XOOPS 2.5.0 Alpha Released

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce the release of XOOPS 2.5.0 Alpha.

This release builds on the successful XOOPS 2.4.x series and is a major redesign of the System Module, which has been AJAX-ed using jQuery, done mainly by our December 2009 Innovators: Nicolas Andricq (ForMusS), Cointin Maxime (kraven_30), and Grégory Mage (Mage).

Some of the major improvements/additions include:

• visual block placement using "Drag & Drop"
• visual ordering of modules
• clean-up of cache and table maintenance
• File Manager
• Image Manager
• new way to change templates
• central management of editors for blocks, comments, and modules
• help tips

and many more.

Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/xoops/files Sourceforge repository

System requirements

PHP:
Any PHP version >= 5.2

MySQL:
MySQL server 5.0+

Web server:
Any server supporting the required PHP version (Apache highly recommended)

Downloading XOOPS

Your can get this release package from the sourceforge.net file repository.
Both .zip and .gz archives are provided.

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WARNING: This is ALPHA release for testing only!!!!

DO NOT install it on a production site and DO NOT upgrade any production site with it!!!

Installing XOOPS

1. Copy the content of the htdocs/ folder where it can be accessed by your server
2. Ensure mainfile.php and uploads/ are writable by the web server
3. For security considerations, you are encouraged to move directories "/xoops_lib" (for XOOPS libraries) and "/xoops_data" (for XOOPS data) out of Document Root, and change the folder names.
4. Make the directory xoops_data/ writable; Create (if not already present) and make the directories xoops_data/caches/, xoops_data/caches/xoops_cache/, xoops_data/caches/smarty_cache/ and xoops_data/caches/smarty_compile/ writable.
5. Access the folder where you installed the htdocs/ files using your web browser to launch the installation wizard

Installing Protector in XOOPS

We also highly recommend the installation of the PROTECTOR module which will bring additional security protection and logging capabilities to your site.

Debug information display level

Since XOOPS 2.3.1 debug information display level is enabled as a temporary solution for 2.3* to show debug information to different level of users: to all users, to members or to admins only.
The configuration can be set in /xoops_data/configs/xoopsconfig.php
A new debug information tools will be available for 2.4 using FireBug (see http://tinyurl.com/nmnjdp)

Files integrity check

The full XOOPS package is released with a script able to check if all the system files have been correctly uploaded to the server. To use it, follow these instructions:

1. Upload the checksum.php and checksum.md5 files located in the XOOPS package root to your XOOPS server folder (putting them next to mainfile.php).
2. Execute checksum.php with your browser
3. If necessary, re-upload the missing or corrupted system files
4. Remove checksum.php and checksum.md5 from your server

Modules

This release contains only the "system-related modules". You are invited to browse the XOOPS modules repository to if you need additional functionality. Note: as a new repository is being built, the current repository is not up-to-date, PLEASE VISIT INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPERS' WEBSITES TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING LATEST VERSION OF MODULES.

How to contribute

Bug report: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=41586&atid=430840
Patch and enhancement: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=41586&atid=430842
Feature design: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=41586&atid=430843
Release announcement: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xoops-announcement

XOOPS Development Team
February 1, 2010