HomePortals Blog

StartPage: A widget container

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 04:33:00 -0000

A while ago, we had a sample application called "start" available for download on this site. That app allowed the user to create a simple "start page" using HomePortals, and was built with the intention of showing how HomePortals could be used to integrate multiple 'widgets' or modules on the same page. The application eventually got removed cause I didn't kept it in sync with the changes in HomePortals. So, fast forward until today, the application is now again available for download. The app is now called StartPage and it is now much improved. The current version allows to have multiple users. Each user can have their own "microsite" in which they can aggregate widgets. The goal is now to provide a sample or baseline to show how this types of applications can be built with HomePortals. So developers that are looking to build their own widget containers can use StartPage as a starting point and then change the content, layout, available modules, or anything else that they can think of. StartPage can be found on the 'Downloads' section of this site, and requires only HomePortals 3.2 to work. Other than that, just unzip into a directory called "Start" and you are good to go. Have fun, and let me know what you think.

HomePortals 3.2 Released

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 02:00:00 -0000

Hi, I wanted to announce that HomePortals 3.2 is now available for download. There are tons of new changes which can be found here. HomePortals can be downloaded from the usual location at: http://www.homeportals.net/downloads.cfm Also, the wiki has been updated to reflect what's new in 3.2 An update to Coldbricks will follow in the next few days so that it remains compatible with the latest HomePortals version. However, until then, Coldbricks is only compatible with HomePortals 3.1 Any feedback and comments are **really** appreciated. Oscar

HomePortals 3.2 Now Available as Nightly Build

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:26:00 -0000

The Nightly Build download and changelog links have now been changed to point to the HomePortals 3.2 branch. My goal is to start testing 3.2 on live sites and see how it behaves, if there is anything to fix or if any other ideas appear for improvement, and later on replace 3.1 as the "current" version of HomePortals. I guess the biggest change in HomePortals 3.2 is the move from LGPL to Apache 2 as open source license. I feel Apache is a much more business-friendly license while still within the open source spirit (in a practical way). There are other changes that are oriented to making developing apps with HomePortals more easier and fun. For a full list of changes, check out this wiki page. However, HomePortals 3.2 is for the most part backwards compatible with 3.1, requiring minimal changes (if any) to existing apps to work with it. HomePortals 3.2 can be downloaded from the downloads page at: http://www.homeportals.net/downloads.cfm As always all input and feedback is welcome.

Complete Documentation Now Available

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 01:21:00 -0000

It took me a lot longer that I would have liked, but finally I managed to wrote down then entire documentation for the HomePortals framework. I tried to focus more on how the framework should be used to build apps, rather on just merely describing everything. So you will find a couple of tutorials there, and a lot of tips and best practices. The full documentation is now available on the HomePortals wiki at: http://wiki.homeportals.net Please check it out and feel free to point out anything that seems wrong or if there should be any aspect that requires more explanation. Enjoy!

Revised example of jQuery UILayout Integration

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:07:00 -0000

A while ago I wrote on my blog a short post describing how to use the jQuery's UILayout plugin along with HomePortals. That was written for the early beta of HomePortals 3.1, and since then a lot has changed so the example given no longer works. I have updated the blog post and the code examples, along with the included zip file so that it works with the most recent HomePortals version. You can check the updated blog post here: http://www.oscararevalo.com/index.cfm/2009/4/6/Using-jQueryUIlayout-to-handle-HomePortals-layouts

Version 3.1.570 Released

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:24:00 -0000

Last night I uploaded to the site the latest upload of the HomePortals framework. Current release is 3.1.570. This release mostly contains bug fixes and some enhancements, but it also includes some interesting new features such as smart default, context object and the new 'text' content renderer. Also this will be the last release on the 3.1 branch (unless any critical bugs appear), as I will start now working on version 3.2. So if anyone has some ideas, requests, or any other comments as to the direction of HomePortals please let me know on the comments or even better by joining the Google Groups mailing list. [More]

Introducing the New HomePortals CMS Plugin

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:38:00 -0000

The latest release of the HomePortals framework included the brand new CMS Plugin, which can be used to add a live authoring interface to any HomePortals based application. Read more about the plugin and see some screenshots here

Wiki Moved and Trac Site Open

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:00:00 -0000

The HomePortals Wiki has been moved to the HomePortals Trac site. The previous CodeX-based wiki is no longer available. The reason for the move was to consolidate HomePortals resources, and provide a single place to deal with documentation (wiki), ticket/issue tracking and source code browsing. The URL for the Trac site is: http://wencho.svnrepository.com/homePortals/trac.cgi

Building The HomePortals Wiki

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:14:00 -0000

One of the weakest points in the HomePortals project is the lack of documentation still. However to address that issue I have been working on setting up a wiki for HomePortals to provide developers with information about the framework, where everything is, and how to develop applications for it. The new wiki is located at http://wiki.homeportals.net and is powered by the promising CodexWiki from Luis Majano and Mark Mandel. So far I have only been able to complete a few pages on the wiki but work is in progress and hopefully it will be more complete very soon. Feel free to checkout the wiki and if you have suggestion of topics that you would like to see there please let me know by leaving a comment here.

HomePortals Update

Tue, 20 May 2008 14:33:00 -0000

This post is to announce that a new update to the HomePortals framework is now available. The current version is now 3.0.189. This update focused on fixing compatibility issues for running in BlueDragon/OpenBlueDragon and for case-sensitive OSes like linux. The update extends the range of supported CFML engines to: * Adobe ColdFusion 7 * Adobe ColdFusion 8 * Railo 2 * BlueDragon 7 * OpenBlueDragon Regarding OpenBlueDragon, the only problem that I still have is running on the VMWare image that has been making the rounds. I still get some weird errors there but not sure if those are related to OpenBlueDragon, Jetty or something else. As always, testers and bug reports are more than welcome, Have fun!

ColdBricks 1.0 Documentation Draft Available

Sun, 11 May 2008 02:57:00 -0000

I just posted a first draft for the first three chapters of the ColdBricks User's Guide. The documentation can be downloaded from the downloads area within the ColdBricks site. This draft contains a good overview of the relation between ColdBricks and HomePortals as well as a general overview of how sites are structured in HomePortals. You can find the User's Guide here

HomePortals Lives Again

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:24:00 -0000

Well, it finally happened, the old HomePortals is gone and has been replaced with a newer, leaner, meaner version: HomePortals 3. This third release of HomePortals signals a big shift in the evolution of this project, not only because of the move from closed source to open source (LGPL), but because of the entire refocusing of the project from being a simple configurable portal to being a platform or framework that can be used to create and execute multiple different applications. A lot of the code has been rewritten and redesigned, there are many additions compared from earlier versions, a lot have been done to improve performance but there is a lot of room to grow still. Some of the main features of this release: * separated HomePortals engine from the application, this allows applications to be located anywhere on the server (even at the root level!) * added new types of resources: feeds, contents, html, pageTemplates * added resource directories to manage resources and organize them into packages * added a "friends" subsystem that allows accounts to be linked to each other * added access control features for resources * added smart caching of pages * added configurable HTML rendering templates. Now you can modify the HTML structure of any rendered content. and more ... And of course, with a new software comes a new website. Also stay tuned because very soon I will be launching another product called ColdBricks... Well, enjoy!