Hippo CTO blog - Arjé Cahn

2010: the year the E-Reader will become the content managers’ favorite productivity tool

2009-12-31T11:43:41Z

Flipping through my usability notes, I noticed one of our Hippo CMS users mentioned the following about proof-reading:

“There is no printing facility for content in Hippo CMS so everything has to be done on screen. Even if we could print, we can only see a single field, not the whole article, so it's a bit pointless trying to proofread this way. This leads to long periods of time staring at a screen. It's also very difficult to spot typos on screen, leading to potential loss of quality in copy.”

Exactly. Often enough, also I spot typing errors only after having printed out my text (like this blog post), and walking through it again while commuting on the train. The letters start to dance before my eyes when I’m behind a monitor for too long. Sometimes it helps a lot to just put your text aside, do something else for a while, and then return to it on a quiet moment to walk through what you’ve written. So, why not implement a printing functionality in Hippo CMS, to allow authors to take their text with them? Everybody got so used to printing out Word documents anyway, that it baffles me that this idea had never appeared to me before.

So I put the print function on our roadmap.

But somehow, it feels wrong. What happened to the paperless office? It’s almost 2010 (it’s the 31st of December, 11:45 in the morning, as I write this), Kopenhagen happened only a few weeks ago, I’ve been driving the most economical car on earth for years, and I use the printer as little as possible. I don’t want to have a tree cut down for me to be able to proof-read my blog post!

Enter the e-reader. 2009 was the year of the e-reader. A number of those devices already boost a keyboard and the possibility to add annotations to texts, to store them and synchronize them with your PC. And every modern writer nowadays carries an e-reader to read their books anyway, right?

So here’s the thought: let’s make a tool that allows you, after a long day of writing, to take all the texts you’ve worked on with you on your e-reader. You grab your reader again when you sit on the train, where you walk through all passages for typos and make annotations. The following day, you import all those changes back into Hippo, or maybe you’ve already sent them to the content repository over wireless email.

I don’t know whether the latest generation of e-readers are already open enough to share annotations with a content management system. Maybe we’ll have to wait for that to happen in 2010. But at least I found a very good excuse to rush downtown and treat myself with another gadget to go try it out!

Work in progress: Vijay's Easy Forms Plugin

2009-12-04T09:45:27Z

via vimeo.com

Posted via web from Arje's posterous

Observations from a Mega CMS project: content migration at the Dutch government @geebee

2009-12-02T13:04:54Z

via slideshare.net

Posted via web from Arje's posterous

#hippo screenshots - Google Analytics / Hippo CMS 7.2 integration by @superhick

2009-12-02T12:52:42Z

via machak.com

Posted via web from Arje's posterous

#hippo screenshots @vijaykiran Forms support for Hippo CMS !

2009-11-30T12:17:13Z

Now onto adding more field types and other whizzbang fields and stuff.

via vijaykiran.com

Posted via web from Arje's posterous

#hippo screenshots: Jasha's YouTube video player

2009-11-30T12:15:30Z

via flickr.com

Posted via web from Arje's posterous

#hippo screenshots: Jasha's Robots.txt editor

2009-11-30T12:14:25Z

via flickr.com

Posted via web from Arje's posterous

A #Hippo screenshot competition: first contribution

2009-11-26T14:22:23Z

By Goran. Nice!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Arje's posterous

Don't think we've left our version 6 users out in the blind: Hippo CMS v6.05.08 released #hippo

2009-11-25T16:39:51Z

Good to see that Jasha is still cranking out releases! :)

---------oOo----------

Hippo is proud to announce the latest release of Hippo CMS 6. This
release contains improvements and several bug fixes.

Some highlights of this release:
* References view loads faster
* new HTML Cleaner version
* fixes in Xinha plugins for MSIE

For a full list of changes see the release notes:
Hippo CMS v6.05.08 Release notes [1]

For the details for upgrading see:
Hippo CMS v6.05.07 to v6.05.08 upgrade path [2]

The source code is available under the Apache Source License 2.0 from
our public SVN repository:
http://svn.hippocms.org/repos/hippo/hippo-cms/tags/Release-CMS-v6_05_08/

Kudos to all who helped to make the Hippo CMS 6 even better!

The Hippo CMS 6 development team

[1] http://wiki.onehippo.com/display/CMS/Hippo+CMS+v6.05.08+Release+notes
[2] http://wiki.onehippo.com/display/CMS/Hippo+CMS+v6.05.07+to+v6.05.08+upgrade+path

Posted via email from Arje's posterous

A #Hippo screenshot competition

2009-11-25T15:34:53Z

Alright. Let's see if I can initiate a mini-meme here.
I'm working my way through our mailinglist archives, and once again
I'm struck by the inspiring ideas folks on the list have. Sometimes
it's something they need for a website, sometimes a CMS plugin - and
they need a bit of help from the list. Almost without exception, that
person asks a question, gets an answer, and then leaves the list
without showing us the final result. That's sooo frustrating because
we'd love to see the cool stuff you make with Hippo!! :)

Let me give you an example. This was a question from a couple of weeks
ago (my apologies for abusing your post, Goran!):

"The plugin should have 3 fields. First 2 fields should be text fields
and user would enter numbers in those fields. Third field should be a
list of radio buttons with operations: "+", "-", "*" and "/". This, of
course, is not a plugin that I am trying to create, but a
simplification of the real problem I'm trying to solve."
http://n2.nabble.com/Best-practice-for-relatively-simple-plugin-tp4012582ef2274273.html

Now I'm all curious! What is that thing he's building??

I can understand not everyone has the time nor the ability to show off
their code and share it with the rest of the world. But I'd be very
interested in seeing at least a little screenshot of that single
plugin to see what it does :)

So here's my challenge.

When you've built something with Hippo and you don't mind sharing it
with the world - make a screenshot, post it somewhere on the web
(Flickr, Facebook, blog, anywhere), and Tweet me the URL of the image
(@arjecahn #hippo).

I'll collect those screenshots and put them in a future blogpost.
Looking forward to it :)

Posted via email from Arje's posterous

Crosspost Tweets, Photo's and blogpost by using email: giving www.posterous.com a spin

2009-11-19T12:47:00Z

Posted via email from Arje's posterous

ApacheCon US 09 Evening Meet-ups - Free for all

2009-10-26T13:01:18Z

Monday 2nd, Tuesday 3rd and Thursday 5th of November
Oakland, CA
Content Tech, Hadoop, Lucene, NoSql, OSGi/Felix, SocialAndWidgets, Subversion, Tomcat, Traffic Server Podling, WebCrawlers, WebServices

Join us for a third year of Apache Meetups! Users, committers, managers and developers will come together on the evenings of Monday 2nd, Tuesday 3rd, Thursday 5th of November .

Registration is free of charge, and everyone is invited. Register on the meetup wiki pages:

Monday 2nd (BarCamp Apache during the day)

20:00 - 22:00 NoSqlMeetup Room 1&2
20:00 - 22:00 Tomcat Room 6

Tuesday 3rd (BarCamp Apache during the day)

20:00 - 22:00 Lucene Room 1&2
20:00 - 22:00 OSGi/Felix Room 3
20:00 - 22:00 Traffic Server Podling Room 4

Thursday 5th

20:00 - 22:00 Content Tech 1&2
20:00 - 22:00 Web Services 3
20:00 - 22:00 SocialAndWidgetsMeetup
20:00 - 22:00 Web Crawlers Room 5
20:00 - 22:00 Hadoop Room 6
20:00 - 22:00 Subversion Room 7

If you're interested in any of these popular open source projects, come join us for an evening of presentations and discussion with the creators and committers working on the projects themselves.

Hosted by and located at the ApacheCon, these five special community meetings are taking taking place on the days before the ApacheCon conference in Amsterdam. Entrance is FREE for everyone, so sign up quick!

Location
Marriott Oakland City Center
1001 Broadway | Oakland, CA 94607 | +1 510 451-4000

What is a Meetup?

A MeetUp has a number of key attributes:

Focused on a single Apache project
Organized by the members of the project community itself
Open agenda, anyone can propose a talk, covering a wide range of subjects related to the core project
An opportunity for users, interested people and committers to get together

MeetUps generally happen during the evening, and, most importantly, are supposed to be fun (as well as useful).

ApacheCon is the official conference of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), drawing ASF Members, innovators, developers, vendors, and users to experience the future of Open Source development. Drawing internationally-renowned thought-leaders, contributors, influencers, and organizations in the Open Source community, ApacheCon offers insight into the culture and community that develops and shepherds industry-leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server - the world's most popular Web server software for ten years running.

About ApacheCon US 2009

These special Apache Meetups are organized as free side events next to their bigger sister conference, the ApacheCon US 2009.

ApacheCon is the official user conference, trainings, and expo of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). Celebrating its landmark 10th Anniversary, ApacheCon US takes place November 2 - 6 at the Marriott Oakland City Center, California.

The global conference series gives attendees a 360-degree view into the highly lauded community that develops and shepherds industry-leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server - the world's most popular Web server software. ApacheCon offers participants the opportunity to deepen their understanding of Open Source methodologies and further advance their participation with like-minded peers in a relaxed, community-focused environment. More than 500 users, developers, and thought leaders are expected to attend.

With engaging keynote addresses, technical presentations, informal networking, Birds-of-a-Feather discussions, and entertaining social events, ApacheCon US 2009 gives participants the opportunity to choose from more than 60 sessions at the beginner, intermediate, and expert level. From mission-critical implementations to groundbreaking technologies, incubating projects, and collaborative development, ApacheCon presenters and faculty are passionate about some of the hottest issues at the heart of the industry.

Hippo Forge Friday: October 30

2009-10-22T09:08:02Z

Get your hands dirty with Hippo, the open source Java CMS and Portal framework that everybody talks about. Join us for this free Hippo Forge Friday plugfest! We've scheduled an afternoon of free flow Hippo coding on Friday, October 30 in our offices in Amsterdam and San Francisco.

Build a CMS plugin, a portlet, a repository addon, an HST component, or something else that you think is cool enough to turn into an open source Hippo Forge project. The core Hippo developers will be there to help build the Hippo component you always dreamed of! A Google Analytics plugin, an image resizer, a Jira portlet, a Lightbox HST Component, you name it. You can sign up here.

Whether you're an experienced Hippo hacker or a complete newbie, come join us for some proper coding fun, beers and food. If you don't know where to start - we'll help you get on track :)

We'll spend half a day on pure hacking galore, a big BBQ, beers, and of course: geeky prizes! Bring your laptop and we'll take care of the rest.

What: First international Hippo Forge Friday

When: October 30th from 14.00 until 21.00

Where:
Hippo Office Amsterdam: Oosteinde 11, 1017 WT Amsterdam
Hippo Office San Francisco: 185 H Street, Suite B, Petaluma, CA 94952

Why: A fast paced, hands-on introduction to Hippo. Get to know Hippo by writing plug-ins, HST components, portlets, and all things Hippo-like. Gain eternal fame by winning one of our prestigious prizes!

Who: All Java developers and web enthousiasts.

Registration: Make sure you sign up early by filling in the Forge Friday sign up form.

More info: Read Tjeerd's blogpost about the last Forge Friday and keep an eye on the Wiki page.

Work in progress: HST Configuration Editor

2009-08-14T14:27:25Z

As one of our architectural principles, we designed Hippo CMS to be a headless Java CMS that any developer can use to build his or her website with, using their preferred web framework technology. But when we started working on version 7, we wanted to add something to facilitate the need for more control over the web framework from within the CMS itself.

This lead to the creation of the Hippo Site Toolkit 2. We wrote a bunch of libraries, for which we borrowed some brainpower from our Apache Portals guys, that offer us a lightweight templating framework. The result is a toolkit that can be used in a wide variety of web technologies. But there's more. Our initial requirements for the HST were:

Support JSP templates out of the box
Implement a component framework that allows reuse of functionality
Make components sharable on the Hippo Forge
Allow a user of the CMS to design the entire URL space
Enforce proper seperation of logic and presentation, by borrowing some concepts from the Portlet 2.0 spec (especially the action/render phase)
Let the CMS user define which component, template and selection of content to render on which particular URL
Make all website menus editable from within the CMS
Take care of connection pooling, caching, and all that
Don't tie in content with presentation - so content can always be reused in a different medium
And, to wrap it up: HST components should run inside a portal as Portlet 2.0 compliant portlets with no extra coding

Already quite ambitious, we wanted to be sure that we would be able to extend the HST so it would also offer us an abstraction layer towards:

Freemarker and Velocity templating
JSF, Wicket and SpringMVC
(J)Ruby
REST
CMIS
.. and what not :)

I need to thank Ard, Woonsan and Ate for their hard work on the HST. But in this post, I wanted to focus a bit on Arthur's recent work, who has been working on the HST Configuration Editor. This is the user interface for the HST inside the CMS, which is being developed as a plugin within the HST project (see http://www.onehippo.org/site-toolkit).

In this video Arthur is telling me about his latest work on the HST Configuration Editor (as of July 2009). There are lots of sneak peak juicy screens to enjoy. Watch in full screen HD for best results!

Arthur does a quick walk through of the different parts of the HST Configuration Editor and demonstrates what is possible with the demosuite right out of the box. The demosuite is available as a download from http://www.onehippo.org/site-toolkit/home.

An improved template editor

2009-08-04T12:23:03Z

For our upcoming release, we're working on the document type editor (or template editor as some prefer it). Here's a sneak preview.

The two major changes to the document type editor are:

Compound document types: reusable snippets that you can design using the document type editor, and then add to other document types. When the compound is changed, all document types that use the compound will reflect these changes as well. This allows you to develop very complex document types, with all kinds of hierarchical structures in your content.

Layouts: both document types and compound document types now support a number of layout possibilities. Layouts like horizontal or vertical orientation, multiple columns with different sizes, etc, are now configurable for every template. This is a very powerful tool when used together with compound types!

Frank explains in only 1 minute and 36 seconds how you can now use compound documents, as well as the layout mechanism. Watch in full screen for best results!

This is a preview of functionality that is being developed for our next big release. You can take a look at the latest code if you want to play around with it.

Available from pre-release tag 2.07.00: http://svn.onehippo.org/repos/hippo/hippo-ecm/tags/Tag-HREPTWO-v2_07_00/.

Enjoy!

Arje