Blog - Joomlatools

DOCman Productivity Pack 1.5.2 Released

2010-07-14T11:43:00.002+02:00

Joomlatools is pleased to announce the immediate release of DOCman's Productivity Pack 1.5.2. This is a maintenance release which looks to fix-up some small issues found within previous releases. The Productivity pack consists of popular Notify, Populate and Thumbs addons for DOCman 1.5.x. All of which aim to make life with DOCman that little bit easier.

Following issues where fixed in this release :

Cron job fixes for Populate
Addressing some link issues with Notify's e-mail template
Showing category names rather than ID's in Notify

As always those whom purchased the Productivity pack already will receive free updates and those whom have not purchased it yet can head over to the Joomlatools store and do so right now! We appreciate our users feedback as we strive forward to deliver "Joomla! extensions that just work"

DOCman Security Announcement

2010-06-21T17:00:00.008+02:00

Joomlatools would like to announce the immediate availability of DOCman 1.5.8 and DOCman 1.4.1.

Recently a medium level vulnerability was discovered in DOCman. A user with editing permissions can potentially access confidential data. The following versions of DOCman are affected: 1.3.x, 1.4.x up to 1.4.0.stable, 1.5.x up to 1.5.7. Upgrading to either 1.4.1 or 1.5.8 resolves the issue.

Even though this is only a medium level vulnerability that will only affect a small percentage of sites, we recommend everybody to upgrade as soon as possible.

How to upgrade

If you are using DOCman 1.5.7 or older:

If you have purchased DOCman 1.5.x, you are automatically entitled to all 1.5.x updates. These are sent to you by email.

If you haven’t received your copy yet:

check your spam filter
allow our email queue a few more days to send out all the emails
contact our support

Please see the README for upgrade instructions.

If you are using DOCman 1.4.0 or older:

As promised, DOCman 1.4.x will always be free of charge, and is still receiving security updates. However, it is no longer officially supported, and will not receive bug fix updates. There are two options:

Update to DOCman 1.4.1 for free
Upgrade to DOCman 1.5.8 for the price of lunch and a coffee. Upgrading is painless and preserves your data. You will get updates to all 1.5.x releases, as well technical support. And of course you are supporting a quality GPL-licensed Joomla extension!

Please see the README for upgrade instructions.

If you are using DOCman 1.3.x:

The 1.3.x series are no longer supported and should be considered very unsafe. Upgrading to 1.5.x happens in three steps: install a patch, upgrade to DOCman 1.4, upgrade to DOCman 1.5. Please see the README instructions included with DOCman 1.4 and 1.5 for more information.

Amaze your friends!

2010-05-10T07:28:00.000+02:00

Along with our revamped Nooku.org site, we also opened the new Nooku Blog. This way we can keep things nicely separated. So if you want to stay up to date with both DOCman and Nooku, subscribe to both http://feeds.nooku.org/blog and http://feeds.joomlatools.eu/site/blog.

You’ll amaze your friends and enemies with your knowledge of Joomla, and you’ll read about our ideas and thoughts for the Joomlasphere. And if you think we’re wrong, feel free to tell us so in the comments!

Advising to NOT upgrade to Joomla 1.5.16/1.5.17

2010-05-07T17:48:00.018+02:00

We are officially advising all our users and customers to NOT upgrade to Joomla 1.5.16/1.5.17. The new Joomla release includes a auto-plugin disable feature which can lead to a site experiencing unexpected behavior or worst case the site could go down.

The auto-plugin disable feature was introduced to quote :

I'd like to try to write a patch to Joomla core so it doesn't die with fatal error when it can't include a plugin file (in other words: plugin exists in DB but filesystem entry is deleted).

Source : Graceful handling of missing plugins

The introduced solution for this problem is that Joomla 1.5.16 and 1.5.17 now disables any plugin that triggers an error during initialisation.

The behavior assumes that a plugin would always throw an error, being a missing file, however the error could be conditional and only thrown under certain circumstances. Depending on how the plugin works the conditions could be rare. Instead of throwing an error the plugin is disabled and prevented from executing under normal conditions. This can lead to a site visitor experiencing unexpected behavior or worse the site could go down.

We have requested the change in 1.5.17 to be rolled-back.(See Tracker #19859). In the mean time we strongly advise you to not upgrade to Joomla 1.5.16/1.5.17.

If you are using 1.5.16/1.5.17 and you are experiencing problem with plugins magically disabling themselves please let us know.

Update 05/08/2010

If you have updated already you can disable the auto-disable behavior by changing the helper.php file found in yours libraries/joomla/plugin folder and removing lines 122-136 :

  if(!$shutdown_handler_installed)
  {
   // only register the shutdown function if we are capable of checking the errors (reqs PHP 5.2+)
   if (version_compare("5.2", phpversion(), "<="))
   {
    // you can only register a static method if it is declared static
    // we can't declare static b/c it breaks on PHP4
    // therefore we instantiate the helper for this one purpose
    $pluginHelper = new JPluginHelper;
    register_shutdown_function(array($pluginHelper, 'shutdown'));
   }
   // we may not have installed the handler, but setting this to true
   // will prevent us from continually running the version compare
   $shutdown_handler_installed = true;
  }

This change will have no other effect then removing the auto-disable behavior from your 1.5.17 install.

Update 05/16/2010

The Joomla bugsquad has confirmed that this behavior will be reverted in the upcoming 1.5.18 release. For more info see the following mailing list thread.

DOCman 1.5.7 released

2010-05-04T00:46:00.006+02:00

With the DOCman 1.5.x series running pretty smoothly, we focused all efforts for the latest maintenance release on these area’s:

1) Group email is back

This feature was taken out due to some issues, and didn’t make it back in the previous releases. It turned out some of you really depended on it, so I’m happy to say the feature is back from the hospital and feeling all better!

2) A diverse variety of systems

People run DOCman on on all possible combinations of server stacks, based on Windows & *nix, with Apache, nginx, IIS, etc, and, unfortunately, not all of them on good hosts. Some of the combinations produce the weirdest of bugs: downloading from an Apache install using IE7 and IE8 for example. Fixing weird bugs sometimes result in other weird bugs: immediately after the release of 1.5.6, we discovered a regression.

But not to worry: it proves our workflow for forum support, bug tracking and fixing, and releasing, is in top condition. We managed to release 1.5.7 within 24 hours of 1.5.6. A new record! (Also, it turns out that release numbers ending in ‘6’ have bad mojo.)

3) FTP layer support

If you are using Joomla’s FTP layer, you’ll be happy to know our installer and upgrader now have better support for it. Still, if you don’t need the FTP layer, turn it off. It will improve your site’s performance.

4) Fix minor annoyances

You all know them: little bugs in software that are almost too small to spot, affect only few people, but can kill your mood if you run into them and you’re on a deadline to deliver a site. With the more important bugs out of the way, we now had the time to fix those leftovers.

We hope you enjoy this release as much as we enjoyed making it. If you have any problems, make sure you have a look at our DOCman Support Portal, which has over 125 FAQ items, and a couple of video’s as well. If you are still running DOCman 1.4, now is an excellent time to get the 1.5 upgrade from the Joomlatools Store.

Nooku at the Dutch Joomladays

2010-04-18T16:39:00.010+02:00

This weekend we will be at the Dutch Joomladays in Utrecht. It's one of the oldest and most popular Joomla events in Europe: two days, hundreds of attendees, and lots of parallel sessions. Traditionally it has a great mix of newbies, organizations, and community members, which is the perfect recipe for inspiring discoveries.

We're proud to announce that Nooku is once again sponsoring the Dutch Joomladays. Like last year, we'll be holding court as Doctor Joomla, so if you have any questions about anything at all, don't hesitate to ask. We'll also be giving two presentations:

The Belgian Police and Joomla

Until recently, each of Belgium's 190 police zones had their own websites, each running different proprietary systems. To increase the usability, and to cut down licensing costs, all 190 sites will be migrated to Joomla by the end of 2010.

This creates some challenging problems: how to maintain these sites? How to create consistency, yet allow for the required flexibility for each autonomous zone? How do you train and support your users?

During this case study, you'll get a unique insight in the project, presented by Marc Alen, Adjunct Secretary of the Police, and Johan Janssens.

Nooku Framework

From it's humble beginnings in 2008, Nooku has grown into a powerful platform. Hundreds of sites use custom built Nooku-powered extensions. Some of the first major public extensions are coming out of beta, such as Anahita Social Engine and Ninjaboard. A lot is happening in the community: the new Nooku Developer Portal was opened, and new tools and reusable components are being added.

Find out about the latest new developments in the Nookusphere in this presentation by Johan Janssens and Mathias Verraes.

Event hashtag: #jd10nl

Joomladays you can't miss!

2010-03-17T20:36:00.012+01:00

Joomla event season is starting again and we are firing up our engines. We already blogged about J! And Beyond, but there's more:

Joomladay France

First up is the Joomladay France in Bordeaux, on March 21st, 2010. That's this weekend, so if you haven't booked yet, do it fast. It will be our first French Joomladay and we are excited about meeting old friends in real life, and making new ones.

We are not speaking at this event but are happy to answer any burning questions you might have regarding DOCman, Nooku, or Joomla. Come and find us at the event and say hi!

Joomladays Mallorca

If you need an excuse to visit the beautiful island of Mallorca, we've got some good news. We've been confirmed for two presentations on the Joomladay in Palma De Mallorca: On April 9th, we're presenting Nooku Framework, and on April 10th we'll be talking about what's going on in the world of DOCman.

Joomladays Netherlands

We've never missed a Dutch Joomladay, and we always love going back. As usual it's a two day event, April 23 & 24. This year's theme is "Extraordinary: Beauty, Empowerment and Great Extensions". From what we heard, the organizers are hand-picking the sessions, to make sure each presentation is top quality. We will post more information about our talks when the official schedule is announced. In the meantime, we can already guarantee some very cool stuff is going to happen in Utrecht!

Sweden and Denmark

Unfortunately, the Swedish and Danish Joomladays are on the same dates as the Dutch Joomladays, so we can't attend. The good news is that Stian Didriksen, Ninjaboard Lead Developer and Nooku Framework early adopter will be speaking. The presentation is about his great new forum extension, but I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any Nooku questions you may have.

Get away from your desk!

Most of you have jobs that involve sitting at a desk all day and talking to people you never meet. Get up and visit at least one event this year. You'll find that being able to discuss your hobby/job/passion with fellow aficionados in real life can be very inspiring!

DOCman 1.5.5 released

2010-03-12T18:16:00.005+01:00

This week we released DOCman 1.5.5. A couple of regressions were discovered after the releases of 1.5.3 and 1.5.4, which mostly affected IIS users (and local Windows installations). That's why we we decided to get the fixes out so soon. This should allow us to get back to our regular release schedule of +- 4 weeks. As usual, if you've bought DOCman 1.5, you will get the latest update by mail.

Changes in 1.5.5

Fixed 403 error when author uses DOClink
Fixed search form html anomality
Fixed missing icons

Changes in 1.5.4

Fixed some IIS regressions
Fixed notices in Search
Fixed problem uploading on IIS in some cases

Translations

We've also received some new translations: Catalan, Polish, Estonian and Croatian. The Swedish translation was updated as well. Head over to the download section to find a list of all available translations (32 already!) for DOCman 1.5. Thanks a lot to everyone who contributed, we really appreciate it!

Joomlatools is growing

2010-03-09T12:56:00.002+01:00

Over the past 3 years Joomlatools has gone from strength to strength. Founded by Joomla Co-founder Johan Janssens and DOCman Lead Developer Mathias Verraes we soon grew with the addition of two more Joomla Co-Founders Peter Russell and Shayne Bartlett.

We now find ourselves expanding yet again, so it is with great pleasure that we announce two fantastic additions to the Joomlatools team.

Tom Janssens (yes... he's Johan's little brother) joins us as a Webmaster/Designer. Tom holds a Bachelors Degree in Information and Communications Technology. Tom is one of those talented people that can both code and design. For more on Tom visit his bio

Krisstoffer is already well known to DOCman users with his volunteer work in the DOCman forums over the past few years. With DOCman's move to commercial GPL, Kriss has come on the team to continue this role with the position of Support Engineer. For more on Kriss visit his full bio

Finally we would like to thank our users and partners for their continued support, without it we would not be growing. We are committing ourselves to you and ensuring you receive the best solutions and support possible.

J! And Beyond: Joomla event of the year

2010-02-28T01:01:00.012+01:00

J! And Beyond is the first community driven International Joomla Conference, taking place in Germany, May 30 till June 1st. It grew out of the vibrant community site All Together As A Whole. This is the Joomla event of the year, you don't want to miss it!

The program is entirely up to you, as everyone can vote for presentations.

First, register (even if you intend to stay at home and watch the video streams).
Then vote for the presentations you like.

We've submitted presentations for everybody: developers, system integrators, and end users:

Nooku Framework Masterclass

Target audience: Joomla and PHP developers.

We'll show you how to get started with Nooku Framework'snear-zero-code MVC, and how to leverage some of the exciting new features for extreme re-usability: taxonomy, trash management, ...

Want to learn how to wield all this power? Vote for the master class and join us for a wild ride into Nooku Framework development.

Nooku Framework for System Integrators

Target audience: Anybody building more than one Joomla site a year.

Typical Joomla extensions are very inflexible. They do the job, but if you want just that little bit extra, you're stuck. You either have to hack them, or persuade the developer to include the feature.

Extensions built with Nooku Framework are different. You get extreme flexibility, and you get it out of the box. With a basic understanding of PHP, you can change every aspect of a Nooku Framework powered extension. And we'll prove it by showing how it's done!

Nooku Framework Extension Showcase

Target audience: Joomla users and administrators

J! And Beyond is the ideal time to introduce the first generation of Nooku-based extensions to the world:

Ninjaboard, a brand new Jooma forum by Ninjaforge
Anahita Social Engine, the mother of all social network applications
Nooku Content, the multilingual extension with advanced SEO and content management features

We also have some exciting announcements to make. Curious? Register, vote, and come and see for yourself!

DOCman 1.5.3 Released

2010-02-27T14:48:00.011+01:00

Short on the heels of our Productivity Pack for DOCman we are pleased to announce the immediate release of DOCman 1.5.3, our latest maintenance release.

DOCman 1.5.3 is the third release in the three months since we released DOCman 1.5, and in keeping with our commitment to provide the Joomla community with professionally developed and supported extensions.

DOCman 1.5.3 fixes a number of issues, as well as seeing more performance improvements. Notable changes include :

IIS compatibility drastically improved.
Searching of international characters.
User loading in front end 2x faster.
Document view 10% faster
Files view 60% faster

For a full list, see the changelog.

As usual, users who bought v1.5.x get free updates. To get you own copy, head over to the Joomlatools Store.

Finally we would like to thank our users many of whom have been glowing in their praise.

"I can't say enough about this product. It is the must have Joomla extension!" - halbertech

"I have paid the small fee for the 1.5 version willingly and am very impressed with this product. Installation and configuration works very well. There is much in the way of documents and assistance both directly on their site as well as via the forum." - Romuba

"is also very easy to use, so easy my sister can use it" - Daniel Hughes

Your feedback is always welcome and it is one of the things that motivates us the most.

DOCman Secrets: Email notifications

2010-02-18T09:26:00.006+01:00

Whether you are running an intranet or a public website, as an administrator, you often need to keep a close eye on what your users are doing. Especially when they are allowed to edit documents or upload new files. With DOCman Notify, it's easy to set up email notifications. Notify is part of the DOCman Productivity Pack. Tom made another great video tutorial, showing how it's done.

Watch the DOCman Notify 1.5 Video.

Install the plugin iusing Joomla's extension installer
Go to the Plugin Manager and edit the plugin's settings
Don't forget to enable the plugin. If you want turn of notifications later, just disable it again
In the "Send to" field, enter your email address
If you want to send to multiple recipients, separate the email addresses with the pipe symbol "|"
Turn on the notifications you wish to receive. The first three options will send an email whenever a user uploads, edits or downloads a document in the front-end of your site. The last option notifies you when a manager or (super) administrator edits a document through the backend interface.
Save the plugin settings
Try one of the upload, edit or download actions that you enabled
Check your inbox. The email contains all kinds of useful info about the user, the document and the file.

Get the DOCman Productivity today in the Joomlatools Store, for only €15

Advanced customization

If you don't like the look of the email, or you want it to have a different set of information, you can easily do so by modifying the email template. The /plugins/docman/notify/templates folder contains two php files, one for the email body and one for the footer. They contain standard html and css, plus a couple of php variables. If you have some html experience, you should have no problem editing these to your liking.

It's your workflow

Every organization has their own workflow needs. DOCman's flexible plugin system allows developers to add workflow rules and behavior to DOCman, and in fact, DOCman Notify is great example to start from. We'd love to hear how you use DOCman, and how you would like to see it improved. So make sure to vote for feature suggestions (or submit your own) in our ideas tracker.

DOCman Secrets: Generating thumbnails

2010-02-15T17:37:00.003+01:00

Did you know that you don't need to worry about creating thumbnails for your images or other documents yourself? All you need is the DOCman Thumbs plugin, which does all the work for you. It's part of the DOCman Productivity Pack. This video shows how easy it is:

Watch the DOCman Thumbs 1.5 video.

After installing, remember to enable DOCman Thumbs in the Plugin Manager
You can adjust some settings, for example the thumbnail dimensions
Now when you browse the frontend, the thumbnails are generated on the fly for all supported file types (depending on your server setup)
If a document already has a thumbnail (for example because you set it manually), it will not be overwritten

Clearing thumbnails

If you want to start over (for example after changing the thumbnail size), you'll need to clear out the thumbnails.

Go to the DOCman Home screen
Click 'Clear Data'
Select 'Thumbnails' and click the 'Clear' button
Note that this will clear the thumbnails for all your documents

Advanced use

By default, most server setups have the GD library installed. This will work fine for standard images such as png and jpg. But if you want thumbnails for larger files, pdf's, movies, and range of other documents, you'll need to install some libraries, such imagick and ghostscript. If you are not familiar with installing libraries on your server, please ask your system administrator for help. To find out what is already available on your server, go to Help -> System Info -> PHP Information.

DOCman Secrets: Batch imports

2010-02-11T11:27:00.008+01:00

Did you know it's easy to batch import thousands of files into DOCman, all with just a few clicks? All you need is the DOCman Populate add-on. It's part of the DOCman Productivity Pack.

This video will show you how it's done:

Watch the DOCman Populate 1.5 video.

After you've installed DOCman Populate, follow these simple steps:

Upload your files using FTP, into the /dmdocuments folder. (It might have a different name -- check your DOCman configuration)
In the backend, go to Components -> DOCman Populate -> Configuration
Choose the default settings. These will be used for all documents that you generate.
Go to Components -> DOCman Populate -> Import Files
Select the files you want (you can use Ctrl-click / Cmd-click for multiple files)
Pick a category and click the import button
The documents are now available in DOCman.

Get the DOCman Productivity Pack here to boost your workflow.

Joomlatools releases DOCman Productivity Pack

2010-02-08T20:16:00.008+01:00

We're happy to announce the release of the DOCman Productivity Pack, consisting of three must-have add-ons for any serious DOCman user. These add-ons will help you with your workflow, speed up dealing with lots of files, and make your front-end a lot more usable for end users. The new Productivity Pack is now available in the Joomlatools Store now for only €15.

1. DOCman Populate

Populate let's you import thousands of files into DOCman with just a few clicks. Just set some defaults, upload the files over FTP, and let Populate turn them into new DOCman documents. Couldn't be easier! Update: We've made a video showing how easy using DOCman Populate is.

Still too much trouble? Use the cron job feature to automate the whole process completely!

2. DOCman Thumbs

Thumbs will automatically generate thumbnails for your DOCman front-end. Not just for images: a whole range of document types, including PDF, are supported. (Depending on your server setup, you might need to install some additional libraries. See the README for more information).

3. DOCman Notify

You may want to keep a close eye on who uploads, edits or downloads documents on your site. Notify keeps you up to date with any of these actions you choose, by sending you notification emails full of relevant info.

All three add-ons have an intuitive and simple to use administration interface. They were completely refactored to make full use of the Joomla 1.5 native API.

You can get these three great add-ons for only €15 in the Joomlatools Store. It's the best way to boost your document management productivity today!

Joomlatools launches DOCman support portal

2010-01-28T16:57:00.006+01:00

We've said it before: one of the aspects that can make software truly shine, is great support. Finding better ways to give our users the support they deserve, has been one of our priorities for 2010. So far that's been going swimmingly:

Our professional support staff leaves no post unanswered in the DOCman 1.5 forum
Our response time for bugs is better than ever: we've already done two maintenance releases in 6 weeks (or 5, leaving out a week of holiday season)

Today we are taking the third step in our quest to serve you better: We're launching a shiny new support site for DOCman! Go and take a look at http://support.joomlatools.eu.

(And yes, the trained eye will notice the sweet looking CSS3 effects that our designer Tom put in there. If you're still using an old browser, upgrade to Firefox 3.6 or Chrome now for full bliss.)

How People See Joomla

2010-01-24T22:43:00.012+01:00

Sometimes a simple diagram says it better than a thousand words:

Update: This picture triggered a little game on Twitter. People are making their own versions of 'How people see Joomla'. Wanna play? Send your picture to @mathiasverraes or post in the comments.

The creations so far:

DOCman 1.5.2 released, add-ons coming soon

2010-01-20T16:37:00.004+01:00

Today we released the latest update of DOCman 1.5 to our customers. These are some of the most important changes:

PHP 5.3 compatibility. Depending on your server configuration, running DOCman on PHP 5.3 produced a couple of innocent yet annoying error messages.
Special characters in filenames. DOCman is now much better equiped to handle filenames with all kinds of strange characters in them.
Deleted users. When you delete a user, the documents that user owned now no longer generate errors.
Clear Thumbnails. This new item in the 'Clear data' panel allows you to remove the thumbnails for all documents. This useful in combination with the upcoming Thumbnail generation add-on.
... and a whole bunch of other fixes and improvements.

As usual, users who bought v1.5.x get free updates. To get you own copy, head over to the Joomlatools Store.

UPDATE: When upgrading, make sure you are using the special upgrade package called upgrade_docman_v1.5.x_to_v1.5.2.r1147.tar.gz, and not the normal package called docman_v1.5.2.r1147.tar.gz. Download links for both packages are in the email that is sent to all customers.

DOCman Productivity Pack

I'm very happy to announce that in the coming days, we are also releasing the DOCman Productivity Pack. This contains three must-have add-ons to DOCman that can really boost your workflow:

DOCman Populate: Batch import thousands of documents with a few clicks. Also supports crontabs for automated zero-interaction imports.
DOCman Thumbs: Automatically generate thumbnails for all your images and a whole range of other file formats in DOCman.
DOCman Notify: Get notification emails whenever documents are uploaded or edited

More on the DOCman Productivity pack later!

Why DOCman?

2010-01-16T18:12:00.002+01:00

Occasionally we receive questions from people asking why they should use DOCman instead of another document management or download extension for Joomla. We haven't done any feature-by-feature comparisons -- we'll leave that to other bloggers -- but below is a re-post of what I answered to a question on our forum.

Picking extensions

On the Joomla Extensions Directory, every category has 5 or 10 alternatives you can choose from. That's a benefit, but it can also make things more difficult. How to pick the right one? For me, it's always about flexibility, security, and support.

Fishing

Long before I started Joomlatools with Johan, I was building websites for customers. Remository and DOCman were the only choices back then. My customers asked for features that neither provided. But I looked at the code, and even though I was a pretty inexperienced developer back then, DOCman's code made sense. It wasn't long before I started making addons for DOCman to satisfy my customer's requirements. Some of those addons are still around: Autopopulate, AutoThumb... When I later became lead developer, adding even more ways to extend DOCman has always been my priority over adding features. Adding a feature is like giving someone a fish, adding flexibility is giving them a fishing pole.

Security

When open source software is used by many people, bugs and vulnerabilities get discovered more rapidly (Linus' Law). Despite the fact that DOCman is one of the most popular extensions for Joomla (and has been for years), it's been a very long time since any noteworthy vulnerability was discovered. Building a Joomla extension is easy. Building one that can resist hacking attempts is something that requires your full attention.

Lunch and Coffee

Finally, yes we started charging for DOCman recently. We realize that even though the price is only that of a lunch and a coffee, it might cause many people to switch to other solutions. But you get a lot for this money: We can now focus on DOCman, instead of always pushing it to the bottom of the todo list. You can see it in the speed and quality of replies to support questions in the forum: in fact we hired Krisstoffer, who used to be a voluntarily moderator on our forum, so we are now paying him to help people. You can also see it in the development: we released the 1.5.1 update only a week after releasing 1.5.0, whereas before, releases took us 6 months or more.

(Update: We just added a brand new support portal to serve DOCman users even better!)

In the end you have to decide for yourself what suits you. With it's ACL's, nested categories, theming etc, DOCman is very feature-rich choice, for a very competitive price. But be aware that features and price are not the only things that can make software great.

Security in third party addons

2010-01-12T08:40:00.007+01:00

Last week, two security reports caught our attention. Even though they are not directly about any of our products, they are relevant to our users. That is why we have opened a new forum to announce vulnerabilities. Please subscribe to the Joomlatools security RSS feed, or to the security forum (you need a forum account).

1. DOCman Seller

This extension allows you to sell documents through DOCman. So far the developer of this extension has not responded to this vulnerability report. As the extension's web page doesn't show any activity, we suspect it has been abandoned.

If you are using this extension, we advise you to uninstall it completely, until an update is released. The AEC extension might be a good alternative.

UPDATE: The entry on the extensions directory states that the component was updated to v2.2. However, the download link is broken, I couldn't find any information on Ossolution's site, and the site's support page appears to have been hacked.

UPDATE 2: In the meantime the links on the JED have been updated to point to Ossolution's new site. However, in the meantime Ossolution claims to have made a completely new version 2.5 of the extension, which no longer depends on DOCman. They refused to send us a copy, so we have no idea at all how secure it is.

2. Com_alfresco

We have investigated this report, and it does not concern the Joomla:Alfresco integration that was published through Joomlatools Labs over a year ago. We have been unable to find the developer of this extension, so we believe it might be a custom extension that is not available on the JED. If you have more information, please let us know.

If you have an Alfresco extension installed, you can identify it by opening /administrator/components/com_alfresco/manifest.xml. If it starts with the following header, you are using our secure extension. If it doesn't, you might be using the vulnerable extension.

<name>Alfresco</name>
<author>Joomlatools</author>
<copyright>Copyright (C) 2008 Joomlatools. All rights reserved.</copyright>
<creationdate>December 2008</creationdate>
<license>http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GNU/GPL</license>
<authoremail>info@joomlatools.org</authoremail>
<authorurl>www.joomlatools.org</authorurl>
<version>1.0.0</version>
<description>This component displays an Alfresco repository using CMIS</description>

DOCman Secret: Link documents in articles

2009-12-22T16:41:00.006+01:00

Did you know that you can easily insert documents into articles using DOCman 1.5? It's an awesome feature that few people know about.

Here is how you do it:

When writing an article, click the "DOClink" button below the editor
You will get a popup to navigate through your documents
Select a document, and click 'OK'
Done! Your article now has a direct link to your document
You can also link to categories, or add some fancy extra's like an icon or the filesize.

Can't find the button? Go to the Joomla's Plugin Manager and enable the DOClink plugin.

Watch our video or discover DOClink yourself!

Watch the DOClink video.

DOCman 1.5.1 maintenance update released

2009-12-16T18:38:00.003+01:00

One week after the release of DOCman 1.5, we are thrilled to announce the 1.5.1 maintenance update. This version fixes a number of medium and low level bugs that were discovered after the release.

For me, it's been the most fun release process I've ever had, thanks to an amazing team: with Krisstoffer and Shayne covering support on the forum, Tom and I had our hands free to work on fixing issues and preparing the update. This great new workflow turned out to be very smooth, resulting in our fastest release cycle ever. All software has bugs, but we believe quality shows in how they are handled.

Best DOCman ever

If you have been waiting to buy DOCman, now's a great time: the wrinkles have been smoothed, and it's better than ever! Not only do you get one of the best Joomla extensions, you're also supporting open source development. And all that for the price of a lunch and a coffee.

Already bought DOCman 1.5? You don't have to pay again for the update. Check your email for info on how to update.

More information:

Nooku Buzz in Barcelona

2009-12-12T03:47:00.001+01:00

I managed to have a quick chat with Johan Janssens, co-founder and principal architect of Joomla! 1.5, after presenting his first talk about Joomla!, in Barcelona today.

Albeit a brief chat, it seems the sessions are going really well and the community in Spain is quite strong. A funny aside, there were a few 'nervous' individuals in the audience, no doubt wondering what Johan might say about the current state of play.

You can see the thrust of his first presentation below. If you read the slides closely, you will notice the quote I derived from a pub only last night has already travelled the globe!!!

View more documents from Johan Janssens.

Later he will be presenting about the Nooku Framework project and the various magical innovations coming soon to the Joomlasphere.

Ever the intrepid traveller, Johan, he sends his best wishes to everyone here and hopes we are keeping our spirits up during some challenging times.

He says Buena Suerte to all :)

Addendum:

Since the initial post, Johan has conducted his Nooku Framework presentation. By all accounts this was quite a hit with loads of developers keen to get involved with the Nooku way of doing things — coding intelligence, coding efficiency, coding speed in a fun and friendly supportive dev environment.

Essentially, make more of your time with a more-powerful friend — Nooku.

Johan's most powerful example was through Ninjaboard, developed by Daniel Chapman and his crew. There were plenty of oohs and ahs, when Johan demonstrated an 80% reduction in code in the Ninjaboard refactoring using Nooku Framework.

Then Johan touched on how Nooku tightens up security due to it requiring less code to achieve the same end through reusability and inherent usability. "Write less code to lower the risk of vulnerabilities," Johan said. Provide advanced automatic security features out of the box."

Slideshare below:

View more documents from Nooku.

Note : Since this blog was first published on AllTogetherAsAWhole.org, we have invited 50 more developers to join in the fun at Nooku Framework.

DOCman 1.5 FAQ

2009-12-10T16:26:00.015+01:00

We've had some great feedback in our first 24 hours of releasing DOCman 1.5, and also some confusion. We've tried to answer all your questions in the FAQ below. UPDATE: The latest version of this FAQ is available here: DOCman Pre-sales FAQ

Where can I ask pre-sales questions?
In the dedicated forum: http://forum.joomlatools.eu/viewforum.php?f=51

Why do I have to pay to download DOCman?
DOCman has been free of charge since it's conception in 2003 until December 2009. With one million downloads a year, many sites depend on DOCman to keep their data secure. This is a big responsibility for Joomlatools. By charging for DOCman, we can assign more resources to make sure DOCman remains the most stable, preformant and safe document manager for Joomla.

What if I don't want to pay for DOCman?
DOCman 1.4 will always be available free of charge. DOCman 1.4 runs on both Joomla 1.0.x and 1.5.x. However, no new features will be added to 1.4, and only security issues and high level bugs will be fixed.

What is the license for DOCman?
DOCman 1.5 is released as Free Software under the GNU GPLv2.

How can DOCman be Free Software / GPL if I have to pay for it?
"Free Software" is about freedom, not about price. Free Software gives you a number of rights, most importantly to use the software as you wish. See http://commercialgpl.com for a (very short) introduction to commercial Free Software.

When I purchase DOCman, can I use it on multiple domains?
Yes. DOCman is released under the GPL license, which means you can install it on as many sites or servers as you wish.

Do I have to pay again when a new version is released?
When you purchase DOCman 1.5.x, you will automatically get all maintenance releases (1.5.y, 1.5.z...) free of charge. You will be notified by email, including a link to download the update. However, feature releases (1.6, 1.7...) are not included in the deal and have to be bought separately.

Can I try DOCman before I buy it?
Yes, there is a demo site. There's no trial version. However, as DOCman 1.4 is free of charge, you can download and install it, and buy DOCman 1.5 if you decide it suits your needs.

How long is a download link valid?
Links to a dedicated download location will be sent immediately after your purchase. Download link expire 1 month after purchase and can be downloaded 3 times.

I can not use paypal, are there other options?
At the moment paypal is the only option, we are looking into adding more possibilities.

Where can I get support for DOCman 1.5 ?
You can get free community support in the official forum: http://forum.joomlatools.eu.

Can I upgrade from DOCman 1.4 or 1.3?
Yes, follow the instructions in the included README file. http://www.joomlatools.eu/products/docman/read-me.html

What are the requirements for DOCman 1.5?
You need the latest Joomla 1.5.x and PHP 5.2 or higher. Please make sure you have these before installing DOCman 1.5.

I am using Joomla 1.0.x, can I use DOCman?
You can use DOCman 1.4 with Joomla 1.0.x. DOCman 1.5 is not compatible with Joomla 1.0.x.

Will DOCman run on Joomla 1.6?
At the moment Joomla 1.6 is still in development. When Joomla 1.6 reaches beta stage, we will start working on a compatible version of DOCman. Our goal is to release this at the same time as Joomla 1.6 stable.

Where can I submit feature requests?
In our UserVoice tracker

Where can I submit bugs?
In the forum
Where are DOClink, the modules and the search plugin?
These addons are now installed automatically when you install DOCman 1.5.

How about AutoPopulate, AutoThumb, Blogtheme?
Updated versions of these addons will be released in the near future.

Will my 3PD or custom themes and extensions work with DOCman 1.5?
Some existing themes and addons will need the legacy plugin to be enabled. It should be fairly easy to migrate them to native 1.5. There is a guide to migrate themes.

Why is the Joomla extensions directory not updated?
We have contacted the JED team. They are usually very busy, so please allow some time.

What is DOCman's versioning scheme?
1.4, 1.5, 1.6... are feature releases. They add new things, and they are mostly backwards compatible. This means that upgrading from one feature release to the next will be fairly easy, and 3PD addons such as themes, translations, utilities, ... will work with little to no modifications.
1.5.0, 1.5.1, 1.5.2... are maintenance releases. They consist only of bug fixes and security fixes, are 100% backwards compatible.

What is included in the package?
When installing DOCman 1.5, the following extensions are installed automatically as well:

DOClink: plugin to insert documents in articles)
DOCman search: integrate searching for documents with Joomla's core search
Standard Buttons: plugin with the default buttons for the DOCman frontend (download, view, details, checkin/out, publish, approve, update)
Latest downloads module
Most downloaded module
Category documents module: shows docs from one category
Lister module: Show a list of popular/latest documents.
Admin modules (displayed in the DOCman control panel)

There's no need to unzip the package, the addons are installed automatically.

DOCman 1.5 Stable is now available!

2009-12-09T13:46:00.012+01:00

Today we are very excited to announce the release of DOCman v1.5, which you can buy in the new Joomlatools store!

Conceived in 2003, and sporting thousands of downloads each month, DOCman has established itself as the premiere document management tool for Joomla. The new release is the culmination in years of experience in security. Keeping your documents safe has always been the primary concern — one we will never take lightly. Marc Alen, Adjunct Secretary of the Belgian Police Force agrees:

"We run 140 DOCman installations, one for each police zone's public website, and even more installations on our intranets. Security is imperative — and for years, DOCman is delivering that for us."

Native Joomla 1.5

We've been collecting user feedback for a while, and we've implemented the most demanded feature: being able to run DOCman in Joomla 1.5 without legacy mode. The primary focus for this release has been stability, performance and security. Not only did we squeeze out another 10% in performance improvement, and 20% in memory usage; thanks to our extensive testing, you can rest assured this is the safest way to store and distribute your documents using Joomla. DOClink, the search plugin and the modules are now installed automatically along with DOCman. And as an added bonus, the new DOCman release was given a brand new front end theme.

GPL freedom

You can buy the new DOCman 1.5 for €20 in the Joomlatools store. Charging a little for DOCman will help us invest in development and better support. Does this change anything? No, DOCman is still Free Software (as in Freedom) released under the GPL, just like Joomla. You still get the freedom to use DOCman as you wish. By buying DOCman, you support open source development. For everybody else, DOCman 1.4 is still available and will always be free of charge.

We'd like to thank everybody who had a hand in making this possible. We're looking forward to hear your feedback on this great new release, and with your support, DOCman can keep going on this amazing journey!