With the recent status change of AdaptCMS 2.0 from Alpha to Beta and the design being finished, I figured it was time to write another blog and try to do some catch up – there has been a large amount of work done since the last blog.
The release is still a decent ways off but the private beta should be in the next week or two, public beta could be a month or so after that. (depending on some things) Not only has work been done on the AdaptCMS features (including a lot on the social functionality), but also the share feature and related IV-integrated features like file releases.
But anyways, in this Blog I’ll be going over the Social Feature (which outside of blogs and refining on messages, is done), File Releases and more. Onto the blog.
File Releases
One of the features I’ll be discussing isn’t “exactly” something new, though the additional functionality is something that really makes the file release system so much better than before. Visually the two will look very similar though with more important information shown. The difference in the background is the coding – the old system connected to your admin panel and grabbed all the files from a folder at adaptcms.com and that was that.
With the new system it is mysql-based and the way it is already setup right now, the system has the capability of multiple releases. While it is always encouraged to download the zip off of good ol’ sourceforge, if you want to get the latest PHP files and bug fixes – it will be the way to go. With important info like date (as in, when it was uploaded) and comments (which in the case of a bug, will list that info) – it will be a very important tool to fix bugs and security issues as quickly and out to as many users as possible.
Social
One aspect that I dabbled with in OneCMS and barely touched in AdaptCMS 1.x, 2.0 is going all out with a brand new set of social features. To start with you will see the old fashioned profile fields with custom fields – but new in 2.0 is a social header and footer template, letting you also use ANY of that custom field data anywhere in the social feature.
More, basic social functions like a friends list, messages (as seen in AdaptBB), Blogs and a twitter-like status all are new features in 2.0. The idea behind the Social features are not to have a full-blown social system that rivals facebook, but some basic one that lets people communicate and engage in the website more than they normally would.
Help System
Although technically in AdaptCMS 1.x, in 2.0 it’s a completely different feature. Using the Colorbox JS feature, the new help system appears in a popup with a tree-type link system to the left and a content area to the right. With this new system you can create new help files (and submit them to others via “Share”) and manage them as well as search and download new ones. (also via share)
2.0 will of course come shipped with a LOT of help files, covering every aspect of the new version but things also change – as well, it can be very useful for admins helping new staff members with the basics, it can be overwhelming.
Stats
Although using a similar structure, the 3rd version of Stats in AdaptCMS makes more leaps forward – faster, better looking and easier to use. The start page shows the familiar links (pages, referrals, keywords, bots, os and browsers) but you will notice the difference with being able to select a date – day, week, month or year as well as the stats shown in the main area.
By default stats will be shown for the day with all the info presented (top pages, top keywords, etc…and of course uniques/views) and if you say select the month of March 2010, it will show the same info but for that time period. The biggest changes though were made in the background, the amount of queries for stats has been cut down a lot upon page load, as well, the amount of time it takes for the stats update is drastically better and much more efficient.
Conclusion
I ended up covering more ground than I planned, but a lot has happened in the past 2 months and I didn’t even discuss everything! The features mentioned are completely done minus small changes/fixes (stats needs some fine-tuning, messages maybe a bit upgraded and blogs) and functioning fine, which tells you a lot about the progress thus far.
Stay tuned as always with new developments, especially now, the most posts in a month for quite a while!
