XOOPS Projects releases Version 2.3.1 of XOOPS

Nov. 6, 2008 - PRLog -- The XOOPS Project, world’s leading Open Source CMS (Content Management System), has released a newest version of its award winning software – XOOPS 2.3.1.

The Project Leader, Mr. Jiang Taiwen, stated: "This release is significant for two reasons: it is merging the two existent XOOPS branches of 2.0 and 2.2 and is building a bridge towards the next generation of XOOPS – the Version 3.0."

The major improvements are addition of Extended Profile and Private Messages modules, and standardizing on one Extended DHTML editor as the default across all XOOPS modules. The administrators will also enjoy the addition of EXM Admin GUI.

There are always two perspectives to a “Content Management System” – the developer’s side, and the user’s side. And XOOPS 2.3 is breaking some more new ground in both areas for XOOPS community.

What's New for Developers

1.   Improved XOOPS ORM by enabling extensible persistable object handler:
•   The improved persistable object handler supports almost all common methods for database access and data treatment, so that developers do not need to write their own classes or methods;
•   Custom handler is supported. Developers can add their own handler if they want more functionality or to replace XOOPS native handlers.
2.   Improved text sanitizer:
•   Custom extension is supported. Developers can add new filters or methods to sanitizer based on their specific needs.
•   Built-in extensions, which can be disabled or enabled (e.g. for Flash, YouTube, images, Wiki, syntax highlight, text filter, etc.)
•   Combined with improved persistable object handler (see above), text input from users will be filtered automatically for security considerations.
3.   Custom Frameworks support:
•   Module developers can add their own library or frameworks (located in XOOPS_ROOT_PATH/Frameworks) which can be shared by other modules.
•   PEAR, Geshi have been provided as custom libraries in Frameworks.
•   Once the code inside Frameworks is proven stable and valuable, they will be adopted by XOOPS core and moved into XOOPS core package. This way we can build a standard, efficient channel for third-party developers to contribute.
4.   XOOPS editor packages are now supported officially:
•   A XoopsEditor handler is built to accept third-party editors;
•   Three editors, including Textarea, Dhtmltextarea, and Extended Dhtmltextarea are provided in XOOPS core. FCKeditor, TinyMCE, Koivi are now provided as third-party add-ons.
5.   XOOPS CAPTCHA is built into XOOPS core:
•   CAPTCHA has been added to registration and comment forms.
•   Module developers can add CAPTCHA very easily to their applications.
6.   XOOPS Control Panel GUI is introduced:
•   Old administration interface has been kept as legacy
•   A new interface is designed, although very rough at this stage
•   Custom interfaces are allowed, ThAdmin by MusS and Kris is the first one introduced
7.   XOOPS file and folder engine is added, based on CakePHP.
8.   XOOPS Cache engine is built based on CakePHP.
9.   Some other improvements and new resources:
•   XoopsLocal for localization;
•   XoopsLoad emulating SPL autoload in PHP5;
•   XoopsUtility as a collection for miscellaneous methods used by XOOPS;
•   Block clone feature is activated to save module developers' efforts;
•   Enabled character set and collation support for MySQL 4.1+;
•   Upgraded Smarty to 2.6.19;
•   Upgraded phpmailer to 2.0.0;
•   Added XOOPS data and library folders for forward compatibility with XOOPS 3.0;
•   Added XOOPS_TRUST_PATH for compatibility with some modules, e.g. protector

What's New for Users
Some of the new features that might interest users:
- Default character set encoding has been changed to UTF-8;
- Enabled "auto login" or "remember me";
- CAPTCHA is enabled for registration and comment system;
- Block clone enabled so that webmasters have more flexibility;
- XOOPS editor package is provided and most visual editors are avilable, e.g. FCKeditor, TinyMCE, etc.;
- Side-wide editor;
- Mask is added for start page;
- Implemented new installer with user experience improvement experiments;
- Permissions for access to user profile page is configurable.
- Extended Profile module
- Private Messages Module
- Extended DHTML as default
- EXM Admin GUI as an option

System requirements

Any PHP version >= 4.3 (PHP 4.2.x may work but is not officially supported, PHP 5.0+ is strongly recommended)
MySQL server 3.23+ (MySQL 5.0+ is strongly recommended)
Web server: Any server supporting the required PHP version (Apache highly recommended)

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About XOOPS: Founded in 2002 by group of international team of software developers led by Onokazu from Japan, XOOPS quickly become one of world’s leading Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS). XOOPS received numerous International Awards and Recognitions, among them: the First Runner-Up status in the SourceForge.net's 2006 Community Choice Awards in the Development category, it was selected due to its reputation as Open Source CMS for testing by eWeek, and the latest in Awards/Recognitions in 2008 being from Germany's Chip Magazine (5 Stars), Adobe Edge Magazine(Top 3 content management system), and ONDD (one of top Open Source CMS for Medical Professionals). It was also the finalist of 2008 Source Forge Community Awards, and 2008 CMS Awards by Packt Publishing. XOOPS is the most active and downloaded CMS project on SourceForge.net
More info at: http://www.xoops.org