Release 1.0 is now available on the download page.

I've also put up a new tutorial on my personal site about configuring multiple sites running on a single ip address using apache Virtual Hosts with mod_mono on Suse 10.

In the article I walk through the apache setup for 2 mojoportal instances with different host names. Then I create a 3rd site using the multiple sites feature in the second physical instance of mojoportal so that it has 2 sites using the same web folder and database but the content and users are completely independent.

Its been a couple of months since we had a release but I think things are coming into place for a new release to happen within the next week or so.

Highlights of the coming release will be

• Support for LDAP authentication thanks to code contributed by TJ Fontaine
• Option to use a User ID for login instead of email
• New Forum Notification Subscription features and ability to delete threads and forums contributed by Dean Brettle
• A new module that lets you include html fragments from external files in a page
• The DatePicker and SmartCombo controls have been split into a separate assembly mojoPortal.Web.Controls.dll so they can be used easily in other projects
• Features for the Admin to update user names and delete users or flag users as deleted
• Various bug fixes

I'm thinking of a new versioning scheme, the previous versions were in the date format 20050912 which makes it easy to tell if you have the newest version but gives no idea how mature the project is. I think since we have passed the 1 year of development mark it is good to be able to know that from the version so the next version will be 1.2005xxxx to indicate the date of release and the number of years since the first release. Each year this will increment.

I'd like to thank Jasmin Savard for the new graphic depicting mojoPortal as boxed software.

I've posted a few things of interest lately on my personal site. Here is some information on the difference between VS 2003 and VS 2005 Web Projects and here is a new tutorial for installing Suse 10. It is the first in a series, the next one will show how to build mono from source code and the one after that will show how to install mojoPortal and configure Virtual Hosts in apache for using mod_mono.

I've tried several tests now deploying mojoPortal compiled in VS 2005 on mono without success so I will have to wait to start developing in VS 2005 until it works. I'm getting a 500 error with no real details in the apache error log so I'm not sure how to proceed, other than to periodically update mono/xsp/mod_mono from svn and try again.

I'm also going to try creating some small test projects in VS 2005 and see if I can get any of them to work. For now work will proceed in VS 2003

If any of you have good luck getting a web project built in VS 2005 to work on mono please let me know any tips for making it work.

Update 11/17/2005
Miguel posted a good bit of information today about where things stand in the mono project including info about the progress on .NET 2.0 features. It sounds like Master Pages is already implemented and from other things I've read recently I get the impression that to use the 2.0 stuff that is there you have to run xsp2 instead of xsp which may account for why may test deployment built in VS 2005 didn't work on my mono test machine. I do plan to move forward in VS 2005 as soon as possible but there are a number of things that I need to work through and test before that can happen. For one thing I don't want a build of mojoPortal that I can't run at my hosting company www.Grokthis.net so I will have to be sure I am happy with the way it works on my demo server before I can even begin thinking about trying to convince them to set things up for 2.0. I also want to be sure I can provide any configuration information needed so that it is easy for others to get things running on their mono servers. In short I think there will be at least one more release of mojoPortal for the 1.1 framework before we start making the move forward down the 2.0 path. There are a lot of good things to look forward to but also a lot of new things to learn.

I managed to convert a copy of mojoPortal to VS 2005 this evening without too much trouble. I had a few compile errors that were easily remedied then the Solution built fine and most importantly, the site works!

The next step is to test a deployment on mono and make sure things still work. I think they will since I'm really not using any of the ASP.NET 2.0 features yet. I know some of the 2.0 features are ready in mono so I expect I will tiptoe into changes to the new 2.0 way of doing things and test each change on mono as I go.

Then the next logical step is to tag the current VS 2003 code in svn and update the trunk to VS 2005. My timeline on this will depend on how the testing goes but I'm inclined to do it soon if things go well.

I invite comments from those of you actively working with the mojoPortal source code in VS.NET. Are you going to have access to VS 2005 anytime soon or will it cut you out of the loop if the main branch of development moves to VS 2005?

I'm excited about the 2.0 .NET stuff. There are definitely some major changes and new ways of doing things though it seems to support the old way fairly well so I think we can effectively pace our changes to coincide with mono support. I'm definitely not planning on doing anything that doesn't work under mono. It will be interesting to find out how much is already working.

Happy Anniversary!

Today marks one year since the first release of mojoPortal which was 11/1/2004

Stay tuned for another great year of progress. We have lot of exciting plans for the future.