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From:	 "Ken Pooley" <kpooley@sewanee.edu>
To:	 "Midgard User" <user@midgard-project.org>, "MWS" <mws@midgard-project.org>
Subject: MWS for 18th of May, 2001 (#60) Midgard 2.0, Linksystem Muenchen
Date:	 Sat, 19 May 2001 03:04:25 -0500

Greetings!

Another fine week in Midgard land, this MWS is a little later than I would
like but I was ruthlessly tracking details down so I think it is worth the
wait. The parts of Midgard 2.0 are coming together and are still slated for
December release. At the same time more developers are introducing
applications which augment the Midgard core, this week we look at Linksystem
Muenchen, a Munich based business which has recently updated midHoo and
released a Repligard tool called YAMP.

This summer promises to be a good time for Midgard publicity, so look out
for upcoming events which include faithful agents of Midgard. If you are
going to speak at, or attend, a tradeshow, conference or random coffeehouse
let me know and we will let everyone know you are coming. I am currently
looking into possibilities in the US, if anyone has suggestions let me know.

Contents:

Editor's Note
 Midgard 2.0: the reason and the means to get there.
	An update on how Midgard 2.0 is going and what it is working towards.
Linksystem Muenchen - midHoo and more.
A Midgard developer and solutions provider from Munich adds to the
application pool.


============================
Midgard 2.0: the reason and the means to get there.
----------------------------
With Ami Ganguli moving over to Nemein, work on Midgard 2.0 has continued
and still appears to be on track for a year-end release. Given the growth in
Midgard community and the time we have spent on 1.4, it seems like a good
time to look at where we are with 2.0’s development and what the new
application architecture will bring.

While the changes at Aurora and the emergence of Nemein have shuffled
resources and priorities for the development timeline, the goals remain
similar to what they were last fall. The hope of the developers is to have a
release candidate ready for the first of December, with the final release
coming at the end of the same month.  Midgard 2 is a complete rethink and
rewrite of the Midgard application. At the core of the project is a
general-purpose application engine that can be added on to with a modular
approach. For example, content management is not necessarily a part of the
core of the application, but can be added on easily in a manner which
matches the developers needs. The other side of the change is that some of
the functionality is moved away from the application core to the modules or
into the actual data objects. In theory this would allow some functionality
to reside at the record level. (A good simple example of this would be in
the use and designation of html or formatted text at the record level
instead of the in host page, this causes more headaches for me.)

Basing Midgard 2 on a modular approach from the start allows for
modifications to be made in a much more predictable, planned manner.  Custom
features or implementations can be more profound while not having to make
changes to the application’s internal mechanisms. Ami’s approach this spring
has been to work more on building smaller modules which bring as much varied
functionality to the application as possible to, in turn, draw developers to
the new application. The first module written, with help from Aurora’s
Pierre-Yves Nicolas, is a search engine. The search runs on Midgard 2’s core
but runs alongside a 1.4.x installation to provide functionality to the 1.4
based application.

As of today Ami had sent out an e-mail indicating that the Midgard 2.0 CVS
source was current and he was able to compile the server with some
predictable errors. All are welcome to download and play with the code.
There are a few parts that are incomplete but the core is there. There is a
need for people with experience with configure to pick through a few parts
as well as help from anyone willing to help make Debian and Redhat Packages.

============================
Linksystem Muenchen – midHoo, YAMP and more.
----------------------------
While Aurora, HKLC and Nemein have gotten lots of attention for their
contributions to Midgard, Munich based Linksystem-M is an ISP that provides
Midgard hosting as well as Midgard application development.
Philipp Rotmann and Torben Nehmer have put together two new apps that should
prove invaluable to the Midgard community.

MidHoo 2.0.2 was recently released and is a Yahoo like site directory based
on Midgard. Originaly started by Emile, midHoo development has been
continued by Link-M and made freely available.  2.0.2 is a bug fix release
following on the heels of 2.0.1. Version 2 includes features that allow
links to be structured into categories with short descriptions as well as
the ability to search the categories by name or keyword. Link records can be
created as unapproved with e-mail notification sent to notify the editors
that a record is waiting for approval.  MidHoo can be downloaded at:
http://home.link-m.de/phr/midhoo-2.0.2a.tar.bz2

YAMP, (Yet Another Midgard Packager) is a tool for packaging and moving
Midgard data.  YAMP acts a front end for Repligard allowing for the single
export, post export editing and eventually direct CVS entry. It is a simple
wrapper for Repligard. It came into existence with the need of finding an
automatic way of creating Repligard Packages. The theory is that YAMP can
automagically create packages with a (relatively) simple configuration file
and some Repligard configs, usage is similar to make. For now YAMP is aimed
at Midgard developers who want an easy interface for creating an .tar.gz of
a Midgard Package with a single command line. Repligard experience is still
required, because you have to write the configfile for yourself. Most of the
documentation is found in the source, a simple README exists in addition. An
example of a YAMP-driven Project is midHoo.

A rewrite is currently in the works, taking the version to 1.2. The rewrite
will completely do away with the need for the user to write Repligard config
files. The goal is to be able to build an autoconf-like installation script
that will collect all information needed for building Repligard config
files. Import support is also planned with the new version, using an easy
syntax like ymap import <sitegroup> <xmlfile>. This is aimed at normal users
who don't want to bother with the details of Repligard so that they can just
download an xml file and import it into the database.
YAMP can currently be downloaded from:
http://users.nehmer.net/~classic/yamp-1.0.1.tar.gz


For more information e-mail:
Philipp Rotmann, Linksystem Muenchen [ph.rotmann@buero.link-m.de]
Or
Torben Nehmer [torben@nehmer.net]



============================

About Midgard



Midgard 1.4 is a content publishing tool for small and medium sized sites.
It is based on Apache, MySQL and PHP. The application and its documentation
are licensed GPL, LGPL and GFDL. This licensing strategy guarantees that
developers, webmasters, ISPs, and business managers are investing in a
strategy where they're free to share solutions and participate in the
application design.

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



----------------------------



About MWS


The Midgard Weekly Summary is a bi-weekly newsletter

for the Midgard user and developer community,

as well as the extended web community.

If you would like to release it or publish it,

please contact Ken Pooley

(kpooley@sewanee.edu).


Previous issues of Midgard Weekly Summary can

be found archived at the Midgard web site.

-> http://www.midgard-project.org/topic/169.html



Midgard mailing list.

The Midgard mailing list is one of the most vital and

visible aspects of the Midgard Community. Questions

get answered, suggestions debated and work gets done.

E-mail:midgard@greywolves.org


----------------------------
Places to see Midgard in Action:
http://www.midgard-project.org
http://www.hklc.com
http://www.5fthigh.com/
http://www.linuxde.org/
http://www.hec.nl/
http://www.stonejobs.com/
http://www.cruisexcursions.com/
http://www.sewanee.edu

-More to come


============================