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