Welcome to the new Amiga.org! We're now running Xoops 2.06, and this marks the completion of "phase 2" of our upgrades. Thanks for your patience during this process.
Thanks to Steve and Brian (Ackbarr, core Xoops developer) at
PlanetXoops.com, phase 2 -- the upgrade to Xoops 2.x has been completed. To mark this, we've added a new look and feel to the site which, like the last one, will mutate as needed to match the community's needs and desires. I know that change is never easy for a lot of you, and indeed getting here hasn't been easy for us, but please understand that the upgrade to Xoops 2.x was a necessary one.
The big question: Why?Because Xoops 1.x had become no longer secure. Don't Panic, we don't believe that anyone's information has been truly compromised, simply that there have been a couple of incidents where changes were made to the site lately that "we" didn't make. It is inevitable however that all Xoops 1.x sites will have the same problems, since the 1.x path has been devaluated.
To give a little history, Xoops 1.x is the code base we run. In earlier versions (the version 1.x level), code and display were integrated as one thing. To change even the background color of a table row, you had to edit the PHP code. As a result, over the last 3 years of running Xoops 1.x, our code base had been highly -- and I mean HIGHLY -- modified to add little niceties and features that users had requested to make the site run smoother. All these changes made upgrading, even to another Xoops 1.3.x upgrade, very, very difficult, as we had to replicate every hack and modification we'd ever made to the code.
About four months ago -- as some of you recall seeing -- I made the "executive decision" that
1) Since the site was no longer secure
2) Since upgrading to a more secure 1.3.x version wasn't possible (we were running the latest 1.3.10)
3) Since initial testing actually proved that Xoops 2.x was more compatible on several levels with the LATEST Amiga browsers
It was time to bite the proverbial bullet and perform the "dreaded 2.x upgrade". The trouble is, because of all the modifications and different third-party modules we had installed over the years, every attempt that *I* made met with no success. Whether this is due to the particular version of Xoops 2.0.5.2, the use of third-party additions, or my own oversight is unknown. So, I put the 1.x site back up, closed every hole I could find, and called in the professionals.
About two months ago, I began working with Steve and Ackbarr (
PlanetXoops.com) to establish a dev site using a copy of the live data. Using a secondary development site let the entire team get involved in the process and work towards the new site design and layout. There's still a lot to do, but we've got a list and at this point, there's no sense in delaying the upgrade when the changes which are left can be handled while live.
I will say this: Xoops 2.x is a lot more promising, but I never realized the amount of work that would be involved in a "mere" upgrade. Rather than five theme files as in Xoops 1.x, EVERY module including the system itself has been seperated into its own "templates" (which control individual aspects of the display), on top of the now eight different "theme" files (which control the overall look of the site). Imagine going from having to make five changes and being online, to needing 100+ changes.
So why didn't you just install the old Amiga.org theme?If you've read this far, you might ask why I didn't just download and install one of the many "themes" available like all the other Xoops sites do? Well, that's both a simple answer, and the cause of most of the work. To explain, Xoops -- like almost everything else in the world -- actually supports modern Web standards, like CSS and XHTML. Unfortunately the developers of most Amiga browsers haven't had the opportunity to expand their support as quickly as the rest of the world. This is truly understandable, and not a slam at all. After all, Amiga browser developers don't have zillions of free ones to play with like Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc.
A big challenge for us when redesigning this site was that no "out of the box" theme for Xoops (including the stock Xoops theme) was compatible with any Amiga browser. What the team and I had to do was literally fall back to square 1 and start over, rewriting every bit of code to older HTML standards. We've been able to successfully test MOST of the site to work with the latest Amiga browsers. Most features work correctly, but let me say this with the hopes that you clearly understand my intent. If you're not using the latest Amiga browser, UPGRADE. The browser developers depend on your support by way of upgrades to make their development possible. If you're not willing to upgrade to the latest and greatest Amiga versions out there, you really can't complain if things don't work properly.
Quite simply stated, the more we worked to adapt the old Amiga.org "Blue" theme, the more we realized that it was incompatible with the theme/template split in Xoops 2.x. Besides, what's the use of an upgrade of this magnitude if no one notices the change
Okay, what's next? What's "Phase 3"?Phase 3 of our upgrades is literally "expansion." Once Phase 2 has been completed, and all the kinks have been worked out, Kent Seaton and I will begin writing and looking for new modules which will help expand Amiga.org's feature set to make us truly unique amongst all the copycats out there. This may include:
- Personal address books, link lists, and such
- Expanded personal messaging,
- IRC Interfacing for the #Amiga.org channel
- Adding the ability for users to have their own personal Web pages (though the potential for abuse and the heightened overhead for the staff makes this a little less likely in the immediate future),
- Team project management abilities (such as an Amiga version of "sourceforge")
and more. We truly want to make Amiga.org a very useful and meaningful experience. To do that, we'll invite everyone's input as soon as the current upgrades are considerably complete. We hope you'll bear with us in all this and begin to share the enthusiasm that the staff has for the potential future of this site.
Finally, a recommendationI would be remiss if I didn't point out the excellent work, assistance, and support of the staff at
PlanetXoops.com. If you're considering running a site, for any reason at all, please consider them your first stop along the way. They've been instrumental in these upgrades and I really believe that Amiga.org wouldn't be possible today without their help and support.
Best regards,
Wayne Hunt and the staff at Amiga.org
