The release is intended primarily for extension developers who need advance disclosure to test the compatibility of their releases. 

The Joomla! project tells us to look for a beta release in late August and a final product release by 24 September.

We’ve downloaded the Alpha and are kicking the tires. Check back with us in the next few days for a preview article.

Learn more by visiting the Joomla! Developer site: http://developer.joomla.org/news/503-joomla-3-0-alpha-1-released

Joomla! 3.0 Alpha released is a post from Open Source CMS Pro - CMS books, resources & commentary

Read the full release announcement or download the upgrade now.

WordPress 3.4.1: Maintenance & Security Release is a post from Open Source CMS Pro - CMS books, resources & commentary

The Writing Settings page

WordPress tries to make it easy for you to create content. The system offers multiple methods for publishing new articles. You aren’t restricted to only being able to create new articles from within the administration system. You can also publish posts to your site using email, or by using a variety of weblogging clients that allow you to work offline. Remote publishing options are a standard part of the WordPress CMS. Both publish by email and publish by Atom/XML-RPC are included in the default configuration options. In this HowTo Topic we look at how to configure and execute remote publishing via email (publishing via Atom/XML-RPC is covered in a separate HowTo Topic – ed).

HOW TO

1. Create an email address specifically to use for the purpose of posting to your blog. Make the address hard to guess and set a secure password. Do not use this email for other purposes; use it only to post to your site.

2. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard.

3. Move your mouse over the Settings menu; on the popup that appears, click on Writing.

The Writing Settings page loads in your browser, as seen in the screenshot above.

4. In the Mail Server field, enter the name of the mail server associated with the email address you have created for posting to WordPress.

5. In the Login Name field, enter the email address you will use to post articles to your site.

6. In the Password field, enter the password your created for the email address.

7. Use the Default Mail Category combo box to set the category that will be automatically associated with your email posts.

8. Click the Save Changes button.

The system will save your changes and display a confirmation message.

TIPS & WARNINGS

• You cannot use post by email if you are using WordPress MultiSite.
• If you want to post by email, it is recommended that you use a secret email address; that is, an e-mail account with an obscure and very difficult to guess name known only to you, as any e-mail sent to this address will wind up posted to your blog. 
• When you post by email, the subject line of the email is used as the Post Title and the complete body of the email is used as the content of the post. Note that HTML tags are stripped out, so any formatting you put into the email will have no effect on the final post. Attachments are similarly ignored.
• Submitting a post by email does not result in auto-publishing of that post – at least not by default. After you have sent the email, you must take further action to get the post into the dashboard and then to publish the post. 
• There are multiple ways to get the post into the Dashboard. To do it manually, visit http://yourdomain.com/wp-mail.php after you have sent the email. To set up automatic publishing of posts submitted by email, you can either create a cron job to run the wp-email.php file, or you can edit the file that produces the footer of your theme and add into that file an iframe containing the link to http://yourdomain.com/wp-mail.php. All of three of these techniques, plus some additional options are discussed in the WordPress Codex at http://codex.wordpress.org/Post_to_your_blog_using_email 
• After the post is inside the Dashboard, it may still be unpublished; the publication status is automatically set to “Pending Review” unless the email is sent from an address that matches an existing user account on your site. If the sender’s address matches a user’s address, then the post is automatically published and credited to that user. If the sender address does not match any user address, the post is held for moderation and you must manually publish the post.
• To summarize: If you desire fully automatic publishing of posts sent by email, your best bet is to set up a cron job to handle wp-mail.php (which will get the post into the system) and to also make sure you have a user account with an email address that matches the email address of the posting account (which will result in automatic publication).
• WordPress restricts your ability to check for new email (via wp-mail.php) to once every 5 minutes. If you check more often than that, the system will display an error message: “Slow down cowboy, no need to check for new mails so often!”

LEARN MORE

• The WordPress Codex page on the Writing Settings page: http://codex.wordpress.org/Settings_Writing_Screen
• The WordPress Codex page on posting by email: http://codex.wordpress.org/Post_to_your_blog_using_email

Important!

The content in this article comes from Chapter 2 of the upcoming book HowTo: WordPress 3 (water&stone digital). HowTo: WordPress 3 is authored by Ric Shreves. The book provides step-by-step solutions to managing the most common WordPress tasks and problems. The book is scheduled for release in Summer, 2012. You can pre-order the book online by visiting the HowTo: WordPress 3 website.

How To WordPress : Enable publishing by email is a post from Open Source CMS Pro - CMS books, resources & commentary

First Release Candidate out for WordPress 3.4 is a post from Open Source CMS Pro - CMS books, resources & commentary

WordPress comes in two flavors, a hosting blogging service and a downloadable content management system (CMS) that you host yourself. The two versions have the same name – a source of frequent confusion. If you are evaluating WordPress, one of the first questions you need to ask yourself is which flavor of WordPress is right for you. Like most things, there are pros and cons to both approaches and though the cost of moving from one system to the other is quite low, it’s better to get this right the first time around and save yourself some trouble.

WordPress, the hosted blogging service, is a commercial venture run by Automattic, the company behind the whole WordPress family of products. The blogging service can be found at http://wordpress.COM. WordPress, the open source CMS system that is the subject of this book, is a non-commercial venture run by a large community of volunteers. The CMS can be found at http://wordpress.ORG.

We present here, for your consideration, a list of the advantages and disadvantages of each system – there is not one “right answer” – how you prioritize the issues is up to you.

WordPress, the Hosted Blogging Service: Pros & Cons

• Pros

  • Variety of service levels, including a completely free option.
  • Faster time to market; simply sign up at the site and you’re off and running.
  • Low management overhead; they maintain it for you.
  • Low security risk; they host the system on their servers and are responsible for keeping things safe and secure.
  • Low data risk; regular backups are included free of charge.
  • Good continuity of service; the service is distributed among. multiple servers making it less prone to service disruption due to hardware, network or traffic issues.
  • The possibility of obtaining additional traffic through the WordPress.com network

• Cons

  • A custom domain will cost extra; the free option forces you to use a subdomain of wordpress.com (e.g., http://yourcompanyname.wordpress.com).
  • Limits on design flexibility. The free version includes a limited selection of themes (around 200). You cannot use custom themes on the free service, however, for an annual fee, they will grant you access to edit the .css files of your selected theme, giving you some flexibility in customization.
  • Limited extensibility. The service includes a limited set of extensions (plugins) and you cannot add third party or custom plugins.
  • No customization of functionality. You cannot edit the .php files for your .com site.
  • Limited opportunities for monetization. If you aspire to selling ads, use affiliate programs or employ many other types of monetization, the hosted service is not for you.
  • WordPress runs ads on your site. Though they only display these ads to non-authenticated visitors, the fact remains that you have no control over the ad content, nor share in any of the revenues. You can opt out, if you are willing to pay an annual fee.
  • The terms of service do restrict the permissible uses of the system, so if you intend to dabble in the fringes, the hosted service is not for you.
  • Loss of control. Though Automattic is far from draconian, their terms of service do give them rights to use your content, block your content and block users. For some people, this may be an issue.

WordPress, the Open Source CMS: Pros & Cons

• Pros

  • The CMS software is free of charge.
  • Host it wherever you want.
  • Use whatever domain you want.
  • Full control over the branding.
  • Full control over the appearance. You can use third party themes, create your own themes and customize your themes as much as you like.
  • Full control over the functionality. Add any plugins you want, customize existing plugins, or even write your own.
  • A large and generally supportive community.
  • A wide range of third party extensions; most free of charge.
  • No limitation on your ability to run ads, participate in affiliate programs or otherwise monetize your site.
  • No limitations on your content.
  • No restrictions on your rights.

• Cons

  • Greater ownership expense: You have to obtain your own hosting and domain; you have to set it up and maintain it yourself.
  • Greater exposure to security risk: You are responsible for keeping your site patched and maintained, and for keeping your server safe (though the latter is a duty usually shared with your web host).
  • Greater data risk: You must implement and maintain your own backup regime to keep your data safe in the event of a failure or if your site is compromised.
  • Greater risk of disruption of service: If you are married to a single host on a single network, you are more susceptible to service disruption due to hardware or network failure, or due to traffic spikes or malicious activity.

TIPS & WARNINGS

• There are over 1,500 themes available for the WordPress CMS on WordPress.org.
• There are over 19,000 plugins available for the WordPress CMS on WordPress.org.

RESOURCES

• WordPress, the open source CMS: http://wordpress.org
• WordPress, the hosted blogging service: http://wordpress.com
• How Automattic compares the two services: http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
• WordPress.com’s advertising policy: http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/
• WordPress.com’s product offering: http://en.wordpress.com/products/
• WordPress.com’s VIP program: http://vip.wordpress.com/
• WordPress.com’s Advanced Services: http://en.wordpress.com/advanced-services/
• WordPress.com’s Terms of Service: http://en.wordpress.com/tos/
• The WordPress CMS Theme Directory: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
• The WordPress CMS Plugin Directory: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Important!

The content in this article comes from Chapter 1 of the upcoming book HowTo: WordPress 3 (water&stone digital). HowTo: WordPress 3 is authored by Ric Shreves. The book provides step-by-step solutions to managing the most common WordPress tasks and problems. The book is scheduled for release in Summer, 2012. You can pre-order the book online by visiting the HowTo: WordPress 3 website.

How to choose: WordPress.com or WordPress.org? is a post from Open Source CMS Pro - CMS books, resources & commentary

Our first focus was around improving the discussion and support around plugins.

You’ll now notice that threads about a plugin are pulled directly into a “support” tab on the plugin page — each plugin has its own forum. We’ve made authors much more prominent and with bigger Gravatars and better placement, so you can get a sense of who made the plugin you’re using. And finally to show how active and well-supported a plugin is, you can see  ”16 of 75 support threads in the last two weeks have been resolved.” Finally, if you’re logged in you get access to the new “favorites” feature that lets you mark the plugins you use the most so you can share them on your profile page and find them quickly later. We soft-launched favorites a few days ago and there have already been 2,000 saved!

If you’re a plugin author, we’ve started with a short threshold (2 weeks) for the resolved stats so it’s easy to catch up and stay on top of it. (It’ll eventually go to two months.) You also now have the ability to set stickies on your plugin forum to put FAQs or important information at the top, and of course any person you put as a committer on the plugin will have moderation access. People on the forum tag will see your custom header and links to the other resources attached to your plugin.

We’ve tightened up the styling a bit on the forums and plugin pages, though still some cleanups to do there. Some older improvements you might have missed, but are still useful for users and developers alike:

• “Plugin headers” or those cool graphics you see at the top of plugin pages have really taken off, there are over 1,600 active now.
• You can now subscribe to get an email whenever a commit is made to a plugin repository even if it isn’t yours. There is no better way to follow the development of your favorite plugins. There’s nothing like the smell of fresh changesets in the morning.
• Behind the scenes, we’ve dramatically ramped up proactive scanning of the entire repository to help authors fix security and other problems they might not even know about yet. The quality level of the repo has gone way, way up.

All of this will continue to evolve as we get feedback and see usage, but we’re happy to have been able to make some key improvements in just a few days while hanging out in Memphis. (This is why WordCamps usually have BBQ — it imparts magical coding powers.)

A proposal for a new Joomla project structure was made by Alan Langford, Javier Gomez, Jeremy Wilken, Peter Martin and Christine Graf and is available at Google Docs.

An Infographic of this proposed project structure was made by Themepartner.

To comment and discuss this blog, please visit the JPeople site at http://people.joomla.org/groups/viewdiscussion/1485-proposal-for-a-new-joomla-project-structure.html?groupid=714

Otto walks us through a preview of what the feature may look like (final version subject to change) with a screencast of it running locally:

So, WordPress 3.4 has this nifty new feature you can find on the main Theme selection page. It’s a link next to each theme labeled “Customize”. This is the new Theme Customizer, and it’s way cool.

Otto also goes into depth how theme developers will be able to take advantage of the Theme Customizer in their theme development in a very detailed post with code samples for the settings and controls developers will be able to use.

Check out “How to leverage the Theme Customizer in your own themes” on Ottopress.

Rewrite Rules Inspector is a simple development tool for viewing all of the rewrite rules registered with your site. It’s been available for VIPs hosted on WordPress.com for a while — today it’s available for download from the WordPress.org repository.

Specifically, the Rewrite Rules Inspector helps you:

• View a listing of all your rewrite rules.
• See which rewrite rules match a given URL (and the priorites they match in).
• Filter by different sources of rewrite rules.
• Know when rewrite rules are missing in the database by showing an error message.

Feel free to fork the plugin in Github — pull requests are always welcome. Hit us with feedback, questions, bug reports, and feature requests in the forums.

Visit Olympic.ca.

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