Enter Maven and GitHub

42  2.4.0(.1)

“The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Maven, GitHub, and Everything”

As a Web Developer, I’m always in a thirst for clean, powerful, reliable, automatic build processes and tools able to relieve me from the most annoying bits of my everyday job.

As a Linux Power User, I like those processes and tools being automagic as much as they can be.

And that’s just Maven.

Need a new instance of Entando?
Get rid of the second Ant build file, just mvn archetype:generate it!

Need some Plugins into your brand new instance of Entando?
Forget all those long and sometimes clumsy instructions, just add them!

Want to build your own Plugin?
Heh, you know what? We got an archetype for that, too.

Ok, I can see what you’re doing there.

So, what about GitHub?

GitHub is simply the most exciting, awesome, stuffed-with-great-features place to develop anything today.

We have great expectations on social coding.
We’d like you developers to join our effort in keeping up with the improving of Entando in the way that best suits each of you: starting from small on-the-fly fixes on READMEs, JSPs and the like, all the way up to big patches, new feature requests / proposals, bug fixing and so on.

Yes, we have great expectations on social coding.

And we all are pretty excited about renewing our engagement in the amazing world of Open Source Software.
So, a brand new start on GitHub with real-time commits coming to you as they leave our computers, and your participation in the project never been as easy and enhanced.

What else?

Oh, Entando v2.4.0.1 is coming with a brand new REST API.

Oh, and also a mobile app for __undisclosed platforms__

Oh, and... but this is not a release announcement.

Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!
… and thanks for all the fish (so far)!

Wiz

Developing for a better world: when Geographic Information meets e-participation

With the coming of social web, the participatory process went mainstream. No matter if we are not all actively engaged, whether we just look a word up in wikipedia or we read a twitter stream we value information collectively produced. But why should we value collective intelligence?

James Surowiecki talked of wisdom of crowds, meaning that decisions based on collective information are on average better than those based on individual knowledge. The 2004 tsunami is often pointed at as an example. Shortly after the natural disaster participatory journalism played a critical role in helping find missing persons and track humanitarian efforts.

But what if we could empower collective intelligence to prevent natural disasters rather than recover from them? What if we could use our collective wisdom to protect the environment and make better decisions for the land we live in? Reporting accessibility barriers, dangers, fixing needs or environmental issues within a geographic information system are just a few examples of participatory GIS.

A participatory geographic information system can aid decision-making in local areas, thus improving the quality of life and safety of its residents. Roberto Demontis came up with this idea while working on Tourrenia, a network of territories that promotes sustainable and accessible tourism: "We needed an easy tool to manage geographic information in an accessible CMS. But we wanted to go beyond the simple geo-referencing of content or map views. Bearing this in mind we developed the GisContent plug-in."

Indeed GisContent enables the open source web platform jAPS 2.0 Entando to geographic information management: it makes it possible to couple any type of content in the CMS database with a geographic reference and display it on maps. But it can do a lot more.Unlike many web applications GisContent allows the controlled generation of data through citizens participation.

"I was thrilled to involve citizens in a decision process that uses GIS data from different datasources through an accessible Content Management System" says Demontis. "Installing the plug-in on jAPS 2.0 Entando allows to implement different solutions in a participatory scenario: users with no GIS skills can be given full ability to edit the geographical part of content or the possibility to evaluate map data by adding a content type 'comment'."

"I believe - he adds - the plug-in is a good starting point for anyone willing to improve Participatory GIS through the use of mobile devices, spatial queries and modules for import/export of content to GIS systems. More important, GisContent is an open source community plug-in: any developer is welcome to join the community and contribute to build up a better GIS. My main wish is now to see participatory GIS going mainstream and improve the quality of our lives."

Roberto Demontis is a researcher at CRS4, Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia. He is an expert of GIS technologies and the developer of GisContent plug-in.

Follow him on twitter @bobdemos

To find out more and contribute to the project:

Open source community jAPS 2.0 Entando

Share your ideas on ideascale

Download jAPS 2.0 Entando web platform

Download GisContent

Integrating the Entando Enterprise Portal and Pentaho Business Intelligence

"The ability to offer reports to different types of users according to the profile and the role opens new scenarios in the dissemination of corporate knowledge. Each user can access, through intranet and corporate portal, to the results of the dynamic business intelligence, according to visibility rules and parameters related to its role in the company."

Discover the benefits of the integrated solution Entando Portal & Pentaho BI joining our live seminar organized by Tzente, Pentaho and Bnova.

The live event will be held in Rome, on 29 September, at UNA Hotel.

More Info and Registration

New Case Studies for jAPS 2.0 Entando

Some examples about how partners, organizations and governments are using jAPS 2.0 Entando platform:

- "Value Added Program" Case Study by TSC Consulting
- An OSS Portal for the Italian Civil Protection Department
- Prefecture of Catania Case Study by TSC Consulting
- Intramoenia Case Study by MTM-Tech

Plugins for jAPS 2.0 Entando 2.2.2 are out!

Updated versions of plugins compatible with jAPS 2.0 Entando version 2.2.2 are now available for download on Sourceforge.

More information about features and improvements are available in the documentation inside the package of each Plugin.

Discover the list of plugins