Feature
Welcome to the March 2011 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 CMS
In March, the Composite C1 (news, site) project released its first major update since "going open." This release focused on improvements such as:
- A migration tool for moving sites from XML files into SQL Server
- Support for Chrome, IE 7 through 9, and Firefox 3.6 through 4
- A migration tool for moving sites into Windows Azure
- The ability to evaluate premium packages during a 30-day free trial
- ASP.NET Master Page support through a contributed project
- A page performance profiler, shown below
Coming on April 11, Composite C1 will be featured at Microsoft's MIX11 "Open Source Fest" in Las Vegas.
DotNetNuke
In March, DotNetNuke (news, site) was chosen as one of the OnDemand Top 100 for its second consecutive year. Criteria for selection include innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value and media buzz. They also released version 05.06.02, which includes enhancements such as the ability to restore or remove soft-deleted users, along with 20 different performance improvement initiatives.
For those who like the next greatest thing, for the first time the folks at DotNetNuke are offering a preview of the next major version before all of the features are completed. Check out the DotNetNuke "Hadron" 6.0.0 Community Technology Preview (CTP) and share your thoughts. They also launched their DotNetNuke Design Challenge 2011, This third annual user community contest offers three categories: DotNetNuke Zen Garden, DotNetNuke on Smart Phones, and DotNetNuke Traditional. Submissions are due on April 16.
Drupal
In March, the Drupal (news, site) community gathered in Chicago for Drupalcon. Fresh on the heels of releasing Drupal 7, Dries Buytaert, Drupal's founder, was already looking forward to Drupal 8, as he addressed it in his keynote.
Since then, he's shared his thoughts on how it might address configuration management, one of the key initiatives he discussed.
eZ Publish
In March, the folks at eZ Systems (news, site) released eZ Publish Enterprise 4.5. This version introduces services available only for Enterprise subscribers, such as:
- Expanded 24/7 Enterprise SLAs
- Systematic release and maintenance cycles
- Monitoring services and access to security audits
Release 4.5 also features:
- Improved multichannel support for distributed, asynchronous publishing
- An improved, extensible REST API for adding channels, access and mobile content delivery
- Improved editing usability and workflow
- A canonical link feature
- New database schema documentation
Hippo CMS
In March, the folks at Hippo CMS (news, site) began working on a CMIS connector, allowing its users to integrate their CMS installations with their existing document repositories.
Joomla
In March, the Joomla! (news, site) project started things off by releasing version 1.6.1. This is a security and bug fix release. The project also reached some milestones, including:
- A 20% growth in extensions in the last four months, bringing them up to 7,090 extensions
- Nearly 1 million Joomla 1.6 downloads in its first two months
- Nearly 7.5 million visitors to Joomla.org in February alone, a 25% growth in traffic over a 4 month period
- 177 million downloads from the Joomla Extensions Directory, and over 100,000 votes and reviews for the listings there
- The Joomla forums reached over 2.3 million posts from 464,714 members
- Joomla is now powers 2.7% of the web
- The election of Ryan Ozimek (President), Paul Orwig (Treasurer), Jacque Rentzke (Secretary) and Alice Grevet (Assistant Secretary) to the Open Source Matters (news, site) board of directors
- The largest Joomla Day India to date, with more than 180 people gathering for two days
Coming in April are:
- Joomla Day New England on April 2
- Joomla Day France on April 2-3
- Joomla Day The Netherlands April 2-3
- Joomla Day ALGERIE on April 19, the first Joomla Day in Algeria
Magnolia CMS
In March, Philipp Bärfuss of Magnolia CMS (news, site) put together a presentation to give people a sense for what's coming in Magnolia CMS 5.0, along with a peek at its architecture as the company works toward milestone 3 by the end of the month.
It's also rolled out forums on its own Forum module, brought Magnolia CMS and its content into Spring Web MVC and released the OpenSocial Container Module.
MODX
In March, the folks at MODX (news, site) launched a new MODX.com, brought on new staff and continued work toward MODX Revolution version 2.1. This version will optimize its caching layer and add support for Microsoft SQL Server, among other things. Expect a pre-release version soon. They also released version 1.0.5 of MODX Evolution and are working toward version 1.1.
mojoPortal
By the end of March, the mojoPortal (news, site) project intends to release version 2.3.6.4. Reported highlights include:
- Multi-site management usability improvements
- Large site hierarchy management improvements
- Theme configuration settings for better control over the menu and tree views
- Per-page custom CSS classes for the body and menu items, populated based on configuration files when creating new sites
- An iPad-friendly HTML editor
- The ability to show optional custom profile properties on the registration page, with registration agreements now being per site rather than global
- Improvements to the Image Gallery, the List/Links feature, and the HTML Content feature
- Upgrades to CKeditor 3.5.2 and TinyMCE 3.4.1
- Updated translations
ocPortal
In March, the folks at ocPortal (news, site) released versions 6.0.1 and 6.0.2. Version 6.0.1 brought a number of new features, including:
- Install profiles in the Setup Wizard, such as blog, community site and information site
- Formerly core features such as RSS no longer in the core, to allow for pared-back sites (don't worry, the features are installed by default)
- Google Analytics support
- Refined content translation workflows
Version 6.0.2 includes a number of bug fixes and improvements, such as:
- Catalog CSV export
- Browser identifiers for Android and iOS
- New template support for showing ratings for tabular categories
- XML database synching to detect Subversion updates, for developers
- Hidden options for specifying member directory sort order and more
OpenCMS
In March, the folks at Alkacon Software GmbH (news, site) released OpenCMS (news, site) version 7.5.4. This version is a maintenance release along with some new features, including improved compatibility, performance and stability when working with browsers Firefox and Internet Explorer and with Oracle databases.
Plone
In March, the Plone (news, site) community accomplished a number of things:
- The Plone Foundation selected four new members: Thomas Desvenain, Vincent Fretin, Gabrielle Hendryx-Parker and Elizabeth Leddy
- The location of the 2011 Plone Conference was announced: San Francisco
- The project was chosen for the Google Summer of Code
- It altered its PLone Improvement Proposals process to support a 6-month release cycle
Coming in April is the next Plone Tune-Up, on April 15. This event will focus on the issues blocking the release of 3.3.6 so it can be completed.
OpenWGA
In March, the folks at Innovation Gate (news, site) announced the next feature release of OpenWGA (news, site). Version 5.3 introduces the concept of content modules to the OpenWGA Content Manager.
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These modules are what Innovation Gate calls "intelligent page fragments." These fragments range from editable rich text fields to news collections, tag clouds and Twitter feeds. Content modules can also be container modules with other modules inside, such as a collection of modules to create multi-column layouts.
SilverStripe
In March, the folks at Silverstripe (news, site) were busy. They:
- Moved their source code to GitHub
- Released a browser study revealing that IE 8 and Firefox are the best browsers for SilverStripe content entry
- Continued working on the new UI for SilverStripe 3.0
- Held meetups in Melbourne and Utrecht
Coming in April are meetups in Brisbane (April 1) and Wellington (April 13)
Squiz Matrix
In March, the folks at Squiz (news, site) released versions 4.0.4 and 4.2.0 of Squiz Matrix. Version 4.2.0 offers 26 new features and enhancements, many of them shared with 4.0.4, including:
- The ability to import assets from XML and export them to XML
- A tool for running commands against Oracle/Postgres DB
- A current user option for Set Role trigger action
- Performance enhancements for the Asset and Search Managers
On March 31, Squiz is holding a seminar in Westminster Abby, London titled "Delivering Flexibility & Innovation to the Public Sector with Open Standards & Open Source." The featured speaker is Bill McCluggage, Deputy Government CIO and Director of ICT Strategy and Planning.
Coming in April, expect the VM for Squiz Matrix 4.2.1 along with:
- A trigger action to delete an image variety
- A keyword to print binary file asset contents (also coming in 4.0.5)
- Automatic upgrade script to fix permissions once rather than having to be repeated per version you're upgrading from
- REST assets (also for 4.0.5)
Tablet CMS
A new project, dubbed "Tablet CMS," will be formally announced on April 1. This new open source CMS offers state-of-the-art chisels for banging your content into its unique stone tablet structure, ensuring the permanence of your content. Before the launch, they're focusing on portability issues, trying to reduce the weight of each stone so that each can be carried by a single person, without causing each page to become too brittle and fall apart.
Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware
The Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware (news, site) community has had a busy March. Some headed to Montréal, Canada for a TikiFest and then attended Confoo.ca, a conference for Java, .NET, PHP, Python and Ruby developers and project managers. Another group headed to Boston for Recent Changes Camp, a conference focusing on wiki and collaborative technologies, then held the week-long Boston TikiFest to focus on re-architecting Tiki Trackers and on a documentation sprint in preparation for Tiki 7 and then held a joint meeting with the Boston jQuery Meetup.
Coming in April, expect TikiFest Paris to focus on French language enhancements for Tiki, date planning for the Tiki Summer Tour and the release of Tiki 7.
TYPO3
In March, the folks with TYPO3 (news, site) formed the release team for TYPO3 version 4.6. The goals for this release, slated for October 25, 2011, are:
- To become the basis for future TYPO3 releases, dropping support for IE6, requiring PHP 5.3, and getting rid of deprecated parts, $GLOBALS and "elderly" ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick support
- Make it easier to exchange and gain access to data by web services
- Improve maintenance for TYPO3 installations
In other news, TYPO3 was accepted into the Google Summer of Code (news, site), opened registration for the TYPO3 conference in San Francisco, which will take place from Thursday June 9, 2011 to Saturday June 11. Coming in April is the TYPO3.org, after a sprint week from April 16 to 23.
WeWebU
In March, WeWebU Software AG released WeWebU Zero-Install Desktop Integration. The previous incarnation of this product (WeWebU Zero-Install Office Integration) let users open documents stored in IBM's (news, site) ECM solutions directly in Microsoft (news, site) Office. The version now supports more desktop applications, letting users access the documents as though they're on a network drive, and CMIS support allows access to a broader range of repositories as well.
This product integrates with both WeWebU OpenWorkdesk and other ECM front-ends. According to WeWebU, "Windows Explorer users can browse the folder structure and drag-and-drop documents from the ECM system to e.g. other folders in Windows Explorer, the Desktop or the attachment field of e-mails," and vice-versa. Users can also edit and gain access to document metadata from their desktop applications. Features such as check-in and -out, versioning and more run in the background to stay out of the way.
WordPress
In March, WordPress (news, site) began accepting applications from students to participate in the Google Summer of Code.
