The Article module (often confused with the less-robust Articles module) is a robust XOOPS module for article management for news, blogs and magazine style sites. It has fine permissions and workflow control as well as robust capabilities, blocks, and such. This module is a must have for managing news, blogs, and other time-based content.

Latest Release: 2.00-RC (requires 2.3.x) | 1.00 Final (for 2.0.x)

It is ideal for article or knowledge management, meanwhile it is capable to serve as a comprehensive news module or blog system simply by setting corresponding preferences. Some of the features:

• Categories - multi-level, multi-select for Entries
• Topics - per Category, expiration
• Trackbacks/Pings
• Save as Draft
• Custom templates (see readme.template.txt)
• Editor/Author role separation
• Customizable Edit form
• Comments, Notifications
• Extensive permission and workflow control
• Cloneable/Custom Directory

Installation

New Install

Install and setup per normal instructions. If you want to clone (or just change the directory name), then follow those instructions below before installation.

Upgrade

If upgrading, follow the included notes in the readme.

Configuration

Of course, do the normal configurations of permissions, templates and language files. But here are some specific configurations available to this module.

Cloning/Change Directory Name

Cloning is easy. Every module should be this easy. Just follow the instructions in the readme.clone.txt file before installing. If upgrading, you'll want to upgrade first, then you'll have to clone the module, install the the cloned module, then move all the content from the old module to the new module, and then delete the original.

Custom Templates

I haven't yet played with these, but you can apply them similar to most blogging tools. Follow the instructions in the readme.template.txt file.

Edit Mode

This module supports several definable editing modes. See the readme.editmode.txt for details on how to use that. This is for more advanced users and currently requires changing PHP code.

Notes, etc.

This module is an RC (release candidate) so it's expected to be a little rough around the edges. If you wanted solid functionality, then you're likely using the 1.00 release. Overall this RC is great and works very well (with a few errors found here and there). I found it pretty easy to import some data from an old Moveable Type system into this module (mySQL scripts). I also found some HTML in the code — a bad idea IMHO and against the concept of separation of logic and content layers.

Enhancement Requests/Defects

Delete Category Fails

The category delete function fails. To fix, uncomment line 44 of class/category.php.

Block Update Fails

There is a problem in the xoops_version.php file when trying to change the Title Length in the Recent News block. Other options seem to be okay, but not that one. Haven't debugged yet.

Text Options

This is something that needs to be easy in XOOPS, what should the defaults be for a submission for text options (bbcode, smileys, html, line breaks, etc.). I have to fix this in the code to the defaults my clients like (or at least what I've convinced them they should like).

Admin Trackback is Blank Page

cp.trackback.ping produces error - See this posting to fix an elsei f statement in article 2.00RC.

Article Submit is Blank Page

If you submit an article with multiple categories, you'll get a blank page (with errors on, you'll get an error in functions.parse.php). Deselect multiple categories, and you'll be fine (can remove the multi-category select using Edit Mode). The insert seems to work, but for some reason, a blank page is returned unless you turn on errors and then you see/get them.

Display Name vs Login Name vs Real Name

I want to display users the Display Name (name), but be able to assign blogs using their real name (found in the profile). This is a security thing to obfuscate the login from the rest of the display data. I had to manually modify the code to do this. Not unusual for most modules, I've found, but should be selectable IMHO.

Index Page Title Rewriting

Shouldn't this module rewrite the page title somehow? Yes, it should. It does on the individual categories, but doesn't on its main index and other pages. I like a different order so I have to run code to change it - I wish this was more standardized and configurable in XOOPS. Yet it can be changed with PHP calls in the Smarty Templates.

Forum Selection

I'd like to have a category be able to override the Forum selection for the module and the Article to override both of those.

Summaries Should Allow HTML

All Summaries should allow HTML, especially for displaying. This includes Categories, Articles and Topics. There really is no reason it shouldn't. Not to mention that XOOPS should also have a function that allows it to go through an auto-generated summary of an HTML content field and close up any left-over open tags and only count the actual display characters. It appears that this auto-generated summary function at least strips the HTML before generating the content. Good for it!

To allow the summaries to use HTML, I changed the getVar calls for cat_description to use "n" (for none) in files: view.category.php, and likely in cp.article.php, cp.trackback.php, view.directory.php, view.topics.php.

XOOPS Forms

Have I mentioned that I'm not a fan of XOOPS forms — mainly because of lack of formatting and presentation capability? Embedding forms into templates isn't easy yet, and there is too much left to leaving in the code. Realistically, we need a good smarty fix to this, but until that, we need to pass form data and allow presentation to be done in the presentation layer. Okay, enough on that rant.

Hard-Coded Redirects Breaks URL Rewriting

The author page (view.author.php) uses a hard redirect, so when using xoRewriteModule, you have to edit this page manually to work correctly. Have I mentioned that I don't like hard-coded redirects?