This template includes all the Fragments and Managers required to function and includes Articles, News, Twitter Feed and Galley. The template costs just $14 and your purchase will help support the SkyBlueCanvas project.

In the coming weeks I will be working to convert several more of Qiming’s themes to work natively with SkyBlueCanvas.

I have, however, been hard at work on the new version. Originally the next release was going to be an incremental release (v1.2) but I decided that it would be better to delay a little longer and get this next release right the first time. The code is essentially at alpha stage, meaning that all of the functionality that is intended to be in the software is there. It is not yet fully tested (that comes next) but it is there. Version 2.0 constitutes a complete re-write of the code without a complete departure from the concepts that have made SkyBlueCanvas such a success. Above all else, I have not only maintained the ease-of-use, but I have actually greatly improved it.

I am very pleased with the new version. It is not quite a lightweight as the original but that doesn’t really concern me at all. Disk space was never my concern to begin with so I am happy to take up a little more room if and when it makes sense to do so. The new version still uses XML for data storage by default, but will also now support the use of any storage mechanism you like. It will take a while to build a collection of the necessary wrapper classes (technically DAOs) but the capability is there. I am already working on an Oracle DB-compatible wrapper and intend to get a MySQL wrapper out just as soon as possible.

The Road Ahead

There are two main tasks to be completed at the moment. The first is the most daunting: I need to transfer my knowledge of the system into a collection of documentation. I truly believe that when I get all of this out onto (virtual) paper, developers will be very pleased with the design.

The second task may or may not be so daunting. The finishing touch on the software will be the Admin UI (user interface).  I have decided to purchase a stock admin theme from ThemeForest.net. You have seen me pimping their themes on all of the SkyBlueCanvas sites. I do it to make a few extra bucks but also because I really do like their templates. I have personally bought about as many as I’ve sold (thus canceling out any commissions). There are two themes I have selected as the final candidates:

Administasia

Developer License: $500.00

Flexy Admin

Developer License: $600.00

You can click the image of each theme to view more screen shots and a live demo of each. As you can see, these templates are not cheap. I need to purchase a developer’s license in order to be able to redistribute the theme with the software. The prices are very good prices but a little too much for me to pay for out-of-pocket. You can help purchase one of these templates by using any of the Chip-In donation widgets throughout all of the SkyBlueCanvas family of sites.

That is where things stand at the moment. I am working as hard as I can to get version 2.0 out to the public and especially to my loyal users. As we move further into 2010, I will be releasing more and more content on this site covering SkyBlueCanvas and general web-related topics. Than you for your support and thank you for reading.

Recently, while poking around to find a more affordable alternative to Photoshop for Mac, I happened upon one of my greatest software finds to date: Pixelmator (Mac only). I really cannot say enough nice things about this software. PixelMator is not going to dethrone the king of photo manipulation any time soon, but this is no sophomorish, el-cheapo alternative. PixelMator is serious photo manipulation that has many of the features we all love about Photoshop and has on kick-ass user interface. Pixelmator also costs about one-tenth the price of Photoshop at just $59.00 US.

Pixelmator was founded in 2007 by London, UK brothers Saulius and Aidas Dailide. Judging from the photos on their web site, the brothers are fairly young and so have a long and bright career ahead of them developing software. For more information or to purchase Pixelmator, visit their web site at www.pixelmator.com.

To accommodate the fact that no version of Internet Explorer currently supports the Canvas element, the developers have implemented a library maintained by Google that translates canvas scripting into VML . The IE-compatibility fix can be implemented by adding a conditional comment to the web page containing the table data.

To read the full article and download the plugin, visit www.filamentgroup.com

“SPAW Editor is a web based in-browser WYSIWYG editor control enabling web site developers to replace a standard textarea html control with full-featured, fully customizable, multilingual, skinable web based WYSIWYG editor. Version 2 adds tabbed multi-document interface, floating/shared toolbars, modular architecture and many other exciting features” — www.solmetra.com

Update – January 14, 2010

I have resumed work on the new version of SkyBlueCanvas. Due to the extent of the changes, the next version will be numbered 2.0. I have not set a release date yet but the major coding is complete. I am currently working with a UI designer to create a new interface for the software. I plan to begin testing in the next couple of weeks. Thank you for your patience.

I have just completed the coding for SkyBlueCanvas version 1.2. The new version is an important milestone for the lightweight CMS because it is the first version to fully implement i18n (internationalization) support, the MVC (model view controller) design pattern and a lightweight ACL (access control list) to support multiple users and access permissions.

Version 1.2 also introduces the MVC (Model View Controller) design pattern into SkyBlueCanvas. While the MVC pattern is not fully implemented, this version does lay the groundwork for us to continue to refactor the code to fully implement the pattern.

Also new in version 1.2 is support for multiple users and user groups to control access to both front end and back end content. The new access control is a lightweight ACL (access control list) that allows the site admin to restrict which users can see what content and which admins can edit which types of content.

In addition to i18n support and beginning to implement the MVC pattern, version 1.2 also includes significant improvements to the code including a completely new Skin engine for building web pages and general cleanup to nearly every class. Even with the significant changes to a lot of the core underlying code, the new version will be almost 100% compatible with sites that are currently using version 1.1.

You can browse the source code of the new version at http://www.skybluecanvas.com/1.2-development

A word of caution: the new version is at stage alpha and has not been fully tested. Additionally, any add-ons available on our downloads page are not yet compatible with the new code.

What’s to come

SkyBlueCanvas will undergo very significant changes over the next several months. The changes will be implemented gradually and carefully to minimize the impact of upgrading from earlier versions of SkyBlueCanvas. The changes will focus on improving performance, usability and to simplify the API to make extending SkyBlueCanvas much easier.

I don’t normally make posts that are not related to SkyBlueCanvas, but I really enjoy seeing anyone do anything extremely well. As a friend of mine said, “Danny MacAskill is the Yo-Yo Ma of bikes”. This is just inspiring to watch. Watch the video, you won’t regret it.

It’s hard to believe that SkyBlueCanvas was released just 12 months ago. In many ways it seems like years have passed. In others, it seems like it could not possibly have been a year already.

We have accomplished a lot in our first year.

Over the past 12 months, SkyBlueCanvas has been downloaded about 20,000 times. That’s an average of 1,667 times per month or roughly 50 times per day. I would say that’s pretty good for the first year.

I am also happy to report that the skybluecanvas.com domain achieved Google PageRank 5 within the past couple of weeks. We are a long way from being a major node on the world wide web, but PR 5 means Google places a fair amount of “trust” in your site.

It has also been a pleasure and honor to meet and talk to a lot of the users who have discovered SkyBlueCanvas and have chosen it for their various web site projects. Frankly, it’s really cool and I get a rush out of it. I look forward to another great 12 months with your continued support.

Sincerely,
Scott Lewis
www.SkyBlueCanvas.com
Type. Click. Publish.

Also, help SkyBlueCanvas grow by posting comments and reviews on these sites where appropriate.

BlogsWeek.com is a blog by Andrea (Andrew in English) which focuses on Content Management Systems and blogging platforms, with a primary focus on open source systems which users can install in typical shared hosting environments. This site also includes news and Alexa ranking stastics for the most popular CMS sites.

CMSCritic.com has added us to their Lightweight CMS list. I have emailed back and forth with the site owner a few times and he is a very friendly guy.

CMSJam.com wrote a really nice review as well. This article mentions a few important issues about open source software and the responsibility of users to help the system grow.

CMSWire.com has written a very nice review of SkyBlueCanvas. I emailed back and forth with the author of the post and the whole team at their site seems to be very nice. They work hard and provide a lot of great information about the CMS market.

LinuxBeacon.com is a wiki that provides tutorials and documentation (and donations) for popular open source projects. LinuxBeacon is a SkyBlueCanvas donor so please support their site.

linuxlinks.com is a site dedicated to links to useful Linux software, tools and utilities.

MacUpdate.com is a site dedicated to software downloads and reviews for the Mac OS.

OpenSourceCMS.com is the premiere site for demos of open source CMS. We have been listed on the site for several months and they have been great to work with. Their team is always very responsive to our questions and requests.

SoftPedia.com is a warehouse of just about any software you could ever need.

If I have inadvertently left your site off of the list, please feel free to email me via the Contact page and I will gladly add a link to your site. Note that this means sites that list a link to or review of SkyBlueCanvas.

If you come across a site that has a review of SkyBlueCanvas, please drop us a line and let us know so we can add it to the list.