CMS Made Simple Forums

Ted wrote:Also, I know the php5 thing is a touchy subject. [...]  We're seriously taking a risk by doing the php5-only thing here, but it's a natural progression that NEEDS to be done.  Eventually all of the systems are going to do it, we just happen to be on the front of the curve.  The benefits just outweigh all else at this point...

Ted wrote:I think you're forgetting the core audience here.  People with shared accounts that barely have access to anything.

Seems to me you are contradicting yourself. CMSMS is intended for users with access only to bare essentials. And at the same time, CMSMS... needs to push the envelop by requiring technologies not widely available yet. I don't understand your reasoning.

With that said, I'm glad you changed your mind about a cache being too difficult to be efficiently integrated in CMSMS. This single feature will make 2.0 great!

Yeah, I kind of am contradicting myself, but not totally.  I still want to run this thing on a stock stripped down php install...  it's just that the version number is higher than the "norm" at the moment.  When most hosts do go to php5, we still want to be able to run on those hosts without any changes to the environemtn... if we can help it.  Php5 will be the norm soon, it just happens to be a ridiculous long (and unnecessary... it's mostly due to laziness) transition period.

The cache will be great, but it'll also confuse some people.  Things like modules will lose their dynamisim unless all the modules are coded to clear the cache when something that will be displayed on the frontend changes.  However, for the mostly static sites (like cmsmadesimple.org), it's going to be a HUGE benefit.  It's just like anything else, there are pros and cons.

This is slightly off-topic, but since we're talking about caching and some issues with CMSMS running slowly, may I ask Ted where cmsmadesimple.org is hosted?

It seems to run very fast!

Thanks.

If I'm right it runs on an own server ...

I just upgraded a client's site from 1.0.2 to 1.0.4. It was a bit of a pain to do so in part because I had made changes to various language files (to simplify the system or make it use terms that he would be more familiar with). Anyway, as I re-edited all the lang entries I got thinking about a nice feature for the next CMS-MS version: an overrides system.

If you've used Zen Cart, you might be familiar with their overrides systems. That package includes a set of templates, language files, etc. in one directory tree. Rather than modify those core files, you can create parallel files--same name, but in a different location. If those files exist, Zen Cart uses yours rather than the stock files.  In this way, when you upgrade Zen Cart, you overwrite the stock files, but not your customized versions.

So back to CMS-MS...let's say that after loading the admin.inc.php file, CMS-MS also loaded something like custom_admin.inc.php you could put all your changes into it. I'm thinking you could put just the customized lang variables into it, as they would simply redefine those variables when the file is parsed. An upgrade wouldn't overwrite your file. And, you wouldn't have to worry about running some sort of file difference utility to find any new entries that should have been added if you overwrote the new version with a saved old customized version.

If it could be made into a core function to read in these overrides, it would be easy for modules to pick up this capability, too. So, after loading ModuleName/lang/en_US.php (or whatever language) it could also read in ModuleName/lang/custom_en_US.php.

Anyway, just a thought.
Tim

ted,

is there a way yet to set the timezone? As you pointed out in this thread,
http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.php/topic,1518.0.html
it's only important for News and stuff, but that's my point exactly. I'm GMT+1 and my server is located somewhere in Los Angeles, which makes like 6 hours time difference. And that leads to all my articles being published at 4 a.m. or something according to servertime.

It's not crucial for survival, but I hope that this small feature makes it into 2.0 as it seems IMHO, that a CMS like CMSMS should really have that built in.

just my two cents for anybody that wants them. 

thanks

wientanz wrote: is there a way yet to set the timezone?

On PHP 5.1.x you can use function date_timezone_set .

http://www.dynamicwebpages.de/php/funct ... ne-set.php

Call it to the first in include.php

Please don't post here problems, there is another area in the forum for this porpoise.
Most probably you are not going to get answer, people willing to help others does not look here....
This tread id for proposal/reflection on the upcoming 2.0 version, don't get it messy.

Thank You

I vote for the builtin timezone setting feature in 2.0.
As I don't know the best way to describe it, I mean I vote for not having timeshifting anoyancies like the one described by wientanz above.
Pierre M.'s ¤0.01

I totally vote for the timezone setting. I run on US servers but cater to an Australian audience. Strewth!

Cyberman's patch seems easy enough but I hate messing with core files. Makes upgrades sooooo much more painful.

Adding it as setting to config.php would indeed be the bees knees. With a straightforward setting of +/-[hours] from GMT.

Oh, and the override directories are all also choice. eZ publish (Lord save my soul) has had this featire for years, not that I would EVER want to compare anything to that bloated beast again.

And did I mention a dedicated WYSIWYG?
[me=iNSiPiD]runs for cover.[/me]

Ok, I may be wrong, but I believe a timezone feature is already in 2.0. That is direct from config.php for 2.0. So Basically you can do Etc/GMT+6 or Etc/GMT-5 and everything just works. The only bad thing about this is that it only works on PHP 5.1 or higher. So, this feature brings even higher requirements, if you absolutely need it.

This may be a simplistic answer from someone not very familiar with CMSMS and what is possible, but wouldn't it be better to have the option to detect the website user's timezone and then apply the adjustment automatically, so everyone sees the time as it is for them?

Something is already in 2.0 ? Yepee !

Anastasis wrote: ...detect the website user's timezone and then apply the adjustment automatically...

I like this, because it makes things simple.
May be during installation the server should tell "hey, the time is 22:54, is the TZ you want I show ?" and the admin ajusts +/- the TZ.
Pierre M.

Please don't post here problems, there is another area in the forum for this porpoise.

It's not a problem, it's a feature request.

As on how to do it... Well, I myself use the following principle for getting the right timezone for my scripts:

Convert current date/time to unix timestamp, add the timezone-difference and revert to date format. I don't know if that would slow things down, but at least you wouldn't be needing PHP 5.1 features...

My plan at this point is to make a CmsDateTime class that will basically have the same functions as the DateTime class in PHP5.1+.  In there, I will put in some functions to adjust the time based on a config variable that will probably just be a +/- # of hours.