Posts Tagged ‘Content Management System’
SerenadeCMS: Part 1… A
Posted by MrSaints in Projects, Spotlight Tuesday, 20 October 2009 20:39 5 Comments
As I promised, i’ll be making a new post in continuation to my SerenadeCMS 2.0 streak 
But due to the lack of time I have and the lack of ideas I have on making the post interesting, I decided to take a break from that episode and hopefully something will strike me once I get something in mind. As the title states, Part 1A. Clearly this is not the actual continuation to the previous post on Serenade but I just decided to post a few (or 1, for now) images that some people might have forgotten or never seen before, but clearly it was one of the first few steps I took in creating a successful CMS, which I guess, led me to where I am today (as cheesy as it sounds).
And like many bloggers, lets communicate with the audience! So, if you like to see more, then drop a reply below this post and say along the lines of, “WE WANT MORE”. Who know’s what I might do! So have fun, and sorry I haven’t been doing much lately, I’m a slacker!
One more thing, as there were quite a few suggestions lately about setting up a forum for the hostings, I taken the liberty to set one up at http://www.frozonenetworks.com/, drop by when you get the time 
Its still in the progress of being setup fully! VOTE THE PICTURE 5 STARS. OR ELSE.
LiveZilla, the Web 3.0?
Posted by MrSaints in Horrible Critics, Spotlight Sunday, 21 June 2009 03:18 1 Comment
Geotracking + LiveZilla Client
What is Web 2.0 in the first place?
The second generation of the World Wide Web, especially the movement away from static webpages to dynamic and shareable content. E.g. Ajax; dynamically loading pages without even refreshing or leaving the current URL or even dynamic form validation to prevent the consecutive form submissions till its valid.
So what is Web 3.0 then?
Well, if you ask me, a website can’t go any further from being dynamic besides being ultra dynamic, but how about site management? Recently I was using LiveZilla for my hosting services (as a Live Support), I was amazed at how everything worked and I would say this might be a clear example of a future Web 3.0 if not 4.0 web application.
Data Transfer (communication to web)
To start with, I downloaded LiveZilla executable file wondering where the PHP side of it were. Yes I was that clueless. But after a while when I was clicking through the installation file, I have figured that LiveZilla executable came along with a LiveZilla Server Administration client. This client guided me through uploading the files from my computer to the correct directory through FTP (note: the files were all on the client! It was that simple! I need not do anything!). The database part was simple too, I only had to create a new database then click “Create Tables” on the client to build the database
So basically LiveZilla treated the standard PHP files and MySQL database as a SERVER. Now as most of you know a simple chatroom software would work like this:
Chatroom Client => Chat Room Server (most likely hosted and running as an executable or boot file).
Likewise with LiveZilla:
Administration Client => LiveZilla Server (Which is basically a bunch of files hosted on my web hosting).
Live Chat @ Live Zilla!
So whats so UNIQUE about this?
In all my time of Web Development so far, I have not encounteered any Web system that allowed you to manage your web application as a whole through an external client. The fact you could just keep an application open and wait for a *ring* to realize someone is requesting a live support makes a huge difference compared to the historical method of keeping a web-based client opened that continuosly refreshes through the use of Ajax timeouts.
Its coming together.
If you haven’t realized already, Wordpress has already created their own iPhone/iPod Touch application which allows you to manage your posts and your blog as a whole through just one application. With the new generation of the iPod Touch and iPhone, Web APIs has become more and more popular. Web 3.0 is already here, and sites such as Twitter.com has led to the development of vast majority of external applications allowing us to communicate with their server.
In my opinion, the ease of web management is basically having the ability to manage it anywhere anytime. And API does the trick. So why is LiveZilla so good once again?
LiveZilla User Management (external Client)
Let me ask a simple question.
Would you rather manage your Wordpress blog through visiting your admin panel at a specific domain… Or:
Would you rather have a software which you can launch and keep on the background allowing you to manage your database, plugins and everything just like visiting the standard URL.
In addition to this, the software may even feature a live feed that informs you with a single beep or alert box when someone has made a comment on your post or subscribed to your RSS.
MUCH MORE!
This is more than just creating a simple application that utilizes TWebBrowser component linking to a specific domain. Applications like these would feature a very easy to use interface with buttons like, “Add New Post!” or “Add New Page!”. It can be that simple.
So, Web 2.0 was all about the simplicity of delivering the content the viewers, but Web 3.0 would be all about the communication of Viewers -> Content -> Webmasters. Some say Web 3.0 will be the transition from Web Application to Web Services, but in my opinion, it can be anything
Button Creating Wizard! Transfers images upon selection.
Just Imagine.
Just imagine one day, a Content Management System such as my SerenadeCMS being managed through an external application/software and accessible through a web client that communicates with the server providing live access details and possibly utilizing Geotracking, oh wonders.
For those MapleStory private servers out there, make life easier. Create a GM external-application that communicates with your SQL server and perhaps everytime some player makes a report, the external-application will recieve a server response and *beep* giving you a wake up. This saves so much time compared to the standard “web-based logs”. Or perhaps even accessing it through your iPhone or iPod Touch, and now with 3G, you can be doing it anywhere!
This is a really smart system in my opinion, and webmasters should really begin to open up and allow the development of their vast service such as what Facebook has done with Facebook Applications. The whole point of web development is to improve the feasibility of management and access.
Hope you enjoyed this article!
External Client -> Web Database
RE-POST: A todo list it will be!
Posted by MrSaints in Marvellous Misadventures Friday, 29 May 2009 02:30 4 Comments
Sorry, this is a repost as I didn’t backup the latest database containing the newer posts like this.
Haha, =P Proceed. And well, as you can see, during the downtime, I have manage to establish most of the things that needed my attention, and finished them!
Well since I did tweet just now that I need a todo list.
Why not blog about it too? So yea, exams over so I don’t think I need to include that besides the exams I still have.
Hmm… I guess I should put them in order of importance and priority.
- Biology Revision! and Add Maths.
I got biology 3 coming up the week after the holidays
- Go out with friends.
I think this is a priority! Ditching is a priority too! - Start working on the blog’s new layout again!
I might reconsider doing a new one… there’s a preview of the work in progress version at this blog!
- Work on coding some unfinished developments or thinking about new ones
e.g. FrozoneCMS, Erebus, Kyle’s AlcoveMS CMS? - Finish reading all those magazines I bought!
lol…Loads of interesting articles too! - Work on advertising my hosting and doing a little bit more marketing.
With Bear Marketing! Adsense… Perhaps doing some affiliating. - Continue downloading more apps on my ‘Must Download’ list.
This include the X-Plane edition, and perhaps racing games? I’m lacking racing games - Blog about less redundant things
Perhaps I should start talking about more webdev stuff instead of this crap. - Finish watching all the DVDs we bought everything we went to Summit USJ in Subang.
Lol we just watched ‘Hotel For Dogs’ last night. Interesting film… - Find more music to add onto my iPod playlist.
Only 608 songs now… So little! - Start playing CS:S or DoTa again!
Lol, my social life is gonna’ tumble if I continuosly spend time alone!
- Mantain my hosting and make sure everything is running smoothly.
Perhaps answer a few support ticket and check the hosting mailbox. Or maybe I should just forward all the e-mails to my main one to make checking easier?
- Get more FOLLOWERS in Twitter.
No one is going to hear me if I don’t get more followers! Funny how Twitter turned into a network for advertising. Half the tweets i’m seeing now a days are… lol not related to “What Am I Doing”.
- Refresh myself so I won’t forget about programming.
Like ASP, C++, Java… I might forget them if they are in practice for a while. - Reformat to Windows 7 again.
I missed it After all the new RC one was good! Right now i’ m double booting.
I guess thats all for this list… For now… Perhaps I should add more, but only if I think about it.
Can’t think of anything else for now, but oh well!
I will cross them out as I go along.
Like THIS! Hahahaha… Okay, I gotta’ go now See ya guys!
Walkthrough SerenadeCMS 2.0 – History
Posted by MrSaints in Projects, Spotlight Sunday, 17 May 2009 23:11 13 Comments
So, some developers or people have been hearing all this nonsense about SerenadeCMS.
For those that know what I’m talking about, I bet you didn’t know about SerenadeCMS 2.0?
Well, I decided to walkthrough it today, nothing much but I suppose it goes somewhere rather than no where.
To start with, SerenadeCMS = Serenade Content Management System. It was a CMS for MapleStory, specifically OdinMS engines, but that was back in the days when I used to work with private servers, no harm done I suppose?
The original SerenadeCMS.
Well it all started out back in the KitKatMS Days, I volunteered myself as a Web Developer and started coding this CMS in XHTML with PHP as its backend. It was thanks to RaGEZONE that I have basically discovered this server and the great owner that accepted me and bugged me day and night to finish the CMS.
So thats basically the first ever generation made. And no it was not coded in any particular methods or style. Back then I did not make use of OOP, it was all basically shoving in snippets after snippets, but all I cared about was that I spent 4 hard days on it with solid effort without any help. The results were fantastic!
People were more or less attracted to the server because of the website! I sponsored the VPS for the server and it all went great, not till it closed that is, but that doesn’t matter now.
The first version was kept simple.
It did not have MySQL based confi
gurations, it was all in scripts editable through the site by using PHP fwrite and fopen. Yes, I know… This was rather quite a redundant and insecure technique, but the current Serenade CMS goes a long way to what it was before.
As I was saying, the old SerenadeCMS, only had manually configured pages, a simp
le ranking that I heavily modded for security, login script as well as control panel to edit settings
and view characters and such. Besides this I even threw in my Dynamic Avatar Signature. For those that don’t know what the heck I’m going on about, the image on the right is basically one of the older FSDAS Versions, it is dynamic thanks to PHP GD obviously. Simple ain’t it?
Well, the benefits of the Serenade project brought me to making use of Subversion and development of mPanel.
Come to think about it, it wasn’t that bad after all apart from the terrible CSS and backend
One thing I do recall was that this CMS had a lot of research and trial runs put into it to make it what it was and what it will be in the future. For starters, I have first engineered SerenadeCMS with an idea in mind of moving forward and building it to be practically an application, this is Web 2.0.
For starters, the login script was based upon jQuery’s POST XMLHTTPRequest method that sent all the form 
content to a specified .PHP file, it will then be processed and if the login is true the file (e.g. logincheck.php) will echo ‘true’, if not ‘false’. The script will process these return results and output an error or a redirect (NOTE: If the login is true, the script sets a session for the login too). Although I do advise if you wish to do the same thing, make use of json and don’t use post, avoid post. Use GET.
For the rankings, I followed a similiar technique except the search would load a page ‘ranking.php?n=FORM FIELD CONTENT HERE’, so everything they searched something in the box, jQuery would fetch lets say, #charactername and replace it into loading ranking.php (e.g. load(‘ranking.php?n=’+fieldVar)). Ranking.php will basically have a PHP $_GET function retrieving the value correspondent to ‘n’ and return the results. Similiarly ranking.php can be accessed alone, but Ajax just makes it easier since they don’t have to continuosly reload the page for different content.
Another thing I utilize was jQuery tooltips to display the character information (e.g. Current Location), it made a lot of difference and effect upon the audience. Although a dilemma I encounteered during this time was trying to make it compatible with browsers such as IE. But that was no issue overtime thanks to FORUMS.
And finally, Thank God I realize the wonders of true CSS web layouts, or I would be stuck designing crappy table-based websites like the old SerenadeCMS.
jQuery’s Website - http://www.jquery.com
Well I guess this is the 1st out of the 3 articles about SerenadeCMS.
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