Social Web CMS

Following up on our recent story about Informed Networker donating inline editing code to SWCMS, we wanted to speak about another generous code donation, this time from Tip’d. Tip’d is an upcoming social community that utilizes SWCMS for its underlying platform and focuses on financial news, ideas, and tips. While a relatively new SWCMS site, Tip’d has already distinguished itself with a slick design, a growing community, and now their generous contributions back to the SWCMS community.

What magnificent piece of code is Tip’d contributing? One long desired by the SWCMS (and Pligg) community - an updated External Voting Button (EVB). Here’s why this EVB is so exciting:

• Look Ma, I’m a Module! Continuing SWCMS’ philosophy of moving non-core functionality into modules where it can be separately and more easily maintained/extended, this EVB was designed as a module.
• Auto-Detect. On stand-alone pages (e.g. not a blog index/archive page with multiple stories) it can auto-detect the url - no need to specify in the button.
• Manual Button. If you have a page with multiple stories (e.g. blog index/archives) you setup a button for this page as well by simply specifying the url rather than allowing auto-detect.
• Caching. The EVB is cached on the end user’s side to avoid issues of slowdown for either the host or third party server.
• Wordpress Plugin. Additionally a WordPress plugin is on its way which will allow automatic integration with WordPress.

Want to see it in action? Go to the Tip’d Tools for Bloggers page.

We want to keep you informed of all the latest developments with Social Web CMS. Part of this involves letting you know what is happening behind the scenes. One area we are extremely excited about is the opportunity to work with different companies that utilize SWCMS for their businesses and who are contributing back custom code to the SWCMS community. The number of upcoming code contributions is quite impressive and we hope to whet your appetite for what is coming with this and a series of upcoming posts.

Today we’ll talk about a contribution from Informed Networker (IN), currently being reviewed by the SWCMS development team. IN is a social news network (similar to Digg/Reddit) specifically focused on individuals involved in the Information Technologies industry. Dave Mackey, one of the SWCMS team members founded and currently leads IN.

IN has contributed a module called the “inline editor.” It allows for quick in-line editing of stories (title, category, tags, and description) just by clicking on the text when viewing a story - either on the summary or detail pages. Using AJAX the process of editing a story is made simple and extremely fast. Click, edit, save - and its done. Of course, the editor module does restrict editing to certain classes of users - not just anyone can edit a story.

Its time to celebrate! Don your party hats, grab your favorite drink, and join us in celebrating the eclipse of a new era for social news networking! We have released SWCMS 1.0, a firm bedrock upon which social news website can be built. SWCMS 1.0 is a major accomplishment for the SWCMS team and (as usual) has been delivered on time. You can download this latest release here.
For those who are just joining the party, lets talk about what this release means:

• SWCMS has successfully maintained momentum after forking from the Pligg social news project.
• SWCMS has patched hundreds of security holes helping lock down and secure the platform.
• SWCMS has fixed scores of bugs across the platform, ensuring a stable platform.
• SWCMS has announced a platform that is ready for production utilization.

Celebrations, however, aren’t just about looking back - they also involve looking forward. With that in mind, we’d like to throw out several ways in which we intend to move forward and how you can help us along the way:

• SWCMS has put a high priority on security and stability. Our goal is to ensure the software is bug-free and secure against malicious attacks. You can help by reporting any flaws to us in the bug forums.
• SWCMS has put a high priority on communicating with the community about our direction and difficulties. Subscribe to this blog and take a look at our long-term roadmap to get a better picture of where we are heading.
• SWCMS will be putting a new focus on marketing as we seek to inform the web of the best stand-alone social news networking platform. You can help us by linking out to us from your sites, mentioning us in a blog post, including our url in your signature on a technical forum, and generally spreading the news to everyone you know.
• SWCMS wants to develop stable, secure, and rapidly. You can help us accomplish this by joining in our efforts. We are looking for developers, security gurus, database experts, QA, and designers to join the team. Head on over to the volunteer forums to learn more.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us with this endeavor. To each individual who has found a bug, reported a fix, given a donation, or offered an encouraging word - it is appreciated!

Our roadmap stated that SWCMS 1.0 RC2 would be released on October 4th, 2008 - and we are excited to announce today (Oct. 4th, 2008) the public availability of RC2. This release includes several minor bug fixes discovered by our dedicated userbase as well as some cosmetic changes. Please download this latest release and let us know your thoughts! We intend to keep on-schedule for the SWCMS 1.0 RTM next weekend.

Once again, not a lot of huge changes since Beta 2. Our goal here has been stability and security, not the addition of new features. We want 1.0 to be a solid base upon which to build (and we have already begun working on some of these areas) a new and enhanced featureset. For those who are interested you can read about the long-term roadmap or consider becoming a volunteer and assisting in the SWCMS development/design/etc.

For those interested in reading of detailed release notes for this release see Ash’s post on the forums. You can also read the latest template upgrade instructions that guide you step-by-step through the upgrade process.

Today we want to take a few minutes to discuss one of the major new modules we’ve introduced (and is currently available) that differentiates SWCMS from its predecessor Pligg. The Module Store is nothing like the Pligg Pro shop where one can purchase premium modules for Pligg. Rather the Module Store is more of a repository for existing modules that allows automatic installation of new modules and upgrading of existing modules. One can think of it as a concept similar to Aptitude on Linux or Microsoft Update on Windows.

The Module Store offers several distinct advantages to site administrators:

1. No more multi-steps to deployment of a module (e.g. find it, download it, upload it, install it). Now through the Module Store (which is itself a module) you can see all the available/recommended modules and automatically install any of these modules - just click and go.
2. No more manual module upgrades. Now when a new version of a module is release and certified Module Store detects the new versions and notifies you of the available update. A simple click to install process reduces the complexity of module upgrades to a simple 1-2 process.

After the release of 1.0 it is our intent to combine the Module Store with Module Management. This will significantly streamline the management of modules throughout their lifecycle. We also want to open up a certification path for third parties to have their modules added to the module store, helping you get the largest quantity of quality modules available while avoiding dangerous or badly written modules.

SWCMS is proud to announce the public availability of SWCMS 1.0 Release Candidate 1. For those who are not familiar with the “Release Candidate” terminology it indicates that we have a feature complete product which we believe is free from all bugs/security issues. If users/further review does not reveal any outstanding bugs this Release Candidate will be the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) version. In other words, it is very possible that there will be no code changes between 1.0 RC1 and 1.0 RTM. Any code changes will be restricted to bug/security fixes. If we do find any bugs or issues we will release a second Release Candidate and so on until we have a version that is ready to RTM.

For those who are interested, the enhancements between Beta 2 and 1.0 RC1 have not been extremely significant. They have been confined to a number of bug fixes/security fixes. However, this does not indicate that we have lapsed in our development efforts. Development has continued unabated on the modular front and with some features that will be integrated into the next release after 1.0 RTM.

Look forward to another post in the next day or two that will talk about (in detail) the module store we have released - one of the most exciting new code additions.

Finally, if you need instructions on upgrading from SWCMS Beta 1 or from Pligg 9.9.5 please see the detailed instructions here. If you want to see our roadmap to 1.0 its here. And if you want to know about many of the long-term features we intend to implement over the upcoming months, you can get it here.

Whew, it was only six days ago that we announced our long-term roadmap. Still, in a constantly connected (internet) world that can seem like a long time. We just wanted to check in and let you know we are still here - and still working faithfully on SWCMS for you all. We are in for the long haul, and things are looking good.

First off, we are still on track to release our RC 1.0 release in four days on the 27th (and expect to make each of our upcoming releases on-time culminating with the 1.0 RTM on 10/11).

Secondly, while we haven’t been posting activity in the last several days to the SVN - that is actually a good thing. What? Well…It means we aren’t encountering any bugs or security issues. Hopefully this will indicate smooth sailing once we release RC1 and subsequent releases. If you want to see more SVN changes - go find some bugs/security flaws!

Thirdly, just because we aren’t posting new changes to the SVN doesn’t mean we are sitting idle. New code is in development right now. We’ve got some pretty sweet features in the works, but we are holding off adding them to the SVN until after the 1.0 release. Stability first, then new features.

Fourthly, we are really excited with the community that is building up around the forums. We want to welcome all the new faces and just say kudos to all those who have been working so hard asking and answering questions over at the forums. We’d invite you to get your friends and neighbours (who use Pligg/SWCMS) over here on the forums. Our code still hasn’t diverged so much that we can’t occasionally answer some Pligg questions as well (though we will be encouraging people to upgrade to the latest SWCMS release - especially if we’ve resolved the issue in our latest release).

Finally, we are absolutely skyrocketing up the Alexa traffic charts. Our rank has hit 149,967 (86,646 today!). Just to give you an idea, Pligg (the project we forked from) has a rank of 155,012! Keep an eye on us, we plan to shake up open source social news over the upcoming weeks!

P.S. Now is the time to join this hot OSS project. Get on board as a developer or in another role (e.g. documentation, moderator, etc.). Once a OSS project booms the availability of such positions quickly declines - now is the time to join what is/will be a star steam.

We are extremely excited to announce the public release of our long-term road map. While we have already disclosed our intentions to release the 1.0 version of SWCMS within thirty days, this new long-term road map does not disclose timelines but does disclose general objectives. It shows you the major (and minor) features we hope to integrate into SWCMS. We created this roadmap for several purposes:

• It gives us as the SWCMS team direction and keeps us focused.
• It allows those who use SWCMS to see the direction we are heading in and to comment (even complain) about this direction.
• It allows individuals interested in contributing to the SWCMS efforts to see how they can become involved - both technically and non-technically.

This roadmap is fluid. While it gives good general ideas of where we are headed these directions are subject to further discussion and refinement. If someone comes along and explains some excellent new feature or a better way of implementing something - we are going to consider it. We hope you find this news as exciting as we do! To whet your appetite here are just a few of our long-term objectives:

• Social Networking - We want to integrate tightly with open source social networking platform elgg. Beyond just a minor bridge this will include tight integration of features and allow us to focus on the social news aspect while relying on elgg for the social networking features - why reinvent the wheel? At the same time we will continue to support a number of our social networking modules (e.g. messaging) for those who don’t want a full-blown solution.
• Search Functionality - We’ll be rearchitecting our search functionality to be more robust - and include the ability to handle multiple word operators/tags better.
• Documentation - Extensive documentation from three perspectives: (a) end user, (b) swcms administrator, and (c) developer.

Go take a look for yourself!

P.S. - Especially for the next few days check back regularly. We’ll be updating the roadmap with additional details and links to further details on specific projects as well as official forum threads on which to discuss the topics.

We are happy to announce the release of SWCMS Beta 2 Final/RTM. This is a stable release and as mentioned previously, we’ll be releasing 1.0 in around a month. This latest beta release includes:

• Moving admin files into the /admin folder.
• Smarty/Template Lite files moved into own folder.
• Continued increases in sanitization.
• Corrected numerous undefined index errors.
• Removed the majority of modules from the core install.
• Added a module store (repository) where one can download for free additional modules.

If you need help moving from Pligg 9.9.x or from SWCMS Beta 1+ to SWCMS Beta 2 RTM, please view this extensive tutorial on template changes by Ash.

We are excited about the continuing progress the SWCMS team is making and look forward to continuing in a reliable and consistent fashion improving the SWCMS platform and hopefully continuing to build your trust in us.

The following is a forum post I made explaining how to get involved with SWCMS. Figured I should also post it over here. Please feel free to comment back with any questions!

Thanks for stopping by SWCMS. We are glad to see you are interested in becoming part of the SWCMS team. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to review the many technical and non-technical ways in which you can assist SWCMS in moving forward.

Benefits of Participating:
- Mature, Yet Growing - SWCMS was founded by Ash, lead developer from the Pligg project. He has brought on a top notch team of web personalities to assist in the project - including the founders of web entities InformedNetworker, SocialCMSBuzz, and FoxieWire. Yet the team is not so large that its nearly impossible to join - in fact we are eagerly pursuing new team members. This is the perfect time to join an open source project - right before it goes huge and yet at a point of maturity where its future is well-defined.
- Relationships with Team Members - Running your own SWCMS site? Then being a team member can give you that extra edge over the rest. If you become part of the core SWCMS team you gain access to other team members on a level not available to the general public. This establishes a circle of relationships useful for social networking and troubleshooting.
- Web Reputation - Being part of an established open source team can increase your web reputation. It allows you to demonstrate in a public manner your various skills and makes them available for others to review. This can attract partnership opportunities, job openings, interviews, etc.
- Money - We aren’t all about making cash - in fact we’ve tried to downplay that emphasis. But its worth noting that by becoming an SWCMS expert team member you increase the likelihood of securing contracting (or full-time) positions with third-parties looking for SWCMS developers.

The Opportunities:
Here are the areas we are currently looking for assistance in. Feel free to suggest additional areas you believe we could grow in - we are always open to new possibilities.
- Development - We need programmers adept in PHP, MySQL, and AJAX. You can work on core code or creating new modules.
- Design - We are looking for individuals to be involved in the main SWCMS site design as well as templates for SWCMS. Also for Designers who can help us simplify the templating process.
- Marketing - We need individuals who can help promote SWCMS. That may be as simple as adding a link to your own site, adding us to your signature on forum posts, etc.
- Forum Moderator - We need individuals to help out around the forums. Making sure answers are given to questions quickly and keeping the spam/trolling to a minimum.
- Financier - Would you or your business like to support SWCMS monetarily? We are open to this as well. SWCMS continues forward with or without financial funds, but our team is currently all full-time in other positions. Finances can help us dedicate additional time to SWCMS or even utilize outside resources.

How to Get Started:
We don’t generally just add someone to the core team. You’ll need to build up a reputation. Here are a few ways to do so:
- Developer: Write a new module, squash some bugs, etc. Send them over to Ash. If the code looks good we’ll look at adding you to the team.
- Designer: Develop some new graphics or create a new template. Post it on the forums. Send davemackey a private message with a link to where on the forums you have posted the material and we will review it - if it looks good you’ll likely earn a palce on the core team.
- Forum Moderator: Start being helpful around the forums. Show your knowledge of the SWCMS system and act responsibly (no trolling/spamming!). Send davemackey a PM with links to several of your helpful points and you might just become a moderator.
Finally, it doesn’t hurt to send us references to former work experience or a brief intro. to your skills.