Nov-19, PDF, template import, message processing, and more
YACS already supported the download of any article into either MS-Word, or into your Palm-OS powered handhelp device, or into your printer. With this release we have added the ability to transform any article into a downloadable PDF file. We are aiming to provide a better support of images and tables with this format than with others. This work is based on the free FPDF library, that has been included into YACS distribution. The Acrobat Reader has been made available by Adobe on many platforms.
With this release we also have tried to improve the management of skins. First of all, reference skins have been made customizable. Were you dreaming of reusing the boxesandarrows template, but wanting to add an image and a slogan? Now you can do that from the configuration panel for skins, modifications of PHP files are not necessary anymore. Secondly, we have added a small importing script that is able to parse a regular Blogger template, and to make a YACS skin out of it. Expect to see various examples popping up at our site soon. Last but not lest, we have implemented the
For corporate developers, and for those who want to use YACS as a development platform, we have added some hooks to the message processing. To catch every message submitted to the server through e-mail, you just have to drop a PHP script, and to handle
With this release we also have tried to improve the management of skins. First of all, reference skins have been made customizable. Were you dreaming of reusing the boxesandarrows template, but wanting to add an image and a slogan? Now you can do that from the configuration panel for skins, modifications of PHP files are not necessary anymore. Secondly, we have added a small importing script that is able to parse a regular Blogger template, and to make a YACS skin out of it. Expect to see various examples popping up at our site soon. Last but not lest, we have implemented the
blogger.getTemplate and blogger.setTemplate XML-RPC calls. This means that YACS should be able to better support your particular templates in tools such as w.bloggar.For corporate developers, and for those who want to use YACS as a development platform, we have added some hooks to the message processing. To catch every message submitted to the server through e-mail, you just have to drop a PHP script, and to handle
$context['mail_body'] and $context['mail_headers']. Quite easy isn't it? Well, I suppose I should provide some example to further convince you...127 files have been updated or added to the system from the previous release.
Each article can now be downloaded as a PDF file, to be read or printed later on by Acrobat Reader. The underlying FPDF library has been included in the YACS distribution, and shared/pdf.php has been added to convert some HTML to PDF. A wrapping script articles/fetch_as_pdf.php has been added as well. The command to download a page as PDF has been made available to any surfer at articles/view.php.
Files and images that are uploaded directly -- without the creation of an article -- can now be posted into the section/blog of your choice. Previously they were always sent to the default section. See files/edit.php and images/edit.php.
Articles can now be explicitly reviewed by associates. Check the related command in the menu bar created by articles/view.php, and the implementation in articles/edit.php. From the review queue, list oldest articles, read them, and mark them has being reviewed.
User profiles now display most recent comments. See users/view.php.
The main index of articles to be reviewed, at articles/review.php, has been enhanced to better take into account a quite large number of pages.
In order to foster YACS adoption we have added an importing utility that is able to make a skin out of a regular Blogger template. Actually, the library that does everything is skins/import.php. At least services/blog.php and skins/upload.php use the library. The first one is triggered on XML-RPC request, while the second is a form asked for by any associate.
Also, to behave like existing blogs, every section now has a field to store a template submitted through XML-RPC. On
The configuration panel for skins now asks for a slogan, for a site image and for an offset to GMT. See skins/configure.php. Also, reference skins provided with YACS have been updated to take these new parameters into account. This means you can customize one of the reference skin without creating a separate skin.
A script has been provided to purge most common scripts that have been obsoleted. This should run only once during the update process.
In the table for locations separate fields have been created for the latitude and the longitude. This will enable easier computation of point distances in various scripts. See locations/locations.php.
We are introducing our own library to handle HTTP, because of the perspective of processing HTTPS requests, and to handle corporate proxies if necessary. This will be put in links/link.php. Also, a lot of calls to
A hooking capability has been added to the processing of received messages. This means that you can trigger the code of your choice on message reception.
See agents/message.php and agents/configure.php for more information on this exciting extension to YACS.
The prefix used to designate tables is now a configuration parameter. Also, a utility function
It may happen that your PHP server warns that it does not support some function. To prevent unsollicited and polluting messages to pop up everywhere we have added the character '
The test script now features an automatic counter to test session capabilities. See control/test.php.
The 'missing server name in link' symptom has been fixed into several scripts, including query.php and some feeding scripts.
Bug fixed into sections/layout_sections_as_boxesandarrows.php.
Bug fixed into some pattern matching string.
Each article can now be downloaded as a PDF file, to be read or printed later on by Acrobat Reader. The underlying FPDF library has been included in the YACS distribution, and shared/pdf.php has been added to convert some HTML to PDF. A wrapping script articles/fetch_as_pdf.php has been added as well. The command to download a page as PDF has been made available to any surfer at articles/view.php. Files and images that are uploaded directly -- without the creation of an article -- can now be posted into the section/blog of your choice. Previously they were always sent to the default section. See files/edit.php and images/edit.php. Articles can now be explicitly reviewed by associates. Check the related command in the menu bar created by articles/view.php, and the implementation in articles/edit.php. From the review queue, list oldest articles, read them, and mark them has being reviewed. User profiles now display most recent comments. See users/view.php. The main index of articles to be reviewed, at articles/review.php, has been enhanced to better take into account a quite large number of pages. In order to foster YACS adoption we have added an importing utility that is able to make a skin out of a regular Blogger template. Actually, the library that does everything is skins/import.php. At least services/blog.php and skins/upload.php use the library. The first one is triggered on XML-RPC request, while the second is a form asked for by any associate. Also, to behave like existing blogs, every section now has a field to store a template submitted through XML-RPC. On Sections::put_template(), not only the template is saved into the database. A regular skin is also imported from it. See sections/sections/php. Moreover, services/blog.php now implements blogger.getTemplate and blogger.setTemplate. The configuration panel for skins now asks for a slogan, for a site image and for an offset to GMT. See skins/configure.php. Also, reference skins provided with YACS have been updated to take these new parameters into account. This means you can customize one of the reference skin without creating a separate skin. A script has been provided to purge most common scripts that have been obsoleted. This should run only once during the update process. In the table for locations separate fields have been created for the latitude and the longitude. This will enable easier computation of point distances in various scripts. See locations/locations.php. We are introducing our own library to handle HTTP, because of the perspective of processing HTTPS requests, and to handle corporate proxies if necessary. This will be put in links/link.php. Also, a lot of calls to file_get_contents() have been replaced with Link::fetch(), like in articles/edit.php A hooking capability has been added to the processing of received messages. This means that you can trigger the code of your choice on message reception.
See agents/message.php and agents/configure.php for more information on this exciting extension to YACS. The prefix used to designate tables is now a configuration parameter. Also, a utility function table_name() has been added to shared/global.php to include this prefix when necessary. This will enable several instances of YACS to coexist in the same database if required. In the future we will probably use this to add some demonstration pages to this site, and to avoid people the burden of downloading YACS to discover features reserved to associates. Every bright future is build on small things, isn't it? It may happen that your PHP server warns that it does not support some function. To prevent unsollicited and polluting messages to pop up everywhere we have added the character '@' before every call to ini_set(), set_time_limit(). Suggested by Lio The test script now features an automatic counter to test session capabilities. See control/test.php. The 'missing server name in link' symptom has been fixed into several scripts, including query.php and some feeding scripts. Bug fixed into sections/layout_sections_as_boxesandarrows.php. Bug fixed into some pattern matching string.Rate this page
Posted by Bernard on Nov. 22 2004, (popular)
