bavotasan.com » Open

31 Open Source Web Development Scripts

c.bavota — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:24:59 +0000

When it comes to Web development, there is a wealth of free information online to help you create a top-notch Web site. A lot of hard work goes in to maintaining these resources, all to help save you time and money. The Open Source community is growing stronger everyday and the scripts are getting more useful and efficient, making it almost impossible to not use a few of them in your project. Here is a list of 31 open source Web development scripts I have either used or read about that would easily help any developer with their next project.

Ad Servers

Open X Ad Server

OpenX is the world’s leading independent ad server. It provides you with the simple tools you need to make money from advertising, whether from direct ad sales, OpenX Market, or third party ad networks (like AdSense).
http://www.openx.org/ad-server

Revsense

RevSense Ad Server makes it easy for you to sell ads on your site. Set the prices you want, and the kinds of ads to sell, then RevSense does the rest. It manages the sign up, ad entry and upload process and collects advertising revenue into your Paypal or Authorize.net account.
http://www.revsense.com/

Blogging Software

WordPress

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.
http://wordpress.org

Movable Type

Powerful enough for building blogs, websites or social networks on a single platform. It’s easier than ever to publish and share information with Movable Type. Movable Type makes it simple to start a blog, manage entire websites and build an engaged community of readers and customers.
http://www.movabletype.com

b2evolution

b2evolution is a powerful blog tool you can install on your own website. It includes all the features of traditional blog tools, and extends them with evolved features such as file & photo management, advanced skinning, multiple blogs support as well as detailed user permissions… Not to mention third party plug-ins!
http://b2evolution.net/

Nucleus

Nucleus offers you the building blocks you need to create a web presence. Whether you want to create a personal blog, a family page, or an online business site, Nucleus CMS can help you achieve your goals.
http://nucleuscms.org/

Textpattern

Textpattern is a flexible, elegant and easy-to-use content management system. It is both free and open source.
http://textpattern.com/

Content Management

Drupal

Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.
http://drupal.org/

Pligg

Pligg is an open source Content Management System (CMS) that you can download and use for free. Pligg CMS provides social networking software that encourages visitors to register on your website so that they can submit content and connect with other users.
http://www.pligg.com/

Joomla

Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available.
http://www.joomla.org

Mambo

Mambo is a full-featured, award-winning content management system that can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. It is used all over the world to power government portals, corporate intranets and extranets, ecommerce sites, nonprofit outreach, schools, church, and community sites.
http://mambo-foundation.org/

Customer Service

Help Center Live

Help Center Live is an open-source, community driven live chat & support system. You may easily provide live support on your website just like large companies do with very little work. With Help Center Live, you can provide a real-time, live support or sales person experience.
http://www.helpcenterlive.com/

osTicket

osTicket is a widely-used open source support ticket system. It seamlessly integrates inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms into a simple easy-to-use multi-user web interface.
http://www.osticket.com

Crafty Syntax

Crafty Syntax Live Help (CSLH) is an open source live support solution that helps customer support with live help functionality that can be proactively pushed to visitors to your site or requested by the consumer.
http://www.craftysyntax.com/

eCommerce

osCommerce

osCommerce Online Merchant is an Open Source online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License. It features a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, fees, or limitations involved.
http://www.oscommerce.com/

Magento

Magento is the eCommerce software platform for growth that promises to revolutionize the industry. Its modular architecture and unprecedented flexibility means your business is no longer constrained by your eCommerce platform. Magento is total control.
http://www.magentocommerce.com/

Zen Cart

Zen Cart™ truly is the art of e-commerce; free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart software. The ecommerce web site design program is being developed by a group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think ecommerce web design could be and should be done differently.
http://www.zen-cart.com/

Open Cart

OpenCart is an open source PHP-based online shopping cart system. A robust e-commerce solution for Internet merchants with the ability to create their own online business and participate in e-commerce at a minimal cost.
http://www.opencart.com/

Agora Cart

AgoraCart – The powerful “Free” Open Source ecommerce shopping cart software solution offers you a very wide range of features that allow you to setup an online storefront or shop ranging from a simple template based store for novices to the integration of complex web design concepts created by your web designer.
http://www.agoracart.com/

Education

Moodle

Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.
http://moodle.org/

Forums

phpBB

Since its creation in 2000, phpBB™ has become the most widely used Open Source forum solution. Like its predecessors, phpBB™ 3.0 “Olympus” has an easy to use administration panel and a user friendly installation process, which allows you to have a forum set up in minutes.
http://www.phpbb.com/

BBPress

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress. bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed. We’re keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add on features through our extensive plugin system.
http://bbpress.org/

PunBB

PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards.
http://punbb.informer.com/

Simple Machines

Simple Machines Forum — SMF in short — is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.
http://www.simplemachines.org/

Mailing Lists

phpList

phplist is an open-source newsletter manager. phplist is free to download, install and use, and is easy to integrate with any website.
http://www.phplist.com/

Dada Mail

Dada Mail is a completely contemporary, mature and intuitive web-based e-mail list management system, which runs on most any Unix-like hosting account that can run custom CGI scripts.
http://dadamailproject.com/

poMMo

poMMo is versatile mass mailing software. It can be used to add a mailing list to your Web site or to organize stand alone mailings. Unique Features such as the ability to mail subsets of your subscribers set it apart from alternatives.
http://pommo.org/

Photo Galleries

Zen Photo

Zenphoto is an answer to lots of calls for an online gallery solution that just makes sense. After years of bloated software that does everything and your dishes, zenphoto just shows your photos, simply. It’s got all the functionality and “features” you need, and nothing you don’t.
http://www.zenphoto.org/

Gallery

Gallery gives you an intuitive way to blend photo management seamlessly into your own website whether you’re running a small personal site or a large community site.
http://gallery.menalto.com/

Pixelpost

Pixelpost is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible photoblog application for the web.
http://www.pixelpost.org/

Piwigo

Piwigo is a photo gallery software for the web, built by an active community of users and developers. Extensions make Piwigo easily customizable. Icing on the cake, Piwigo is free and opensource.
http://piwigo.org/

Keep Your WordPress Install Up To Date

c.bavota — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:25:03 +0000

Over the past couple of weeks I have been helping people out who have had their WordPress sites hacked into. Having your site hacked is the same as having your house robbed. You feel violated, you’re not too sure exactly how they got in or what damage they might have caused or what might be missing. All in all it sucks.

The first precautionary step to securing your WP site is making sure that your install is up to date. As of today, version 2.8.4 is available and every body MUST make sure this is the version they are using. I say MUST because if you don’t upgrade to version 2.8.4 your site is wide open to attack.

If you have 2.7 or higher installed, you can automatically upgrade through the WordPress admin. Before you do, though, make sure to backup your database. If you are using a version of WP that is older than 2.7 then you need to upgrade through FTP.

Here is a great article on how to upgrade WordPress: http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress

Be sure to check out the following articles on how to make your site more secure.

Creating an Internet Explorer Testing Environment on a Mac

c.bavota — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:39:00 +0000

I have been a Mac man for a long time. I know some people hate ‘em for whatever reason, but I have always found them to be great machines for what I do. The only thing that makes it a little tough when it comes to working on the web though, is the fact that you can’t really test in IE, unless you install something like Parallels Desktops and Windows. That works somewhat, but a copy of Parallels Desktop will run you $79 and Windows can cost you $100 or more. In the end, it costs quite a bit and you can only run one version of IE. That doesn’t really make for a great testing environment, especially when there is a better option out there that is absolutely FREE.

I had previously written about Installing Microsoft Explorer 6 on a Mac but recently I discovered a better way of setting up a testing environment for IE thanks to Andrew Odri and Jeff Couturier and their great articles. (All credit goes to them in steering me in the right direction on this one.) There were a few problems I encountered along the way so I thought it would be a good idea to let you know exactly how I got it to work.

Here is what you need before we start:

VirtualBox 2.0.6 – Only version 2.0.6 will work for this tutorial.
Q – this make it possible to install 3 versions of IE
Zipeg – to convert the IE files to a format we can use
Internet Explorer – download these three files: IE6-XPSP3.exe, IE7-XPSP3.exe, IE8-XPSP3.EXE

Once you have downloaded everything, install VirtualBox, Q and Zipeg.

I’ve broken it down into three sections. First, I’ll show you how to get everything ready. Next I’ll walk you through installing IE with VirtualBox. Then I’ll help make sure everything runs properly.

For this tutorial, I’ll use IE6-XPSP3.exe as an example. Afterward, just repeat all the steps below to install IE 7 and IE 8.

1. Change the extensions on IE6-XPSP3.exe from .exe to .zip.

2. Create a sub-folder in your Applications directory called “IE”.

3. Launch Zipeg and drag the IE6-XPSP3.zip file into it for extraction. Extract the .vhd files into the IE sub-folder you created.

4. Open up your IE sub-folder and you will see a folder called “IE6-XPSP3″. Open that folder and you should have a file called “XP SP3 with IE6 2009-Apr.vhd. Rename that sucker something simple like ie6-xpsp3.vhd.

5. Now launch Terminal (Applications => Utilities => Terminal) and type:

/Applications/Q.app/Contents/MacOS/qemu-img convert -O raw -f vpc /Applications/IE/IE6-XPSP3/ie6-xpsp3.vhd /Applications/IE/IE6-XPSP3/ie6-xpsp3.raw

This will take about 5 minutes to process so just wait until your Terminal prompt returns.

6. Next, type:

VBoxManage convertdd /Applications/IE/IE6-XPSP3/ie6-xpsp3.raw /Applications/IE/IE6-XPSP3/ie6-xpsp3.vdi

This will also take a few minutes so just wait for that prompt to return.

Now we need to launch VirtualBox to get the show on the road. Once you have the software opened do the following.

1. Click the New button in the top left to enter the “Create New Virtual Machine” wizard.

2. Click “Next” and enter “IE 6″ in the Name field and select “Windows XP” as the OS Type.

3. Click past the next screen until you reach the Virtual Hard Disk page. Click the Existing button and a new window will open.

4. Select “Add”. Browse through your folders to Applications => IE => IE6-XPSP3 and select the .vdi file that we created through our Terminal commands above. You will return to the Virtual Hard Disk page. Click next.

5. You should now be at the Summary screen. Click finish and you will see a selection for IE 6 in VirtualBox.

Now that everything is installed, let’s launch IE 6 and make sure it runs properly.

1. Select IE 6 in the VirtualBox window and click start in the tool bar at the top. Press F8 right away to load Windows into Safe Mode. If it doesn’t load in Safe Mode, just close the window and try again. It will automatically load in Safe Mode the second time around.

2. A bunch of hardware prompts will appear. Just cancel them all. Go to the Start menu and select Run. Type “cmd” to open the command line.

3. Type the following at the command prompt.

cd \WINDOWS\system32\drivers
ren processr.sys processr.old
exit

4. Restart Windows.

5. When Windows loads up, close all those popups. Go to the top menu of Virtualbox VM (your Windows window) and select Devices=> Install Guest Additions. Click through the windows. If a warning comes up just click Continue Anyway and move on. When the process is complete, select Reboot Now and click Finish.

6. After Windows reboots, more popup windows will appear. Cancel them all and go to Start => My Computer, right-click and select Properties. The System Properties window will appear. Go to Hardware => Device Manager.

7. Now you will see a list with two items that are not recognized. First, select Batteries => Unknown device and right-click. Disable this because you will never use it. Next go to Ethernet Controller and right-click. Select Update Driver.

8. In the Hardware Update Wizard, select the middle option “Yes now and every time I connect the device” and click next. Click next again to install the driver automatically. Close all your windows.

9. Click on the desktop icon to open Internet Explorer 6.

And there you have it. Repeat the process to install IE 7 and IE 8 so you can round off your testing environment.

TIP: If you don’t want to wait for Windows to load each time you open your VirtualBox VM, click the red x at the top on your window and select Save the machine state. Next time you access your IE 6 VM it will be exactly how you left it.

Turn Text into an Image using the PHP GD Library

c.bavota — Mon, 25 May 2009 20:56:41 +0000

While developing a site for a client, I needed to figure out a way to convert certain text elements into images. I had no clue how to do this but after doing a bit of research, I discovered a nifty library of functions already available through PHP. The GD library offers tons of cools way to dynamically create PNG, JPEG or GIF files and output them directly to your browser, but you need to make sure that your server has the library enabled.

You can check to see if the GD library available on your server by placing the code:

 phpinfo(); ?>

into a test.php file and uploading it to your site’s main directory. Open the file online and look to see if GD Support is Enabled. If it is, you are good to go.

The following code will dynamically create a PNG file from a text string.


header("Content-type: image/png");
 
$string = "This is my test string.";
 
$font  = 2;
$width  = imagefontwidth($font) * strlen($string);
$height = imagefontheight($font);
 
$image = imagecreatetruecolor ($width,$height);
$white = imagecolorallocate ($image,255,255,255);
$black = imagecolorallocate ($image,0,0,0);
imagefill($image,0,0,$white);
 
imagestring ($image,$font,0,0,$string,$black);
 
imagepng ($image);
imagedestroy($image);
?>

The above code must be included in its own file, it cannot be added to an existing PHP file with other functions. To access this image from another file just include it as the source in an image tag.

Test out turning text into an image by typing in something below.

How to Create a Custom Style for Admin Comments in WordPress

c.bavota — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:27:48 +0000

I noticed how on some WordPress blogs authors’ comments are styled differently from other people’s comments. I think this really makes it easier when users are scanning through your comments, looking for an actual moderator/author/admin’s response. Making your WordPress install style your author comments differently is quite a simple little coding modification where you only need to change a small piece of code in one file and add a style class to your CSS stylesheet.

This works only on WordPress 2.5.

Open up your themes comments.php file and look for line 27. Should look something like this…

 foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
 
 echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment- comment_ID() ?>">
 echo get_avatar( $comment, 32 ); ?>
 comment_author_link() ?> Says:
 if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
 endif; ?>


 
 comment_ID() ?>" title=""> comment_date('F jS, Y') ?> at  comment_time() ?>  edit_comment_link('edit','  ',''); ?>
 
 comment_text() ?>

All you need to do is add is a little if statement to check if your author is an admin, and then a few more things. Copy the code below and paste it over the code above.

 foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
 if (1==$comment->user_id) { ?>
 echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment- comment_ID() ?>">

 
 comment_ID() ?>" title=""> comment_date('F jS, Y') ?> at  comment_time() ?>  edit_comment_link('edit','  ',''); ?>
 
 comment_text() ?>
 

 } else { ?>
 echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment- comment_ID() ?>">
 echo get_avatar( $comment, 32 ); ?>
 comment_author_link() ?> Says:
 if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
 endif; ?>


 
 comment_ID() ?>" title=""> comment_date('F jS, Y') ?> at  comment_time() ?>  edit_comment_link('edit','  ',''); ?>
 
 comment_text() ?>
 

 } ?>

Then just add the “authorcomment” class to your CSS stylesheet and style it however you choose. Mine looks something like this.

.authorcomment {
background: url(images/bavota.png) no-repeat;
float: left;
width: 89px;
height: 97px;
}

See below how my comments have the “B” logo on the left. You can add a background color or place the image differently or do whatever you choose to have a custom style for your author comments.