1. Visiting the National Space Centre exhibitions.

Easy, because the NSS is the host for GeekMoot this year! A free NSS entrance ticket is included with your GeekMoot ticket, so enjoy the exhibitions over lunch one day.

Although British space missions usually launch from French Guiana or Kazakhstan, Leicester's space museum is a fascinating introduction to the mysteries of the spheres. The ill-fated Beagle 2 mission to Mars was controlled from here. Fun, family-friendly displays cover everything from astronomy to the status of current space missions.

2. King Richard III: Dynasty, Death & Discovery

Built following the incredible 2012 discovery and 2013 DNA testing of King Richard III's remains, Leicester's high-tech King Richard III visitor centre encompasses three fascinating sections. Dynasty explores his rise to become the final Plantagenet king. Death delves into the Battle of Bosworth, when Richard became the last English king to be killed in battle. Discovery details the University of Leicester’s archaeological dig and identification, and lets you view the site of the grave in which he was found.

3. Leicester Castle

Scattered around the Newarke Houses Museum are the ruins of Leicester's medieval castle, where Richard III spent his final days before the Battle of Bosworth. The most impressive piece of masonry is the monumental gateway known as the Magazine , once a storehouse for cannonballs and gunpowder. Clad in Georgian brickwork, the 12th-century Great Hall stands behind a 15th-century gate near the church of St Mary de Castro , where Geoffrey Chaucer was married in 1366.

4. Visit Leicester Market

More than 300 stalls at Leicester's indoor and outdoor markets sell everything from organic vegetables to aromatic spices, fish and shellfish, new and secondhand clothes, and homewares, electronic goods, cosmetics, jewellery, flowers, and fabrics.

5. Eat at the Boot Room

A former shoe factory now houses this contemporary independent bistro. Premium ingredients are used in dishes from roast Cornish cod with smoked tomato risotto to duck leg with Clonakilty black pudding. Save room for the soufflé of the day for dessert.

6. Visit the New Walk Museum & Art Gallery

Highlights of this grand Victorian museum include the dinosaur galleries, the painting collection (with works by Turner and Degas) and the Egyptian gallery, where real mummies rub shoulders with displays about Boris Karloff's The Mummy film. Littlies under five can let loose in the interactive Den.

7. Visit Leicester Cathedral

Pride of place at this substantial medieval cathedral goes to the contemporary limestone tomb atop the vault where the body of King Richard III was reburied in 2015, following the discovery of his body nearby. Look too for the striking carvings on the cathedral's roof supports.

8. Relax in Bradgate Park

Walk around Bradgate Park, a few miles from the city centre, to see wild deer, rabbits and breathtaking views.

9. Grab a Pork Pie from the UKs most famous crisp makers!

For lunch on the run, you can't beat Walkers' towering pork pies. These are the original premises where Walkers was founded in 1824; it's since sold its famous crisp brand but the pies remain a family business today. Other pie varieties include chicken, bacon and mushroom, farmhouse steak, game, and pulled pork. There's a handful of pavement tables out front.

10. Buy a dev a drink!

Ok - we're only (half) joking, but with a host of great places to eat and drink, there'll be plenty of opportunity to socialise with your fellow attendees and the Dev Team alike.

Have you bought your tickets yet? You can buy tickets from the home page of the GeekMoot site. Why not pop over there now and click the link?

Today we would like to announce the release of CMS Made Simple version 2.1.5 - High Rock. This is a stability release fixing a number of issues that have surfaced over the past two months. Though none of the issues are show stoppers, there are issues that generally affect the usability of CMSMS. Therefore, we recommend that everybody upgrade their websites as soon as possible.

Some of the issues fixed in this release include:

• Fixes to the 404 handler when using pretty URLs and a page-id could not be determined from the route


• Improvements to the page alias mechanism when a page alias is already supplied


• Fix a problem with editing of uid=1 by another admin user


• More fixes to the clearing of cached files


• Improvements to the way modules are installed and upgraded directly from the forge


• Ensure that the 'Manage Stylesheets' permission exists for sites that were upgraded from CMSMS 1.12

As usual, the full list of changes in this version is available in the changelog that is included with the release and available from numerous other locations. We encourage you to read it.

A big thank you goes out to the people who identified these issues and contributed to their getting fixed, tested, and documented. Your time is appreciated.

Room one:  A site owners' guide to CMSMS 2.0
In the first room Dev Team member John Scotcher will run a training day for CMSMS users running through a comprehensive program of how to use CMSMS 2.0 from the bare basics, through the essential modules both core and popular third party, through to tips and tricks.  A great day for a beginning to intermediate site user who wants to know how to get the absolute best out of their website.  John will be joined by other members of the Dev Team for specialist advice including image optimization, keeping true to the design of your site, and using your site for search engine dominance.

Session One. 09:30 - 11:05:  The basics.
A quick users guide to working with the basic system, including the Content Manager, The File Manager, News, image optimization, site upkeep and basic maintenance.

Session Two.  11:20 - 13:00:  Smarty, your best friend.
CMSMS is built on Smarty templating.  With some very simple knowledge, you can take advantage of this in your pages, adding many different functions, modules and more.  In this section we teach you to some useful Smarty skills to enhance your website.

Session Three:  14:00 - 15:00:  Modules.
Along with the core modules there are a host of available third party modules that you may need in your site.  Here we’ll run through the most popular five and show you how to get the most out of them.

Session Four: 15:15 - 16:00:  SEO – using CMSMS 2.0 to enhance your website’s standing with search engines.
CMSMS has many useful functions that will help you with your onsite SEO.  Whether you are using a third party SEO company or doing the work in house, this part of the day will show you how to turn those functions to your own advantage.

Session Five:  16:00 - 16:45:  Q & A
In the last part of the day, you can ask our experts the questions specific to your own site. Let us help you get the best out of the Internet and grow your business!

Room two:  Developing Modules for 2.0
Capitalizing on the training day delivered at DevMoot back in March, our lead programmer, Robert Campbell (Calguy) presents a day’s training on developing Modules for CMSMS 2.0. 

Guiding you through each step of the build, the Robert will create a simple ‘Holidays’ module as an ongoing example.  You’ll see how to create the module, setup installation and language, add in admin functions, add, edit and delete records and run the module on the front end.  Search engine friendly URLs, asynchronous loading, and working with other modules are also fully discussed.  Plus, much more.

This is a great training day for both new and experienced module developers.  Whether you are starting your first journey into module development or simply want to compare your methodology with the Dev Team’s, you’ll find this day invaluable.

Of course, this training assumes a level of ability for you to get the most from it.  You’ll have a firm understanding of PHP and object orientated programming, including exceptions and PHP’s magic methods.  You will also need understanding of relational databases—particularly MySQL. A basic understanding of JavaScript and jQuery will be useful. And, of course, you will need to know how to work with CMSMS, including creating and managing pages and templates.

We’re sure you will find this day invaluable.  We’re looking forward to seeing the great modules that you come up with.  So book in to GeekMoot for both the conference and the training day and start your adventure!

Matt has been involved with CMS Made Simple for many years, and been on the Dev Team for the last few years as a valued contributor, primarily in documentation and organization roles. He is a freelance web developer, with experience in responsive web design, print technologies, and through himself and his employers has sponsored many new modules for CMSMS, and enhancements to many others. As a user of CMSMS for many years, Matt has a firm understanding of the goals and focus of the project and a continually growing understanding of the problems that open source packages such as CMSMS face.

The role of Project Manager in CMSMS is primarily one of motivation and administration rather than decision making. Helping keep the project on track, facilitating meetings, and encouraging the team are some of the main tasks. The Project Manager is also the public face of CMSMS. Like any other Dev Team member, he or she has a single vote in decisions, except in the rare occasion of a draw in which case may act as a tie-breaker.

Thanks to detailed bug reports, along with steps to reproduce and an environment for testing, we have solved a significant issue with the Installation Assistant on hosts with suhosin installed.

We felt that this issue, along with a few other fixes we've done along the way are important enough to warrant the release of a CMSMS 2.1.4

The other issues we fixed are:

- Fixes to clearing cache, which should reduce issues with the navigation and other items not updating after a module is installed, removed or upgraded.

- Fixes to notices in the installation assistant when doing an install or upgrade under PHP7.

This release does not significantly affect people that are running on CMSMS 2.1.3 already, and not doing much in the way of upgrades or installations. However, if you are going to do a new installation of CMSMS, or upgrade an existing site, this release should solve numerous problems.

The CMSMS Dev team only supports the two most recent active versions, so as of this release we support only CMSMS 2.1.3 and 2.1.4.

Thanks for your time, and thanks to Matt and the other Dev Team members for testing this release.

Have fun with CMSMS!

This is just a friendly reminder about the status of CMSMS 1.x.

When CMSMS 2.0 was released on September 6, 2015, we announced that we would support the 1.x series for critical bugs and security issues for one calendar year. That end of life date is soon approaching.

After September 6, 2016, we will no longer be creating security releases or entertaining any bug fixes for the 1.x series. All of our effort will be directed to the 2.x series.

Because of our limited support resources, our support policy only asks our volunteer Dev Team members to respond to questions regarding the last two public releases of CMSMS, which at this time is CMSMS 2.1.2 and CMSMS 2.1.3.

Beginning September 6 we will no longer entertain general questions or support requests for the CMSMS 1.x series in any of the official forum boards. This may also include questions pertaining to upgrades from the 1.x series. You may still post your questions in the lounge or other areas in the hopes that another community member may respond.

There are still countless business-critical websites that are using CMS Made Simple 1.x versions which may be very old and/or insecure, and should be upgraded as soon as possible.

Upgrading from 1.x may not be a trivial process, particularly for very old or overly complex websites. While the changes that you may need to make are usually minor individually, and well documented, it will take some time and you may require assistance. It is best to undertake the upgrade process while there are skilled and experienced people available and willing to help.

If you would prefer professional, paid assistance to upgrade your website, the CMSMS Dev Team members cooperate in a referral system to provide commercial assistance of this nature. You can read more about that and submit an enquiry HERE.

Today we are announcing another maintenance and security release for the 2.x series of CMS Made Simple. This release comprises the security fixes released in 1.12.2 as well as numerous other fixes. We recommend you upgrade your websites to 2.1.3 at your earliest convenience.

Many thanks to Mickaël WALTER at i-tracing.com for finding the vulnerability and kindly reporting it to us.

Here is a brief description of some of the things fixed in 2.1.3:

• Implement the HTTP_HOST fixes and parameter cleaning fixes introduced in 1.12.2


• Fix for endless loops caused when calculating page alias in some utf-8 environments (Some WAMP environments)
  
• Fixes and improvements to the distributed .htaccess file(s)
  
  
  
  • Our distributed sample doc/htaccess.txt has more security improvements
  
  
  • We no longer distribute .htaccess files in subdirectories
  
  
  
  


• Fixes a problem with the system verification code


• Optimize the LoadContentFromId() method to be typesafe, and more efficient
  
• Fixes to the Uninstall/Re-install of Navigator


• Fix News so that no errors are returned if no results match the specified filter.


• Fixes to the installation assistant with relation to PHP7, and improve the README files.


• Minor fix to FileManager when moving a folder.

As usual, the distributed changelog in both the installation assistant and the doc folder after upgrade give more details on specific changes.

As per our support policy, we request that our Dev Team supports the two most recently distributed versions of CMSMS. At this time, those are CMSMS 2.1.2 and CMSMS 2.1.3. So, you are encouraged to upgrade. The 1.12 series of CMSMS will be supported until September 2016 for critical bugs and security issues only.

Thank you for your time, and have fun with CMS Made Simple.

Go over to the GeekMoot website now to find out more!

Today we are announcing CMS Made Simple 1.12.2, a release primarily addressing a security concern.

This release addresses a concern about how the HTTP_HOST header can potentially be spoofed in some circumstances resulting in various problems including the fact that all links from your site could be altered to point to another domain.

We have modified the code such that this is no longer easily possible. This change will not be of a concern for most installations, but on some sites where the same installation of CMS Made Simple can be accessed by requesting different domains some modifications may be required.

In CMSMS 1.12.2 we introduced a new config variable entitled 'host_whitelist' which provides an absolute list of which hosts your installation will support. Developers using installations that support some kind of multi-site configuration will need to review the documentation for this config variable in the doc/config_reference.pdf file distributed with CMSMS 1.12.2 and adjust their config.php file accordingly.

Additionally, there are a few very minor fixes included with 1.12.2, including some fixes to the cms_url class.

This release encapsulates the CMSMailer 5.2.14 security vulnerability that was previously addressed as a new CMSMailer module version.

As previously announced, we will continue to support the 1.12.x series for critical bugs and security fixes until 365 days after the release of CMSMS 2.0, which occurs in September 2016.

Thank you for your time, and we encourage you to upgrade your CMSMS installations as soon as possible. You can download 1.12.2 from the CMSMS forge at: http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/project/files/6

Many thanks to Mickaël WALTER at i-tracing.com for finding this issue and kindly reporting it to us.

Today we are announcing the release of CMS Made Simple 2.1.2 "Andros Town". A mixed bag of bug fixes, minor feature improvements and security updates.

With respect to security, this release upgrades the internal PHPMailer scripts to fix an issue that some hosts have been scanning for, and reporting to some of our users.

Some of the items changed in this release include:

• Minor changes to seamlessly support PHP7


• Improvements to style sheet handling in MicroTiny


• Improvements to module dependency logic when installing modules with ModuleManager.


• Adding the ability to delete any and all field definitions from News.


• Fixes to the way the 'Home Page' preference works.


• Fixes to sorting options in the ajax page selector.


• Add a new check in the system information to ensure that E_ALL is enabled in the PHP configuration.

Due to the potential security ramifications and bug fixes, we encourage all users to upgrade their websites to CMSMS 2.1.2 as soon as possible.

As of this release, we will be providing technical support for CMSMS 2.1.1 and CMSMS 2.1.2.

We will continue to provide critical bug fixes, and security fixes for CMSMS 1.12.x until September 2016.

Thank you for your time, and have fun with CMSMS.

The City of Leicester is in the heart of the UK and easily accessible by both national and international visitors. The National Space Centre is a unique and exciting venue to get into all things geek!

This year the two day GeekMoot will be preceded by a training day. This training day features two great training options: For developers we will be running a module creation workshop headed by CMSMS lead programmer, Robert Campbell. Plus we’ll see the return of our users’ program – training site owners how to get the best out of CMSMS.

And this time, for the first time, we are helping you earn a little from ticket sales. Any developers who want to encourage their clients to come to the users’ training will be able to purchase tickets at ‘trade’ prices. Trade prices and more info will be available when the full program is announced in March.

Early bird tickets are available now, but they won’t last for long. They will be available until we announce the full program at the start of March. Get in now to make a saving!

Earn a free day ticket by giving a presentation.

As with previous years, our varied and exciting program of talks comes from the user base. We would love to hear your proposals for a presentation. If you have something that you think will be of real benefit to the GeekMoot delegates, then why not present it. Tell us about your new module and its features, show us the tips and tricks you have been working with in 2.0, give a presentation about aspects of your business that will benefit the community. We are open to all well-thought-out, valuable ideas.

In return for a presentation we want to give you something! Everyone that presents will get that day at the GeekMoot completely free. So not only will you have the love of the community, you will also have a real saving as a reward.

This year, we will require that a copy of the presentation is submitted by September the 1st, so we can advise you in plenty of time whether it still needs some love to get it up to GeekMoot Presentation standards.

For now, we'd just like to hear what you think you could do.  To tell us what you'd like to present and bag that free day!  Go to http://geekmoot.com/call-for-presentations

Once again we battled with the locking, and for the most part we think we have it nailed. We fixed some minor template errors in Design Manager and Content Manager that occurred when locking was disabled. We also revised the locking JavaScript to use an asynchronous process that works asynchronously in almost all circumstances for common browsers.

The new locking JavaScript code is apparently not supported in Safari (particularly on iOS) and in Internet Explorer or Edge. If your clients are primarily using these browsers, we suggest that you disable locking entirely and exercise caution so that users don't accidentally overwrite each other's work.

New functionality also allows non-admin users to explicitly, manually clear their locks, and for admin users (members of the admin group) to explicitly clear all locks.

We fixed a problem where permissions related to viewing and managing user settings and the user profile were not created in sites upgraded from 1.12. If you are running some non-standard user groups you may need to modify the permissions associated with those groups to ensure they have the 'Manage My Account', 'Manage My Bookmarks' and 'Manage My Settings' permissions as is appropriate for your site.

Additionally, there were fixes to the Navigator module related to install and uninstall, fixes to the {ldelim}content_image{rdelim} plugin, and fixes related to the initialization of the setting so that modules like FrontEndUsers would not generate a 403 error at the wrong time.

A complete list of the changes for CMSMS 2.1.1 is as usual available in the doc/CHANGELOG.txt file in the installation, and is available in the installation assistant.

We encourage you to upgrade your installations of CMSMS at your earliest convenience.

Thank you and enjoy CMSMS.

Here we are again with another release of your favourite, powerful, and flexible open source content management system: Version 2.1 - "Bahamas".

This release includes a number of bug fixes as we continue to stabilize and improve the 2.x series, as well as a few notable feature improvements.

As usual, the changelog that is included with the release, and available for reading from within the installation assistant, will contain all of the details as to what has been improved, but we'll highlight a few of the big things here:

• More compatibility improvements and fixes in relation to Smarty.
  

  When we introduced scoping into Smarty, we broke a few things—particularly with respect to the compatibility of existing modules. These should, by and large, be fixed now.

  
  



• Improvements to browser caching behaviour
  

  We have made some changes to the location, and way, that we send out the various headers to your browser. This should help with browser caching, allow less server usage, and improve performance for returning site visitors. Please be sure you also view the sample htaccess file (docs/htaccess.txt) for improvements there.

  
  



• Added the adminonly=1 argument to the various {ldelim}content{rdelim} tags.
  

  This feature allows you to specify that certain content blocks can only be edited by users of the "admin" group. Use this when you are mixing design and content in a certain block, and don't want normal editors to be able to adjust the content of this block.

  
  
  

  Hint: When mixing design and content in a particular block it is always best to disable the wysiwyg for that content block with the wysiwyg=false argument.

  
  



• Improved MicroTiny Editor.
  

  We have upgraded the core TinyMCE package in MicroTiny to a fairly recent version (the latest, as of a couple of weeks ago), and added the ability to paste as text, as well as the table plugin.

  
  
  

  There was much discussion in the Dev Team about the table plugin, and whether to include it or not. In the end, we decided that we would include this functionality, but turn it off by default.

  
  
  

  Although we do not in any way encourage the use of tables for layout, there are a few valid reasons where tabular data is useful in content blocks.

  
  
  

  The CMSMS-linker plugin has been improved to show the page hierarchy when auto-completing a page name, title, or alias to link to. This auto-complete field is faster, and more manageable for finding a link to a page—particularly on larger sites.

  
  



• More Locking improvements
  

  More work, and an extensive amount of testing in various browsers and various operating systems has resulted in revamping the way that locking works in the Content Manager and Design Manager.

  
  
  

  As of CMSMS 2.1 almost all of the locking and unlocking is done via ajax, in a synchronous manner. The various lists (Content List, Template List, and Stylesheet List) refresh every thirty seconds to indicate what objects are locked.

  
  
  

  Locking can be disabled completely by editing the various time-out values to 0 in the Content Manager and Design Manager settings.

  
  



• Templates can now be hidden from lists.
  

  The new 'Listable' feature when editing a table will ensure that this template does not show up in the content list when selecting a template for a page.
  

  This is very useful when using template inheritance, and you do not want editors to be able to choose the base template when editing a content page.

  
  



• Improvements to the 'system information' page.
  

  We have added to and tweaked the information available on the system information page, particularly in the bbcode section.

  
  

  We remind everybody that when you encounter a problem and need to ask a question on the forum (or even when submitting a bug report) that you must include a copy of this as it provides us with some basic information that is useful when diagnosing issues.

  
  

As you can see, CMSMS 2.1 is an extensive release. There are features and bug fixes for everybody, and we think that the 2.x series is definitely becoming more usable and stable.

As of this version CMSMS 2.1 and CMSMS 2.0.1.1 are the only officially supported versions. The members of the Dev Team are not asked to provide technical support (general questions) for previous versions. We will fix any critical bugs or security issues in the 1.12 series until September 2016.

Thank you, and have fun with CMSMS.

The CMSMS Dev Team.

Guiding you through each step of the build, the PDF creates a simple ‘Holidays’ module as an ongoing example.  You’ll see how to create the module, setup installation and language, add in admin functions, add, edit and delete records and run the module on the front end.  Search engine friendly URLs, asynchronous loading, and working with other modules are also fully discussed.  Plus, there are many other sections just waiting for you to dive into them. 

This is a great document for both new and experienced module developers.  Whether you are starting your first journey into module development or simply want to compare your methodology with the Dev Team’s, you’ll find this PDF invaluable. 

Of course, this document assumes a level of ability for you to get the most from it.  You’ll have a firm understanding of PHP and object orientated programming, including exceptions and PHP’s magic methods.  You will also need understanding of relational databases—particularly MySQL. A basic understanding of JavaScript and jQuery will be useful. And, of course, you will need to know how to work with CMSMS, including creating and managing pages and templates.

We’re sure you will find this document invaluable.  We’re looking forward to seeing the great modules that you come up with.  You can download the PDF from here right now and start your adventure!

The Dev Team.