PHP-Nuke

PHP-Nuke is a web-based automated news publishing and content management system (a "nuke") based on PHP and MySQL. The system is fully controlled using a web-based user interface. PHP-Nuke was originally a fork of the Thatware news portal system.

The system is released as free software under the GNU General Public License. Until version 7.5, the latest version of the software was freely downloadable from the PHP-Nuke website; version 7.5 is the first version for which a US$10 download charge is made. This is permitted under the GNU GPL (providing the source code is included), but the purchaser of the software has the right to freely distribute the source code of the product. This charge only applies to the latest version of PHP-Nuke; previous versions are available free of charge. Version 8.1 is being distributed for US$12 as the PHP-Nuke site is no longer owned by Francisco Burzi, the original developer of the engine.

Starting with version 5.6, the display of a copyright message on webpages is required according with the GPL license section 2(c) and approved by the Free Software Foundation as explained on the official web site

It requires a web server which supports the PHP extension (such as the Apache HTTP Server), as well as an SQL database (such as MySQL, mSQL, PostgreSQL, ODBC, ADABAS, Sybase or InterBase).

Features of PHP-Nuke

The main aim of PHP-Nuke is to allow a webmaster to create a community-based portal, with an automated web site allowing users and editors to post news items (user-submitted news items are selected by editors). Users can comment on these articles using the comments system.

Modules may be added to the PHP-Nuke system, allowing the webmaster to add more features (such as an Internet forum or calendar) to their PHP-Nuke installation in addition to the core modules such as News, FAQ and Private Messaging. The whole system is maintained by administrators using the web-based administration section.

The standard modules that are part of the core PHP-Nuke system are as follows:

• Advertising -- Manages ads on the page layout (theme). Supports images/links, javacript/HTML, and flash
• Avantgo -- Provides mobile version of the last 10 news articles
• Content -- Manages the main content "pages" of the website
• Downloads -- Manages file downloads. It doesn't actually allow you to upload files, but it stores links to files you upload to your server or links to files on other public servers.
• Encyclopedia -- A simple module for managing phrases/words and their definitions.
• FAQ -- Manages the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for your site.
• Feedback -- Allows site visitors to provide feedback to the webmaster. It is an online form, but provides the feedback via email.
• Forums -- Manages discussion forums for the site. It is based on bb2nuke, which is a PHP-Nuke port of the popular open-source PHPBB discussion board.
• Journal -- A simple module that allows users to maintain public and/or private notes.
• Members List -- Displays the members of your site.
• News -- Manages news stories for your site. It supports future-dating news to be released at a specific date and time.
• Private Messages -- Allows your members to send private messages to you and others on the site. Members can chose to not allow other members to send them private messages.
• Recommend Us -- Form to send an email message recommending your site to others.
• Search -- Allows users to search your website to find information.
• Statistics -- Displays summary and detailed statistics regarding your site, including the number of page views by visitors.
• Stories (News) Archives -- Provides access to older news articles.
• Submit News -- A form to allow visitors to submit a news story to your site. Email notification is sent, but the news submission is stored in your administrator control panel. You can delete, edit, and/or post the article directly to your site without rekeying.
• Surveys (Polls) -- Allows you to create surveys that your visitors can respond to.
• Top -- Displays the top 10 (or other number specified by you) news articles, downloads, etc.
• Topics -- Displays news by topic. As the administrator you define what the topics are for your site and assign news articles to one or more topic. The news module also supports categories, which are similar, but a news article can only be assigned a single category.
• Web Links -- Manages a hierarchical directory of links to various websites of interest to your readers.
• Your Account -- Manages members "profile" information, including their preferred site theme (if you provide more than one), the number of news articles to display on their home page, etc.

PHP-Nuke is able to support a number of different languages. Its look and feel can also be customized to an extent using the Themes system, although making it substantially different from the standard ⅔ column layout (as used by the program's official website )requires knowledge on PHP, HTML and CSS.

Criticism

• PHP-Nuke has been criticized for containing many security holes, including SQL injection via unchecked PHP code. Several vulnerabilities have been reported recently.
• PHP-Nuke has also been criticized for not being easily indexed by the internet search engines. Almost all PHP-Nuke URL's are of the form http://yoursite.com/modules.php?name=module_name. To make matters worse, PHP-Nuke generally doesn't even provide unique Titles on the web pages. Search engines don't deal well with recognizing these URL's as unique web pages and it typically takes longer for your entire site to show up their search results.

Forks

The PHP-Nuke project has been forked many times by different people, for different reasons. Notable forks include:

• Dragonfly CMS — based on PHP-Nuke 6.5 with Coppermine Photo Gallery included
• Nuke-Discontrol — Based on PHP-Nuke with many security fixes, custom modifications, and PHP-Nuke modifications pre-installed. Only offered in Spanish
• Nuke-Evolution — Based on PHP-Nuke with many security fixes, custom modifications, and PHP-Nuke modifications pre-installed
• RavenNuke — Based on PHP-Nuke version 7.6, but with many security fixes, custom modifications, couple of add-ons, and XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant
• phpWebSite — project managed by the Web Technology Group at Appalachian State University
• Postnuke — based on PHP-Nuke 5.0
• XOOPS — based on PHP-Nuke and myPHPNuke
• PNC — based on PHP-Nuke with vWar and SQuery included. Adapted and customized for gaming and clan communities.

These forks, and others, have all had their own ideas regarding several aspects of the system, and thus do many things in different ways in an attempt to produce a better product. Nevertheless, most, if not all of these systems can be used to produce a community portal similar to that which can be built using PHP-Nuke, although it is possible that these systems are better at doing some things than PHP-Nuke (and vice-versa).

License

PHP-Nuke is distributed for free and licensed under the GNU/GPL license. Latest version is also GPL licensed but to download from the official site you must pay $12

reference: Homepage: Download (free versions) Homepage: Buy (latest version)

Notes

External links

• PHP-Nuke