Micro-blogging the eZ Conference

For those who haven't heard of "Micro-blogging" wikipedia defines it as:

Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web.

Twitter is currently the most popular micro-blogging service but can have reliability issues (these have been addressed recently). I've been using it for a couple of months now. It can be a bit of a time suck especially if you follow frequent tweaters. I've found it a good way to keep track of what friends, the web industry & eZ people are up to, pose questions and actually get answers.

One of the things that has always frustrated my about not attending the eZ conference in the past is that it takes about a week for news and coverage to filter out. I suspect people are too busy doing "conference stuff" to write blog posts during the event.

This year I'm finally attending the eZ Conference (eZ Community Developer Day & PHP Vikinger) and am planing to utilise twitter to micro-blog the event in an attempt to provide some "real time" coverage. I've had conservations with Tony Wood of Vision WT fame who is also interested. The frequency of content will depend on what kind of internet aceess is availiable, and I'll utilise SMS tweats as a backup if required.

Of course anyone can do this and the more the merrier! If you are going to use twitter, add "#ezconf" within the tweet. This is called a hashtag and allows for tweets about a particular topic to be grouped by services like Summize.

The following URL http://summize.com/search?q=+%23ezconf will display a list of tweets with the #ezconf hashtag. The tweats are also available as an RSS feed so you can follow along in your favourite Feed Reader.

Derick (PHP Vikinger unorganiser) has suggested using #phpvikinger & #ezconference hashtags (Lots of letters there! He must be much less lazy than me :) or simply follow all three.

If you do sign up with twitter, feel free to follow me and write a tweat with a #ezconf hashtag to let fellow twitters you are following along.

Help and an Etiquette Guide are available.

eZ Publish release clarifications

In case you haven't seen the comments generated out of my last couple of posts, this is intended to be a summary. Thanks to all the fine eZ crew that jumped on and clarified things.

It appears that jagels missed the middle '0' in 4.0.1 in his initial comment, making it seem (to me at least) like eZ were recommending that 4.0 should not be used and to hold off until 4.1. The advice was actually to wait for 4.0.1.

Version 4.1 will come with the new TinyMCE based OE instead of (as well as?) the existing OE. The new TinyMCE OE can can also be used in eZ 4.0.x sites (Will the old OE work in 4.1 ?)

eZ 4.1 will also include the following enhancements:

• http://issues.ez.no/12423: add seconds input to date time and time datatypes
• http://issues.ez.no/12539: share compiled templates between site accesses
• http://issues.ez.no/13009: custom validation methos in edit handlers ( based on ideas in http://projects.ez.no/objectvalidation )

The microkernel changes will not be in 4.1. This is not surprising as I'd expect that this is not a trivial task. ( Though I am excited about the opportunities that this change will allow. Can't wait to hear details at the eZ Conference )

The release candidates 4.0.1rc1 & 3.10rc1 have been announced. The announcement contains important information about the troublesome "url alias" issue.

I'm assuming that we'll see 3.9.5 & 4.1.0 soon as well.

New versions of eZ Publish (4.0.1, 3.10.1 & 3.9.5) imminent

After my comment about following subversion commit comments to get an idea of what is happening with eZ Publish in my previous post, I realised it wasn't such a bad idea and added the RSS feed to my reader.

This morning I'm happy to report that the release trees for 4.0.1 & 3.10.1 & 3.9.5 have been created.

Nothing in the svn commits comments regarding 4.1. However this comment on my previous post has disturbed me:

I have been to a couple of seminars where we were recommended to wait for 4.1 before we upgrade to eZ4 (by eZ employees).

Anyone have details of why this is the case? With the launch of a 4.0 eZ site in the coming weeks I find this quite worrying.

eZ Publish News: "No he's not dead, he's restin'!"

No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage! from Monty Pythons "Dead Parrot" sketch.

Given that there hasn't been a release for the eZ publish 3 series since October 2007 and December 2007 for the initial eZ publish 4.0 release, coupled by the lack of any concrete information regarding new releases, one may be forgiven in thinking that eZ Publish had been consigned to the great bit bucket in the ether. Fortunately it appears that unlike the Norwegian Blue, eZ was actually restin'! (Actually I suspect they have been working very hard, just not telling us)

I'm not sure how many people are downloading and reading eZ's SHARE! magazine PDF but if you're not then you would have missed this news regarding eZ Publish 4.1 from the June issue:

eZ Publish 4.1 - what’s new?

The next version of our flagship product eZ Publish 4.1 will be released with an improved kernel and several extensions providing new or enhanced features. Highlights include:

• A new Online Editor with support for more browsers and platforms (including IE7 on Vista, Safari)
• A new extension providing multiple file upload from within the browser
• Oracle support (from version 8), including support for the current cluster configurations
• An extension providing functions for password expiry (typical use for intranets and extranets)
• Solaris 10 support
• Performance enhancements

In future releases, most new features will be made available through extensions as we are aiming more and more for a microkernel approach for eZ Publish.

No official word on release dates but forum posts seem to indicate that release candidates are possible for next week.

On Communications

I must admit I'm at a loss as to why the SHARE! magazine PDF is the primary communication method of a company that's flagship product is a Web CMS. It doesn't show off their "product" (now, if the PDF was produced out of the CMS that would be a different matter), and seems to be a quite outdated communication methodology in a time of microblogging, RSS feeds, social networking and content aggregation.

One the the main issues is that you can't link to specific information in a PDF (thats why I've reproduced the relevant information here) and it's a pain to have to download to view. This could be solved by simply adding the content to the eZ web site...it does use a CMS right? Isn't utilising the eZ site for this information a great advertisment for the product?

Perhaps it's aimed at a difference audience than me but then I'm not sure what that leaves me with...subversion comments?

Anywhoo after that rant you might need something to put a smile on your face. If you're not familiar with Monty Pythons famous "Dead Parrot" sketch or simply need a laugh here it is. Enjoy!

eZ Publish on list of "PHP Apps that changed the World"

Federico Cargnelutti has listed a number of Open Source PHP applications that he believes has changed the world over the last 10 years and eZ Publish makes the list.

As with any lists of this nature, every one has their own opinion, and the comments make good reading.

One that isn't on the list or commented on is PHPList. What's missing in your option?

What's happening with eZ Publish?

If you want to know what's happening with eZ publish then it seems that the Paris Developer day was the place to be. You can read Damien Pobels excellent write up of the event (French). If like me your French is limited to "hello", "goodbye" and asking for a beer here's an English translation via google translate. Not perfect but you'll get the idea. Thanks Damien!

Australian Open Source Industry & Community Census report released

The report compiled from the Australian Open Source Industry & Community Census has been released.

I've only have the chance to skim over it at the moment, but my initial impression is that it looks very professional, contains quite a bit of detail and is interspersed with practitioner "stories".

http://waughpartners.com.au/2008/04/07/australian-open-source-industry-community-report

Git and eZ Approve 2: checking in

My membership of the eZ Approve 2 project has been given the green light so as a follow up to my previous post Using Git with eZ Publish projects I can present the output of the commits back to the subversion repository.

$ git-svn dcommit
Authentication realm: eZ projects
Password for 'zabbie':
A design/standard/templates/node/view/plain.tpl
Committed r2501
M eventtypes/event/ezapprove2/ezapprove2type.php
Committed r2502
M classes/ezxapprovestatususerlink.php
Committed r2503
M collaboration/ezapprove2/ezapprove2collaborationhandler.php
Committed r2504
M collaboration/ezapprove2/ezapprove2collaborationhandler.php
Committed r2505
A design/standard/templates/node/view/plain.tpl
r2501 = e5a186160c1fab07a2894d180f932e3a6931b782 (git-svn)
M eventtypes/event/ezapprove2/ezapprove2type.php
r2502 = 43c5b3ba16bf4015ee8f9c2f2a1a9e4d4333972d (git-svn)
M classes/ezxapprovestatususerlink.php
r2503 = be6daf109a91319da0ee16c40b2344c0de18291d (git-svn)
M collaboration/ezapprove2/ezapprove2collaborationhandler.php
r2504 = 8113d8d1d58d92da6a4cee34c14b7d6db227ef86 (git-svn)
M collaboration/ezapprove2/ezapprove2collaborationhandler.php
r2505 = e9acd0e93e1c47dea1cd88a47b26e8b34a951552 (git-svn)
No changes between current HEAD and refs/remotes/git-svn
Resetting to the latest refs/remotes/git-svn


Checking the log of the subversion repository shows each of the local git commits as individual subversion commits along with there respective commit log messages.
$ svn log http://svn.projects.ez.no/ezapprove2 | head -n 30
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r2505 | zabbie | 2008-03-03 10:09:47 +1000 (Mon, 03 Mar 2008) | 2 lines

Fix for placement of a previously unpublished object that is edited

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r2504 | zabbie | 2008-03-03 10:09:37 +1000 (Mon, 03 Mar 2008) | 2 lines

Fixed method definitions to match eZCollaborationItemHandler to stop strict messages

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r2503 | zabbie | 2008-03-03 10:09:26 +1000 (Mon, 03 Mar 2008) | 2 lines

Corrected typo in const for role approver

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r2502 | zabbie | 2008-03-03 10:09:18 +1000 (Mon, 03 Mar 2008) | 2 lines

Typo in const

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r2501 | zabbie | 2008-03-03 10:09:06 +1000 (Mon, 03 Mar 2008) | 2 lines

fixed "Placed in:" for items previously unpublished

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r2500 | tw | 2008-01-15 02:15:14 +1000 (Tue, 15 Jan 2008) | 1 line

- Fixed missing static in ezinfo.php
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r2499 | (no author) | 2008-01-15 00:37:38 +1000 (Tue, 15 Jan 2008) | 1 line


For all intents and purposes it's undetectable the other repository users that anything out of the ordinary has gone on.

A couple of the comments to the previous post pointed out alternatives to git:

• Bazzar
• Mercurial
• SVK
  

I don't have the inclination to check them all out, especially given that git meets my requirements.

If you want some more info Dave Dribin has a couple of blog posts that contain a review of Git, Bazzar & Mercurial, and a explanation as to why he choose Mercurial. Dave says that in the end it was a gut choice and that for projects where "I still have to use Subversion, I will be using git-svn".