What’s new in SamNews 1.1?

Installer
No manual configuration or SQL import necessary. Installer will upgrade from SamNews 1.0.

Categories added
Posts are now assigned to categories and categories can be browsed individually.

Automatically generated RSS feeds
No more cron jobs. And for every category/sort combination.

Front page query adjusted
The original query only showed posts made within the last INDEX_INTERVAL days. The new formula is smarter and lists all the posts within INDEX_INTERVAL on top, sorted score descending (and next by creation date)– then underneath the rest of the posts are displayed descending by their creation date.

Dropped Sphider search engine
Sphider is a great search engine but too big for this app.  The search box now points to Google Site Search.  A native search engine will be included in a future release.

No e-mail configuration for most situations
E-mail functionality (registration, lost passwords, etc.) now uses PHP mail() by default– meaning that in most cases no e-mail configuration is necessary.  SMTP can be optionally configured in /includes/email_setup.php.

LiveLeak and GameTrailers video embeds added
In addition to YouTube, LiveLeak and GameTrailers videos are now detected and embedded automatically.

Experimental Bulk Submitter
Admins can easily post multiple links at once. The Bulk Submitter is still a work in progress and may have issues scraping data from some sites.

Minor bug fixes and CSS changes

Installation Instructions

It’s a lot easier this time!
Installation

1. Upload files to desired location
2. Create a database and associated database user for SamNews
3. Visit /install and follow the on-screen instructions

Upgrading from a previous version

1. Backup and delete old SamNews files
2. Backup old SamNews database (do not delete)
3. Visit /install and follow the on-screen instructions

Having trouble? Visit the Forums