To fork or not to fork - that is the question

Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 11:59 am

I think people would rather get the most from whats available. If that means a custom distribution for the time being so be it. If all the keys fall into place for something more so much the better!

Client Joined: Apr 10, 2004 Posts: 649 Location: UK

Raven, I'd like you to write a new program from scratch, all you and your great team on here together I mean.

Forget Nuke, make the new program similar but 'your's'.

Capable of allowing Nuke plugins if you will, or any other similar program.

You and the others on here are far too talented to waste your time trying to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear, but somehow you succeed doing it with Nuke.

Maybe a base script for a functioning site, ie; security, database, etc, but with lots of plugins of it's own and the capability of allowing third party plugins like the existing Nuke ones.

As for message forums, I prefer Invision to phpBB, so maybe allowing for more varied forums to be used.

I wish I was more techy to contribute more to this, but maybe my ideas might help (or not lol) as a layman end user.

Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 8:43 am

I agree. I want plug-in heaven too. Anyone ever hear of doors? Wink

I've been nuking for a couple of years now and I'm always dreaming up the next thing nuke needs. Because there is no such thing as nuke heaven, I've looked at other CMS too. But here I am, still finessing nuke. Would I love to see nuke evolve? Of course I would!

Has it evolved recently? Yes, due to the leadership and wisdom of *them*, you know who you are, and more remarkably *despite* the collapse of FB into scripting silliness and out of control ego.

Sentinel is a manifestation of survival, don't you think? It's adaptation to kiddie planet, and whatever is out there who play nasty.

If you really wanted to get pessimistic then you could assume that FB's f-ups and the NC afters were a big enough blow to kill off the entire community, scattering nukers to the winds of forks, wannabees, newideas, and a hundred other major egos.

I prefer to be more positive. Having faith in the fact that a new nuker is born every minute and that Raven is exactly right : without a plan the future is only dreamware. Plans are all good. The only hard part is getting to the best plan.

As for the future of a groovy nuke fork ... "If the keys fall into place ..." How do you know them until you have a plan to build the house?

Regular Joined: Dec 18, 2003 Posts: 53 Location: Worldwide

strange...
A friend of mine is building a new website... said he wanted a site Like phpnuke but NOT phnuke or the others.... even knowing I run a support site for phpnuke, I'm hardly a programer but I started on it and a few got excited when they seen it - even tho there is notmuch there.

But I already get the idea that people are going off on their own.. I see NS this NSN that, I see xoops and postnuke, and some others i see GZ.... ohhhhhhhh....

But there was never a final answer on this forum to what YOU Raven are going to do - even tho you may be doing it already, nor have I actually seen any of the long term sites like you guys phpnuke-uk.com or others say nothing about supporting a different one or not,

When I was 12 I downloaded phpnuke my first version was 5.6 i think. Im 14 now. Francisco Burzi - even tho I am sure he is not pro american, gave me the chance do make something and design stuff as a 12 year old would. because of that i got many web sites now, all of them different all of them .com .org or .net i never had a subdomain... but what I am getting at - is that all this sounds coolio....

better security
more customization
but how about ease of use for the little kid --- or even old man that just start how about the fact that i can build themes for anything if i no the calls... but what about them?

One the things that bug me so much is taht all of us want a little something to pay for our sites... but now people chargeing for poop CMS, they charging for themes - Im not saying that is right... I guess Im saying that maybe it shouldnt have happen. I always wanted a theme generator easy to use for everyone - put title pic/# here put block pic/# here etc and a few other things like that.

I just now started getting into php --- but what about the webmaster, that kid or old man that just want to ahve fun - or make money...

And why on earth hasnt anyone made a commitmet to this so far... and if they have where are their names and homepages supporting such stuff?

Raven I follow you and mikey and Telli a long time, I followed Zhen and I followed Chatserv I was fine with the community until protector came out and ban me for using quotes in a search.... It dont matter what portal I use, it does matter if those guys that makeing support the community or themselves.

I am interested yes
But I want to know who gonna support it
the theme sellers?
the block sellers?
The module sellers?

or the people that care about other people
thats why we all need to see names

This is the first post since march

thats enough time with a crew to build anything

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

There is no 'crew' - that's the MAIN problem. I do not have the time to do the design and code alone. There are many who have talents in the support areas, but not in the initial foundational design and code. What I write, I support. You see Chat and Bob and Six and many others here also. That's why it's still - nowhere. I have done some preliminary things, but the person who was going to help me had other things that came up and we felt that this just wasn't the best time to delve into this. Sorry if this has dissappointed people. It's not dead; I think about it all the time. It's just no longer a priority.

Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2004 9:15 pm

That leaves me with a choice to start on my own and ask for help or join someone else... so if anyone interested in having me on their development team let me know

Im good with database stuff
and above average with themes and graphics
and excellent at html
and ok with php
and good with RDS RSS

I got to know your site, how you treat people and stuff like that
and what you plans are and what you see in the cms future
cause its gonna be awesome

Tag

New Member Joined: Aug 25, 2004 Posts: 17

Wow.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG read.

I'm sorta new to this stuff. I'm a wanna be programmer type that loves to learn - even if I'm cussing the whole way lol.

I just wanted to add in my 2 cents (have we made it past a buck yet?) I guess for what it is worth.

I have like well, way too many sites. LOL. There are things I really enjoy about nuke and mambo. One thing I agree with is that not enough attention has been put on security and the core.

I've wondered why someone didn't just start from the ground up and just rewrite the thing with an eye towards security since php as a language can be failry secure (I'm just an infant learning this stuff). Why it wasn't easier to do things like customize, add on, organize, etc. Workarounds are cool, better than nothign, but it floored me that I crawl my through through all these forums with you wonderful programmers and I rarely ever heard someone mention with any seeming seriousness that they might be willing to do such a thing.

I am excited at the thought of someone doing exactly that.

I agree function and retaining the core is of essence as well as designing it with security in mind. There have been SO many great points and thoughts brought up here - could one not simply address them all - or is that my little pipedream? lol.

As an artist and as someone that has around 25+ sites - I disagree about themes not being really important, they are - just not ranked in the same column but in a second column along the first - if that image makes any sense to anyone else but me lol.

Search engines picking up sites IS important too. Again I don't think this would be ranked in importance in the other two previous "columns" but rather alongside of them.

People NEED sites to look different - it's important to the owner, and to those that go there. It's branding, it's familiarity, it's standing out, its marketing.

People NEED sites that are secure and stable at the CORE.Whether they are learned enough to know this or not.

People NEED their sites to be found to grow and sometimes to exist.

People need to be able to more easily customize too, I agree. I am giddy at some of what Raven has proposed so far - I WANT TO HELP!! But I doubt I have anything really I could offer - I'd be happy to back this is any way I could though. I am good at QA, I have the uncanny ability to go into betas and break em if they CAN be broken lol. Which helps me learn to fix them and by doing so, start to understand how it works and functions - it's sorta how I learn, I sit down and tear it apart and then put it back together.

I only learned as much as I know about nuke because I first found a very very very badly corrupted download. I didn't know enough to be intimidated, so I spent 3 months tearing the thing apart and fixing it piece by piece, learning as I went. Eventually I just got a working version lol, but what I learned by fixing has helped me a lot.

It has fired me to learn more. But I'm a baby next to you guys. But I can maybe be a sort of a bridge between the programming gurus, and the flat out newbie to everything.

As for themes, mtechnik seems to be hands down one of the absolute BEST (yeah I'm totally biased - he's one of the only guys I'd actually PAY for a theme I'd usually just hammer out my own) - maybe talking to him about seeing if he'd be interested in considering the themes part would be a good idea? I'm sure he'd have a lot of value and things to bring to the table.

I'd pay for this fork, portal, or whatever you choose to designate it as. I like people being able to code addons.

I think some of the most used add-on mods tend to be calendars, instant messaging abilities, chat rooms (flashchat seems to be one the best I've found so far), top lists, rotating banners, galleries, donation blocks, off the top of my head - I know there are others. And I hate the fact that the forums search and the other searches on nuke seem to not really work all that well.

Keeping those kinds of add-ons in mind I think would be a good thing. Or adding them in. I'd would TOTALLY pay for a version that had all that stuff added in, and I know I'm not alone by any means out there - it's needed, it's wanted, we are all just waiting for those to code it, or trying to learn to code so we can maybe code it so we could have it.

I think if you take what everyone loves about nuke and then address what everyone HATES about nuke, you would guarantee that people would LOVE it and would support it.

I know I don't remotely have to offer what most of the other posters here have to offer, and that my focuses might not be on the same level as you guru type coders, but I am learning, and I think I do offer some insight into what the beginning and intermediate web owners are looking for and hoping to find.

That's my two cents anyway.

And Chat? You are so not lame, your answers on the various forums you pop onto have helped me learn and fix so many d*** things - you have helped me and countless others immeasurably. Actually I see a LOT of names that have helped a LOT of people over the years. SO just because one never hears this as much as they *should* ...

THANK YOU!

You all ROCK. Honestly you do.

Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2004 8:32 pm

Thanks rainy. I will definitely keep you in mind should I ever find time to do this and do it right.

Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2004 9:53 pm

Well Im still learning, and I have SOOOOOO far to go before I'm remotely having a real clue lol.

But I would love to see more security - and I'd love to help in whatever small way a little wannbe geekazoid like me could help.

Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:15 am

Raven, I didn't know this thread existed when I posted my "Dream" comments to another forum. I am pasting that post into this thread here - hope you do not mind - I also have a lot more thoughts on what a good CMS tool should do (what? requirements? Very Happy

- ). I hope you will not mind me providing a few of them as I think of them. My problem is that I am always running into new ideas... Idea

so I don't ever get them organized enough to just make one post.

Here is my orignal post:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A CMS tool that actually is designed with also the Site Admin in mind in terms of user / account / group / permission management in mind. I am trying to wade through the various "hacks" out there for giving the Admin control over who gets access to what and nothing I find is truelly geared for true management of these things.

I would think that a well-designed cms/portal system would have these administrative functions around permission management:

- Management of User Groups (new, change, delete)
- Management of User activation (either manual or automatic)
- Management of Users to User Groups (should be allowed to have multiple groups assigned to a user, should be admin assigned unless automatic activation is desired). *** This is the piece that I cannot find anywhere along with multiple user group permissions on modules / blocks / etc. (I think only Forums has it somewhat).
- Management of User Groups to Permissions for ALL modules and blocks, including Forums (i.e, basically every function and feature should be User Group aware.
- The Union of a user's User Groups determines permissions on each of these (i.e., a user could be a member of multiple groups and the show/hide of modules/blocks and other functions should look at the entire union of groups to determine function.
- User login and new user creation should be SSL enabled (preferences switch would be nice). The login block should also have a "security policy" and/or "privacy policy" links/text.

I am sure that I can come up with more details behind every one of these. I am so frustrated in my search of phpNuke "hacks" to do these things and am coming up way short. I am not looking to have a self-running, somewhat anarchist type web site: I want a nice family / friend Portal that will allow users to participate in the site's content and fun, but not have the site run "amuck" with unwanted visitors. I was hoping that phpNuke would be able to serve that "bill". I guess if I had only ONE type of user, I could probably make due with just the Account Activation hack, but was hoping to do more with the site.

I may have to learn PHP, mySQL and more about phpNuke and re-write it myself... Is there something out there that would fit this "bill"?

montego

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After thinking about some of the previous posts, if the security model is properly objectized and that almost every object is "aware" of that model, it could be quite easy and very powerful to control the user experience throughout the entire Portal with a few "switches" and "user groups".

More to come....

I'd be glad to help out wherever I can. I have done alot of programming in my career, but never with PHP. I pick up new languages quickly and with some good code standards and a few templates, I can come up to speed rather quickly. My strengths, however, are around overall user experience design, analysis and design, data modelling and user documentation. If you feel any of this to be of use, count me in for 4 - 6 hours per week. I would also be willing to chip in some kaching!

each month (not much, but it would be consistent month-after-month).

Regards,
montego

Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:42 am

I still maintain my stance that whatever cms/portal eventually gets off the ground, it MUST have some sort of compatability/conversion from a phpNuke databse to whatever is used in the final product.

I suppose this might sound like a rather bizzare statement but, I'm thinking purely of those people that have used nuke over the years, with all their members, valuable forum posts and news articles - I feel some way of getting that data into any new cms/portal/whatever would have significant advanteges, not least of which is a very large and diverse community that would readily swop over.

I have seen one or two really nice portal systems out there now but, the only thing that stops me is the thought of having to start from scratch all over again.

Insane Joined: Jul 30, 2004 Posts: 85

I say we make a new one called RageNuke. Laughing

If you build it, they will come. Surprised

Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 9:26 am

Guardian2003 wrote:

I still maintain my stance that whatever cms/portal eventually gets off the ground, it MUST have some sort of compatability/conversion from a phpNuke databse to whatever is used in the final product.

I would agree -- to a point. Data, yes -- code, no. The very reason it needs a revamp is the weakness of much of the code (blocks and modules). I would try to salvage as much of the data as possible and would make conversion a top priority, but there would be limits if the data is constructed from w/i nuke itself or is simply stored in a database. There always could be subsequent activity directed at the more difficult conversions.

Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 11:33 am

I would concur with you on that one Raven.

Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 9:41 pm

since we wouldnt want to use nukes database, how about a simple rewite so they keep all their stuff, just in new names and stuff.... its not hard to write a changeover from one database to another if you know what everything is and where you wnat it to go. that way we got our own database and those from nuke -xoops or anyplace else, can just uplaod the change . Just like we do know when we upgrade and the database changes

Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 9:50 pm

That's what the "Data, yes -- code, no" is referring to in my post above Wink

.

Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:12 pm

Better name would be TAGSNuke...
but I like FREE-CMS

Regular Joined: Jun 02, 2004 Posts: 88

What is most aggrevating, at least at the present time, is that except for maybe a couple of people in the world, we really do not know what the mindset or direction is for PHP Nuke as it currently stands. There are no goals listed at the main website. There is not much in the way of "coming soon" news teasers. And with the Forums being gone, there is not much way to voice any kind of opinion as to desired directions, etc.

If a large majority are disappointed in the above, then a fork sounds like the viable alternative.

Like was just previously mentioned, data could be saved from current PHP Nuke sites and converted and imported. Just guessing here, but conversions may also be able to be done with themes, blocks, and modules, maybe along the lines of chatserv's current Admin upgrades for non-core modules.

If there is a will, there has to be a way..... "Just do it"

Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 11:39 pm

When is a fork, a fork? We have become our own worst enemy, in a way. There are so many 'flavors' of nuke right now that ridiculous battle lines are being drawn, imo. No flaming, please. I offer preinstalled packs now and then. And so do some others. That's not what I'm talking about because I, at least, do not alter core code (other than an occasional include statement) - that's one of my number one objectives and why I don't include many add-ons that people have requested. When I refer to 'flavors', I'm talking about major modifications to core code. And I am not saying it's wrong. I just think that there are now factions that are causing people to take sides. And that, hurts the community. They also confuse the community. So, would a fork have enough of a following to make it worth while? Consider that phpnuke begat postnuke that begat xarya. Compared to the much flawed phpnuke, their following is but a drop. That's why I vasilate between 'to fork or not to fork'.

Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 3:28 am

For one of these 'flavours' as Raven said to actually be considered as a reliable, stable and a Nuke worth following, it's going to need to have the right people at the helm, I massively agree with Raven how these flavours hurt the community, but they also add vareity and give more choice to the average Nuke user than it originally did before.

Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 3:33 am

Apart from the security aspects and the fact that 2 or 3 year old bugs (somehow) keep creeping back in, I think it is reasonable to say that phpNuke 'is most things to most users' i.e it can do, with the aid of extra modules, blocks and quick hacks, most things that most users would like to do in their cms/portal - news submission, surveys etc.

The problem, as Raven points out (though perhaps for slightly different reasons) is that any fork, whilst guaranteed a following due to the capabilities of the author(s) - would it have sufficient a following to become the successor to phpnuke?

After all, Rome was not built in a day, and with any new script, there will be initial teething problems and limited functionality until the community grows and attracts developers for add-on code for extra functionality.

The fact remains that you are reading this because you are probably a die-hard fan or user of phpnuke, so it goes without saying that, the core database data for users, forum posts, news articles etc would have to be carried across and converted from the nuke database to the new database to ensure their is a relativly easy 'upgrade' path for exisitng nuke users.

It also follows that the script should be flexible, secure as possible, and server friendly.

Perhaps we should really be asking 'What is your favourite cms/portal and why - what are the drw backs with your favourite cms/portal' in order that we better understand exactly what it is future fork users might want (or not want) as the case may be.

Personally, I like the functionality of phpnuke but dread the prospect of adding extra modules (not being a coder) that might leave the site open to yet more security exploits (thank goodness for Sentinel at least).
Having said that, I really like the look and feel of E107 - particularly as you can easily make the front page look exactly how you want it look and thus, make your site look that little bit more 'customised'.

When it comes to the decision making rocess, it would be interesting to see what others opinions are - would you prefer a portal that is based on a forum with added extra's like (dare I say it) YaBB SE or a CMS with a forum thrown into the mix?

Speaking of YaBB - one of nicest things I liked about it when I used many years ago was the upgrade program. One could download a special upgrade program the worked its magic by applying code changes to files via the upgrade script that came with any of its add-ons. A simple search->replace->append was acrried out automagically and the data was stored on your PC so you could very easily view the changes, tweak the changes if needed, but more importantly, you could 'undo' the changes of any update/upgrade with just a couple of clicks of your mouse.
Ideal for non php coders like me.

Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 7:27 am

Just thinking out loud here......

Before making a decision on the "how's", maybe seeing a list of end results can help in this decision making process. We are bantering around some ideas, but have not really seen a complete list or thoughts of what the end product should look like or do. If the end result can be achieved using current or slightly modified PHP Nuke code, then that could be the direction. If the end result can best be achieved starting fresh, then "fork" it is.

Again, just thinking out loud, but why not start a new topic that is specific for listing what the end product should look like. This could be features and more..... Then a small debate on how to get there could happen.

***edited, added***

Proposal....

--Create a new forum category specifically for Fork or Not....
--Create new forum for listing suggested overall features... to include Generalities AND Specifics, maybe suggested standards
--Create new forum for modules, for blocks, for themes...

Keep the Forum Category open for a set period of time, say 2 or 3 or 4 weeks. Then close it and open the discussion on how to get to the goals or standards or end results listed in the Forum Category.

again.... just thinking out loud....

Posted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 3:23 pm

I still believe that the model needs to change for ultimate security. The 'MCP' model I believe would be pretty much nirvana. Here is all the farther I have gotten. The MCP image is a bit blurred because it's an image made from Visio, but the Login model is much clearer. I think you will get the picture Wink

Basic MCP pattern

Proposed Login Module

Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 12:20 pm

ok...... what next? (nice use of Visio... Smile

)

Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 1:05 pm

Well, as mentioned somewhere around page 5 or 6 Laughing

, I already have the name and space for this at
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I'm still counting the cost ......