With this post we would like to send out a "call for collaborators" for the development (or the extension) of a CCK for Xoops Cube. What currently is lacking in Xoops Cube is a robust and flexible CCK, and we believe that with CosmoDB we started the development of such module.
The module has basic features of CCK, but requires to be extended to be fully useful for the regular Xoops Cube developer. In order to get the development up to speed, we would like to ask the community to further improve and extend the module (called CosmoDB).

CCK: General Goal
===============
Though originally developed for the storage of neuroscience data, the current goal is to provide a CCK which is fit for the construction of neuroscience warehouses, but also to provide a generic CCK for Xoops Cube.
We believe that opening up the module towards the Xoops Cube community will provide a mutually beneficial workflow. For us, CosmoDB and Metaneva, the main goal will still be the storage of neuroscience data, yet the development will be generic and will be equally fit to create profiles, ticket desks, contact forms, image galleries... as is the case for all those other CCK's out there (Drupal, Joomla...).

Some Background on CosmoDB
=======================
CosmoDB is a general-purpose database system, built on top of Xoops Cube. Originally it was developed for the storage of neuroscience data (intranet). It was used to facilitate the data storage which can differ significantly across experiments. Therefore CosmoDB became what you could call a simple CCK, where you could add various fields, display these field the way you want and all without any knowledge on database design or PHP. This meant that the target audience (back then the scientist) did not have to worry about PHP/MySQL. Using CosmoDB they were able to easily set-up a well-organized data-warehouse.

Current Features
=============
Currently, CosmoDB is organized in 'data items'. Data items are what you could call the 'fields'. So one data item could be 'last name', another data item would be 'avatar', and another could be 'telephone'.
In order to show those data items, you must create a 'list'. You could e.g. create a list called 'members' in which you include the data items 'last name', 'avatar'. You might as well create another list called 'detailed member list' in which you include 'last name', 'avatar' and 'telephone'.
Finally, you can create keywords organized in categories to easily find the particular data you're after. So you could assign the keyword to 'interested' or 'core member' and call all the core members.

License
======
General Public License

Call for Collaborators
================
As said, we would like to open up and ask for collaborators. So people who are into development, or any good with PHP are more than welcome. Collaborators can also be those who have great ideas or those who have experience with other CCK's.
We are probably after 2 additional PHP developers but as said before we welcome anyone interested in contributing to the project.

Current team: CosmoDB / Metaneva
==========================
The team currently consists of CosmoDB and Metaneva. CosmoDB is currently developing the CCK, whereas Metaneva is the test environment for the neurosciences.
Some of the admin and project management tasks will be done by the Metaneva team to support the development as much as possible.
In time, the Metaneva team will join in and co-develop the CCK. For now, it's resources are orientated towards their first built of their own experimental neuroscience data-warehouse. Once the first built is out, their team will join the project.

Join the project / Ask questions
=======================
You can obviously download the current module on the cosmodb website, yet the latest built can be seen in action here.
If you would like to contribute, contact Dirk Derom. Obviously you might as well reply or pm us.

Kind regards,

Prof. Hidetoshi Ikeno, CosmoDB Project Coordinator
Mr. Dirk Derom, Metaneva Project Coordinator

Hi Dirk,
This project is really interesting and i hope to contribute in some way.
Thank you for sharing!
Regards ^_^

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Xoops Cube Support

MAC OSX - Apache 2.2 - MySQL 5.5 - PHP 5.3
Free BSD - Apache 2.2 - MySQL 5.5 - PHP 5.2

Quote:

Thanks Gigamaster!

We will be organizing a developer's call within the next two weeks and I will post the time and date of this developer's call here on the forum. Goal of the call will be to set the tasks, milestones, critical path of the development, an assessment of the current stage and modifications required, planning and to get an overall round up of the developers and to start the development.

We are already organizing the management of the development and will refer to the website where all development will be organized, sync'ed.

Primary goal is to build a CCK that is useful for both the Xoops Cube community in general, which automatically leads to the usefulness for neuroscientific data.

So to all those developers out there: we still could use 1 or two more for the development. And do know that this is all open source and directly applicable for Xoops Cube (since that's our goal of the development).

Looking forward to extend Xoops Cube with a nice CCK!

Cheers,
D

Sounds very interesting.. I downloaded version 1.2 from sf.jp but this is about 3 years old. Is there a newer package to download?

Yes there is indeed. Contact me for the latest version on dirk(dot)derom(at)gmail(dot)com

We're about to have our first meeting concerning the dev. If you would like to join, pm me.
We currently organized a poll to see which date would be best, and the poll can be found here

Update:

We added the latest version to the SVN, which you can check out if you please or browse here.

If you however want me to send the files personally, you can still use the email of previous post.

This is a really great project. Flexible storage and uniformed interface give "Rapid, Easy and Safety" to developers.

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minahito
Homepage (poor English )

Hi all,

Good to see the community backing us up on the development. Obviously we can always use additional support for the dev.

If you are interested, we'll have our first meeting soon (28 September) and are currently determing the time slot. If you feel like joining us, send me a pm or reply to this topic.

Everybody is welcome, so don't hesitate to contact us!


Cheers,

D

The online meeting is decided to be on the 28th of this month and you can check the time slot on our wiki page.

If you would like to attend, you can always let me know by emailing me at
dirk(dot)derom(at)gmail(dot)com

See you all then,
Dirk

Hi,

I'm very much interested in this project.
I will be e-mailing you for sure.



Regards,
Magent