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Civicspace-0.8.0.2 … still not ready for primetime? (or, is it me?)

5 January 2005 1 views 11 Comments

Well, it may be me :) not the CMS that is not ready for primetime.

I’ve been trying to get CivicSpace installed – error free. I so desperately want to do my most genuine Charlie Brown Aaaarrrggghhh!!! yell, right about now.

It is frustrating to feel so ‘newbie’ with a platform. I just don’t have the wherewithall to get the thing running on my own. I do not like asking for help. But, I did. We’ll see how it goes. (Update: I should have added that I posted an issue at CivicSpaceLabs with the details of my woes.)

The reason for my frustration is more about the desire to use the CMS … not the platform itself. Hey, it is still new. They have not been developing this hybrid of the DeanSpace/Drupal CMS for very long. I’m really amazed that they’ve almost got it ready for the average joe-schmoe to install out of the box on most any server.

It is just a smidgen away from that.

This software, as a groupware grassroots CMS tool, is going to be a very powerful PR tactic for many, many people and organizations. And I mean for the average user … not just those that are tech savvy. That’s my 2005 prediction!

CivicSpace is truly incredible! There, I said it and I’m not ashamed. :)

OK, back at it.

11 Comments »

  • Zack Rosen said:

    What errors are you getting?

    # 6 January 2005 at 4:08 am
  • Robert UNITED STATES (author) said:

    Hi Zack,

    Thanks for commenting.

    I posted in my CivicSpace blog here: http://civicspacelabs.org/blog/470

    and posted an issue here: http://civicspacelabs.org/node/view/3535

    The errors are:

    warning: fsockopen(): unable to connect to http://www.civicspacelabs.org:80 in /htdocs/www/cs/includes/common.inc on line 226.

    warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /htdocs/www/cs/includes/common.inc:344) in /htdocs/www/cs/includes/common.inc on line 155.

    It happens right after I click the ‘next’ button in the setup wizard on the ‘choose template’ page.

    Thank you for asking and offering help.

    Robert

    # 6 January 2005 at 4:54 am
  • david UNITED STATES said:

    Hi, Robert. I just installed CS tonight to test things out. Now, my install went without a hitch. (sorry to say…)

    Have you tried downloading CS again and using the new copy? (you never know…)

    Are there any blank lines at the end of the pages where you’re getting errors? (especially config.php has this problem.)

    david – drupal user

    # 6 January 2005 at 11:55 pm
  • Robert UNITED STATES (author) said:

    :wink: I’m sooo happy for you. Just playin’. :)

    I’ve tried it 5 times now. One more time won’t kill me.

    Yeah, I thought of the blank lines and a few other things. Nothing worked. I’m wondering if it is my PHP control panel and I don’t have something checked/unchecked. I’m going to write to my hosting provider, too.

    Thanks for the encouragement and the tip, though. I’ll give ‘er another shot. And, thanks for commenting. Appreciate it. Take care.

    # 7 January 2005 at 12:05 am
  • Robert UNITED STATES (author) said:

    OK, six is supposed to be a lucky number. Right? Nope. Got it to install – as before – but still have errors.

    On one site, I opted out of the wizard when it offered the choice. Still, the main menu doesn’t work. Get that extra =? …

    On the other site, went with the political action options …. same fsock error.

    # 7 January 2005 at 1:19 am
  • david UNITED STATES said:

    Any luck yet?
    Just a thought, but have you run a phpinfo script on your site and gave that info to the civicspace forums? (Or Drupal for that matter.)

    david – trying, trying, trying….

    # 7 January 2005 at 2:18 pm
  • Robert UNITED STATES (author) said:

    Thanks, David. Nope, no luck yet. Still get the same extra =? problem. The fsock is apparently a network failure between Modwest and CivicSpace.

    I found the phpinfo at http://phpinfo.modwest.com/

    I’ll post that in the issue I put in at CivicSpace. I posted in the Developer’s forum, but I’m afraid that isn’t the right place.

    Thank you for your help!

    # 7 January 2005 at 2:39 pm
  • david UNITED STATES said:

    If you haven’t, you may want to post this in the Drupal forums. (More traffic, probably get better responses.)

    Actually, I do think this extra =q situation was discussed before. Tried to look, but their awfull search engine turned up no results.

    # 7 January 2005 at 3:18 pm
  • Robert UNITED STATES (author) said:

    Thanks. Will do!

    # 7 January 2005 at 3:30 pm
  • Robert UNITED STATES (author) said:

    Hey David. Zack sent me the instructions for a fix to this. Just have to go into global settings on the theme you’re using and get rid of the ?q= to make the main menu work. The fsock issue is also going to be fixed.

    Both issues were known to the developers and they are working on placing fixes in the next release. I don’t know what it is, but I’m guessing on some servers it just goes a bit – uh, goofy. Still, with those two fixes I believe it will be the ‘out of the box’ powerhouse we’re all hoping for in a CMS. :)

    Thanks again. And thanks to Zack, too.

    # 7 January 2005 at 4:41 pm
  • david UNITED STATES said:

    Glad it’s working for you!

    and Yay Zack!

    # 7 January 2005 at 4:53 pm