In Netmaking where I work, we work with an Open Source CMS/framework named eZ Publish which has community and business partners in many parts of the world. Every year these partners gather on eZ Summer Conferance to learn new things about the framework, meet each other and to see who gets the glorious eZ Awards. This year it all happened in Berlin.

Growing number of web applications and multiple numbers of user accounts can be a headache for the end user. Luckily the big players have started to agree on standards that makes the personal information flow between these services.

After a rather tough season with plenty of triathlon competions here in Norway. The main race where a Ironman in Kalmar the 2. of august, where I completed the 3.8 km swim, 180 bicycle leg and marathon on 10 hours and 15 minutes.

Since then my weekly training volume has dropped, and I have been spent more time on my new MacBook doing computer related stuff.

Things archived so far this fall

• Did a revision of the code on this site (www.gersh.no) and upgraded to CakePHP 1.2.
• Redesign my norwegian blog at www.gerhardsletten.no – not quite finished yet, think I might also need to do a rebranding.
• Added some new open source project to www.gersh.no/projects that I have been having laying around.

Upcoming plans for this winter

• This summer I have been included in the Norseman Extreme Triathlon Crew, with responsibility for their homepage at www.nxtri.com where we will move it over to the Ez publish platform and enhance usability.
• Write a Adobe Air application for uploading images directly to your own server, and a PHP application to receive these files. Much as the Picasa or Flickr plugin for iPhoto, but on your own server.
• Write a new version of WorkTimer in Adobe Air, but maybe with some new features. I have been receiving a lot of wishes via mail, and I also would like to add some “Scrum” functionality like Scrumworks.
• With my new work at www.netmaking.no – a Ez partner here in Oslo I will probably be doing a lot of stuff in the Ez to.
• Working on my norwegian sourdough site www.surdeig.no. A lot of people have signed up!

Guess it won’t be a lazy winter for me..

Moving your basic templates and CSS into an extension will ease the workflow in setting up new sites with Ez Publish.

First off create a folder in the extension folder (/ezpublish/extension) of your Ez distribution. To make it work as an design extension we just need a few files:

/gersh<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;/design<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;/gersh<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;/images<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;/override<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;/stylesheets<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;/templates<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;ezinfo.php<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;/settings<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;design.ini.append.php

File listing “ezinfo.php”:

&lt;?php<br>class gershInfo<br>{<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; static function info()<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; {<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; return array( 'Name' =&gt; "Gersh Design Extenison",<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 'Version' =&gt; "1.0.0",<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 'Copyright' =&gt; "Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Gersh.no",<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 'License' =&gt; "GNU General Public License v2.0"<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; );<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; }<br>}<br>?&gt;

File listing “design.ini.append.php”:

&lt;?php /* #?ini charset="utf-8"?<br>[ExtensionSettings]<br>DesignExtensions[]=gersh<br>*/ ?&gt;

Make sure you activate your new extension in “ezpublish/settings/override/site.ini.append.php“:

[ExtensionSettings]<br>ActiveExtensions[]<br>ActiveExtensions[]=gersh

And add it as an additional site design list in “ezpublish/settings/siteaccess/<site-name>/site.ini.append.php“

[DesignSettings]<br>SiteDesign=ezwebin_site<br>AdditionalSiteDesignList[]<br>AdditionalSiteDesignList[]=gersh<br>AdditionalSiteDesignList[]=base