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I've now templated most of the "user facing" pages in the mComp Competition module. This is a long overdue change to bring the module in line with standard DragonFly practises.

Although the version number has only incremented by .5 this is a major release as lots and lots of PHP code has changed to enable templates to be used, as well of course as a whole load of templates being created that didn't exist before. So please test this as thoroughly as you can before using it, in case I've missed something.

Note: I haven't templated the blocks (yet) or any "data entry" pages. Templating pages that contain forms is not a good idea in my opinion as it presents the opportunity for users to break the system when playing with HTML files (which unlike PHP files exist to be played with).

At some point in the next week or so I'm going to be moving the website to a new host. Currently I have a dedicated server from www.1and1.co.uk but it's proving extremely unreliable.

I've had to restart the server 3 times in the last week alone, and as it doesn't restart itself it can be down for several hours until I notice it's down and go through the procedure to reboot it. And even then the database needs to be started manually and it's all becoming a bit of a pain.

As I don't actually need a dedicated server anymore (I used to host a very busy gaming community site but it's hardly used anymore) I've decided to go back to shared hosting. I've already moved a test website to the new host and it all appears to work and perform pretty well, it should be sufficient for this site anyway.

I'm not sure when this will happen, so bear with me if the site is temporarily offline this week.

I've been looking at what I've got, what I've been successful with in the past and where I want go, and decided to continue developing mComp and mStore, which are my 2 big modules. It's obviously in my interests to develop mStore, as I use it myself, and I've sold more copies of mComp than everything else added together.

I am however going to be much, much more picky about which features I add to either of these in future. I'll only add for free what I need myself or what I think genuinely adds value to the module. I won't add anything to any other module without being paid for it, and I won't add features to mStore or mComp without being convinced it's in my interests to do so.

I will however be looking to develop mComp in particular, as this is my best selling module, and with online gaming growing in popularity I think it's something that actually addresses a niche market. There are 101 eCommerce solutions out there, but very, very few feature rich commercial quality solutions for organistions looking to host online gaming (or "real world" for that matter) competitions.

I've withdrawn the modules I don't sell many copies of, and reduced the price of the remaining few, to both stimulate sales and concentrate my efforts on the modules which there seems to be a demand for.

As of now all modules have been reduced by 20%, and if you buy any one of them you'll be entitled to a further 20% discount on the others.

From 2009 I will no longer be actively developing commercial DragonFly modules. Instead I intend to move in a new direction and concentrate on individual projects on a paid / freelance basis. The reason is one of simple economics:-

Currently, I'll produce a module and offer it for sale (at the moment I charge £50 per module, in the past most have been cheaper). Someone buys it then says "heh, great module, but could you just add..." and off I go and spend 10 / 20 / 30 hours adding a new feature.

I don't know about you but 10+ hours of my time is worth more than the £50 the customer paid for the module in the first place. So now I'm out of pocket. That wouldn't be so bad if the new feature engendered new sales, but invariably people ask for features that are very specific to their needs only. If I'm going to spend the majority of my time doing what is effectively bespoke development then why offer standard modules at all and not just do bespoke development entirely?

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This module was actually written quite a while ago, but I'd originally only intended to use it myself and had not got round to packaging it for download as a proper DragonFly module. However, having been asked for it a few times and because I had a couple of final features to add I decided to wrap things up and make it available as a free download from this site.

mPic is a simple Picture / Photo Gallery module for DragonFly. It doesn't pretend to compete with Coppermine and doesn't support User Galleries like Coppermine does. It does however provide a clean categorised picture browsing interface.

Pictures can be categorised, and sub-categorised, down to as many levels deep as you need and the interface provides the usual features you'd expect in such a module, like next - previous, ability to rate pictures and comment on them, as well as the ability to add pictures to a favourites list, view an album as a slideshow, select pictures via a javascript scrolling image bar etc.

You can download the module here:-

http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/Downloads/details/id=5.html

v1.6.1 of the DragonFly Store module, mStore, has just been released. This version adds the following features:-

Added a Vendor table and Vendor ID field to the Product record. This allows any mStore user to sell anyone else's products as well as their own, with the other vendor's PayPal email address being used instead of their own. i.e. I can put your products in my Store and you'll get paid for them directly.
Re-worked the shipping charges mechanism. You can now define multiple shippers, offering multiple services, with separate shipping charges, and the customer can select the shipper / service they wish to use from a drop-down list before checking out their shopping cart. Shipping charges can be weight related, and a weight field for products has been added so the correct shipping charges can be offered.
Added a mechanism for "free" products to be "sold" in the Store. Because PayPal doesn't support zero value items mStore now creates a transaction itself from the Cart data, rather than from the returning PayPal data after payment is made.

You can purchase mStore from the Store here:-

http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/Store/product/pid=7.html

Of course the Store software I use is mStore!

After an extensive beta test and development phase I'm pleased to announce that mTeam v2.0.1 has been released. This version is a complete re-write of the v1.x series, and brings the module up to date with the latest coding structures I employ, as well as adding a whole load of new features (too many to mention!).

I'd especially like to thank DJDevon and Cloud for their invaluable contribution during the beta testing phase, their input has helped shape this module and it would've taken much much longer to get this far without them.

mTeam is a commercial module, which you can purchase from the Store here:-

http://www.cmsdreams.co.uk/Store/product/pid=13.html

It's also on special offer at the moment at £20.00 (considering the 100's of hours of coding that went into it, that's a steal in my opinion Wink

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I'm on holiday after tonight, for 2 weeks, so I won't be responding much if at all to any enquiries until I get back.

Hopefully when I do I'll be able to release the new version of mTeam that's been in the works for a few weeks now. Thanks to my trusty beta testers it seems to be coming along nicely Wink

I'm also going to take this fortnight as an opportunity to think about the future direction of CMSDreams. I love making modules for DragonFly but I've got too many now to be able to give them all proper attention. I feel I need to consolidate so as to make the best use of my time.

I'm also questioning the benefit of developing for DragonFly. It has a technically excellent core, but it lacks somewhat in "front-end" useability, which I suspect is why it lags so far behind the real CMS heavyweights like Joomla and Drupal. The question is do I jump ship, or do I extend a limited range of modules to a wider range of CMS's?

Questions I intend to ponder over the next couple of weeks. Smile

I've finally upgraded DragonFly to version 9.2, the latest version. I was holding off because I knew I'd have to make some manual alterations to the site theme (DF9.1 themes won't work with DF9.2). However the alterations were fairly simple once I decided I really ought to do it!

At first glance everything seems to work OK, but if you spot anything that doesn't appear to be as it should be, please let me know Wink