I am very pleased to announce a new version of my knowledgebase project, aphpkb (Andy's PHP Knowledgebase).

My latest release includes more fixes to the setup and configuration of aphpkb as well as introducing the html editor plugin, allowing Authors to not only create html-based articles but also allowing authors to edit their articles using the html editor as well.

On the todo list is some more plugins such as email confirmation, email Q&A and RSS feed creation.

A new turn for Andy's PHP Knowledgebase, the introduction of plugins.

It has come to mind lately that the more I've worked on Aphpkb, the simpler the application has become, in the last 3 updates, the tarball size has decreased, code is being re-used and the user and admin interfaces have been unified.  There are some items which have been asked for, but are not simple to develop or integrate, for these I am researching a way to integrate plugins to Aphpkb.

So far I have integrated whizzywig - the cross-browser html editor and I am currently working on email integration - previously this was limited to  the Q&A.  In the last update saw preliminary support for RSS - I will beef this up as a plugin with the option to enable/disable, although honestly I don't know why anyone wouldn't want it - RSS rocks.

I'd like to open this up, what do you think would go well with a web-based knowledgebase? 

Those of you familiar with aphpkb might have noticed some file releases lately, I had made some significant changes to aphpkb and needed a few releases to get rid of the programmer introduced bugs - my apologies if you have been looking at my code during this time.

I just wanted to make a quick note to mention some of the latest changes.  I was alerted to the fact that some of my latest code was vulnerable to xss attacks - I'm pleased to let you know I've got the xss filter sorted in the latest version - even if you don't want to upgrade to the latest, I would recommend having a look at the global.php script for the xss_clean() and mifi() functions.

I good bloke by the name of Dave Richardson sent some functions for creating category/subcategory lists for the category suggestion and the category utility - I reckon they are real beaut - and I'm looking at the code for category list formating in the sidebar.

The latest fixes were for the new product field and the related artilce list - both of which now appear to work in the side-bar - both were requirements for an in-house version so I'm relieved, even if the code is a little messy and unneccessarily redundant in some places.

For downloading, feel free to access:  http://aphpkb.sourceforge.net/index.php?option=downl

To check the changelog, please view: http://aphpkb.sourceforge.net/index.php?option=changelog

And don't forget to send me some feedback - I'm looking at making this project the best Open Source Web-based Knowledge-base application, but I can't do it without you.

Cheers!

As an introduction, one of my side projects is a knowledgebase application called 'Andy's PHP Knowledgebase' or it's unix name 'aphpkb', it is a web-based knowledgebase application written in PHP, using MySQL.

It includes bookmark friendly URLs, Q&A, easy search with browsing by category, product field and related keywords, article, comment and question submission, author login, submit and save for author sessions, powerful administrator functions and a professional and attractive interface. The main purpose of the application is to store and manage article content for a knowledgebase, however application is very customisable, enabling any number of creative uses.

My latest release is mostly bugfixes - a fix to the category listing, some corrections to the kbadmin section, the previous release included a complete change of the way pages are put together (functions for page header, menu and footer, instead of included html files).

I went for a bushwalk in the Blue Mountains National Park (less popular North Eastern part) I walked along the Grose River for a few bends, crossed the river (fell in and hurt my leg), the sunset and I despaired - I couldn't get back across the river the way I had come due to the leg and it was getting dark.

I lay down and come to the realisation that I just wanted to get out of there, the moon rose (not quite full but enough light to see by), and I made my way East along the south side of the river, going over some pretty rugged terrain by moonlight.

some clouds came over so I had to stop for a spell, I made a little more progress, I was counting the sets of rapids I had past (I stopped at eight, which by my recollection was 2 more than I had past on the other side of the river), the moon set and it got very dark - I lay myself down next to a boulder and rapped myself in my cardigan and tied two handkerchiefs together so that I had one over my head, and another wrapped around my chin.

I slept fitfully, I was really cold and had bouts of shivering thru the night, my legs were still wet and very cold.  I kept dreaming of mobile computing.  I think this might have been a survival mechanism to keep me sane.

I woke up with it starting to get light, I headed east again, along the river, the sun rose, I kept on going (I could see my escarpment which I had climbed down at the start of my walk, there was no way I could get back up, even if I found a good place to cross), so I kept going, the river started to shallow and the escarpments became less steep and turned into hills, I waded the river for about 5 hours until I had got to a reserve at it's very end.

I walked from the reserve along 4 roads at about 5km each, till I reached my car (about 500m from the escarpment where I started), I drove home, barely being able to use the pedals (my legs were in extremely bad shape).  I had left on my bushwalk Saturday Lunchtime, I was back at home Sunday lunchtime, all I had eaten was a Mandarin - all I had to drink river water which I found out later was not such a good idea.