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Midgard Weekly Summary for September 14, 2000 (#47)

Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 03:09:11 -0500
From: Ken Pooley kpooley@sewanee.edu
To: marty@linuxtoday.com
Subject: MWS for 14th of September 2000 (#47)

Greetings!
It has been a slow week for big Midgard news. We are working on
upgrading the Midgard website and looking forward to the last beta
of 1.4 in the next few weeks. There is a 1.2.5 to 1.4 migration
newby note in the works with a site groups note to come soon
after.


Current versions:

         Stable: 1.2.5 'Mad King'
         Devel.: 1.4beta.5
        Oracle: 1.2.5 Oracle 8i

E-mail the webmaster As we work towards making the
Midgard-project.org website more accessible and reliable, a number
of changes are being contemplated. I have volunteered to act as the
webmaster for the site, providing a contact point for the community
as well as a content watch dog to make sure we keep information
current. We are discussing a number of additions and redesign
projects. I specifically want to renew my call for sites to be
listed as examples of Midgard in action. I also want to start to
collect a reference list of ISPs, programmers, and consulting firms
that provide Midgard-based solutions. If you are currently using
Midgard for customers, or want to be included in a service provider
directory, please e-mail me with a contact name and e-mail address,
as well as a short description of the services you provide. If you
have other features you would like to see included in a new Midgard
site drop me a note. I can be reached at kpooley@sewanee.edu


Alan Knowles, HKLC, and a new administrative interface.

While most of our attention has been occupied with the
completion of Version 1.4 and plans for V2, there is a lot of other
work going on across the Midgard landscape. In Minsk, Alexander
Bokovoy is polishing off a new administrative interface named
Asgard which will see its debut in the next few weeks with the last
beta of 1.4. On the other side of Asia, Alan Knowles independently
introduced a new administrative interface that should do a lot to
redefine how we think about interacting with Midgard.

Alan Knowles is a principal with Linux Center HK ltd. of Hong
Kong. HKLC is a Linux consulting and services group that tries to
make a living out of GPL. Like many who have moved to use Midgard,
Knowles’ interest in the project started about a year ago when he
started looking at content management systems to drive his website.
Using a strong content management system usually leads to the
realization of the potential of such software in real-world
applications, HKLC was no different. The experiences that Knowles
and his organization had in the field informed the direction they
felt the software needed to go. One of the goals of HKLC is to
encourage its members to become involved in the software projects
it uses. The Hong Kong team put together a good “Introduction to
Midgard” presentation for marketing and general education purposes.
True to the GPL spirit the presentation is freely available as long
as it retains the HKLC logo. It is available at: http://www.hklc.com/images/midgard_movie.swf

Driven by idealism — and, in part, by customer demands —
Knowles took on the challenge of putting together a new backend
interface for Midgard. Currently available as a beta, the new
interface is a great addition to the ongoing dialog about the
development of the new Midgard versions.

“The admin site started of as a result of a meeting where we
demonstrated the current admin site; although the more technical
people could understand the power it offered, it was a hard sell to
the more non-techy, content people. Our idea was to go up against
the big boys, vignette storyteller, etc. So a more attractive,
quick, and powerful interface was needed.”

Visually the interface is very appealing and easy to understand.
It also reflects the new features found in Midgard 1.4 like blob
serving for attachments and images. Perhaps most interesting is the
inclusion of a WSYWIG in-line text editor with basic formatting
functions. Anyone who has dealt with a wide range of content
contributors, who often have vastly different experience levels,
will appreciate the opportunity to give those editors the type
control they demand while allowing them to remain blissfully
ignorant of basic HTML. The current implementation of the editor is
based on a Microsoft DHMTL editor which works only with IE 5.01.
Knowles is hopeful that a Mozilla DHTML implementation will prove
more reasonable and more ethically acceptable.

Aside from bringing a new take on the way endusers can interact
with Midgard, Alan Knowles and his crew have brought a wealth of
real world experience with Midgard and its applications in new
contexts. Contributions like these are coming from all over the
Midgard community and bode well for the future of the project.

The HKLC Midgard Framed Admin beta can be found at: http://www.hklc.com/projects/


About Midgard

Midgard is a freely-available Web application development and
publishing platform based on the popular PHP scripting language. It
is an Open Source development project, giving you the freedom to
create your solutions in an open environment. Midgard is the tool
for creating, modifying and maintaining dynamic database-enabled
web services.

-> http://www.midgard-project.org


About MWS

The Midgard Weekly Summary is a newsletter for the Midgard user
and developer community.

The MWS is currently being distributed in following mediums:

-The Midgard Project’s Web site
-> http://www.midgard-project.org

-Linux Weekly News
-> http://www.lwn.net

-Linux Today
-> http://www.linuxtoday.com

-Linux Developer’s Network
-> http://linuxdev.net

-LinuxProgramming
-> http://www.linuxprogramming.com

-Midgard mailing list

If you would like to release it elsewhere, please contact Henri
Bergius (Henri.Bergius@iki.fi).

Previous issues of Midgard Weekly Summary can be found archived
at the Midgard web site.
-> http://www.midgard-project.org/topic/169.html

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