Many new things in Elxis CMS just some days before the Christmas holidays and the new years eve. First of all a new updated version of Elxis CMS. Elxis 2008.1 rev2245 contains some bug fixes but also some new features. You can now set the status of an eblog article to published or unpublished and you can also set to generate RSS feeds from eBlog items! You can set to display sites screenshots in component weblinks when you create links to weblinks categories. Added support for Hebrew language in SEO PRO by default. Most fixes are for better postgresql/oracle compatibility. Download the new Elxis 2008.1. We also published a patch to update to the latest version, and we updated the Elxis 2008.0 to 2008.1 automatic updater script.

We also re-built the Elxis Downloads Centre (EDC). EDC has a new template (thanks to Ivan Trebjesanin), new software runs the site and we have a new download manager (from File Server to IOS Downloads) that supports more features than the previous one and is more modern and SEO friendlier. We believe that the new EDC web site is easier to navigate and to find the software people need. We hope you like it!

Last but not least, a new powerful component was released. IOS Downloads is a new downloads manager for Elxis CMS created by Ioannis Sannos (Is Open Source). You can see a list of IOS Downloads features on the EDC web site. You can download the component as well as 4 modules for it for free, from the EDC web site.

We would also like to thank Spiros Panagiotakopoulos for his Christmas logos on the forum.

We need volunteers to translate the new IOS Downloads component in more languages. IOS Downloads is a powerful downloads manager for Elxis CMS created by Is Open Source that will be released for free in a few days. The component will be the heart of the new Elxis Downloads Centre web site but will be also available to download and use it in your own sites.

Translation guidelines
Download the original English language package:
IOS Downloads english language pack
Unzip it locally.
Edit the 2 included language files with a text editor that support UTF-8 such as PsPad.
Re-name it based on the translated language (i.e. italian.php, german.php, etc).
Zip it and send it via e-mail to datahell [at] elxis [dot] org.
The component is already translated in Greek language.

You asked for it, you got it!
By popular demand, Elxis will soon acquire a powerful component for handling file downloads. Downloads component is a download manager equipped with all the features you might need. Besides the main purpose of the component, which is serving download files, it also provides an advanced interface for showing file details. The component supports: unlimited categories and sub-categories, multilingual descriptions and titles for categories and files (IOS dialects system), search, selective access to downloads, statistics, tags, files commentary, featured, listings, SEO PRO URLs, new listing submissions from the Elxis front-end, integration with IOS Newsletter component, integration with Sitemap component, and a bag of goodies. The component is a free offer by Is Open Source to the Elxis community and is estimated to be released mid-December 2008.

There are various types of extensions in Elxis CMS, each one providing certain functionality. The heart of the application is the components. In Elxis on each click you do, whatever if you are on the site front-end or back-end area, one, and only one, component is being loaded. This component will process the visitor request and display the html output. Each component has a specific functionality. It can be charged for a contact form generation and process (contact), for displaying site links (weblinks), for displaying sections, categories and articles (content), for polls (poll) and more. Yiou can extend Elxis features by installing or developing new components. From a developer point of view, a component is nothing more than a PHP file (actually more than one) that is being automatically included by Elxis when it is requested. Which component will be included each time is controlled by the value of the PHP global variable $option. You can see the value of the $option variable by watching the Elxis URLs (disable SEO PRO for a while).

http://www.mysite.com/index.php?option=com_weblinks

At the example above component weblinks is being requested. Elxis will automatically include this file:
components/com_weblinks/weblinks.php

If $option has not been set then Elxis will load the site front-page  (component frontpage).

Developing components for Elxis in comparisson to developing autonomous applications that have the same functionallity has many advantages the most important of which is that Elxis provide us with a powerful framework ready to be used. So we can focus on the application itself and do not care about issues such as connecting to a database, handling users, external PHP classes, etc. A detailed how-to guide for Elxis component development published recently by Is Open Source. You can download this guide for free from the Elxis downloads center. You will also find many tech related posts on the Elxis forums while you can also study the Elxis source code online at code.elxis.org. If you have any questions Elxis forums and Elxis Live are open 24 hours a day!

Kostas Stathopoulos, also known at the Elxis forums as ks-net, is a man with low profile that lets his work speak instead of him. He is an experienced web designer, passioned supporter of open source and owner of the ks-net.gr web site and the homonym company.

Determined to support and promote open source software and especially Elxis, Kostas Stathopoulos has released a number of templates for Elxis CMS under the GNU/GPL license and seems determined to continue amazing us with new designs in the near future.

Some of the ks-net templates for Elxis

You can download for free Kostas templates from the Elxis Downloads Center or from the web site that he has created and maintain for this purpose, elxis.ks-net.gr. For those of you that look for professional solutions and designs you may visit his company web site ks-net.gr.

Welcome to Magnet, the official Elxis blog!

Magnet is an online magazine that will bring you news from all around Elxis world. New software releases, developers presentations, news from third party companies, software or template reviews, elxis tips, seo tips, and more.

We hope you will like this new section at elxis.org web site.

Regards,
Elxis Team