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You can “touch and feel” new features by going to http://plone5demo.quintagroup.com/.
Demo website has account that gives users rights and permissions of site administrator. This user role provides access to all Plone features, such as adding content, publishing content, managing site users and groups, configuring site settings, etc.
Plone 5 Demo site contains several illustrative presentations of popular add-ons, including themes, custom forms (collective.easyform package allows creation of forms through the web), and embed service (collective.embedly package allows to embed video, images and other rich media files to Plone simply by providing their URL).
Plone 5 became faster. Now it uses Chameleon template rendering engine that reduces rendering time by 30%. New features and functionality you can experience with Plone 5 and on our demo website are listed below.
The new default theme is called Barceloneta. It is responsive out of the box and compiled with LESS. Diazo theming is enabled by default, so this theme can be edited through the web. Plone 5 uses HTML5 and allows choosing front-end framework, like Bootstrap.
The content management toolbar was redesigned and now users can manage content using pull-out panel. It can be expanded from one icon to full toolbar and repositioned. It is separated from content for easier styling, so users can always see a correct view of the pages.
TinyMCE became more accessible and mobile friendly. Drag&drop uploads and content reordering are now also available.
Dexterity content types are now used in Plone out of the box. Products.Archetypes, Products.ATContentTypes, archetypes.schemaextender are available as add-ons, mainly for older content. For instance, content migrations can be customized with a help of schema extender.
Multilingual functionality is now shipped with Plone by default, so you can always translate your content and keep translations in order.
Plone was always known as the open source CMS with the strongest security available. Plone 5 can boast automated Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) and click-jacking protection. Security levels can be customized based on the needs of particular website.
Use our demo site for experimentation. Although this Plone version is a pre-release, experienced developers can implement Plone 5 based solutions. Contact us if you are interested in Plone development.
]]>A person content type can hold one or more positions or be member of one or more organizations. All contact types have optional fields with variety of contact information, including phone, cell phone, fax, email, address, zip code, etc. Such data management is very suitable for universities.
collective.contact.core can be useful for all kinds of organizations, despite their size, number of employees or subdivisions. Created directory is easy to manipulate and can be branched or edited at any time.
collective.contact.core adds new content types, but preserves Plone functionality, especially concerning users’ rights. Every ‘organization’ content type is similar to folder, thus you can specify in the Sharing tab what rights users have . Moreover, default Plone search is very efficient when you want to search for a specific person or position on all the website.
Use collective.contact.core to arrange your organization and contact information.
More information:
]]>
Collective.easyform is compatible with Plone 4.3.2. It is distributed as a Python egg and can easily be installed into your buildout similarly to other Plone packages. Visit the following pages to find more information about collective.easyform:
]]>After you have installed the product, you can select:
and copy it to the clipboard. Switch to Plone TinyMCE and Paste using your browser menu Edit -> Paste or key combination. The picture will be automatically uploaded to the same folder, which contains an edited page, and stored as an image content type. Title is automatically generated and can be changed any time. Furthermore, the path to the image itself upon saving in TinyMCE is rendered as resolveUID link.
See also screencast that helps to use collective.clipboardupload product for Plone. See video tutorial on how to easily add and manipulate images.
Collective.clipboardupload is compatible with Plone 4.+ and Mozilla Firefox web browser. This package is easily installed, since it is distributed as a Python egg and can easily be installed into buildout.cfg file. To get more information visit the following pages:
XHOSTPLUS Social
sc.social.like
sc.social.bookmarks
zest.social
collective.addthis
Twitter and Facebook widget
collective.sharerizer
Simple Social
collective.portlet.socialnetworks
xhostplus.social 1.4.6 (2013-06-10) is easy to install and use Plone package that helps to display buttons for the 4 most popular social networks: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Linkedin on the Plone site.
After activating XHOSTPLUS Social on the Add-on panel you can configure several options in the Social Network Configuration.
sc.social.like 2.0a1 (2013-07-23) is a Plone package that provides simple Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Facebook integration for Plone website.
Several features can be configured in the plugin settings:
You can use social.bookmarks 1.2.3 (2012-06-12). This particular package adds a Bookmark & Share action to a Plone 4 website pages. Any user can bookmark or share a content from a Plone site to a huge number of services (62 providers already included), for example: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Google Bookmarks, Yahoo Bookmarks, BlogMemes, blogmarks, Bluedot, co.mments, Bumpzee, connotea, Digg, Delicious, Linkter, MyShare, Netscape, Reddit, Scoopeo, Simpy, YahooBuzz.
You can choose display style: either icons only or bookmark link with options in the popup.
After activating this product in the Add-on panel you can configure its settings in the Add-on Configuration section:
Zest.social 1.3 (2012-09-12) adds a viewlet at the bottom right corner of the page that allows to share content on LinkedIn, Twitter or Google. Additionally there is a print button. It is possible to share page on some other services using a popup menu.
There are more than 285 services available for sharing and you can quickly search for them using simple popup window.
After activating zest.social product it is important to enable viewlet on the particular page. To do this go to Settings tab on the editing page and tick ‘Show social bookmarking viewlet’.
Collective.addthis 1.3.3 (2013-05-27) combines addthis services with Plone CMS. This package produces a viewlet near the bottom of the page. After clicking on the Share button there is a possibility to share the content via more than 285 social network services.
You can change configurations on the AddThis settings tab. For instance, it is possible to display the most popular social networks icons beside the Share button to make it easier for visitors. Just select necessary icons from the list, choose their order and press Save.
You can add your account name with which you are registered on http://www.addthis.com and you will be able to view statistic information on sharing. Receiving in-depth report you can learn how sharing is increasing your traffic and what interests your visitors. Use this tool freely for your business.
Embed portlet 1.1 (2012-09-04) allows to embed Twitter and Facebook widget with the respective Like and Follow buttons into Plone website page.
Except activating the app it is necessary to take code from Facebook and Twitter websites. Useful video tutorial is here Plone: embed code from services like facebook, twitter, ....
Collective.sharerizer 1.4 (2012-11-29) simplifies the process of adding a third-party widget to the Plone website. It is not bound to any particular third-party tool, but provides a control panel where the needed Javascript widget can be pasted. Some tools that could be used are Add to Any and ShareThis.
In the settings tab you should tick ‘Display Document Actions Icons’ and add code provided by the relevant service. Here is the example of Facebook Like button implementation.
collective.simplesocial 1.8 (2013-11-12) is focused on the integration of Facebook within Plone website, including:
You would need to create your own app on the developers.facebook.com and insert its information to the settings tab.
collective.portlet.socialnetworks
collective.portlet.socialnetworks 1.2 (2013-01-18) allows to add icons with links to your blogger, digg, facebook, flickr, google plus, linkedin, myspace, pinterest, stumbleupon, tumblr, twitter, vimeo, or youtube accounts.
After activating the product go to Site Setup -> Configuration registry. Find collective.portlet.socialnetworks there and add links to the social networks you are active on to the record. E.g.:
facebook|http://www.facebook.com/TalkQuintagroup
twitter|https://twitter.com/quintagroup
youtube|http://www.youtube.com/user/quintagroup
Number of Plone packages for Social media websites integration increases. It is important to choose the one that suits your website or web application. Consider not only display options, functionality, speed, and number of social networks presented, but also the way such add-ons influence Plone website structure and code.
Plone, social networks and Internet in general are constantly developing so it is important to be familiar with the latest trends. Integrate social media platforms to your Plone website and people will find you.
Quintagroup will be performing a scheduled software maintenance on all Quintagroup servers due to planned release of a security fix for Plone. Service interruptions are expected to be brief and will likely go unnoticed, but you may experience some minor ones.
When: December 10th, 2013
Time: 15:00-17:00 UTC (see in your timezone)
Expected Impact: Website availability varies
Recommendations: Suspend advertising programs during this window, disable notifications from website monitoring systems
Security advisory: http://plone.org/products/plone/security/advisories/20131210-preannounce
All updates will be posted here.
Thank you for your patience.
Quintagroup team
UPDATE 2013-12-10 17:42 UTC: Security Hotfix successfully installed within maintenance window.
]]>Quintagroup will be performing a scheduled software maintenance on all Quintagroup servers due to security vulnerability in Plone - it was said that issues lay in code execution and privilege escalation. Service interruptions are expected to be brief and will likely go unnoticed, but you may experience some minor ones.
When: June 18th 11th, 2013
Time: 15:00-17:00 UTC (see in your timezone)
Expected Impact: Website availability varies
Recommendations: Suspend advertising programs during this window, disable notifications from website monitoring systems
Security advisory: http://plone.org/products/plone/security/advisories/20130611-announcement
All updates will be posted here.
Thank you for your patience.
Quintagroup team
UPDATE 2013-06-11 14:40 UTC: Plone Security Team delayed Hotfix release by 1 week (to improve reliability of essential infrastructure). New release date: 2013-06-18 15:00 UTC.
UPDATE 2013-06-18 15:07 UTC: Hotfix was released.
UPDATE 2013-06-18 15:18 UTC: Hotfix file validated.
UPDATE 2013-06-18 15:25 UTC: Hotfix rollout procedure tested.
UPDATE 2013-06-18 16:27 UTC: Hotfix rollout progresses. The Plone 2.5 instances are having issue and we're acting upon them. Plone Security team will be rolling up updated version soon, and we'll be updating the hotfix.
UPDATE 2013-06-18 16:49 UTC: Hotfix rollout finished. There are known issues with Authentication on some sites and specific software configurations. If your site is experiencing issues, please report. We are reviewing the logs, but Unauthorized exception is often filtered and is not recorded in the logs, this complicates issue detection.
]]>Recently it was announced of the first release of a free Plone theme, designed and developed by Quintagroup: Python Reel, your Free Responsive theme for Plone 4.2.x that holds a great promise to become even more popular than well-loved Schools and SunRain, all-time favourites among Free Plone Themes.
Let’s see, if those expectations can actually live up to become true in today’s mobile-dominated web.
At first glance design-wise Python Reel gives off that animalistic vibe that is so in for 2013, presenting the graceful styling inspired by the shape of snake. But, it’s much more softer take on a serpent, with pastel colors and elegant typography Python Reel is suitable for most business/personal websites. Still, Python Reel is not so simple and gentle as it may look.
To start off, Python Reel features Responsive Web design to present itself with grace on any device, be it a small smartphone, a tablet or widescreen HD PCs. Take a look at the website on touch phone, 7-inch tablet, iPad:
As you see, the whole content is resized and repositioned to be more device-appropriate. 2013 is considered to be a year when mobile web usage will finally overtake PC’s. It’s crucial more than ever to have your website mobile-ready. Fully responsive Python Reel satisfied all those requirements, coming also with mobile-first navigation and touch-enabled carousel.
Mobile users are often looking for immediate answers; they want the information and they want it now. Simple responsive navigation won’t do, it will just take up an entire mobile screen, without actually showing much. Python Reel has a native support for quintagroup.dropdownmenu product that transforms multi-level navigation into an elegant responsive drop-down menu, built following mobile first approach.
With a simple responsive menu you get all menu items listed at the top, which is quite messy. Mobile-first navigation looks as a select box that triggers a pop-up with the complete multi-level navigation menu.
Having a carousel slider on your Plone website is not a big deal, but making it responsive to smaller devices, meaning tablets and smartphones is a completely different story. In Python Reel just with a few clicks you can have an elegant image slider that is not only scalable, but can be positioned in the top area or just below the header.
Now, let’s look under the hood, Python Reel is powered by Compass framework built on top of Sass. So, unlike most Plone Themes this one is coded in another, cleaner fashion. CSS templates are well-structured and reusable, thus making maintenance and deep customization easier as well.
This is where themes like Python Reel come on stage. Python Reel let’s you set your header images with the logo that comes in a light and dark versions. The theme will allow you to set the colors of your navigation menu, including the text info. Write your own slogan. Instead of one picture, create a carousel and change its background to match overall color palette on your website. Fortunately, the theme is rather friendly with the user, changing colors is just a matter of changing its html number.
With such a combination of features, you can quickly create a good looking home page that looks like it was built by a professional designer.
One of my favourite features in Python Reel is the columns settings. The columns section will allow you to set up to three columns. You can have your content on the left with a portlet on the right, flip that around, have portlets on both sides, adjust their width or even remove them altogether. ContentWellPortlets extension in turn let you add portlets to any page section header, footer, content. This way Python Reel theme will display a number of page layouts that allow each page to be individually customized without additional code. This allows for quick creation of multiple page designs within the site.
Python Reel would not be mobile enough without social media to share the content and connect with your visitors on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin; keep them up-to-date with the latest news in RSS.
After spending several hours playing with Python Reel on plone-demo, I can say it is a pretty solid theme. Seeing Python Reel only on pics doesn’t really do it justice though. You’ll need to switch on your imagination. There is little to nothing you couldn’t customize in this theme with proper tools and knowledge. So you need to try out this theme for yourself and get a real feel of what Python Reel has to offer, how easy it’s to personalize and how great and versatile it can look.
Lastly, let’s cover support. All Plone themes are not made equal. Some, like Python Reel, are flexible and can be used for virtually any purpose. This is great, but sometimes the options can be overwhelming. As for Python Reel all customization instructions are provided in README.txt. But if there are some things you don’t fully understand or have trouble with, you can always open the ticket. Downloading for free Python Reel you get a solid product that will continue to receive updates as well as support into the future.
Overall, I really like Python Reel and think this Plone theme can fit most business fields really well. It’s easy to set up and customize, plus it responds to your viewer’s device. Python Reel gives you plenty of options, but at the same time, not enough to overwhelm you. What I love most about this Plone theme in particular is how flexible it is. It can be used for websites ranging from single-column to 3 column responsive sites. This theme could be your ticket to mobile market.
You can download Python Reel from:
Homepage: http://themes.quintagroup.com/product/python-reel
Plone.org: http://plone.org/products/python-reel-plone-theme
Pypi: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/quintagroup.theme.pythonreel
]]>Want to make your website easy to browse on a mobile device and engage more visitors? You are on the right way - not only does Quintagroup suggest responsive Plone themes, but we also can offer two of our responsive themes for free - SunRain and Schools. It means one more benefit on behalf of Quintagroup - there are not so many free responsive Plone themes, while using our design services enables you to download and implement them to your mobile website.
Apart from the usual functionality, design customization and bright palette of colors, you can stop bothering about usability of the mobile version of your website. Responsive themes enable your website to widen the list of visitors by engaging users browsing the net more and more often on their mobile devices.
Responsive approach to our themes is based on CSS3 media queries that help easily switch between different layouts in order to accommodate for different screen sizes. You won’t have to wait while your mobile device is ‘thinking’ over loading your website that was primarily designed for desktop browsing, you won’t have to zoom it to see some tiny icons or buttons (because, for example, primarily they were designed for desktop browsing). Responsive themes ensure accessibility of your content and simple mobile-oriented navigation.
So, ‘fresh up’ your website with responsive Plone themes and make it more appealing to your users.
Functional and interesting design of the free SunRain Plone Theme created by Quintagroup with two different views depending on your taste and needs - Sun and Rain - is now also available for mobile devices. Click on the screenshot to find out more about its key characteristics.
Got interested and want to download? Follow this way:
Adaptable and functional free Plone Theme designed by Quintagroup team has now become responsive. Click on the screenshot to find out more about its key characteristics:
If you want to see how our SunRain and Schools themes can be implemented in practice, you may browse the following websites and check presently available solutions:
You may also go to plone-demo.quintagroup.com and kill two birds with one stone - not only does it give you an opportunity to try working with Plone, but also deal with the themes themselves. Follow the instructions to log in as Plone administartor, then go to the ‘ploneadmin’ dropdown menu in the right upper corner, choose ‘Site Setup’ button, find ‘Diazo theme’ icon under ‘Plone Configuration’ settings and choose the theme you’re interested in. This will help you make up your mind quicker and prompt you to contact us for further details.
]]>Admin demo account can be used to log in and, thus, get the experience of a true Plone user. You will be able to add content by creating pages, folders, events; move content between site sections; manage workflow for every content item by publishing or making it private; and much more.
Apart from out-of-the-box Plone features, you can try several Plone add-ons in work. These are:
Plone demo site also has Quintagroup diazo themes for Plone installed. There are 15 themes right now, they are all very different and include a bunch of theme-specific features. You can try any of the installed Plone themes right now by following the instructions on Plone Themes page. Enjoy Plone new look!
]]>The theme includes 2 different views: default 'Rain' and 'Sun' (can be activated via ZMI) - click the following screenshots to see full-screen images.
Theme comes with Static Stylish portlet, that allows to add specially-styled text portlets: 'Green Item' and 'Grey Item'. Apart from setting portlet background color, such portlets has portlet text of different size. This allows creating portlets with important information which will easily be noticed by site users. Static Stylish portlets also include special styling for portlet links.
The theme is tested with Portlet Cumulus that allows adding Tag Cloud portlet to Plone site.
SunRain theme has 'subscribe' viewlet integrated, that adds 4 actions 'Share on Twitter', 'Share on Facebook', 'Send this' and 'Subscribe to RSS'. You can set necessary icon links as simply as editing corresponding portal_action items in ZMI. You are also able to hide/show items that you need.
SunRain Theme uses customizable slogan and replaceable logo.
You can freely install and customize SunRain Plone Theme on your Plone 4 instance right away. Simply add quintagroup.theme.sunrain to eggs and zcml sections of your buildout.cfg file, rebuild it, restart your Plone site, and activate the theme via Site setup -> Add-ons.
We decided to use SunRain theme on a new version of our corporate blogging site - TalkQuintagroup, that has just migrated from Plone 2.5.1 to Plone 4.0.7. The theme suits perfectly our blogging purposes because it has special blog and blog listing views styled for collective.blogstar and Products.Quills.
We would be very grateful if you inform us about Plone site(s) that use our SunRain Theme, so that we add it to the list of live websites with Quintagroup Plone Themes.
]]>When: June 28th, 2011
Time: 14:30-15:30 UTC (see in your timezone)
Expected Impact: Website is not available
Recommendations: Suspend advertising programs during this window, disable notifications of website monitoring systems
Security advisory: http://plone.org/products/plone/security/advisories/20110622
UPDATE: We have to extend maintenance window for another 30 minutes as Hotfix is being rolled out.
UPDATE (17:01 UTC): Patch rollout finished. Sorry for inconveniences caused.
]]>There are more than 200 services that support embed.ly service. With collective.embedly it becomes very easy to insert content from those websites simply by proving object URL. Embedly-supported serices s include such video sharing sites as Youtube, Blip.tv, Vimeo; such audio streaming services as Grooveshark, SoundCloud, last.fm; such image/photo stocks as Flickr, and many other: GoogleMaps, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
To embed media from any of the embedly-supported external resources to Plone - follow such instructions:
For more illustrative instructions - see collective.embedly documentation. You will find how-tos on embedding videos to Plone from YouTube, blip.tv, vimeo and TED.com websites there. Also see how to embed images from Flickr, how to embed map from GoogleMaps, how to embed audio from SoundCloud, and how to embed content from Facebook to Plone.
Screenshot on the right dislays how can a page with different embedly-converted content look in Plone 4. collective.embedly works in Plone 4.
collective.embedly is compatible with Plone 4. It is distributed as a Python egg and can easily be installed into your buildout as other packages for Plone.
Visit the following pages to find more information about collective.embedly:
]]>Information generated by Quintagroup Analytics can be very useful while migrating your site into newer Plone version. With its help you can audit the content in Plone site before migration and compare it with the migrated website structure.
quintagroup.analytics is now compatible with Plone 4 and Plone 3. But we plan to test it on Plone 2.5 and Plone 2.1 soon: you may expect a new product release for earlier Plone versions in the nearest future.
You can install quintagroup.analytics on your Plone 4 or Plone 3 instance by adding quintagroup.analytics to the buildout (see detailed installation instructions). Having activated Quintagroup Analytics via QuickInstaller in Plone you will see a new Quintagroup Analytics item appeared under Add-on Products Configuarion.
Quintagroup Analytics configlet consists of several tabs that present different statistics about your Plone site. Every chart is followed by a table, presenting all statistic data in numbers:
So, what statistics can you have by using Quintagroup Analytics?
Visit the following pages to find more information about quintagroup.analytics features, usage and installation:
]]>