Documentation Wiki

Google Summer of Code Projects

The PostNuke Team has identified a number of areas in which we think we can benefit from the Google Summer of Code programme. These are fairly large projects, all of which will contribute immensely to the PostNuke feature set and our aims of providing a solid Application Framework on which third party developers can build. This page is under development, and following acceptance into the GSoC? programme full specifications for each project will be published. In the meantime, the projects we have identified are:

Revisions Control

Difficulty: medium
Required experience: PHP, MySQL
PDF Specification∞
PostNuke needs a developer to take on the task of implementing a revisions control system in the core. It should be possible to use the revisions control system to log all changes to a content item and view any previous version on demand. It should also be possible to revert to a previous version of that item as with any other standard revision control system. PostNuke already includes DBUtil in its object library for interaction with a database and object-logging, which records changes to items updated through DBUtil. Extending this process and adding a GUI with administrative functions would be the primary aim of this project, along with its implementation through all core modules.

Multi Language Content

Difficulty: easy
Required experience: PHP, MySQL, Language structure
PDF Specification∞
Although PostNuke supports multi-language content in some core modules, there is no API provided by the framework for third party developers to implement mutli language content in their work. The aim of this project would be to implement that API, associating all translations of a particular content item together and providing a consistent translations interface. Additionally a queue of items and translation task assignment for large websites would be useful for sites with a translations team. Particular attention would need to be paid to the front end implementation of this system, to ensure ease of use and simple integration with other modules. Anyone taking on this project would need to coordinate with the revisions control project developer.

Extension and Modification of Categories System

Difficulty: medium
Required experience: PHP
PDF Specification∞
The current categories system uses path based categories resolution, useful for keeping semantic reasoning but not the most efficient solution. This project would involve changing the categories system to use a nested set algorithm, updating the code base as necessary. An additional requirement would be an improvement of the current categories administration interface, which currently has usability issues and could be improved with an Ajax interface (with proper fallback).

Improved search engine capabilities

Difficulty: hard
Required experience: PHP, MySQL
PDF Specification∞
In order to be able to extend the search module's abilities this project aims on developing a powerful search engine. It should be possible to perform unsharp searches finding also terms being similar to the search term. Another important feature is supporting semantic queries. An easy example is finding all content of a particular person. This can be enhanced for several directions, e.g. groups, relations, and so on. The third important function is indexing office and pdf documents for providing extended search capabilities.

Semantic-Driven Content Management

Difficulty: hard
Required experience: PHP, XML, XSL
PDF Specification∞
As the internet evolves new clients are appearing continuously. Separating form and function becomes more important than ever - also in the static content parts a website may produce. PostNuke should become able to serve appropriate content without having to adapt templates for each type of user agent. Therefore this projects is about creating a new approach of storing and managing information. An editor should only define the structural/semantical information of his article which is being stored in XML for example. In addition a few "channels" are selected (which can be web, mobile, office aso) defining how the final rendering will happen and look like. One possibillity for the technical realisation is XSL processing converting XML content to other file types as XHTML, PDF or XLS. XSL is very interesting and powerful, because for example it allows a clean and reliable PDF generation.

Usability & Accessability Overhaul

Difficulty: medium
Required experience: xHTML, CSS, PHP, Usability, Accessability
PDF Specification∞
Usability is one of the future hot topics. Now that we have a wide range of applications that do almost everything we can imagine it is the next task of software development to make the programmes do what we want them to do as easy as possible. There are organisations working on specifications and standards like the WAI∞ or openusability.org∞.

Postnuke was one of the earliest adopters of webstandards. It is one of the first webapplication frameworks to remove all layout tables and support correct tagging of abbreviations aso. With the new .8 core much of these ideas have consolidated. But indeed there is much to be done in support of user interaction.

This project could include a complete evaluation of the core and some central modules, the creation of UI guidelines and the implementation of examples: templates, css classes, icons and whatever helps developers to have a consistent and easy to use user interface.
More about the Usability Project