xoops/Modules : 'WRAPS' html page wrapping for xoops

Description:
Wraps is a module created by GIJOE for wrapping HTML pages into xoops contents.

It is easy to install and allows unlimited HTML content to be added without individual page input from admin. Complete websites may be imported into xoops and they will display within the xoops contents section. In addition all pages are xoops indexed, even within recursive folders. Also page URLs are displayed without query strings. The module is duplicateable. If you are new to xoops and have an existing HTML site, this is an excellent solution for adding your content. Please visit the authors website and see my review for further details.

NOTE: Please refer to http://www.peak.ne.jp/xoops/ for all support and comment.
DOWNLOAD here http://www.peak.ne.jp/xoops/
EXAMPLE here http://houseofstrauss.co.uk/modules/faqs/index.php/index.html

REVIEW
The xoops CMS has a great range of content modules, but what if you already have a website and really want to integrate it into the xoops framework?

GIJOE has developed just the module for you. 'Wraps' will let you import your existing HTML website into xoops with the minimum of fuss and preparation. You don't have to 'input' individual pages or link images and objects in xoops admin. Providing your html pages work by themselves, you will be able to simply add the whole fileset to the wraps module via ftp and it will be displayed within your xoops contents. The imported website pages will of course lack some of the features of xoops, such as comments, votes and page specific permissions.

The module has recently been updated to index recursively all files. This means you can create directories and subdirectories within your wrapped pages and they will all be added to the database and indexed by xoops search function.

In addition, all pages are displayed with search engine friendly URL's so every search engine will be able to index your wrapped pages, as ther are no query strings.

I recently used the wraps module to import a small website with html pages javascript menus, plus images and CSS. It works perfectly and appears seemlessly in the xoops framework. You may need to merge your stylesheets carefully however. The stylesheet for the imported website was simple, but some of the styles appeared to change the theme colours on my main website when I viewed pages. The xoops stylesheet in my current theme also impacted on the imported pages. This was more preferable and seemed to make the pages more a part of the website. Merging stylesheets requires some adjustment in the preparation stage.

Let's look at a typical website import setup and detail some of the key requirements to make this work correctly.

Installing the wraps module. This is fairly straight-forward, although I found the install instructions a little confusing. Wraps is made of 2 sections; 1- The module directory which is uploaded in the usual way and 2- the xoops_trust_path directory which needs to be installed in your xoops root. The readme file tells you exactly what to do, which entails creating an extra directory within your webspace root called xoops_trust_path. You then have to create sub-dirs within it etc, all of which sounds a bit complicated in the readme file.

When it comes down to it, the wraps archive has already done all this directory creation for you, so all you really need to do is change the final xoops_trust_path/wraps/"wraps" directory to the name of the website you want to import. You then need to upload a second directory to the /modules/ directory as per normal module installation. However, the name of this diretory must match exactly the name of the final "wraps" directory, the one you changed in xoops_trust_path/../. This is the important part to make the import work correctly. Don't be concerned about the other modules directory also appearing in the xoops_trust_path directory, it's part of the way it works!

So, you end up with a /modules/mynamedirectory/ and a xoops_trust_path/wraps/mynamedirectory. Place an index.html file in this folder and add an include line to your mainfile.php file as instructed. Now install the module in xoops admin and click the 'update index' link. If all has gone ok, you should see 'one file indexed' and now be able to go to the user side and see your named directory in the main menu. Click this link and your index.html file should display perfectly in the xoops main contents.

This little test is all worthwhile, to make sure the wraps module is working correctly. If it is, you can now begin to prepare your website, or pages for importing into the module.

There are two important caveats to the installation process, I had success with 2.0.13 2 and 2.0.14. However 2.0.15 did not support this module in my tests. The other point is that you MUST NOT use the xoops default template set. For more details about this see this post here http://www.peak.ne.jp/xoops/md/news/index.php?page=article&storyid=354 .I simply cloned the default set and called it 'wraps' then went back to change my template option in preferences.

I imported a small website with just over 200 files, complete with images, javascript and css, but wraps coped with this perfectly. The only critera is that the imported website navigates correctly by itself and that all objects are linked to correctly before importing.

The main issue is that you may have links that are hard coded to your old domain name. These need to be changed or the website will not work. I used a trusted freeware 'search and replace program' called BK ReplaceEm. This program will easily search and replace any string in a complete fileset, including recursive folders and make an exact copy of the fileset with replaced strings. You can set up a whole list of strings to be replaced if you need to and also replace a range of strings between known start and end points such as <!-- and --> The program also handles regular expressions if required.

I simply searched for my domain name string and replaced it with nothing. I ended up with relative URLS which worked fine for this application. The site needs to be tested for navigation and linked object integrity but once this is certified you're ready to upload and go. The whole fileset can be uploaded to the xoops_trust_path/wraps/mynameddirectory and providing the main index.html is in the root of the directory and connected to the rest of the fileset the site will now work. All navigation will be correct and operational within the wrapped pages. You can call URL's deep withing the wrapped pages and they will be displayed withing the xoops content framework. This means that you could also setup a module like 'multimenu' to make a side panel of links to open sections within your wrapped website.

I also had a problem with a very odd message appearing instead of some of my wrapped pages (dont access this site too continuously) After enquiring on GIJOE's forums, I discovered that an old version of Protector module may cause this message. I upgraded and this was rectified, so make sure your version of protector is up to date.

Wraps is a great module and fills a much needed gap between xoops dedicated content and displaying HTML content from other websites that you may already have. Many users come to xoops with existing websites and want to import these permanantly or as a temporary measure. Now you can do this with minimum of preparation. You may need to make some other adjustmenst to the style sheet of your wrapped site in order to keep things like link colours, body text and other formatting consistent, but this is a small issue. The wrapped website can be linked to the xoops permissions of course, but be aware that permission will be global for the whole of the wrapped pages. URLS look good also, with URL rewrite in .htaccess included in the module, you will have some nice addresses for all search engines, without any query strings to worry about.

Wraps can serve many applications. If you need to transfer your existing website to xoops as an import through wraps, this is now made very easy and quick. You could privately and slowly copy this content to a dedicated xoops module with all the xoops features and when complete, swap this for the wraps module. Wraps gives you immeadiate content allowing time to build in the background. If you're not concerened about xoops features like comments, page counts, author, dates etc. then the wraps module will provide a very search engine and user friendly content solution. The module is also duplicateable, allowing any number of independant wrapped sites, or pages. In addition, there is a feature to update their indexes simultaneously.

Many xoopsers have asked how to import websites and I think wraps provides en excellent solution. We saw an alternative some while back called Auth(e) but it was never really developed to a usable standard. Wraps works perfectly, is easy to install and very powerful. My import of several files worked perfectly.

Thanks GIJOE Again your inovative features make xoops a top solution and fun to use.

Features:

• Page wraps
• clean URLs
• xoops compatible
• easy install

System Requirements:

• xoops 2.1.3.2 >>