Greetings!
This is the first of the biweekly Midgard Weekly Summaries. We have been
working with the template a little bit to make it as useful, and easy to
use, a publication as possible. I welcome all feedback and am especially
interested in how readable the text is when it gets to your screen. I have
been wrestling with a certain word processor from Redmond to get the text
to mail as well as possible but would love to hear of other alternatives.
Let me know what you think.
Contents:
Editor's Note
Welcome to a new MWS.
- More information, easier to read, biweekly
Migrating to 1.4 from earlier installations.
- Most of us will have to do it eventually, planning a roadmap from 1.2.x
to 1.4
Starting a site redesign.
-We are starting to think about what the site needs to do and how. What do
you think?
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Welcome to the new Midgard Weekly Summary.
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We are in the process of redesigning and refining the layout and publica
tion of the venerable MWS. Our goals in this are twofold. On one hand we
are trying to include as much useful information as possible in as logical
a structure as possible. To that end at the bottom of the page you will
find directions for subscribing to the Midgard list, a list of sites using
Midgard as well as links to documentation and downloads. At the same time
we are trying to make it as easy as possible to find out what is in the
news. Towards that goal we have tried to condense the top section of the
news and included a 'table of contents' with summaries of this week's
articles. We will also be adding a new [EMAIL PROTECTED] email
address in the coming weeks for feedback and contributions, until then
reply to the MWS on the Midgard mailing list.
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Migrating to new versions of Midgard.
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The coming months will bring a wealth of changes to Midgard and what we can
do with Midgard. While a lot of attention is paid to the complete rewrite
of Midgard which will come with version 2.0, Midgard 1.4 will bring a
number of substantial improvements and changes. Version 1.4 is entering its
final beta releases and should be released in the next few weeks. For those
who are new to Midgard or have been running through the various beta
versions of v1.4, the final release will be a relief. For a number of us,
who still run sites on 1.2.x, the transition to 1.4 should be reasonably
straight forward but it is not quite a plug and run proposition. Additions
and changes to the 1.4 database structure make it necessary to make a
number of changes to the Midgard database before 1.4 can be run, those
changes, not coincidentally, also form the basis for a number of the new
features in 1.4. They include, blob support, repligard, snippets, events,
some parameter changes and site groups.
Emile, programmer, sky diver, and all around good guy, has worked a great
deal with scripts which map current data installations and make changes
to the database based on where your data is and where it needs to go. It
would be advisable to back up your data before you send a script through
your database but the process is not terribly difficult. Emile did caution
that the Site Groups upgrade could cause problems if there are changes or
customization to the original admin files. This step in the upgrade comes
late in the process and Emile seems confident that by the time the final
release of v1.4 comes these problems will be addressed.
The database upgrade is the most problematic step in the process, from the
point of view of the application the upgrade should be quite straight
forward. Basically substituting the various libraries and apps will take
care of the upgrade, providing the new functionality provided by the new
database structure. A number of vendors have developed package management
strategies to ease application upgrades, in the past there have been Red
Hat RPMs released for Midgard as well as packages for SuSe. A few open
source programs, best found on Freshmeat, also attempt to translate
different flavors of packages if those of your choice are not available.
(No warranties or guarantees are implied by this reference) It is prudent
to back up a copy of your httpd.conf file, found as part of the Apache
installation, before trying upgrade the application portions your Midgard.
Keep in mind, especially if you have an older Apache installation that you
may have to monkey with your new httpd.conf to get all of the domains to
run again.
There will be more specific information about the upgrade as v1.4 nears the
final candidate. The Midgard list is also an excellent source of
information and quick answers to upgrade insecurity. At the same time
parts of the Midgard website have recently had the ability to create
enduser annotation added. The goal of annotation is one of community
history, as we each have observations to add there will be a place where
the experiences of the community can be recorded and retrieved.
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www.Midgard-Project.org site redesign
----------------------------
Over the coming weeks Ron Parker and I will be working on a redesign of the
main Midgard-project website. Ron has done a great deal to start
systematically defining project requirements for the new site's
functionality. The essential goal of the redesign is make access to
information easy and tailored to the various constituents served by the
site. Ron and Emile have done a great deal to add functions to Midgard
which encourage community participation in the development of information
resources through the use of page annotation. We also want to provide
resources for individuals and businesses, which use Midgard, to showcase
their projects and solutions. As always if you have suggestions or comments
we welcome all input, we hope to add a webmaster e-mail address in the near
future.
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About Midgard
Midgard 1.4 is a content publishing tool for small and medium sized sites.
It is based on Apache, MySQL and PHP. The application and its documentation
are licensed GPL, LGPL and GFDL. This licensing strategy guarantees that
developers, webmasters, ISPs, and business managers are investing in a
strategy where they're free to share solutions and participate in the
application design.
-> http://www.midgard-project.org
----------------------------
About MWS
The Midgard Weekly Summary is a bi-weekly newsletter
for the Midgard user and developer community,
as well as the extended web community.
If you would like to release it or publish it,
please contact Ken Pooley
([EMAIL PROTECTED]).
Previous issues of Midgard Weekly Summary can
be found archived at the Midgard web site.
-> http://www.midgard-project.org/topic/169.html
Midgard mailing list.
The Midgard mailing list is one of the most vital and
visible aspects of the Midgard Community. Questions
get answered, suggestions debated and work gets done.
E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----------------------------
Places to see Midgard in Action:
http://www.midgard-project.org
http://www.hklc.com
http://www.5fthigh.com/
http://www.linuxde.org/
http://www.hec.nl/
http://www.stonejobs.com/
-More to come
============================
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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