Shiny Red Apples

Two very simple additions to 2.2 Milestone 3 have ended up to be important features of the 2.2 development release cycle.

The Service Modules implementation allows features to be implemented at the core level, but removes the bloat of unneeded database queries and included files when the service module has been disabled.

There are currently 13 service modules in the CVS development repository that will become available for the 2.2 Milestone 3 release, and include:

• Banner
• Breadcrumb
• Category Path
• Currencies
• Debug
• Language
• Output Compression
• Reviews
• Search Engine Friendly URLs
• Session
• Simple Counter
• Specials
• Who’s Online

Keeping in spirit of the project, all features are enabled by default to demonstrate what the project release is capable of doing on new installations.

In the current CVS development version, there are 58 database queries being made on the front index page. Disabling all but the Debug service module brings this down to 31 database queries.

A feature that contemplates the Service Modules implementation, but is available throughout the whole core codebase, is the caching implementation with the Cache class.

Previously the caching implementations in project releases concentrated on caching HTML blocks, which included database query result sets. The disadvantage of this method was that it was only used when cookies were enabled to prevent the session ID from being included in any http links within the cached HTML block.

The focus of caching HTML blocks has changed with the new caching implementation, where only database query result sets are cached, and easily allows the display format to be changed on-the-fly via templates, without having the need to create multiple template HTML cache blocks as previously required.

This also removed the disadvantage of caching session IDs as the caching is done at the database query result set level instead of at the HTML level.

Combining both Service Modules and Cache implementations brings the database queries on the index page further down to 31 with all Service Modules enabled, and down to 5 with all disabled (apart from the Debug Service Module).

This is just a sign as what to expect for the upcoming 2.2 Milestone 3 release, and ultimately the 2.2 release 8)

I’ve just installed aKregator on my Linux/KDE installation and really enjoy having an overview of what has been updated on the sites I reguarly visit.

Here is a screenshot:

This tells me I have to update the RSS feeds on the news page to include the news entry itself or atleast the first paragraph of it, as right now it just contains a link to the news entry.

And yes, the new community contributions site will have RSS feeds available for all to enjoy ;)

I am not a happy person when Batman takes time off for a holiday, so I decided to take advantage of the first snowfall today to build a dream snowman who is capable of protecting our neighbourhood when danger arises.

Well, atleast our front yard.

After long hours of hand crafting the perfection to be, Snowman stands proudly and firmly to deter those wanting to harm the community. Armed with a snow shovel, those looking for trouble should watch out by what he can master!

Although the strength of Snowman was built in a day, his personality needs time to adapt to his surroundings and responsibilities, and to find his true self identity. As expected, this has already become a problem as he insisted on somebody having to hold his hand throughout the photo shooting session the national press organized.

I hope Snowmans self confidence will strengthen in the coming days, and look forward to having an army of snowmen in our front yard as Christmas nears.

We are proud to announce a new blogging service to community sponsors to further highlight ones profile in the community!

Community sponsors are free to start their hosted blogging accounts in the community, and are also provided the opportunity to link to an already existing blogging service hosted on an external server.

The content of community sponsors blogging accounts are open to the imagination of the community sponsor, but must not be abused as a means to advertise commercial services. Community sponsors are given full control over their blogging account and are able to moderate comments posted by the community.

We look forward to reading what community sponsors have to blog about, and welcome community members to participate in the sponsorship program to take advantage of existing and upcoming benefits provided to community sponsors.