In RC2 OPN gets a new feature, very interesting for those of us who can access their webserver via SSH:

OPN goes Shell

No, that's not the petrol station, but the Command Line common to Linux Systems. In RC2 you can control and call scripts via shell, see some details:

In the OPN Root directory there will be a new directory called "opn-bin". After the installation you chmod this directory to '0777'. This directory contains the shellscripts delivered by the modules. So this directory will be filled during installation of modules.
The directory "opn-bin" is protected against access from outside OPN via a ".htaccess" file. To activate this protection after installation, you should rename the file "#.htaccess" to ".htaccess".

The OPN Developer Team

The new Updatemanager assumes shape and is heavily under test by various testers.

Perhaps you will be amazed about a new updatemanager, because it was always possible to update OPN as some of you know from these old days of beta testing.



The old way of updating OPN had the big disadvantage in always being a big update. We were not able to update a specific module and so the users always had to wait a long time for the update.

In the new way of updating OPN it will be possible to update in little steps, independently from the OPN version running at the users platform.

This may sound a little bit complicated, so let's look at an example:

Webmaster A has installed the module XY in Version 1.2.
Webmaster B has installed the module XY in Version 1.0.
If both are installing a new version 1.3 to their webspace, an update 1.2 to 1.3 will be rather simple. But trying the update from 1.0 to 1.3 would be very difficult, because this needs first an update from 1.0 to 1.1, 1.1 to 1.2 and then 1.2 to 1.3. Wow, bad pictures for Webmaster B.

The new Updatemanager will now do this work automatically. The Updatemanager will install the different versions step by step and the webmaster will take a cup of coffee and watch it in the browsr :-).

We also don't have all these problems related to a big install script.

A detailed description will follow in a short time as a tutorial, so stay tuned.

The OPN Developer Team

Hey all,

I'm happy to announce that the PJIRC chat module is in it's final beta stage.

Some History
I made this module because I wanted a easy to configure chat module so not only myself but other team members of www.chatstar.nl (We are currently on a migration path to OPN) could change, add and delete channels without modifying the HTML. So I decided to write a module for it and with the help of these great people on the opn IRC chat channel I wrote the module.



About PJIRC
I downloaded the PJIRC applet from www.pjirc.com a few weeks ago and we currently using it on our website. One of the great things about that applet is that its just looks great!! Plouf did some real good work there..

What the module does

• Configuration tools to simple change, delete and add servers using a web interface without any knowledge of HTML.
• Pop-up possibility
• Change width and hight of the applet
• Automatically adjust basic colours changes according to your theme
• Add images with each channel, they are nicely lid up using a java script
• Override the changes the module by manually adding param/value to the end of the applet configuration
• A picture says more then a thousand words...see images below...

What the module NOT does

• It doesn't provide you a chat server!!! You need to install your own IRC server, or use one of the many free servers out there.

Sidebox view
Here you see a sidebox with a channel image and a text above that image...you can press both and bring you straight to the right server and channel.

You can add more channels in this box but you cannot mix multiple networks on this box.

Sidebox Channel Configuration
First I like you to show the box configuration, I'll explain later:

Parameter explanation

• 1: Tells your sidebox in how many columns it will show you the channels, 1 gives you just all channels below each other, ideally for side boxes. Personally I use 99 for a middlebox but I only use a few channels.
• 2: Here you can select if you want to show a image, a text only or both
• 3: Here you can select where to put the text relative to a channel image, if selected of course.
• 4: Selecting YES will show the applet in a pop-up window. This needs a small hack to your theme, mail me if you need any details..
• 5: If you did configure smileys in OPN, you can tell the applet to use them directly out-of-the-box, adding smileys to OPN will add smileys to your applet as well.
• 6: If you want to open the applet in a pop-up window, then here you can tell it's size.
• 7: Changing the applet's height. The width will be set according to it's surroundings (set to 100% in HTML terms)
• 8: What network to display on the channel selection box.

Server and channel Configuration
This is pretty simple, You can create networks, within each network you can have multiple servers and multiple channels. Multiple servers are used in a networks in such a way that if server is down, the applet will automatically change server.
Here is how it looks:

Changing/adding/deleting is just a click of a button..
All channels added in a network will be shown in the sidebox configuration.
What more can I say... this is basically the same as in most IRC clients.

Applet configuration
I'm not going to explain this here but if you want to change anything in here, please read the documentation on www.pjirc.com because it might set the applet in a not working situation.


How does it look?
This is the look on my site.....


Download
For downloading this applet you can go to: rvt.homelinux.org You will see it right away.

Questions/Comments/Wishes/Translations
Just direct them to my mail address at: openphpnuke@rvt.dds.nl

Big thanks........
All the guys from OPN, manne for the german translation, bdragon for creating the chat icon, xweber, hhombergs stefan, priesner for always helping me out! :)

Best Regards,
Ries van Twisk

Merry Christmas
and
Happy New Year!

We would like to wish all visitors to our website, a peaceful, joyful and safe Christmas and every good wish for 2004.

May be itŽs the right time to say a big "Thank You" to the community and all the people who help to improve OPN.



Have a look what countries we suppose OPN users are living:

(Argentine) - Feliz Navidad Y Un Prospero Ano Nuevo
(Dutch) - Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar
(French) - Joyeux Noël et heureuse année
(German) - Frohe Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr
(Greek) - Kala Khristougena kai Eftikhes to Neon Ethos
(Hawaiian) - Mele Kalikimake me ka Hauloi Makahiki hou
(Russian) - S prazdnikom Rozdestva Hristova is Novim Godom
(Swedish) - God Jul Och Gott Nytt År!

May be more....drop me an eMail

OPN Dev Team

CMSInfo glad to provide OpenPHPNuke ONLINE live test on our server.

Now every one can test OPN without downloading it and installing it on there's server.

We give you FULL access to OPN. You can do anything you want.
URL: http://rupor.net/cms/portals/opn
LOGIN: admin
PASS: demo