Feature
Welcome to the January 2012 installment of our what's coming from the open source projects in the next month. If you feel that your project was left out, we invite you to email us at [email protected] to have a project representative added to the list of people we contact for updates.
Composite C1
In January, the folks at Composite C1 (news, site) released Composite C1 version 3.1. In addition to bug fixes, new features for this version include support for spellchecking in Firefox in over 90 languages, including special dictionaries (for example, medical), and support for LESS CSS, which adds support for CSS variables, functions and other dynamic CSS features from the LESS project.
On January 25, Composite hosted its first ever hackathon with 25 participants from Germany, Denmark and the Ukraine. The event featured keynotes from both community members and the core team, plus coding sessions. It also featured the release of the 2012 Roadmap, which is the first public roadmap for Composite C1.
January also saw the release of a number of free packages, including:
- Control how content is viewed on Facebook
- Create a "scoller" box
- Create and use ASP.NET User Controls as regular C1 functions
Coming in February, the Composite C1 shop that will make purchase commercial packages and upgrades faster and easier. The team is also working on JotForms integration, and it plans to launch a new start site for the Composite C1 console that will greet new users and developers with Getting Started Guides, tutorials, developer information and community and news feeds.
Drupal
In January, Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal (news, site), posted "Drupal 2011 retrospective and 2012 predictions." In this post he reflected on the release of Drupal 7, the beginnings of work on Drupal 8, the "re-booting" of the Drupal Association and the Drupal community itself.
His predictions for 2012 are part expectations, and part wish list:
- The expansion of the Drupal ecosystem with the number of Drupal developers and shops increasing
- Existing Drupal shops and developers specializing in various niches, especially mobile
- An increase in the number of young people involved with Drupal
- A sharp increase in the number of Drupal distributions, along with more experiments in business models around them, trending toward a client/server model
- The danger that there won't be significant usability improvements if multiple companies don't invest a lot of resources into the process
eZ Publish
In January, the folks at eZ Systems (news, site) released the latest build of the eZ Publish Community Project, Build 2011.12. This build offers 30 contributions from the eZ Community, increased PHP 5.4 compliance and a new tagging extension called eZ Tags. Also, the eZ Extensions Forge now natively supports GitHub code repositories.
Coming in February is the eZ Partner Conference in Lisbon on February 8 and 9. The eZ Publish Job Board will soon be launched as well, providing an online job-trading hub around eZ Publish skills, which will offer a new reputation-enabling system. February will also see the next build of the eZ Publish Community Project, 2012.01, and the addition of the translated ultimate guide to eZ Datatype development to the eZ Community knowledge base.
Hippo
In January, the folks at Hippo CMS (news, site) released Hippo CMS 7.7. This release focuses on context-aware content management, enabling users to manage content across multiple channels and platforms, while delivering content that's personalized, device-aware, location-aware and interface-aware. New features include:
- A new Multi-Channel manager with the ability to add new channels (such as language, mobile, subsites, iPhone, marketing campaigns, etc.), along with edit and manage the content in those channels
- Integrating the template composer directly into the CMS
- An extensible reporting dashboard
- A broken links checker and reporter
- Google Analytics integration
- Safe password rules
In February, Hippo is offering the webinar Quickstart developing with Hippo CMS 7.7.
Jahia
On January 31, 2012, the folks at Jahia Web CMS (news, site) are offering the webinar Web Experience Management: Learn how to calibrate your website. It also released the French version of its website.
Coming in February, expect the launch of Jahia 6.6 around February 10. This release expands Jahia's integration capabilities with legacy systems, while "leveraging the organization's business logic." Jahia 6.6 includes an ad hoc fix applier for both Community and Enterprise users, which offers an automated upgrade experience.
One notable new feature is the Visibility Framework, allowing site owners to apply server-side advanced conditions to define whether published items are displayed or not. Rules can involve anything from time-based publishing rules to custom business logic, and can be applied either within Jahia or trigged by external legacy systems. There's also a new Component Manager, which provides fine-grained permission control over Jahia components to offer a personalized editing experience for Jahia's Solution Builders.
Joomla
In January, the Joomla! (news, site) project released Joomla! 2.5. Features new to this release include:
- A new natural language search function based on jXtended's Finder
- The ability to support non-MySQL databases
- A notification for the administrator whenever a Joomla! update is available
- A database version Fix button that lets you update your database whenever an update causes a schema change
- CAPTCHA support in the core
- A link in the Menu Manager letting you create a module for a menu that doesn't have one
- The ability to set up a simple, standardized layout using the existing image and URL fields
- The option to choose whether the administrator gets an email every time someone signs up
Coming in February are two Joomla! Days. Joomla! Day Bangkok is February 25, and Joomla! Day Guatemala is February 29 - March 3.
Magnolia
In January, as part of welcoming the new year, Magnolia (news, site) CTO Boris Kraft looked back over Magnolia's achievements for 2011 and discussed what's coming on 2012. In other news, the folks at Magnolia have signed on to sponsor the OASIS Web Experience Management Interoperability (WEMI) standard, and released Magnolia CMS 4.4.6. This version addresses issues around security, caching, and more.
Expect to see Magnolia 4.5 at the end of February.
mojoPortal
In January, the folks at mojoPortal (news, site) have added:
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
May
30
ChatGPT and the Future of Conversational AI
This discussion explores various aspects of AI implementation, ethical considerations, and challenges for your organization.
Webinar
May
31
The Evolution of Employee Listening - 2023 Trends & Best Practices
Learn proven effective methods and solutions to supporting an inspirational future of Employee Voice
Webinar
Jun
1
How organizations can design, build and run Generative AI into the Customer Experience
Discover how to drive enhanced CX through Generative AI
Webinar
Jun
6
The Future of Social Media: Emerging Trends and How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
The impact of emerging technologies like AI on social media
Webinar
Jun
7
The Building Blocks of Personalization
This webinar will explore how personalization can create powerful ecommerce shopping experience.
Webinar
Jun
13
The Future of Contact Centers with AI at the Helm
Learn how to balance human intuition and interaction with the potential uses of AI to create delightful and lasting CX
Webinar
May
30
ChatGPT and the Future of Conversational AI
This discussion explores various aspects of AI implementation, ethical considerations, and challenges for your organization.
Webinar
May
31
The Evolution of Employee Listening - 2023 Trends & Best Practices
Learn proven effective methods and solutions to supporting an inspirational future of Employee Voice
- A new Audio and Video Player feature based on jPlayer
- Support for Artisteer 3.1, making it easier to convert Artisteer's exported HTML templates to mojoPortal skins
- Stronger password hashing and encryption
- Usability improvements for managing page views, content views and edit permissions
- A collection of small improvements for the Blog and WebStore, among other features
The main focus for February will be on adding documentation for the latest features. mojoPortal also has some new premium features in the works. Stay tuned!
Nuxeo
In January, the folks at Nuxeo (news, site) announced the opening of its US headquarters in New York. It selected this area to join the Silicon Alley scene there, and to continue its expansion plans within the US.
Coming in February, Nuxeo will offer a pair of educational webinars: The basics of content management and Developing with Nuxeo.
Plone
In January, the folks at Plone (news, site) announced that Plone Conference 2012 will be held in Amhem, the Netherlands. Pre-conference training will be held October 8 - 9, the conference itself will occur October 10 - 12 and the post-conference sprint will be held October 13 - 14. January also saw the beta launch of Ploud, a SaaS offering that lets users create a Plone site in under a minute.
Plone Symposium East is looking for proposals from both speakers and trainers in preparation for their event in May. Coming in February, the first Plone Conference in Munich will be held from 22 to 24.
SilverStripe
In January, the folks at Silverstripe (news, site) released SilverStripe CMS 3.0 alpha 2. Version 3.0 offers a brand new user interface and the release of the SilverStripe Framework. They also launched their SilverStripe Theme Contest, which allows users to cast votes through a Facebook application, to decide the top 5 designed eligible to become the SilverStripe CMS 3.0 default theme.
January also saw the project acknowledge Philipp Krenn for his extensive work on SilverStripe documentation. Coming in February, expect the release of SilverStripe 3.0 beta, with the stable version to release in April.
Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware
In January, the folks at Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware (news, site) released Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware 8.3 and 6.6LTS. Both of these are security fix releases, and 8.3 also includes bug fixes. Also, those using the Installatron family of automation products will be pleased to learn that Tiki is now available within Installatron.
Coming in February and beyond, Tiki has begun a series of community webinars which will introduce new features, and allow members of the community to share what they've been working on. Work also continues on Tiki 9, which is planned for April 2011.
Umbraco
In January, the folks at Umbraco (news, site) released Umbraco 5. This is a major update, offering:
- A redeveloped Umbraco core using the ASP.NET MVC Framework
- A new Umbraco DocType Data Provider model
- Improved support for the Data Provider model within all aspects of Umbraco core
- New unit Testable Umbraco API calls
- Separation of the Umbraco UI from Umbraco's core
Umbraco also announced CodeGarden 12, its annual developer conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. This year the conference will focus on Umbraco 5, for everyone from casual users to core developers.
WordPress
In January, the folks at WordPress (news, site) launched a Chrome extension that displays notifications in your browser whenever you get a new follower, or a new like on a blog post. The WordPress community also threw its weight into opposing SOPA, with over 25,000 WordPress.com (news, site) blogs blacking out their sites on January 18 and 12,500 adding a "Stop Censorship" ribbon. Many self-hosted WordPress sites also participated by activating blackout plugins.
The WordPress.com front page also evolved in January. Its focus is to become a one-stop shop for posting, exploring and following, with a new stats tab and a reader that tracks your favourite blogs, whether or not they're on WordPress.com.
