Chapter 4. Official Modules

Table of Contents

4.1. News
4.2. NewBB
4.3. Polls
4.4. Web Links
4.5. Downloads
4.6. Headlines
4.7. FAQ
4.8. Partners
4.9. Members
4.10. Contact Us

XOOPS currently ships with a number of modules developed and maintained by the XOOPS Module Development team. Members of the XOOPS community have also developed by a wide variety of third-party modules.

The following are the present official modules:

4.1. News

The News module is actually much more than just a news module; it's a full fledged article management module. It allows site administrators to post, publish and manage articles in their website. Articles can be categorized into several topics and subtopics, and each one of them can be identified visually by using topic icons.

The News module is integrated with XOOPS' Notifications feature. Webmasters and registered users can decide if they want to be notified when new topics or articles are posted. Depending on permissions, visitors can submit articles for approval and publishing. Four blocks are available for display in different parts of the site: Big Story, Recent News, Top News and News Topics. Some of the features of the module are:

  • You can browse news items in a linear fashion or through the monthly news archive

  • News items can be published at once or scheduled to pop online on a desired date and time

  • News items can be left on the site or scheduled to expire on a desired date and time

  • Site administrators can define as many topics and subtopics they need to categorize their news items

  • Each topic or subtopic can have its own image, and the image can be defined to appear left or right in the index

  • Each news item has defined an introductory text, the one that will appear in index pages. A complementary text is optional

  • Long articles can be further subdivided in pages using the [pagebreak] tag

  • Articles can optionally use HTML or XoopsCode --a simple tag language based on square brackets

  • Site administrators can see a preview of their stories before publishing them

  • Site administrators can decide if a specific news item appears or not in the home page

  • All the text of the stories is fully searchable

  • Every story can include images by using XOOPS image manager

  • The module has integrated XOOPS' notification feature

  • Optionally, all news items can be commented by users

  • Headlines of the module can be syndicated to other sites through an RSS newsfeed

News items present in the index pages a lot of information and links

Figure 4.1. News items present in the index pages a lot of information and links

Once displayed in full, each story has its comments associated, as well as many control options

Figure 4.2. Once displayed in full, each story has its comments associated, as well as many control options

Users with the appropriate privileges can submit stories to your XOOPS website

Figure 4.3. Users with the appropriate privileges can submit stories to your XOOPS website

A useful way of browsing the news in a XOOPS site is the monthly archive

Figure 4.4. A useful way of browsing the news in a XOOPS site is the monthly archive