Exploring the Top PHP CMS Platforms #PHP #CMS #PHPCMSPlatforms

Posted on by Michael G
Are you looking to build a dynamic website with PHP but unsure which Content Management System (CMS) to choose? Look no further! In this video, we dive into the top PHP CMS platforms that can power your website efficiently and effectively.

From popular choices like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal to lesser-known gems like October CMS and PyroCMS, we’ll explore each platform’s features, flexibility, and suitability for various website needs. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer, there’s a PHP CMS out there that’s just right for you.

Join us as we compare user interfaces, customization options, community support, security features, and more to help you make an informed decision about which PHP CMS fits your project best. Don’t miss out on finding the perfect platform to bring your website vision to life!

Follow us on social media platforms:-

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HiddenBrains
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hiddenbrains-infotech-pvt-ltd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HiddenBrains
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HiddenBrainsInfotech
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hiddenbrains_infotech

#PHP #CMS #ContentManagement #WebDevelopment #OpenSource #WordPress #Drupal #Magento #PHPCMS #HiddenBrains #WebsiteDevelopment

Functionality with Moodle : the 2024 Integrations’ Survey results are out!

Posted on by Michael G
by Carles Aguiló.  

Dear moodlers,

Our 2024 Integrations’ Survey results are out and we’re happy to share them with you! 🥳 We heard from users all across the globe and all across Moodle functions, and we’re already devising a plan to hear from even more of you next year. Thanks to everyone that participated or spread the word!

The main goal of our research is to understand which types of tools and functionality our users want to see better integrated with Moodle, and as it begins to be tradition, when asking about  integrations, we get great feedback about them, and also about Moodle in general, as you can see in the quotes section on slide 20 and forward.

As a sneak peak of its contents, I will share that the 2 most popular areas of interest continue to be:

  1. Content creation, and
  2. Video conference, or Virtual classroom for the savvy.

But Learning Analytics has taken 3rd place, the new Generative AI takes 4th place, and Plagiarism & Proctoring surges to the 6th.

Happy reading everyone! And happy break if you get one.

Best,

       Carles🤓

Evolving Web: Building Websites that Win Over Prospective Students

Posted on by Michael G

Universities and colleges are faced with unique goals, challenges, and opportunities around digital transformation. We often hear from folks who want to reorient their higher education websites around attracting and nurturing potential new students. I recently shared insights on how to accomplish this at the 2023 HighEdWeb Conference in Buffalo, New York, where I co-presented with Winna Tse and Vibeke Silverthorne from OCAD University.

We showcased our collaboration on OCAD U’s Admissions sites—two visually bold, accessible, interactive microsites that we designed to captivate a creative audience and streamline the application process. OCAD U saw a 21% increase in website visits and a 15% increase in applicants within a few weeks of the launch.

In this article, I’ve shared some of our best lessons and findings from the project. Read on to explore six proven ways to reach, engage, and win over prospective students.

 

1. Consider Building a Separate Microsite

According to usability research, students often select a program first before they choose which school to attend. That means it’s really important to show prospective students what programs are available and make program pages easily accessible. Many websites successfully use a program finder on their main website to funnel prospective students to their program of choice. 

But because OCAD U had information architecture issues on its main site, we recommended replacing the old admissions section with two stand-alone microsites targeted at prospective students (one for graduates, one for undergraduates). This solution brought several advantages for OCAD U’s admissions team and the wider university, which we’ll explore below.  

Targeted user experience

By capturing prospective undergraduates on a self-contained microsite, OCAD U can deliver a highly tailored digital experience. Everything from the menu navigation to the visuals are geared towards users who’re considering studying at the university. OCAD U was so happy with this approach that they commissioned a second microsite aimed at prospective postgraduates.

Streamlined updates process

Originally, the admissions team had to ask the marketing team to make content changes. Every department did this, meaning it could take 2-3 weeks for requests to reach the top of the queue. This wasn’t practical for the fast-paced nature of admissions and recruitment.

A stand-alone microsite gives the admissions team greater ownership over their content. They can make changes in a single day, enabling them to publish time-sensitive content such as deadlines reminders.

Because the microsites are built using Drupal, the admissions team has access to a powerful user roles feature for managing editing permissions. This is one of many reasons to use Drupal for higher education websites.

Possibilities for experimentation

OCAD U’s admissions website created an opportunity to experiment with the visual brand and user experience. It offers more freedom and breathing room than the main website due to its size and age. What’s more, the university can learn from the admissions website and apply lessons from its successes to the main website. 

Alternative: Program Finder

A separate microsite was the right choice for OCAD U, but another strategy is using a program finder on both the main and recruitment site to funnel users towards detailed program pages. This approach is particularly effective for institutions with multiple campus websites, as it offers a versatile starting point for program exploration. For OCAD U, the decision to go with a microsite stemmed from a lack of flexibility with the information architecture on their main site, making a microsite the obvious choice. For other institutions, the program finder funnel solution might make more sense.

2. Create Straightforward User Journeys

Because you’re competing for the time and attention of prospective students, it’s all the more important that your website serves up the information they’re looking for quickly and effortlessly. The best way to achieve this is by mapping user journeys and working out how to streamline your site architecture, search experience, and calls to action.

User Journey Mapping

We ran a user journey mapping exercise with OCAD U where we developed user personas and explored the types of interactions they had with the university. This included everything from Googling the institution, to attending an open day, to completing an application form. The process helped us uncover new opportunities to improve their journey, and allowed us to start developing wireframes and mockups.

User Mindsets

Using a less traditional approach, we also explored user mindsets. Our team identified three mindsets that any prospective student might have—whether they’re a high schooler, undergraduate, mature student, or coming from abroad: 

  1. “I don’t know what I want to study.”
  2. “I want to study art and design, but I don’t know where yet.”
  3. “I already know that I want to attend OCAD University.”

Looking into these mindsets with OCAD U helped us shape their site navigation and provide relevant, consistent CTAs. Their Discover section is aimed at the first mindset, the Afford and Visit sections at the second mindset, and the Apply section at the third mindset.

 

OCAD U’s undergraduate programs page
We helped OCAD U refine its program selectors and calls to action for a simpler user experience.

 

Want to learn more about the discovery and UX design in higher education projects? Read about our collaboration with York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design in 5 Surprising Findings That’ll Change How You See Discovery.

3. Integrate Storytelling Throughout Your Content

Storytelling creates an emotional connection between users and your brand. The most powerful stories are authentic and value-based, showing target audiences that you care about what they care about. Storytelling isn’t just for your homepage either. Program pages are a common entry point for prospective students, so they need to promote your brand as well as the course details.

As an art, design, and media institution, OCAD U has incredible opportunities to use visual storytelling. We infused a range of student-created art throughout the university’s website. Not only does this elevate the design, it also showcases talent that reflects OCAD U’s reputation, and invites prospective students to imagine their own creative possibilities.

 

“We felt that [Evolving Web’s] aesthetic was very strong, that they could really adapt to our brand. Also, most importantly, was their thoughtful approach to storytelling.”

– Winna Tse, Communications & Projects Specialist, OCAD University 

 

Having worked with dozens of higher education institutions, our team has interviewed many prospective students about what matters to them. We’ve heard repeatedly about the importance of connecting with current students and alumni. Prospective students value hearing about real-life experiences at your university—in fact, it’s often a tipping point in their decision making process. So, don’t isolate student stories and testimonials in a corner of your website. Integrate them on every page to ensure exposure to your most persuasive content. 

 

A visually bold homepage with a black background
We reimagined the application of OCAD U’s visual brand to create a striking website design. 

4. Fine-Tune Your Visual Brand

An eye-catching, memorable visual identity sets your university apart from competitors. Above all, it needs to resonate with your target audience. Building a new website is often a good opportunity to refresh your brand—but it’s possible to refine what you already have in a way that targets prospective students. 

Identify where your brand allows for flexibility, and experiment with different flavours of existing design elements. OCAD U wanted a bolder look and feel that reflects their reputation and meets the expectations of discerning young creatives. So we found ways to use their visual identity in new ways, bringing out more daring and fun aspects of the brand.

Our design team developed ‘Windows into OCAD U’, a concept that invites students to explore creative possibilities, escape the boring, and reimagine a more fantastical reality. We also used the distinctive architecture of OCAD U’s buildings as inspiration for textures and shapes, including tiled patterns, concentric squares, and boldly coloured buttons.

We communicated our vision to the client using stylescapes, a valuable tool for enhancing collaboration on art direction.

 

A stylescape displaying various typography, colours, and shapes.
Stylescapes helped us communicate design ideas and get early alignment on the visual direction of the project. 

5. Help Prospective Students Apply with Confidence

If you want to increase applications from prospective students, it’s essential to make the admissions process as straightforward and welcoming as possible. A useful exercise is to identify major touchpoints in the user’s journey and find ways to provide better support and value around it. 

For OCAD U, this touchpoint was when prospective students prepared and submitted their portfolio. For other universities, it might be something like attending an open day or having an interview with faculty.

We helped OCAD U develop a dedicated page for portfolio preparation. It offers step-by-step guidance, information about requirements, creative prompts and tips, answers to common questions, and access to portfolio clinics. By providing these valuable resources, OCAD U saw an increase not only in the number of applications but also in their quality.

 

OCAD U’s dedicated page for portfolio preparation
Portfolio submission is a unique aspect of OCAD U’s admissions process that required special attention.

6. Prioritize Accessibility and Inclusion 

Prospective students come from a wide range of cultures and backgrounds, and include people with disabilities and support needs. Higher education institutions need to prioritize accessibility and inclusion when building a website, ensuring that everyone has equal access to content and feels welcomed and represented.

Everything our team builds complies with WCAG 2.0 AA and relevant federal, provincial, state, or local requirements. But we encourage and guide clients to go beyond these standards with a human-centric, personalized approach to web accessibility. This can empower your organization to reach even more people and offer ever-better experiences.

It’s also important to represent your institution’s diversity into your site’s content strategy. Select website imagery that represents people of various cultures, races, ethnicities, religions, and so on that represent that diversity you would find on campus. Diversity can also mean highlighting different paths to success, such as showcasing someone who is a mature student that went to OCAD to start a second career. Prioritize plain language to help non-native speakers and users with cognitive disabilities to find the right information. Consider whether you need a multilingual website to cater to audiences such as international students.

Finally, explore ways to support prospective students from historically underserved communities. As a North American university, OCAD U has a dedicated section for indigenous applicants that provides tailored information about relevant resources, contacts, programs, scholarships and bursaries.

Meet Evolving Web, Your Digital Agency Partner

Evolving Web works with higher education organizations across North America—including Princeton University, McGill University, Georgia Tech, the University of Washington, OCAD University, Queen’s University, York University, and the University of California Berkeley.

Our experience has allowed us to develop best practices and tried-and-tested solutions that help us deliver exceptional value to our higher education clients. We create dynamic, user-centric websites to help you connect with target audiences and cultivate valuable relationships. Our team prioritizes your digital independence, giving you the tools you need to grow and evolve your digital presence.

Learn about our work with higher education clients and see what we can do for you. 

+ more awesome articles by Evolving Web

LibreSSL 3.8.4 and 3.9.1 released

Posted on by Michael G
In a not-quite-unexpected announcement, the LibreSSL development team released the new versions. The announcement reads,

Subject:    LibreSSL 3.8.4 and 3.9.1 released
From:       Brent Cook <busterb () gmail ! com>
Date:       2024-03-28 4:47:28

We have released LibreSSL 3.8.4 and 3.9.1 which will be arriving in the
LibreSSL directory of your local OpenBSD mirror soon. LibreSSL 3.9.1 is
the first stable release for the 3.9.x branch, and will also be
available with OpenBSD 7.5.

Read more…

Maintainer Confidential: Challenges and Opportunities One Year On

Posted on by Michael G

A year ago I wrote an article to give some insight into how an open source project looks behind the scenes from a maintainer’s perspective. One year on, I thought it might be interesting to share an update on that. Who I am and what the project is and does was covered previously and hasn’t […]

The post Maintainer Confidential: Challenges and Opportunities One Year On appeared first on Linux.com.

coreutils @ Savannah: coreutils-9.5 released [stable]

Posted on by Michael G

This is to announce coreutils-9.5, a stable release.
See the NEWS below for a summary of changes.

There have been 187 commits by 18 people in the 30 weeks since 9.4.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed!
The following people contributed changes to this release:

  Aearil (1)                      Petr Malat (1)
  Bruno Haible (3)                Pádraig Brady (75)
  Christian Göttsche (1)          Samuel Tardieu (1)
  Collin Funk (4)                 Stephane Chazelas (1)
  Daan De Meyer (1)               Stephen Kitt (1)
  Greg Wooledge (1)               Sylvestre Ledru (3)
  Grisha Levit (2)                Ville Skyttä (1)
  Michel Lind (1)                 dann frazier (1)
  Paul Eggert (89)                lvgenggeng (1)

Pádraig [on behalf of the coreutils maintainers]
==================================================================

Here is the GNU coreutils home page:
    https://gnu.org/s/coreutils/

For a summary of changes and contributors, see:
  https://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git;a=shortlog;h=v9.5
or run this command from a git-cloned coreutils directory:
  git shortlog v9.4..v9.5

Here are the compressed sources:
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-9.5.tar.gz   (15MB)
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-9.5.tar.xz   (5.8MB)

Here are the GPG detached signatures:
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-9.5.tar.gz.sig
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-9.5.tar.xz.sig

Use a mirror for higher download bandwidth:
  https://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html

Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums:

  3285114d93b39e5e4643b0846f570203a5e4c97b  coreutils-9.5.tar.gz
  dnrmoilQ7ELzul98Heed0ngA7o6bhkLaXe21l0oXQeU=  coreutils-9.5.tar.gz
  867fed7ce2ee15c5150a355a5f3a3b50578cf78d  coreutils-9.5.tar.xz
  zTKO3qyS9qZl3p8yPJO3Eq8YWLwuDYjz9xAEaUcKG4o=  coreutils-9.5.tar.xz

Verify the base64 SHA256 checksum with cksum -a sha256 –check
from coreutils-9.2 or OpenBSD’s cksum since 2007.

Use a .sig file to verify that the corresponding file (without the
.sig suffix) is intact.  First, be sure to download both the .sig file
and the corresponding tarball.  Then, run a command like this:

  gpg –verify coreutils-9.5.tar.gz.sig

The signature should match the fingerprint of the following key:

  pub   rsa4096/0xDF6FD971306037D9 2011-09-23 [SC]
        Key fingerprint = 6C37 DC12 121A 5006 BC1D  B804 DF6F D971 3060 37D9
  uid                   [ultimate] Pádraig Brady <P@draigBrady.com>
  uid                   [ultimate] Pádraig Brady <pixelbeat@gnu.org>

If that command fails because you don’t have the required public key,
or that public key has expired, try the following commands to retrieve
or refresh it, and then rerun the ‘gpg –verify’ command.

  gpg –locate-external-key P@draigBrady.com

  gpg –recv-keys DF6FD971306037D9

  wget -q -O- ‘https://savannah.gnu.org/project/release-gpgkeys.php?group=coreutils&download=1’ | gpg –import –

As a last resort to find the key, you can try the official GNU
keyring:

  wget -q https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-keyring.gpg
  gpg –keyring gnu-keyring.gpg –verify coreutils-9.5.tar.gz.sig

This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:
  Autoconf 2.72c.32-cb6fb
  Automake 1.16.5
  Gnulib v0.1-7293-g259829e78b
  Bison 3.8.2

NEWS

* Noteworthy changes in release 9.5 (2024-03-28) [stable]

** Bug fixes

  chmod -R now avoids a race where an attacker may replace a traversed file
  with a symlink, causing chmod to operate on an unintended file.
  [This bug was present in “the beginning”.]

  cp, mv, and install no longer issue spurious diagnostics like “failed
  to preserve ownership” when copying to GNU/Linux CIFS file systems.
  They do this by working around some Linux CIFS bugs.

  cp –no-preserve=mode will correctly maintain set-group-ID bits
  for created directories.  Previously on systems that didn’t support ACLs,
  cp would have reset the set-group-ID bit on created directories.
  [bug introduced in coreutils-8.20]

  join and uniq now support multi-byte characters better.
  For example, ‘join -tX’ now works even if X is a multi-byte character,
  and both programs now treat multi-byte characters like U+3000
  IDEOGRAPHIC SPACE as blanks if the current locale treats them so.

  numfmt options like –suffix no longer have an arbitrary 127-byte limit.
  [bug introduced with numfmt in coreutils-8.21]

  mktemp with –suffix now better diagnoses templates with too few X’s.
  Previously it conflated the insignificant –suffix in the error.
  [bug introduced in coreutils-8.1]

  sort again handles thousands grouping characters in single-byte locales
  where the grouping character is greater than CHAR_MAX.  For e.g. signed
  character platforms with a 0xA0 (aka &nbsp) grouping character.
  [bug introduced in coreutils-9.1]

  split –line-bytes with a mixture of very long and short lines
  no longer overwrites the heap (CVE-2024-0684).
  [bug introduced in coreutils-9.2]

  tail no longer mishandles input from files in /proc and /sys file systems,
  on systems with a page size larger than the stdio BUFSIZ.
  [This bug was present in “the beginning”.]

  timeout avoids a narrow race condition, where it might kill arbitrary
  processes after a failed process fork.
  [bug introduced with timeout in coreutils-7.0]

  timeout avoids a narrow race condition, where it might fail to
  kill monitored processes immediately after forking them.
  [bug introduced with timeout in coreutils-7.0]

  wc no longer fails to count unprintable characters as parts of words.
  [bug introduced in textutils-2.1]

** Changes in behavior

  base32 and base64 no longer require padding when decoding.
  Previously an error was given for non padded encoded data.

  base32 and base64 have improved detection of corrupted encodings.
  Previously encodings with non zero padding bits were accepted.

  basenc –base16 -d now supports lower case hexadecimal characters.
  Previously an error was given for lower case hex digits.

  cp –no-clobber, and mv -n no longer exit with failure status if
  existing files are encountered in the destination.  Instead they revert
  to the behavior from before v9.2, silently skipping existing files.

  ls –dired now implies long format output without hyperlinks enabled,
  and will take precedence over previously specified formats or hyperlink mode.

  numfmt will accept lowercase ‘k’ to indicate Kilo or Kibi units on input,
  and uses lowercase ‘k’ when outputting such units in ‘–to=si’ mode.

  pinky no longer tries to canonicalize the user’s login location by default,
  rather requiring the new –lookup option to enable this often slow feature.

  wc no longer ignores encoding errors when counting words.
  Instead, it treats them as non white space.

** New features

  chgrp now accepts the –from=OWNER:GROUP option to restrict changes to files
  with matching current OWNER and/or GROUP, as already supported by chown(1).

  chmod adds support for -h, -H,-L,-P, and –dereference options, providing
  more control over symlink handling.  This supports more secure handling of
  CLI arguments, and is more consistent with chown, and chmod on other systems.

  cp now accepts the –keep-directory-symlink option (like tar), to preserve
  and follow existing symlinks to directories in the destination.

  cp and mv now accept the –update=none-fail option, which is similar
  to the –no-clobber option, except that existing files are diagnosed,
  and the command exits with failure status if existing files.
  The -n,–no-clobber option is best avoided due to platform differences.

  env now accepts the -a,–argv0 option to override the zeroth argument
  of the command being executed.

  mv now accepts an –exchange option, which causes the source and
  destination to be exchanged.  It should be combined with
  –no-target-directory (-T) if the destination is a directory.
  The exchange is atomic if source and destination are on a single
  file system that supports atomic exchange; –exchange is not yet
  supported in other situations.

  od now supports printing IEEE half precision floating point with -t fH,
  or brain 16 bit floating point with -t fB, where supported by the compiler.

  tail now supports following multiple processes, with repeated –pid options.

** Improvements

  cp,mv,install,cat,split now read and write a minimum of 256KiB at a time.
  This was previously 128KiB and increasing to 256KiB was seen to increase
  throughput by 10-20% when reading cached files on modern systems.

  env,kill,timeout now support unnamed signals. kill(1) for example now
  supports sending such signals, and env(1) will list them appropriately.

  SELinux operations in file copy operations are now more efficient,
  avoiding unneeded MCS/MLS label translation.

  sort no longer dynamically links to libcrypto unless -R is used.
  This decreases startup overhead in the typical case.

  wc is now much faster in single-byte locales and somewhat faster in
  multi-byte locales.

Crashes, arches and flying carpets

Posted on by Michael G

TWIF generated on Thursday, 28 Mar 2024, Week 13

F-Droid core

The Debian upgrade is complete and apps are already being built on the updated infrastructure. While the website generation got speedup, facilitated by the newer tooling versions, the apps build time appears to be the same.

Community News

@linsui manages a crash:

Libre Memory Game, A memory game, is back with a new and better build recipe since it was previously added and removed.

TKCompanionApp was updated to 7.1.0 but we disabled this version as it was crashing. If you didn’t update yet, do skip this update. The developer is working on a fix. (Developer toot)

@Licaon_Kter reports some tracking:

Notesnook – Private notes app was updated from 2.6.17 to 3.0.11. There are two things of note: first, version name seems to change back to 2.6.18 in the next version and second, not all architectures were built. Developers are aware and working on a fix. (!14733)

ProtonVPN – Secure and Free VPN was updated to 5.1.51.3 and will be flagged with Tracking as the next index is published. In version 5 developers added a new setting called “Usage statistics” where you can toggle usage and crash reporting, but both are enabled by default. (!14759)

Removed Apps

1 apps were removed

BlackHole’s developer asked the team to archive the app. (#3219)

Newly Added Apps

2 more apps were newly added
  • Flying Carpet – Cross-platform AirDrop between Android/iOS/Linux/macOS/Windows via ad-hoc Wi-Fi (remember when everyone thought Bluetooth solved this back in 2010? Well, it didn’t!)
  • MedTimer – Med reminders and history with full offline privacy

Updated Apps

141 more apps were updated

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