Subscribe to Comments is a new module for SWCMS and one of the features on our Roadmap that I’ve especially wanted to see implemented. It works in a similar fashion to the Wordpress plugin of the same name, which you can see on this very blog. In SWCMS, a checkbox is added to the comment form, enabling each user to subscribe. Likewise, the story author can subscribe during the submission process, or afterwards in the comment section. When a comment is made, the full content of that comment is emailed to you, along with the obligatory “unsubscribe” notice.

The current version is 0.2, and I’m keen to get some feedback and work out any bugs. If you think your users will enjoy this module, come and grab the download from the Social Web CMS forums.

Nick Ramsay

You might think the process of approving or denying new submissions manually would put off new users, but by the time they are notified that their posts will be moderated, they will have already completed the submission process. As soon as that happens, the site admin - you - will be emailed details of the new post showing the complete content and links to either approve it or deny the user. In fact, with just two clicks, the job is done.

If you’re always on the go and can’t sit at the computer all day waiting for new users to submit something, the module can be easily customized to send email notification to your cell phone. So you can be confident your site is always free of spam. Learn more about Submission Approval in the Social Web CMS forums.

- Nick (longcountdown)

- Ash

The SWCMS version places a “Tweet This!” link below each story on your site, and clicking it opens Twitter with the title and a shortened version of the story’s url all ready for you to publish to your followers.

My Social Web CMS site usually only averages a handful of comments on each story, but recently, one topic was apparently so controversial that members of the site took advantage of “Tweet This!” to rally support from their Twitter followers. The result was a whopping 59 comments and a bunch of new members!

Twitter has become a powerful medium for spreading a message and attracting attention. In a previous post, we mentioned how one Twitter user with a following of 2,000+ users started a chain of “tweets” that led to the SWCMS site being bookmarked over 200 times on Delicious in just a few hours!

Thanks to user feedback from Landshark and Ditto, I’ve made some important fixes to our “Tweet This!” module in order to make it as reliable and easy to use as possible so all of us can benefit from Twitter.

You can learn more about and download “Tweet This!” v.0.2 in the forums, and remember, if a popular Twitter user tweets a story from your site, it may just go viral!

(Nick Ramsay a.k.a longcountdown)

http://delicious.com/url/add1b95d858893ec3c036e5685d1a8d0

Longcountdown did a little investigating and found a popular Twitter user (designmeme) ummm tweeted (is that the right word?) us.

http://twitter.com/designmeme/status/1104366196

With the release of 1.1 we are also happy to announce that 2.0 is well under way. It will include a number of enhancements we’ll cover in detail in a soon-to-be-released post (for now, think simplified templating and a cleaner/faster module creation process). As of this time we intend to continue closing out any bugs or security issues that arise with the 1.0 release but most efforts (and the new features) will be coming with 2.0.

Download: http://www.assembla.com/spaces/yadc/documents/cuGM8I3Dyr3yAXab7jnrAJ/download?filename=SWCMS_v1_1.zip

Two posts ago we mentioned some template system changes that we’re working on. Here is a status update:

* Separating Back-End Admin Templates from Front-End User Templates. DONE.
* Separating Static Template Elements. DONE.
* Overall Template Modification vs. Page Details. DONE.
* Separation of Styling and Templates. In Progress.
* A template manager with concepts similar to the module store. Not Started.

If you’re interested,  the new system is available from the ‘Beta’ branch in our SVN. The SVN link is: http://svn.assembla.com/svn/yadc/

New release soon! Within the next few days we’ll release a version 1.1 Stable. This version will not have any new features. This version will consist of a couple bug fixes and a few overall security improvements. We’ve also tackled a few more ‘Undefined Index’ errors. This is a continuation of our goal to have a rock solid stable release.

We don’t yet have a release date for the next non-stable / beta version. There are numerous improvements that are being worked on and tested. If you’re interested in testing, no need to wait for an official release, feel free to checkout the Beta branch of the SVN at any time.

The fix is fairly simple. Open /evb/check_url.php.

After

include(’../config.php’);

add

include(’../libs/html1.php’);

and around line 36 replace

$url = htmlspecialchars(strip_tags($_GET['url']));

with

$url = htmlspecialchars(sanitize($_GET['url'], 4));

We’ll be reviewing the code to see if this particular vulnerability affects any other part of SWCMS and soon be releasing an updated version of the SWCMS Patcher that will include this fix. The fix above will correct both this specific exploit as well as the general vulnerability through evb to create rogue files.

To see if you’ve already been infected, see if you have a file named /libs/manager.php.

We’ll be setting up a mailing list and we’ve created a Twitter account http://twitter.com/SocialWebCMS to help keep you informed.