http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/ cmsdreams.co.uk en-us Sat, 02 Dec 2006 13:06:16 GMT 1440 CPG-Nuke Dragonfly cmsdreams.co.uk News http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/images/logo.gif http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/ http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=35.html I've decided I'm no longer going to give away my modules for free. I've spent 3 years, many 100's or hours and written 1000's of lines of code for practically nothing. As someone who's benefited from plenty of "free stuff" on the Internet I feel I've paid back what I've gained and now it's time to focus on other things. Furthermore, I feel I've let down my users lately with regards to support. I hope by charging money for my modules I can provide those who are serious about using them (i.e. those who've paid for them) a better support service and developement process. Sat, 02 Dec 2006 13:06:16 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=34.html I've released mStore v1, a Shopping Cart module for the DragonFly CMS. It's now live on this website. It has the following feature set:- Buy Now : Simple items with no quantity / discount / shipping charges applied / selectable but providing a stremlined purchasing process. Add to Cart : On-site Cart with add / remove / update options, quantity discounts and quantity based shipping charges. Cookie expiry time can be set in the module configuration panel. Subscriptions : Pay monthly (daily, weekly, annually) with discounts for number of months (days, weeks, years) purchased in advance. Special Offers : Time limted, set start and end dates and the price to be used, after which normal price resumes. Search function. Unlimted images per product, all of which are stored as thumbnails and full sized, clicking a thumbnail pops up the full sized version. Product reviews, unlimted user submitted reviews, can be turned off in the module configuration panel if desired. "Customers who bought this also bought"...listing. Fully templated so you can customise the look and feel however you like. Custom plug-ins, so buying anything from the Store can also activate custom code, such as adding a user to a Group to give them access to premium content on your website etc. Sat, 02 Dec 2006 13:00:10 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=33.html Wednesday 21st June 2006 my daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby boy:- Making me a Grandad, though I feel much too young to be one! Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:56:43 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=32.html I've released a minor update to mKnow, but as it requires a couple of new fields in the database it's a version change from v3.0 to v3.1. (this article in the Knowledge Base explains my version numbering convention). Added features are:- Option to hide empty Custom Fields Option to truncate the Article title in the drop-down list viewable on the Article display page You can now move Articles between Categories by editing them Download the new version here:- http://www.markroper.co.uk/index.php?name=Document&op=show&did=26 Fri, 19 May 2006 09:22:18 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=31.html My Father passed away yesterday, Tuesday 7th March 2006. He'd been ill for a long time so it was not unexpected, however it's still just as hard to take. I'll not be around for a while as I need to arrange various things and take care of my mother. Wed, 08 Mar 2006 07:43:44 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=30.html mKnow is a powerful Content Management system for DragonFly websites. It began life as a Knowledge Base and that is still probably it's primary purpose, but it can also be used for many other purposes, such as a traditional FAQ system, as a Content module, as a Cataloging system, as a Reviews module, as a straight forward publishing system etc. Some of mKnow's key features are:- Categories:- Each Article can belong to a Category and each Category can be a sub-Category of any other Category, including other sub-Categories, down to as many levels deep as you need. Custom Fields:- You can add additional fields to each entry in the system, based on a wide range of different data types. You can add as many fields as you like enabling you to record as much structured data as you need. Permissions:- mKnow has a comprehensive permission system enabling individual permissions to be set for each Category, including an option to hide them from users without the appropriate permission. These permissions can be based on individual users or DragonFly Groups. Multiple Installations:- mKnow can be installed 2 or more times on the same website, enabling you to not only use it for whatever purpose you see fit but to use it for several different purposes on the same site. You could for instance have an FAQ module, a Content module, a Reviews module and an Article database, all on the same site using the same single core module, mKnow! Templates:- mKnow is fully templated enabling precise customisation of the appearance of the module. Indeed you can hide / remove certain elements by simply editing the templates, in addition to all the customisation possible within the module itself. Tue, 14 Feb 2006 13:53:35 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=29.html I've decided it's time to drop support for PHP-Nuke and concentrate on producing modules for DragonFly only. DragonFly is a far superior CMS (Content Management System) with far greater security and ease of use, and provides a much more enhanced API for module developers to work with. As a result I've withdrawn all the PHP-Nuke versions of my modules from the download section and I will no longer be able to provide support on the forums for PHP-Nuke installations. Although on that 2nd point I was not really able to anyway as PHP-Nuke is now several versions on from the last version I had direct experience of and I simply do not have the time to keep abreast of latest developments and how they might affect my modules. I can only apologise if this cause any inconvenience, and can only urge anyone currently running PHP-Nuke to give serious consideration to upgrading to DragonFly at some point, not just in order to run my modules but to increase the security, performance and manageability of your website. Sat, 28 Jan 2006 10:28:11 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=28.html About the only thing I've had any time to work on lately is v3.0 of the Knowledge Base module, mKnow. v3.0 is rather different from previous releases and will provide the following additional features:- 2 fundamentally different display styles, Article (as before) and FAQ Custom Fields Multiple installations, with user-definable names, so it can become "Reviews" or "Content" or "FAQ" etc. transparently. One module, many uses! "Discuss This" functionality built-in (i.e. no need for Discuss This to be installed) Specify a different Discuss This Forum for each Category if required User or Group permissions, which are Category based, including a "Can View" permission enabling Categories to be hidden from certain Users / Groups Templates for all non-Admin pages enabling complete customisation of appearence on your site. What I would like are some volunteers to test it. I'd rather not make a link to the download publicly available and end up with random people contacting me months later saying such and such doesn't work in v3.0 etc. So if you want to beta test it please PM me and I'll let you have the link. Bear in mind you get nothing for testing other than my sincerest thanks Please note: mKnow v3.0 is DragonFly only and will not work on PHPNuke or any of it's variants. Mon, 16 Jan 2006 12:15:55 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=27.html Just to let everyone know my current situation and why there's been little progress on the development front lately... I'm busy at the moment setting up a multi-gaming website and a few other gaming related projects, to the extent that I've done hardly any coding for the last few weeks. Furthermore, this situation is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Currently my intention is to finish off a DragonFly only version of mKnow, which is about 95% done. And I'll also be working on mComp, although for my own purposes (part of my multi-gaming website project). I'll release versions as I go along, but feature development is likely to be limited to those required by my new project rather than those requested by my users (although of course some may well be the same). It's looking very unlikely that I'll be putting any more development time into mDoc, mPOTD or mTeam from now on. Remember, all my modules are released under GPL, which means you're free to develop them yourselves (or get someone else to do it for you), as long as you (or whoever) leave my copyright notice intact and make whatever changes you make freely available to anyone else who wants them (which is the essence of GPL). Mon, 31 Oct 2005 09:13:25 GMT http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/News/article/sid=26.html mPOTD is a small module for adding a Picture of the Day feature to Nuke / DragonFly websites. mPOTD enables website members to submit images that may be of interest to other members, subject to Admin approval. Each image can be scheduled to appear at a certain time in a block on the main page. The webmaster determines the frequency used (Day, Week or Month) and can assign permission to approve images to other website members. A thumbnail is generated from images uploaded so that the block on the main page doesn't have to load large images. The webmaster can configure the size of this thumbnail. Images can be rated (given a score out of 5) and commented on by website members. The option to rate and / or comment on images is configurable by the webmaster. The module is now available for download from the Files section of this website. As always it's in Nuke and DragonFly packages, and is installed the same way as all my other modules. Sat, 08 Oct 2005 06:54:15 GMT