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Testing out YACS - Google sitemap + skins and files.
Hi, is there any plans for google sitemap support , I find it helps on one of my sites greatly.
Also, I noticed that YACS uses skins, but also some of the html is generated in-code, ie I cant have 100% control. I dont think this would be an problem, just wondered why this approach (I use a CMS that uses smarty and all html output is 100% changeable) ?
Many CMS's I see run off index.php mostly and fire modules and functionality off from querystrings, YACS seems to use many different files - again I am just wondering why this approach ?
Also, I noticed that YACS uses skins, but also some of the html is generated in-code, ie I cant have 100% control. I dont think this would be an problem, just wondered why this approach (I use a CMS that uses smarty and all html output is 100% changeable) ?
Many CMS's I see run off index.php mostly and fire modules and functionality off from querystrings, YACS seems to use many different files - again I am just wondering why this approach ?
Bernard from nearby-an-airport Associate, 7053 posts |
NickR: YACS has a script to generate a Google sitemap. From within Google forms, use http://yourserver/yacs/sitemap.php This will feed Google with many links, to top sections, to top writers, etc. The generation of XHTML tags is limited to a very small number of script. The most important one is skins/skin_skeleton.php, which acts as a library. You can overlay any function of this library in your own skin, by extending the file skin.php. For example, if you are not happy with the code generated by the function build_list(), just write your own. This means you can change almost all HTML you want.Please consider that most XHTML generated at the moment is quite "pure", and the actual rendering is made through CSS. We highly suggest you to look at style sheets provided in the archive before to drop some PHP. YACS supports a clean adressing scheme by which most scripts can be invoked directly. The login page is at http://server/yacs/users/login.php, the front page at .../index.php, the article 123 can be viewed at .../articles/view.php/123 and modified at .../articles/edit.php/123, etc. Then these scripts invoke a couple of libraries, such as shared/global.php.Other CMS support modules through complex inclusion mechanisms. YACS is more straightforward, since a module is a sub-directory, and there your PHP scripts can do what they want. YACS itself can be extended, through hooks (i.e., external code called at well-defined places), overlays (i.e., add structured data to articles), and, soon, through behaviors (i.e., to make sections a bit more clever). The bottom line is that YACS is bringing fresh air. Our intent is not to replicate what other are doing. Instead, we are creating reference code to build a very strong product out of PHP and MySQL. Thank you very much for your interest in YACS. Please do not hesitate to share your experience, this is the kind of information that help us to move forward. |
NickR from West Yorkshire, UK 345 posts |
Bernard: Hi, Thanks for you answer. I am a asp.net developer, been playing with PHP recently. My webserver is linux/apache/php/mysql (I personally wont pay for what can be found for free :D ). Love the low memory footprint YACS has. I noticed you dont use any data access library or templating system. The code looks nice, good use of classes and neat security code. I was asking about why you took the approach to using seperate action files, eg login, view, edit etc, as I've seen numerous CMS's that all go through one central index.php file - I think they try and follow the MVC coding model - something I don't follow myself (I stick to seperate data access, [logic and data manipulation] and the html generation. Finally, I noticed you are using a simple but neat pretty approach to SEF urls. One further enhancement would be to suppress the ".php" file extension so that /comments/edit.php/5733 becomes (edit is the same file as edit.php): /comments/edit/5733 |
| Bernard from nearby-an-airport Associate, 7053 posts |
NickR : Thank you for the positive feed-back. We are attempting to consolidate a number of best practices in YACS, and are always happy to learn new efficient ways to do things. YACS has more than 345 reference scripts, but the straightforward organisation of files helps a lot during development and troubleshooting. Despite good performance levels, the footprint will be improved in next version, since response time is a very hot topic for me. You are insisting on security, and you are right. Hopefully we have received precious recommendations from friendly experts some months ago... The way YACS handles URLs works well in most cases, and requires no interaction with the web engine. To remove the .php extension, you would have to provide rewriting rules to Apache (maybe through a customised .htaccess), and add a configuration parameter to YACS to let it know about it. Not a big deal, in my opinion... If you provide the taylored .htaccess file, I will take care of the new configuration parameter. This is a fair deal, right? |
| Bernard from nearby-an-airport Associate, 7053 posts |
NickR : One additional word on MVC. Actually I learnt MVC at school about 20 years ago, but these times are over! At the moment the focus is on object programming and eXtreme Programming, and both are fun. Yeah! 
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| NickR from West Yorkshire, UK 345 posts |
" NickR : Thank you for the positive feed-back. We are attempting to consolidate a number of best practices in YACS, and are always happy to learn new efficient ways to do things. YACS has more than 345 reference scripts, but the straightforward organisation of files helps a lot during development and troubleshooting. " I've tried Drupal, but it performed badly with MYSQL on our server for unknown reason. I tried Joomla, its OK, but the code seems older than my Dad. My friend has 2 sites running Joomla on our server. I then tried Xaraya. Very nice code design, amazing flexibility (lots of hooks similar to YACS) but too much of a framework for me to get a working site, maybe one day when I get better with php and more time I will look again. I tried CMS Made Simple. I really like this and use it for my wifes business website. It is very good for plain pages, OK for news, galleries, but poor for blogs. So I looked at blogs and found Serendipity to be the best option. Great blogging, and OK photo gallery and even simple static page support, but it runs very slow on our server (not as bad as drupal). So I finally got round to trying YACS. So far it meets ALL my needs. Good blog, ability to build photo galleries and have simple pages. Good search and flexible category system. " Despite good performance levels, the footprint will be improved in next version, since response time is a very hot topic for me. You are insisting on security, and you are right. Hopefully we have received precious recommendations from friendly experts some months ago... " Sounds good, what are the plans for the next version ? " The way YACS handles URLs works well in most cases, and requires no interaction with the web engine. To remove the .php extension, you would have to provide rewriting rules to Apache (maybe through a customised .htaccess), and add a configuration parameter to YACS to let it know about it. Not a big deal, in my opinion... If you provide the taylored .htaccess file, I will take care of the new configuration parameter. This is a fair deal, right? " I've not written a .htaccess file before, but I will try :D, pretty sure google will help me  " NickR : One additional word on MVC. Actually I learnt MVC at school about 20 years ago, but these times are over! At the moment the focus is on object programming and eXtreme Programming, and both are fun. Yeah! MVC - I simply dont understand why it is so highly rated. The good things about MVC (for web programming outside of java) are the same for Object Oriented or functional programming, seperate your data/business logic from your display logic. Also MVC model does not make for good portable/modular code between different websites you code, you have to stick to a strict framework of the same MVC rules - well thats how I see MVC anyhow. I will have a look at the extremeprogramming site, thanks. Nick. |
| Tof from Grenoble-Chambery 554 posts |
NickR : very very interesting post, thank you Nick. and welcome to the yacs world ! Tof |
| Bernard from nearby-an-airport Associate, 7053 posts |
NickR : Plans for the next versions are under preparation, and a road map will be released soon. Our goal, still, is to integrate most appealing web technologies over time, and to introduce these smoothly to all kinds of collaborative organisations. |
