XOOPS rewritten Using Zend Framework: Alpha 1 released

Feb. 2, 2011 - PRLog -- The XOOPS Project is proud to present Alpha release of its “next generation” Web Application Development platform – the XoopsEngine.

XOOPS is one of the most successful Open Source CMS solutions, constantly winning top places in various competitions, and receiving various awards. But it was slowly showing signs of aging that would require major rewrites of the Core. After much deliberation the team decided to rewrite it from the ground-up using a standard off-the-shelf PHP Framework. Following the same thinking as IBM or Apple did when they decided to use standard Intel chips, the XOOPS team believes that using standard components and libraries while focusing on unique value-add, will increase the “speed to market” for XOOPS. The Xoops Engine is probably the first and only case so far of rewriting a major Open Source project using an industry standard PHP Framework.

After some research and evaluation, XOOPS team has selected Zend Framework, the best and most popular PHP Framework on the market (http://framework.zend.com/about/overview).  By using the Zend Framework XOOPS can take advantage of latest Web developments and vast resources provided by the Zend Framework developers. It's like getting suddenly a whole new team of some of the best PHP programmers joining XOOPS! It will also lower the entry barrier to XOOPS for people who are already familiar with the Zend Framework, and will allow a closer integration with other Zend Framework based solutions, such as Magento eCommerce.

“We are happy to see XOOPS, one of the leaders in the Open Source CMS space, is using Zend Framework as the foundation of their ‘next generation’ release”, said Eldad Maniv, SVP Marketing and Products at Zend. “We are confident that by leveraging the power of Zend Framework and its vibrant community, XOOPS can achieve its goals and grow in popularity.”

Why did we choose Zend Framework
•   The design and coding is professional, state-of-the-art, and fully Object-oriented
•   The documentation is exhaustive, with countless third-party resources available on internet
•   The development is active and sustainable, and its team is backed by PHP development team (Zend)
•   The number of contributors is growing continuously and the user community is very active
•   Strong support from major corporations (Technology partners include IBM, Google, Microsoft, Adobe Systems)
•   Use-at-will architecture with loosely coupled components and minimal interdependencies
•   Extensible MVC implementation supporting layouts and PHP-based templates by default
•   Support for multiple database systems and vendors, including MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and Informix Dynamic Server
•   Email composition and delivery, retrieval via mbox, Maildir, POP3 and IMAP4
•   Flexible caching sub-system with support for many types of backends, such as memory or a file system.
•   The components are vast and loosely coupled and potentially compatible with other libraries: on-demand pickup
•   All components are fully object-oriented PHP 5 and are E_STRICT compliant
•   Proven PHPunit integration for unit tests
•   Constantly updated with latest Web development features
•   strictly PHP 5

What do we inherit from XOOPS
•   Modularization
•   Themes
•   Templates

What do we expect to improve in the new Xoops Engine as a result of including Zend Framework:
•   Flexible architecture and elegant code and implementation
•   Modern MVC architecture: faster development, state-of-the-art technology
•   Distributed deployment respecting virtual hosts
•   Contributor friendly skeleton: easy to manage
•   SEO capable URL routing
•   Solid and rich libraries and frameworks
•   Ready to implement unit test

System requirements
•   Any PHP version >= 5.3
•   MySQL server 5.0+ is strongly recommended
•   Web server: Any server supporting the required PHP version (Apache or nGinx highly recommended)

We would like to invite all developers familiar with Zend Framework (or interested to learn it) to join us and help us with this new and exciting chapter of XOOPS development. More info and download: http://xoops.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5675

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About XOOPS: Founded in 2001 by group of international software developers, XOOPS quickly become one of world’s leading Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS). Known and loved for its ease of use and countless powerful modules, XOOPS received numerous International Awards and Recognitions, including being the Top 5 finalist of the 2008, 2009, and 2010 CMS Awards by Packt Publishing. In January 2009 it received the 2008 China Open Source Software Contest Award and in October 2010 the "Best Technology Award" from Northeast Asia OSS Forum. More info at: http://www.xoops.org