Elxis 4.0 alpha support

[datahell]

Today about 20 users got Elxis 4.0 Nautilus alpha. This is the first private test release of Elxis Nautilus.
Here are some quick FAQs and tips for those having problems.

I can not login in administration console.
Solution: Change SESSION_HANDLER from database to files.
Didn't work?
Solution: If you have Elxis inside a folder move it to your web server root folder or in a sub-domain.
Didn't work?
Solution: If you are using WAMP you should make sure the php.ini file has correct settings, mod_rewrite is enabled, path for sessions is correct and writeable, etc. If you access the site like http://localhost you can to change the site's URL to http://127.0.0.1 This worked for a user!

Improve mysql connection speed.
Under some circumstances, especially on local installations, setting DB_HOST = 127.0.0.1 might be much faster than localhost. Try it.

Setting the layout of a page (article/category).
You can set the layout of a page and the individual elements shown in it by the page's editing page. Click tab "parameters", set your desired options.
Tip: First edit component's content parameters. These are the general settings for the content that affect all articles and categories. You can specify the general options in category editing page and you can specify them more in article's editing page.

Setting frontpage style and layout.
By default the site's frontpage is the root of component content (elxis uri = content:/).
From the administration console go to Content -> Frontpage and configure the grid that will be used as your frontpage layout.
Each grid represents a module position named frontpage1, frontpage2, ..., frontpage10.
In each grid cell you can assign via drag and drop unlimited number of modules.
So your frontpage is a combination of modules whos position is controlled by the frontpage grid.

I get parsing error on youtube search or in administration -> system -> php
This is because of the existence of invalid characters under the XHTML DOCTYPE. When the DOCTYPE is XHTML5, XHTML 1.1 strict or XHTML 1.1 transitional Elxis uses application/xhtml+xml as content type (on modern browsers) producing a 100% valid XHTML document. XML does not allows characters such as   € etc, and so the browser displays an error. We have selected XHTML5 as the default doctype in order users to be forced to created valid articles. If you wish you can switch doctype to HTML5 and these errors will gone. The proper way to insert special characters in XML is via their numeric entities (eg   instead of   for the space character). Note: Elxis 2009.x incorrectly serves XHTML documents with content type html/text (tags soup) in order to avoid these problems and because older browsers (especially IE) didn't supported application/xhtml+xml content type. The same do almost all other CMSs. On the other hand Elxis 4.0 serves 100% valid XHTML documents without being a tags soup...
Conclusion: You want to be 100% sure that your pages have correct syntax? Use XHTML5 doctype. You don't care about it or you are facing problems? Use HTML5 doctype.

Caching
Elxis has 2 different caching systems that can be used independently from each other or combined. File caching mostly for modules and RSS/ATOM feeds and APC for opcode cache. To enable APC you must first make sure that the APC extension is available in your php.ini. A combination of file cache + APC is recommend for best results on heavy loaded sites. Using cache requires to understand what cache means and what it does. Use debug level 4 or 5 to see how Elxis improves performance by using cache. You can see and manage cached elements from within Elxis administration section.

Software update
Elxis supports extensions updates. Now you are not limited to extensions install and uninstall, you can also update them. The good news for the developers is that they don't have to built update packages (patches) for their extensions! Elxis will detect a newer version of an installed extension and will do all the magic by it self!

Statistics
Traffic statistics is a built-in feature in Elxis 4.0. Elxis provides you accurate statistics for number of clicks, number of page views and language usage distribution. You can see monthly (per day) and yearly (per month) statistics. If you want you can disable the collection of statistical data from Elxis configuration.

[datahell]

I attach a test module to test the new Elxis installer.

You can see 2 versions of the same module.
First install version 1.0.
Then try to install version 1.1. Elxis will automatic detect that the module is already installed and will ask you if you want to update it to version 1.1.
Also note that Elxis 4.0 has a single installer for all types of extensions.

[xmanhattan]

Testing by xmanhattan using wamp server with php 5.3.1, mysql 5.1.32, apache 2.2.11.
Main browsers used was FF, secondary Chrome, lastly IE8 on windows xp.

Elxis Nautilus testing notes

Beautiful new design of the administration and the use of html5 and grid.
Very interesting how the template designer works.
Great work especially when one considers how negative the country atmosphere is for creating new ideas.


Top Menu Administration Link
Had a small problem with the top menu item administration.
Cause was that the link appears to be hard coded to http://localhost/estia/
Changed to  http://localhost/nautilus/estia/  and changed link target to new window and saved, then noticed that the administration of the top menu which was in 7th place
was then put into 1st place of the top menu listing.  Had to manually click down arrows.  After clicking on administration of the top menu the change did not work.
Verified that the link was updated in the elx_menu of the db.
Copied and pasted http://localhost/nautilus/estia/ to get to the administration.


from the logs   warning.log
[2012-06-30 14:53:20]    DATABASE WARNING (23000)
SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity constraint violation: 1062 Duplicate entry '20ee6e1b4d2f34926fb9f79d19f65266992d50a7' for key 'PRIMARY'


created new category item and menu item
XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: http://localhost/nautilus/index.php/dms-technology/
Line Number 122, Column 52:   New graphics, html5, and the inclusion of ajax and&nbsp; jquery give Elxis Nautilus an impressive new look.&nbsp; The new templating feature includes grid layouts to provide increased flexibility and design.</p>
----------------------------------------------------------^


created new content item and menu item
XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: http://localhost/nautilus/index.php/dms-technology/dms-and-elxis.html
Line Number 143, Column 2:   &nbsp;</p>
--------^
Notes:
FF, the page displays the error only
Chrome, the page displays the error but also displays the content



top menu links
When assigning a category to the top menu link, I set it to last place and clicked apply.  The category was set correctly.  After editing the link, I clicked ordering to LAST PLACE and the link moved to 2nd place.


module listings
When looking through the module listing, if you change the display from 10 to 50 and edit a module, the display returns to 10 items.
Is there anyway to set a user default?


Multiple Users logged in
When testing using more than one user in elxis, the previous version allowed the login of the administrator and a test user, e.g. a blog user.  In this version, when ever a user is logged in there can only be one (tested locally, do not know what will happen if I install this on a real server as yet).

[datahell]

Quick answers

Link to administration
Elxis 4.0 has not yet a web installer to properly set the link to the admin console depending on the site's URL. This is why the link is hardcoded in the installation sql file. You must change it in order to match your site.

Warning due to duplicated entry in db
It will be fixed, I have also seen this. It is not an issue though as no entry happens, just a warning.

XML errors
Invalid characters such as &nbsp; makes the document invalid. See my first post regarding XHTML5 and HTML5.

Reordering items
I will check it

Listings
Elxis already remembers your "rows per page" setting. We implemented this feature just before 2 days (not available in the alpha version). Don't forget that the development is not complete and the user interface will be improved a lot.

Multiple users login from the same computer
You can not login from the same browser as 2 different users simultaneously. Check configuration settings regarding sessions. Match IP, match browser, etc. Note: Elxis 4.0 has a unified user manager for both front-end and back-end sections. If you login in front-end area and then go to back-end Elxis asks you again for the password. This is a secondary security layer for the administration section in order to eliminate session highjack from the front-end section.

[xmanhattan]

Tested this and they both work as expected.

I attach a test module to test the new Elxis installer.

You can see 2 versions of the same module.
First install version 1.0.
Then try to install version 1.1. Elxis will automatic detect that the module is already installed and will ask you if you want to update it to version 1.1.
Also note that Elxis 4.0 has a single installer for all types of extensions.

[datahell]

You can also try to install first version 1.1 and afterwards version 1.0 (downgrade - will not be accepted).

During install/update Elxis does dependency checks. If a check fails Elxis will prompt you a message and ask you if you want to continue the installation or cancel it.
You can see the dependencies of an extension on the extension's edit page.
The dependencies are listed in the extension's XML file.
You can, for example, add on module's test XML file a dependency from an non existent component and then try to install it:

Code: [Select]

<dependencies>
<dependency type="core" version="4.x">elxis</dependency>
<dependency type="component" version="1.2+">sample</dependency>
</dependencies>

[xmanhattan]

The reverse did not work as you say.

Not quite sure what you mean by your explanation in the second part.  If it requires further explanation for documentation then I will ask again.

[xmanhattan]

Elxis Nautilus Alpha testing - continued

Settings - Security
Elxis Defender info, Please add to the info box:
Press CTRL to select two or more settings.
Datahell  answer: Elxis for dummies, bouf...

User Manager - personal details
Birthdate calendar needs to widened to be able to clearly see the month because the top left arrows fall on top of the info.
Datahell answer: Calendar fixed!

Frontpage Designer
Moving some positions into the grid and then saving appears to loose some of the positions afterward.  e.g. I moved the frontpage10 followed by the bottom position into grid 14, then saved.  I then went to the modules and changed 2 modules to those positions.
Found the positions listed again in the positions listing after I refreshed the Frontpage designer page.
Datahell answer: You confused me. Front-page grid cells are not positions. You don't have to re-assign the modules to positions. The front-page grid generates the layout, nothing else. You set for example to display the modules of position "right" into the grid cell 5. You shouldn't set these module in position frontpage5, this is wrong. They should be left to "right". In order to avoid such confusions we advice you to create modules postions like frontpage1, frontpage2, etc..., displayed in the corresponding grid cells. The default content for example uses frontpage2 position for cell 2.

Questions:
Is there or will there be a way to see the layout as an overlay? Datahell answer: What's the difference?
Is there or will there be a way to change or add position names? Datahell answer: No, why???

Modules listing
While testing the Frontpage designer I noticed that after changing module positions, the ordering within positions did not update sequentially.
e.g.  Right showed 4,5,6 instead of 1,2,3.  I do not know if this is meant to be updated manually by the admin.

Module test is displayed in the RIGHT position but in the Frontpage Designer there is no RIGHT position.
Is this correct or How is this possible?
Datahell answer: You are confused. See my answer regarding the Frontpage Designer above.

File Browsing for images
I do not know if this is happening on my system only but I notice a delay whenever a request is made to browse for images the File Browser slows down.

Modules
mod_gallery made a change to the Title selected EL, inserted Εικονική Περιήγηση, then saved. This function worked for the mod_gallery module page but when I looked at the site and clicked on the Greek flag and Εικονοθήκη, there was no display of the above title.  The content of the page was in English, does a content page in Greek have to be created for this to work?
Datahell answer: Multilinguism in elxis config must be enabled inorder translations to work. On the module edit page there is a setting if you want to display the module title or not or if you want to display the automatic multilingual title. So if you want to display your custom multilingual titles you must select there just YES, and NOT the automatic title.

Backup
Tested backup of both sql and file system. Verified that the function created zip files containing sql and files from the nautilus folder including the index.php, inner.php, and configuration.php correctly. Links provided for download works.
Datahell answer: Yeap, it works!

LOGS

File name: warning.log
Last modified: July 03, 2012 10:58

[2012-07-03 06:50:26]    WARNING in file C:\wamp\www\nautilus\includes\libraries\swift\classes\Swift\Transport\SimpleMailInvoker.php line 50
mail() [function.mail]: Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set()
Datahell answer: Not an elxis issue. Do you have an SMTP server on localhost?

[2012-07-03 06:52:24]    WARNING in file C:\wamp\www\nautilus\includes\libraries\swift\classes\Swift\Transport\SimpleMailInvoker.php line 50
mail() [function.mail]: Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set()
Datahell answer: Not an elxis issue. Do you have an SMTP server on localhost?

[2012-07-03 07:58:06]    DATABASE WARNING (23000)
SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity constraint violation: 1062 Duplicate entry '8b980c6cdec9293c5c0ceee6e509bc3d7639b2b2' for key 'PRIMARY'
Datahell answer: I know, it will be fixed

File name: notice.log
Last modified: July 03, 2012 10:39

[2012-07-03 07:29:31]    NOTICE in file C:\wamp\www\nautilus\components\com_extmanager\controllers\modules.php line 632
Undefined variable: q
Datahell answer: Checked, no problem found. Strange...

As there is a problem with displaying new content, I will wait for the next beta update to test that further.
Datahell answer: What kid of problem?

[babis1]

i test it online and so far i havent something different to report than xmanhattan say, yesterday i try to create an autonomous page and i see that ask me to asign the article in category

[datahell]

The reverse did not work as you say.
Not quite sure what you mean by your explanation in the second part.  If it requires further explanation for documentation then I will ask again.

Why peter? You should get a response as follows:
A newer version (1.1) of Test is already installed!
And the downgrade to v1.0 will fail.

[datahell]

i test it online and so far i havent something different to report than xmanhattan say, yesterday i try to create an autonomous page and i see that ask me to asign the article in category

No, it works just fine.
Go to article's list, click New, fill-in the article's details and from the categories drop down box select "None".
Click apply/save, the article should be saved as an autonomous page without any issue.

[xmanhattan]

Yes, sorry, you are right.  My answer to this was a typing error.

The reverse did not work as you say.
Not quite sure what you mean by your explanation in the second part.  If it requires further explanation for documentation then I will ask again.

Why peter? You should get a response as follows:
A newer version (1.1) of Test is already installed!
And the downgrade to v1.0 will fail.

[xmanhattan]

Regarding the displaying new content, I meant that I would wait for a newer version that correct the xml problem.

I will test smtp tomorrow and will re-read your answers and double check what ever I have written.

[datahell]

It is NOT an XML or other problem!
Go to Elxis configuration and switch Document type (doctype) to HTML5.
I will tweak the editor in order to produce only numeric entities which are XHTML valid.

[michalis1984]

I am not able to create of edit menu items. Is it normal? I press Save or Apply and nothing happends.