CofCPages Blog http://blog.cofcpages.org Just another CofCPages.org Congregation Hosting weblog Sat, 16 May 2009 21:06:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 en hourly 1 Change in Direction http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/16/change-in-direction/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/16/change-in-direction/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 21:06:27 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=64 I need to announce a fairly major change in direction for CofCPages.org and the new software, CongregationCMS.

Since I was given the source code to what has become CongregationCMS by Tim Biddle, I have been busily working in adding features that would make it possible to add pages, organize content, and in general maintain a public website for a congregation. The members only portion of the software was almost perfect, so very little effort has been put into it. However, the time spent on the public portion was starting to become too much for me to handle on my own.

Because of this, I am going to temporarily suspend work on the public portion of CongregationCMS, and am instead going to move in the direction of Wordpress hosting. Some of you may recall that I was exploring this option a few months ago, but the ‘multi-user’ (read: multiple congregation) version was a litle out of date. Since then, a new multi-user version has come out, and is actually what is powering this very blog. It is extremely easy to set up a small site, post some files, upload pictures, etc… using WordPress. I still plan on offering the members-only version of CongregationCMS to all congregations, though I need to make some changes to it to temporarily disable all of the ‘public’ features.

So, in the meantime, I am going to start moving some congregations over to Wordpress. In particular, congregations that have not edited their sites in a long time and have little content will be moved first. The rest of you will be informed before the move happens.

]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/16/change-in-direction/feed/ Version 0.9.2: New Theme http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/15/version-092-new-theme/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/15/version-092-new-theme/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 04:53:46 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=63 By popular request, the Brewed Coffee theme has been installed.

]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/15/version-092-new-theme/feed/ Captcha installed in blog http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/14/captcha-installed-in-blog/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/14/captcha-installed-in-blog/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 13:30:24 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=61 For those of you who write comments, I am sorry to say that I have had to add a “Captcha” - one of those forms that asks you to type some words in - to block out the spammers. Surprisingly enough, there are some bots out there that want to post comments on this blog, and deleting them takes a good deal of time.

]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/14/captcha-installed-in-blog/feed/ Version 0.9.1 installed http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/14/version-091-installed/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/14/version-091-installed/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 12:28:12 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=59 Version 0.9.1 has been installed. This version fixes the double menu problem.

]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/14/version-091-installed/feed/ Version 0.9.0 installed http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/13/version-090-installed/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/13/version-090-installed/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 04:07:21 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=57 For current users of the new software, your congregations have been upgraded to version 0.9.0. Included in this release:

  • Login form now is linked to, is not visible on the homepage. This actually simplifies adding new templates significantly
  • Tracking code has been added, to help see who is visiting your site. I hope to eventually be able to provide this data to you from the administration system
  • A lot of behind the scenes work has been done in getting attachments (ie: sermon powerpoints) working. It is not usable yet, but I hope to finish it off in the next week or two.
  • An upgrade program has been created, which will simplify upgrading each congregation as new releases become available.

Unfortunately, because of the first item, a small bug crept in. Some of you will see your menu of pages repeated twice. I hope to have a fix for this available tomorrow.

Please let me know if you have any problems with the new version.

]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/13/version-090-installed/feed/ Source Code Released http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/10/source-code-released/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/10/source-code-released/#comments Sun, 10 May 2009 02:08:59 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=55 For the brethren out there with PHP and MySQL development experience, the source code for CongregationCMS has been released to the public. I’m not going to link to it from here for now, but if you are interested, please contact me or post a comment.

Tim (the original developer) and I felt it best to release the code. Others can learn from what we did, hopefully improve it, and use it on their own web servers if they are not inclined to use CofCPages.org.

]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/10/source-code-released/feed/ Minor Software Upgrade http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/05/minor-software-upgrade/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/05/minor-software-upgrade/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 03:34:09 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=53 For the congregations using the new software, your version has been bumped up to 0.8.6. New in this version:

  • Icons actually appear in the members only section. Most web servers, this one included, have ’special’ icons reserved at the link “/icons”. Since CCMS was trying to host its icons at the same place, this was a problem. Icons have been moved into their own directory.
  • Several forms in the members only section did not validate correctly, now they do. It is possible that a few still do not validate what they need to.
]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/05/05/minor-software-upgrade/feed/ New Service: Daily Bible Reading on Twitter http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/04/26/new-service-daily-bible-reading-on-twitter/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/04/26/new-service-daily-bible-reading-on-twitter/#comments Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:31:34 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=49 Work continues on the new CCMS system, and 2 congregations (soon to be 3) have started to use it. Just watching how these congregations have used it, I have been able to see where some changes can be made after version 1.0 is finished.

On the side, I have started to use a site called Twitter, just to see what it is all about. Since they have easy ways for programmers to integrate with their system, I opened up an account for a daily Bible reading service. If you are on Twitter, you can follow it via bible365, or if you have a news (RSS) reader, you can get daily updates via its daily RSS feed.

]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/04/26/new-service-daily-bible-reading-on-twitter/feed/ New Themes http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/04/14/new-themes/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/04/14/new-themes/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:37:18 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=45 The current version (0.8) of the CongregationCMS software has 4 themes. I would like to increase this number by the time the version hits 1.0. I get all of the designs from http://www.freecsstemplates.org/. Here are some that I am considering. Please write me if you like any of these and might use them once your congregation moves to the new system.

From FreeCssTemplates

From Styleshout

There are lots of other good templates there, and they all can be easily integrated into the CongregationCMS system. Any preferences?

]]> http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/04/14/new-themes/feed/ Progress : Version 0.8 http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/04/08/progress-version-08/ http://blog.cofcpages.org/2009/04/08/progress-version-08/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:14:07 +0000 admin http://blog.cofcpages.org/?p=43 The new software, which will likely be called CongregationCMS (Congregation Content Management System) is coming along quite nicely. I am giving the current version of the code a number of 0.8, with 1.0 being the final version ready for the masses to use. In the mean time, I am planning on transitioning 5-10 congregations over to the new software. If your congregation has been selected, you have already been contacted. The goal is to get some of the smaller congregations using the software now, having more users out there to test the code before switching all congregations over.

I have posted more screenshots showing the newest version of the software. Click on the image below for a gallery.

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