We added the following features to the WEC Discussion Forum:

1. Posts and comments are now searchable by indexed_search (site-wide search).
2. You can add a “report abuse” button for community to self-monitor discussions. Any messages reported will get sent to administrators.
3. The author of a post can receive emails of anyone replying to their post (optional).
4. You can embed HTML/Flash in posts for YouTube, Video, etc. – added TypoScript to pageTS.
5. The archive shows only last twelve months and folds previous years in a tree (can click to see).
6. Other minor fixes and updates.

It seems that everyone wants a custom template, but creating original templates can be difficult because you need to know several web technologies (CSS, XHTML, Javascript) plus how to tell TYPO3 how to dynamically create the menus and to add features like login boxes and search boxes. But most people can make minor changes to an existing template without much difficulty. The simplest change is to replace a graphic with another graphic that is exactly the same size and the same file name. This ensures that you do not mess up the template layout and it can result in what looks like a new design. More...

TYPO3 version 4.3 is released and we have created the initial WEC Starter Package for TYPO3 4.3. It includes several powerful features including the revolutionary new frontend editing capability. We encourage you to use this new version. We are running it on the Web-Empowered Church website. However, please plan to make minor upgrades in the next month or two as more enhancements are made. We are planning for another major release of our Started Package within the next 30 days.

Note: TYPO3 version 4.3 requires PHP 5.2. Some of your hosting services may not support PHP 5.2 yet. If you are hosted with Web-Empowered Church (Vine) then you are already running PHP 5.2 and we are also offering our newest Starter Package.

Staff Directory Extension: This is a minor update but we recommend upgrading. This update fixed an issue with displaying multiple departments and added the ability to customize the department separator. We also added a gender and a title option for list and single view. And now the display order can support greater than 128 people. More...

We just released the latest version of the WEC Starter Package for the new TYPO3 version 4.2.10. The package does not have significant changes except for the TYPO3 version Upgrade. Get it here.

If you are running TYPO3 version 4.2 it is important that you upgrade as soon as possible due to a minor security issue. If you are hosting your website with us (Vine Hosting) then that update was already made for you today.

Staff Directory: For this update, we added an optional header for list-by-line view — you need to check a box in the Display tab of the Flexform to enable it. Now you can have two plugins on a page – a list view and single view if you set the multiplePluginsPerPage constant through the Constant Editor. You can also format the display of the first and last name by changing the locallang labels (see FAQ in the manual for more info); this will show up when you sort by last name or first name. Another change is that department records now support multi-languages. Finally, we updated the language file so German umlauts work right.

Discussion Forum: In this update, we added a Spanish and Swedish translation. More...

The WEC book, Web-Empower Your Church: Unleashing the Power of Internet Ministry, is now available is electronic format for the Amazon Kindle. Get it here!

As many of you know, we have spent several months working on enhancements to simplify content editing in TYPO3. All of us are looking forward to this new and powerful feature that will allow frontend editing of content elements and basic page operations. Unfortunately, the release has been delayed several months because these enhancements are part of the release of TYPO3 version 4.3. Version 4.3 is a major release with other new features besides enhanced usability. The TYPO3 Core development team waits until all the software enhancements are ready before they release it. Our current estimate is that TYPO3 version 4.3 will be released in October, but that is just our estimate.

In this new version, we fixed an issue that caused multiple posts if
categories were used. You can now have a mixture of emails and user IDs in the administrator list of the Flexform. In addition, you can moderate suspected spam in post responses by an option in the Flexform-Control section. Additionally, you will see why a response is assumed to be spam in the administrator email.

I usually don't share about non-public WEC workshops, but this one was just too wonderful. On July 20th, at the request of United Methodist Communications, I was blessed to teach an all-day workshop to 12 brothers and sisters in Christ from six different African countries (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Cote d’lvoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda). Some of them required translation to French or to Portuguese. You can see their comments about the WEC workshop here on youtube. Afterward they sang like this youtube video. As they sang, I found myself weeping and praying to God that this is what WEC is all about. More...