing faster deploying of new sites is a new best practice project that provides an extensive set of pre-defined content classes and templates, along with SAP Portal examples.
On the integration front, Web Site Management 10.1 allows users to fully tap the extensive social capabilities in Open Text Social Communities (formerly Vignette Social Media) and lets them take advantage of Open Text Media Management 7 for managing digital media assets from across an enterprise. It also enhances third-party application integration with extended portlet connectors. Using a new HTTP connector, any type of social media component, such as Facebook or Twitter, can be added and administered.
Behind the scenes, Web Site Management 10.1 incorporates more than two dozen smaller feature enhancements and fixes, along with improved cluster performance for larger websites.
The world's largest provider of WCM solutions, Open Text continues to execute on a strategy to invest in and support both Open Text Web Site Management and Open Text Web Experience Management (acquired from Vignette Content Management) as individual offerings to meet the full range of WCM needs – from easy-to-deploy, departmental applications to more complex dynamic highly scalable Web deployments. Open Text will continue to add incremental features, integrations and innovative capabilities to both products to further strengthen Open Text's position as the undisputed market and technology leader for Web content management solutions.
For more information on Open Text Web Site Management, go to: <a href="http://www.opentext.com/2/global/sol-products/products-open-text-web-site-management.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.opentext.com/2/global/sol-products/products-open-text-web-site-management.htm</a>

Open Text Boosts Social Experiences with Latest Release of Web Site Management Solution

dotCMS today announced the availability of v1.9. The latest web content management system (WCM) version from dotCMS is available in the Community Edition and three Enterprise Editions; Standard, Pro and Prime.
Currently, 93 sites worldwide are running on the Enterprise Editions of dotCMS 1.9, leveraging new features such as multi-tenant, form builder and a new UI. Over the past few months, a number of organizations participated as early adopters, building new sites with 1.9. Together, dotCMS and the early adopters worked closely on developing and implementing, collaborating and improving the product in real time. These early stage implementations assure future customers and prospects of a higher quality implementation.
Bridging the Talent Gulf A vast majority of large enterprise Web Teams do not include a Java developer – precisely the type of talent required to make common site changes such as new templates, page layout modifications and the creation of a custom data type. Without ready access to Java talent, a Web Team becomes hampered, unable to implement change at the pace required by the business.  dotCMS 1.9 addresses this talent gulf by driving the responsibility of system and functionality change to the web developer. Those with HTML, CSS and scripting skills now hold the reins in a dotCMS implementation.  dotCMS engineers have created data and HTML-driven commands within the product to help Web Developers enact a majority of the changes required by dynamic markets.
“No one in the WCM market combines full Enterprise strength with such presentation layer flexibility – all without the need of a Java developer,” commented Will Ezell, CTO of dotCMS. “The most effective way to help our clients react quickly to business opportunities is to minimize the overall importance of a resource bottleneck – the java developer – and shift the burden to a more readily available and less expensive resource on the web team – the web developer.  By addressing this Talent Gulf in dotCMS, our clients can close the gap between the speed of business and the speed of online change.”
New Features within v1.9
The latest release was developed for Enterprise-grade segment of the CMS market, supports Cloud hosting and includes the following new features:
Multi-site/Multi-tenant – Run hundreds of sites off one instance, and use permissions to define editing rights by site, section or page. The new Copy Host feature allows Web Teams to quickly create a new site based on an existing site, make modifications and launch. SUDO Login gives power administrators the ability to see the UI of other users, taking the guesswork out of support.
Entirely new UI – The administrative interface in 1.9 is new from the ground up. Familiar processes, nomenclature and in-context editing are part of this release.
Form Builder – Using a series of drop down menus, those without technical skills can build a forms-driven page. Build rich, step-by-step forms, surveys, polls or other user generated content UIs.
Enterprise Grade db and App Server Support – The Enterprise Editions of dotCMS 1.9 run on Oracle, MS SQL, Websphere, Weblogic, JBoss and Glassfish.
Scripting Support – dotCMS 1.9 supports PHP, Groovy, Python and Ruby. This feature dramatically expands the talent pool that can implement and impact change in 1.9.
Content Integration – dotCMS is the first CMS to be CMIS 1.0 compliant. Combined with JSON, RSS and Web Services, 1.9 can push your content out or pull 3rd party content in.
A New Licensing Model
dotCMS offers four products; Community, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Pro, and Enterprise Prime. The Community Edition is licensed under GPL 2.0.
All Enterprise products are covered by the new dotCMS Open License. This license not only provides access to the Enterprise source code and updates, but waives the requirement to return or share any modifications to code with the community. This allows organizations to protect their IP as they build capabilities and applications on top of dotCMS.
Additionally, the purchase of any Enterprise Edition provides clients with access to dotCMS Professional Services, Support and Training.  A warranty covers all bugs and dotCMS provides indemnification for Enterprise clients.
About dotCMS dotCMS is an enterprise-grade open source J2EE/Java Web Content Management System. The system allows those with moderate or no technical capability to make massive changes in a site. This allows corporations, institutions and organizations to move at a quicker pace by removing the need for Java development talent within a Web Team.
Among those who run on dotCMS Enterprise Edition include Toyota, Hospital Corporation of America, Thomson Reuters, University of Texas, Aquent, State of Ohio, and the Government of Quebec.
For more information go to <a href="http://www.dotcms.com/">www.dotcms.com</a>

dotCMS today announced the availability of v1.9

The Joomla! Project has announced the release of the 6th beta of Joomla 1.6. A total of 98 issues have been addressed since the previous beta was released which hopefully brings 1.6 that much closer to a release candidate.
The latest version can be downloaded <a href="http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&amp;frs_package_id=5346">here</a>.
A timeline of the 1.6 release can be found here: <a href="http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/1168-joomla-16-development-shifting-gears.html">http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/1168-joomla-16-development-shifting-gears.html</a>

Joomla 1.6 Beta 6 Now Available

On July 21, the long awaited release of MODx Revolution was let loose on the public. For those who are unaware, Revolution is a ground up rebuild of the CMS based on the paradigms and principles of MODx but eliminating most of Evolution's limitations. Here is our MODx Review.
We were eager to test out this new system so we grabbed a copy and began the installation:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen1-580x345_wptvki.png" alt="MODx Review" />
The process of installing MODx is quite quick and easy, with most of the work performed by the system and minimal interaction required by the user.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen2-580x514_hbg06o.png" alt="MODx Review" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen3-580x491_jzegxk.png" alt="MODx Review" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen4-580x597_kebrpu.png" alt="MODx Review" />
Once installation has been completed, you get to log in to the manager (the back-end of the CMS):
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen5_chkapq.png" alt="MODx Review" />
After logging in, you'll be greeted with a slick welcome screen that provides you with some suggestions on next steps to take.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen6-580x349_tsc25t.png" alt="MODx Review" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen-7-580x503_mfqs0g.png" alt="MODx Review" />
As you can see from the above screenshot, the manager now sports a slick and responsive new GUI with nice descriptive drop down menus and and excellent use of screen real estate. Just from our first few times messing around with the system and exploring, we found it to be extremely responsive and snappy. We have been told that there may be issues with Firebug and Firefox causing the manager back end to slow down but from our tests, we didn't experience any of these issues.
Right click menus are abound in this release and can be used almost everywhere within the manager back end:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen11_oed2mf-1.png" alt="MODx Review" />
Before we start exploring some of the new features of the system, here's a quick breakdown of the key ones (pulled from the MODx release announcement):
<ul>
<li>MODx Revolution 2.0 can be used on much larger and expansive sites as it boasts  better site performance from an all new caching system with fine grained options to cache any Element (or not if you need it that way). In addition you can override the default caching and use large-scale caching methods like Memcached.</li>
<li>Extend or override any part of the MODx core including System Settings, Users, Language, Sessions and much more. This enables you to safely extend core features and integrate with other applications and maintain a clean upgrade path.</li>
<li>Developers can create redistributable add-ons, or an entire MODx Distributions using Transport Packages.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Assign different views of your site based on almost any criteria using Contexts.  Contexts provides a simple way to have native multi-sites, subdomains or even securely running the MODx core outside of webroot.</li>
<li>Developers now have access to better error tracking and debugging capabilities through Core Logging. It provides various error levels and output targets including ECHO, HTML, and FILE. You can also use it in add-ons for audit logs, error logs, debugging, or other logging needs.</li>
<li>Unified, simpler MODx Tags now support multi-line tag calls for better readability in development, calling of cached tags within other cached tags, and allows native and custom modifiers to be attached to any Element (Snippet, Chunk, TV, Etc.) similar to PHx did in Evolution but far more efficiently.</li>
<li>The Manager is MODx. The new Manager for MODx is built using the MODx API, ExtJS from Sencha, and Smarty templates, as a demonstration of the new core and API.</li>
<li>Web users and Manager users are now Users that can be grouped and assigned fine grained access and permissions. The User system can be extended to provide external authentication and handle additional user record information via the API. Completely new user system – all permissions are now handled via a robust, Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) security model.</li>
<li>Property Sets allow you to change all your the properties for Snippet calls in various locations across your entire site from a single location in the manager. Create a Property Set, assign it, and then manage all the calls in one  location.</li>
<li>Properties are available to all Element types including Chunks, TVs, Templates and Plugins.</li>
<li>Manage and customize your MODx Lexicons — the language records for things like labels, event notices and more for local, industrial or regional terminology, all from within the Lexicon Manager.</li>
<li>Install Add-ons and custom Transport Packages from MODx using the Package Manager. Open the Package Manager and search for available addons or your own private addon repository.</li>
<li>Manage files on the filesystem (even outside of webroot) within the Manager using Static Resources.</li>
<li>Create exact clones of other resources in your site tree in as many places as you'd like with Symlink Resources.</li>
</ul>
Pretty expansive list isn't it?  Let's take a look through the system at some of these new features.. starting with the caching system. Caching capabilities are controlled by a number of settings found under System -&gt; System Settings in the manager.
The Area: Caching settings can be found on the first page near the bottom and look like this:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-caching-1-580x457_t5qmw2.png" alt="MODx Review" />
Clicking on the plus signs beside any of the settings will present a description of that settings functionality. As you can see, there are plenty of options that you can play with to improve performance of your CMS.
Clearing the cache is as simple as selecting Site-&gt; Clear Cache from the manager menu.
The next area we're going to show you is the Contexts. Contexts allow MODx configuration settings to be overridden, extended, isolated, or shared across domains, sub-domains, sub-sites, multi-sites, cultural-specific sections, specific web applications, etc.
To access the contexts, navigate to System-&gt; Contexts in the manager.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-contexts-1-580x200_jtbigh.png" alt="MODx Review" />
To modify a context, simply right-click on the one you wish to modify and select Update Context.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-contexts-2-580x194_wefd70.png" alt="MODx Review" />
This will present you with the context editing screen where you can modify the settings:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-contexts-3-580x289_b3iwfs.png" alt="MODx Review" />
What I particularly found handy was the Help button in the top right that provides information and assistance for the various areas should you need it:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-contexts-4-580x338_lcdxjc.png" alt="MODx Review" />
For a system with such power and expandability, it's good to see the developers didn't lose sight of the help functions and provides some great built in assistance. This is a great addition.
The last addition we are going to show you is the new package management that was built into the CMS.
You can access the package management component from the System-&gt;Package Management dropdown:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen8-580x277_fbi7py.png" alt="MODx Review" />
Navigating the package browser is very easy and consists of simple dropdowns. Say for instance you wish to install a sample site, you can do so with a couple of clicks and be ready to go. Simply use the dropdowns to find the appropriate package, click the Details button for more info and click Download to add the package to your installation:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen9-580x326_t3pcfp-1.png" alt="MODx Review" />
Once the package is downloaded, you are given the option to install.. which is as simple as clicking the button:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/modx-screen10-580x231_nrxlyn-1.png" alt="MODx Review" />
And that's all there is to it.
There are obviously many more additions we can fit into this review as this new release comes chock full of goodies as you can see from the bullet list above.. but from what we've managed to ascertain so far, this is one incredible release.
The MODx team should pat themselves on the back for creating what we think is one of the most functional and slick looking content management systems on the market today.
From their responsive back end to the myriad of right click context menus and help functions, they've outdone themselves with this release.
Everything feels fast, fun to use and powerful as you navigate through the system. It really is astonishing that a product of this caliber is free and for that, we have to say a big thanks to the MODx team for bolstering the open source community with yet another quality product. Great work guys!
We know we are just touching the brink of what comes with this new release, what are your most/least favorite new features and additions? Join in the discussion in our comments below!
Interested in getting your hands on this excellent release? You can do so at <a href="http://modxcms.com" target="_blank">http://modxcms.com</a>

MODx Review: Revolution 2.0

ocProducts are proud to announce the launch of the first release candidate for ocPortal 5.0, our highly advanced web content management system. This version introduces a number of bug fixes, new features, usability improvements, and a wide-sweeping design overhaul.
There are a number of key changes and additions within this version of the software; The Admin zone has been given an overhaul including new drop down menus and a much more useful front page. Design change highlights include :
<ul>
<li> A complete redesign of the Gallery system (we know this is going to make a lot of people very happy)</li>
<li> The member profile screen has been completely redesigned</li>
<li> A restructuring of the member points screen, making the points system far more intuitive.</li>
<li> The quiz screen has been redesigned</li>
<li> Just about every side block has been revised</li>
<li> A brand new commenting interface</li>
</ul>
We have given an overhaul to commenting, RSS and ratings features. These include allowing guests to choose a display name and improving the previewing of reviews. ocPortal version 5 has been thoroughly tested with IE6 and should display properly on this browser. We do however expect to drop support for IE6 once IE9 is released.
We have put a great deal of work into the ocPortal themeing system, with the aim of making it much easier for users to make their site look just how they want it to. Users can now preview all of the templates they are working on without needing switch between several screens. Other themeing features include making it easier to edit the site logo across all zones &amp; themes, alongside new CSS styled buttons. In addition to the aforementioned template screen preview system, you can methodically work through all the screens in the system in order to ensure your theme looks good.
The ocPortal gallery system has seen a raft of changes, including an improved edit screen and the ability to provide automatic video transcoding (this requires that ffmpeg is installed). There have also been changes and updates within the quiz feature, the events calendar, the catalogue system, the newsletter manager and CEDI.
We have added a new feature that we call “Real-time rain”, which allows you to visualise activity in your website, either in real-time or via historic playback, which you would otherwise only ever see in the form of plain-text logs. This feature is enormous fun for webmasters and is incredibly pretty.
We have made many more changes in addition to those listed above, which are too numerous to include here. If you would like more information (and we hope you do) please come and have a look at everything we have been working on over the last few months; you can find the
Full release information at <a href="http://ocportal.com/site/news/view/new_releases/ocportal_50rc1.htm">http://ocportal.com/site/news/view/new_releases/ocportal_50rc1.htm</a>
But wait, we haven't stopped there! In addition to working on version 5, we have created 30 new optional addons!
We originally announced a mere 3 addons on April 1st, and some of you fell for our fools-day double bluff. In addition to the three addons that we announced previously (ocPurrrr, ocDeadpeople and ocJester), we are launching a suite of addons that include (but are not limited to) :
<ul>
<li> Three new blocks to display your Amazon wishlist, Amazon affiliate sales links, and items you are selling through ebay.</li>
<li> A new spinning tag globe to replace the tag cloud block.</li>
<li> New mapping tools to display the locations of your members or locations derived from a catalogue (useful for a store locater for example).</li>
<li> A new chat bot for the ocPortal chat rooms to interact with your site visitors.</li>
<li> A replacement for the existing chatrooms which uses a Jabber chat room from your server.</li>
<li> An adminzone search stemmer allowing you to search for publishing for example and it will display results for publish.</li>
<li> A module to incorporate Google translate into your website.</li>
<li> A range of new banners to show your support for a wide range of causes within a block.</li>
<li> A crossword generator and an altered quiz module allowing you to set entrance costs and rewards for entering and completing quizzes.</li>
<li> An Enhanced shout box</li>
</ul>
For a full comprehensive list of our addons visit our updated Addons gallery through the following link: <a href="http://ocportal.com/site/downloads/misc/add-onsmodifications.htm">http://ocportal.com/site/downloads/misc/add-onsmodifications.htm</a>

ocProducts announces the first release candidate for ocPortal 5.0

MODX, LLC, has released its flagship web content management platform, MODX Revolution 2.0. This release culminates years of effort to completely reinterpreting its award-winning popular Open Source Content Management System (CMS).
MODX Revolution is a customizable content management platform. It is built on a modern, object-oriented core with a fully documented API for developers, sits on top of a robust database Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) layer powered by its sister-project, xPDO (http://xpdo.org/).
“Revolution represents more than three years of work reinventing our classic code base,” said Ryan Thrash, CEO of MODX and the project co-founder. “We looked at what was available in both the Open Source and Commercial worlds and thought we could create something truly special and different. We did, and now we're sharing an amazing platform for consuming APIs, managing content and creating custom web applications with the world.”
Like previous releases, MODX Revolution 2.0 gives visual designers complete control over the design, content structure and overall usability. Since design is an integral part of user experience and aids in communication, MODX leaves how the site will look, how it's structured and how it behaves up to the project experts. MODX does not impose any restrictions whatsoever in these areas.
Organizations can harness MODX Revolution's power, flexibility and extensibility that is synonymous with prior releases, with the performance, stability and security of enterprise-level content management applications. This includes a new caching system to improve page loads, handle more content and even leverage proven external caching mechanisms like Memcached. Further improvements include security hardening with proactive cross-site scripting prevention (XSS) and input sanitization.
MODX Revolution 2.0 boasts an all new Manager interface built using the Revolution API itself and ExtJS from Sencha. It can be customized to offer a tailored experience for site managers and editors. Features like a drag-and-drop content tree, the ability to incorporate files on the filesystem as content and linking to external content in the content structure, means controlling content is encompassing and unrestricted.
MODX Revolution 2.0 further introduces Contexts which offer a way to run multiple websites, different language versions, provide additional organizational structure, or even a custom Manager interface. Contexts bring another layer of flexibility and capability to MODX developers.
“Revolution is our future,” said Thrash. “To borrow from Spinal Tap, it takes everything people love about MODX to eleven. Not only that, but it can be  tailored to your exact requirements even changing how it functions while still maintaining an upgrade path for future versions or migration from our classic code base.”
The latest release of MODX Revolution be downloaded for free at http://modxcms.com/download/

MODX Revolution 2.0 has been released

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