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Introduction
Welcome to RavenNuke™!
Congratulations! You have chosen to install one of the most secure and fast Content Management Systems (CMS) available. And the even greater news is that it is Free and Open Source! The RavenNuke™ distribution comes with the most up to date -- as of original distribution -- patches from Chatserv and of NukeSentinel™. In addition, NukeSentinel™ is fully installed and configured except for one feature which requires additional instruction (dealt with later on in this manual). RavenNuke™ has its roots in PHP-Nuke version 7.6. But, there is no comparing the latest version of RavenNuke™ with its roots! The appearance is much the same but the underlying code is vastly different. As of version 2.50.00, RavenNuke™ has over 20,000 changes, bug fixes, PHP notice fixes, compliance fixes, operational enhancements, and security enhancements.
For full new installation instructions, check out our section on New Installations. Also, see the section on System Requirements for a break down on what software is required on your server to run RavenNuke™.
If you like this software and want to help support the ongoing development, please make a contribution at Raven PHP Scripts.
This is a self contained package and there is no additional code to download and/or install. Also, if you are upgrading from an earlier RavenNuke™ release or migrating from another PHP-Nuke installation to RavenNuke™, read our page on Upgrades and Migations.
RavenNuke™ is application software that must be installed on a server. As with any software that you expose to the Internet, there may be bugs or security problems. Do not install RavenNuke™ unless you intend to keep up with security upgrades (please visit Raven PHP Scripts for announcements about security updates and code fixes).
What Is Included
Rather than repeat all the credits/contributions here, please refer to the full list of all Credits and Contributions for who did what to whom.
The latest release is 2.50.00. Included in this distribution (Distro) are too many fixes and tweaks to mention them all! For a complete list of changes see the Change Log. Here are some highlights.
- As of version 2.50.00, RavenNuke™ has over 20,000 changes, bug fixes, PHP notice fixes, compliance fixes, operational enhancements, and security enhancements
- The latest release of NukeSentinel™, which is 2.6.03 as of this writing
- BBtoNuke (phpBB) 2.0.23 as well as made as fully XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant as possible
- The latest Forum Attachment Mod is included as a simple addon but is not installed as default.
- An enhanced Topics module
- An enhanced Recommend Us and Feedback module
- Content Plus 2.2.0 from slaytanic.sourceforge.net. Replacement for the old Content module - not integrated, but provided in the download package. Developed using RavenNuke™
- Tweaked NSN Groups (v1.7.1)
- Fixes to the Blocks admin screen to correctly order the blocks and to work correctly with NSN Groups
- A recoded AdvantGo module to correctly use your theme and is also W3C Compliant
- Enhanced and Fixed MetAuthors module
- A web based table installer for all of the tables use in the Distro
- A web based configuration tool for all of the most important settings in the Distro
- Integration of nukeWYSIWYG™ featuring FCKeditor 2.6.4 and the kses filter class
- Integration of nukeFEED™ feed generator (v1.1.1) - create syndication feeds in various formats (RSS/ATOM/OPML) using content on your site, and allow visitors to subscribe to your feeds directly or via Feedburner.com
- Integration of nukePIE™ feed reader (v1.1.1) - a replacement for the block feed reader that uses SimplePie to read feeds from other sites in modern feed formats (including RSS 2.0 and ATOM)
- Integration of the HTML Newsletter module (v01.03.02)
- Integration of the GCalendar module (v1.7.0)
- Integration of TegoNuke(tm) ShortLinks (aka: GoogleTap, GT-NextGEn) (v1.2.1)
- Integration of TegoNuke(tm) Dynamic Titles (v1.2.0)
- Integration of TegoNuke(tm) Mailer (v1.0.1) - allows for SMTP authenticated mailing option
- Integration of Raven's resend email hack and user info hack
- Most themes are now 100% W3C CSS and HTML compliant, and the fisubice theme made fully compliant, even in the BBtoNuke modules
- The blocks and modules are almost 100% XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant (with the exception of module admin pages) - we only say "almost" because we may not have tested absolutely every script path!
- Tons of code clean-up (readability) and performance enhancements
- All applications are fully configured but some settings will/may need changing for security
- Shout Box from ourscripts.net (v8.5.2) - not integrated, but provided in the download package (tweaked by Gremmie and Testy1 to work under RavenNuke™
- Integration of Error Documents
Resource Requirements Needed
The following resources are required to run RavenNuke™:
- *nix or Windows. Other Operating Systems are known to work but are not supported.
- Apache. Other web servers are known to work but are not supported.
- MySQL - version 4.1 or later is recommended. Other databases are known to work, but generally MySQL is the main RDBMS. This version has also been tested on MySQL 5.x but other third-party modules, blocks and hacks may have issues.
- PHP - version 4.1 or later is recommended; however, This version has also been tested on PHP 5.x but other third-party modules, blocks and hacks may have issues.
- It is highly recommended that you run your production site on Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (LAMP), OR Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (WAMP) for the best protection and performance.
Tools to help you customize RavenNuke™
XAMPP: It is highly recommended that you use this bundled distribution of Apache, MySQL, and PHP (there is more too) so that you can "test drive" your upgrade on your PC or home server rather than doing this on a live production site. The folks at Apache Friends make this so easy (install and "go") we cannot emphasize enough that folks get this and use it. You do not have to be a programmer in order to get a fully functional WAMP or LAMP environment up-and-running on a local system.
Text Editor: It is highly recommended that you use a good text editor for editing your files. Notepad and Wordpad should NOT be used as they often times add extra characters and/or lines to the end of your files, which can cause browsers to misinterpret the HTTP Header responses. NotePad++, Textpad, Crimson Editor, and several others are good and reliable alternatives.
File Comparison: A good file compare/merge utility. There are several out there, some free and some not. CompareIT, ExamDiff Pro, Beyond Compare, WinMerge (free), etc. all get the job done. These tools are invaluable for upgrading your site.
FTP Client: In most cases required to upload and download files from your web site. WS_FTP, CuteFTP, FileZilla (free), etc. should all work very well for uploading the files for this Distro.
There many other tools that can aid you in developing and maintaining your site, but these are the necessities in our opinion.