You can grab the Binary here :  http://appleseedapp.googlecode.com/files/AppleseedPortal.RC3.zip

We have a new theme in this release called Clearly that is an example of a lightweight Appleseed theme.  We are now going to release every time we finish 30 Agile stories.

For more information on Stories please visit our Project Tracker :

https://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/102573

Please refer to this post for Install : http://appleseedapp.com/2010/09/27/how-to-install-appleseed/

Below is a list of Stories that were Approved in this version :

Pick up the Appleseed Release Candidate 2 Source here :

http://appleseedapp.googlecode.com/files/AppleseedPortal.RC2.SRC.zip

Pick up the Appleseed Release Candidate 2 Binary here :

http://appleseedapp.googlecode.com/files/AppleseedPortal.RC2.BIN.zip

Demo  of RC2 :

http://anantwebserver1.anant.us/ASWebRC2/site/1/Default.aspx

The code works on the ASP.NET 4.0 stack and uses MS SQL Server 2005/2008 ( All Versions including express ).  We continue to be in release candidate mode as we clean up a lot of the old Rainbow rough edges and add more Web 2.0 enterprise level features.

Please refer to this post for Install : http://appleseedapp.com/2010/09/27/how-to-install-appleseed/

The internal version of this code is 2.0.0.1888 ( following the rainbow convention).  We will soon rest this number when we formally release.

A list of Agile Stories that we did for this release are as follows :

Micro-enterprises are companies with 5 or fewer employees, and represent the largest number of businesses in the United States, and around the world. This is who we want to help. We’re not making a tool to manage a website, but rather a solution to manage a company in one place.

Appleseed solves a problem that has not been solved, yet. What is the problem? The problem is how we do business with each other, how we trade, how we interact with each other in business relationships, how we find work, how we get work done, how we get paid for our work, how we pay taxes to the government, how we run our companies, and ultimately how we run the world’s affairs on daily basis. The problem is not a simple problem to solve.

There have been many attempts by others. These attempts have fallen short of a solution which is both simple, and elegant. In our pursuit of an elegant and simple solution, we are building Appleseed as a framework for businesses to operate their companies and conduct trade around the world. There are many ‘frameworks’ in place from the layers of international trade law, to the layers of national commerce law, to the layers of the internet and beyond.

Lofty missions and visions are pursued by many, and shunned by even more who believe that anything that changes the status quo is unnecessary or is unattainable. These naysayers have only opinions. The future is not here today, and reality will eventually ‘bat last.’ Until reality and the facts are presented to everyone in the due course of time, Appleseed will pursue this vision.

These facts are present today:

The playing field

1. The internet provides a level playing field for small companies to get access to customers and clients, if the people are educated understand the resources.
2. Social networking catalyzes yet another of level connectivity which allows small companies to succeed. Business can and should utilize socially networked individuals.
3. The free market economy otherwise known as capitalism is the best form of economic activity known to man.

The players

1. The people are using the Internet for all of their affairs, for personal as well as business matters. They should be able to do more. They should be able to create a career out of their skills by becoming entrepreneurs. It is not a difficult but rather a riddled process to start a company.
2. There are good cloud services targeted towards micro-enterprises and free-lancers to alleviate niche business problems. The difficulty is understanding how to get them to work together and reduce redundant data entry. This is especially true when a company using cloud based services starts to grow.
3. There are good open source products that alleviate similar business problems. The difficulty is understanding how to get them to work with the rest of the enterprise. The ugly truth about open source is that they are all independent projects with only a handful of standards and practices and tend to create new solutions and ‘reinvent the wheel’ rather than creating engines and assembling ‘automobiles.’

The issues

1. Business transactions that are more than mere purchases of goods or payments for services are thought to be too complex for e-Commerce and are relegated to the nether regions of paperwork and people based bureaucracy.
2. Business information is a critical element of a business and currently fragmented across systems both internal and external to the company, especially by cloud based services.
3. The proper management of information, processes, and people can lead to a successful business operation. Managing such information is not a difficult but rather a cumbersome and time consuming process which needs to be optimized for efficiency.

Now that the some of the factors of the environment, players, and problems are outlined, it should be a little clearer to assess how the current status of Appleseed begins to be a solution that it yearns to be.

The first major release of Appleseed is aimed to be a lightweight open source ASP.NET portal that is easy to install, use, and develop internal applications or external integrations. Upon this foundation of simplicity, the rest of the solutions will follow. It will not happen over night, and it will not happen without the help and partnership of the current open source application developers and the numerous cloud based software as a service providers. Most importantly, Appleseed will not be complete without the feedback of users everywhere.

This guide is intended for individuals and small business partners to get started on AppleSeed.  Please note that AppleSeed is in its very early stages of development and is currently only in Release Candidate status.  This is meant only as a preview of the next generation of Rainbow Portal.  AppleSeed is built on the formal portal by developers and Architects that have a long history in Rainbow Portal Development.  We have now re-branded the old portal into AppleSeed with the simple aims of : simple install, design , and extension on the Microsoft Platform.  Please note that for the time being, the computer savvy will have a slight advantage installing AppleSeed while we work to make it a turnkey solution ( ala WordPress).  This binary release can also be used to update old Rainbow Sites to be in aligned for future releases.  It follows the same update script method of Rainbow sites of old with the latest version being 2.0.0.1888.

Please follow us on Twitter (@appleseedapp) and myself ( @ramseur) for any direct questions.

For the broader vision of Appleseed please see :

http://appleseedapp.com/2010/06/16/welcome-to-appleseed/

http://appleseedapp.com/2010/10/01/appleseed-one-solution/

For a demo of this port working :

http://anantwebserver1.anant.us/ASWebRC2/site/1/Default.aspx

AppleSeed will be released open source and free of charge at :

http://code.google.com/p/appleseedapp

Our Source Code :

http://code.google.com/p/appleseedapp/source/browse/

You may also offer feedback through our forum or  email at our list :

http://appleseedapp.com/support/

http://groups.google.com/group/appleseedportal?hl=en

Anyone can sign up for free  and help us evolve the product through feedback.  If you are a developer or an individual that needs a CMS or portal platform, please sign up and offer feedback .

Requirements for Install :

A common knowledge of SQL Server and  IIS 7

Software needed for Install :

• Windows Vista, Windows 7 , or Windows 2008 Server Suite
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 | 2008 Express or Suite : http://bit.ly/bgvOcE
• Microsoft MVC 2.0 : http://bit.ly/ad0PKh
• Microsoft.NET 4.0 : http://bit.ly/cehebm
• Microsoft SQL Management Express : http://bit.ly/bHHt29

For now you may go grab the latest binary here : http://appleseedapp.googlecode.com/files/AppleseedPortal.RC2.BIN.zip

After you have downloaded the code, extract it in a public directory ( as in a directory not blocked by windows that IIS can access).  Then setup a virtual directory application or web site on the directory you extracted the binary to.  You must then assign AppleSeed to an Application pool in integrated Mode with .NET 4.0 enabled.  If you are setting up IIS 7 for the first time, make sure your isapi filters have permission on .NET 4.0.  I ran into this issue a few times setting up dedicated machines.

Before Browsing the directory, you must create a SQL Server empty database.  You can name it whatever you wish and in the near future this will be done within the portal itself.  For now open up your version of SQL Server ( express, Standard, 2005,2008) and create an empty database on either Windows Authenticated security or user based.  I recommend Windows Auth as it is the easiest and most secure.

You should now be able to browse your install directory which will be http://your-site-root/Installer/   . We added this to allow for easier install.  For now, it guides you through the process of AppleSeed install and sets up your web.config for you to get rid of all the SQL Service issues.  Please note, that your web.config needs to be able to be edited for this to happen.  Otherwise the installer will inform you of what to place in the connection string section.  Give the Network Service user or the user running your website access to write to this file ( web.config in the root).

Below is a screen shot of what the installer looks like when your web.config is NOT editable :

To resolve this issue, give NetworkService or the IIS7 user permission to modify the web.config :

After you have given the proper permission, just refresh and the installer should display :

The next step is the License Step.  The Apache License comes with our portal and allows your to use it how you wish .  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 :

You need to setup your database information with this step.  Just point AppleSeed to your DataBase Server and it will query your avail databases :

Click next and AppleSeed will display your Available database :

After you have chosen a db, fill in some simple Site Info such as title :

When you click next for the final time, your information will be written in the web.config ( as long as its writable) otherwise you will have to place this info yourself.

You will then be asked to click to the setup directory to process your installation.

In the future this will be a one click process but for now we are using the old Rainbow Updater :

Just simply click next and AppleSeed will begin an install or update depending on your Database.  Please note that you will need to copy over your portal directories if you are performing an update.  We have not fully tested this with a lot of portals so feedback is encouraged.  Your custom modules will also need to be copied over and work on .NET 4.0.  We have also removed all old rainbow themes and use the new Master Page approach.  AppleSeed should be able to run your old themes however you will not be able to take advantage of Drag and Drop and an easier design.

Once done with Install, AppleSeed should display :

Clicking on Finish will bring you to the Default Theme for fresh Installation :

The default login is admin@appleseedportal.net and password : admin .

This concludes how to install the AppleSeed open source portal/CMS Release Candidate.  We will offer more blogs on AppleSeed’s use as we close in on the October Release.  Former Rainbow developers should feel very familiar using the interface.  The basic concept of Appleseed is user control modules that can be placed on any page.  The main module used is the HTML module which is on the home page on default install.  After you login, you will be able to see the Admin menu and add modules to your site.  You may also click Drag And drop to move modules around.

Drupal vs. WordPress

We’ve had the software debate in the Rainbow Portal community for a long time about making our software simpler. The time has come. We have to act now. Rainbow has been sitting in the back ground while derivatives of the original iBuySpyPortal such as DotNetNuke, derivatives of Rainbow such as mojoPortal has continued active development. Unfortunately their time and effort has resulted in substandard software. DotNetNuke is still heavy to use, and mojoPortal for a lack of a better word still “s$%ks”. I’m not saying that the current “Rainbow” is any better, just that we can do better.

Not only does our software need to be easy to use for end users by making it easy to install, upgrade, and install add-ons, we need to make it extremely easy to develop for. The tools that Microsoft now supplies such as the Web Platform Installer and Web Matrix (which comes with WPI 3.0) make it easy for us to deploy software such as DNN, WordPress, and nopCommerce. However, I want the next version of our software to be easier to use, quicker to install, simpler to develop for, and most difficult of all, more fun to run a company with.

Please review this slide deck whether you are a user, a developer, or a business person because it shows one basic fact which we keep forgetting. Keep it simple.

The Website is the Tip of the Icerberg

Open Source
This means that you can hire outside developers to develop extensions as you need them. If you click on the diagram to the right, you’ll see how other pieces of software available on the Internet can help you run your business in addition to Rainbow. We’re developing modules that work with third party software as a service vendors so that all your business operations show up on one Intranet. (Like Us)

Great Template Engine
They have one of the better template systems currently in use. This lets your web designer use his current skill set of HTML and CSS to build a look and feel for your site that can be applied to all your pages.

Extensability
Rainbow modules can be created by anyone who knows SQL Server and ASP.NET. Sometimes you may need to have specialized content structures and this extensability lets you do that easily.

Security
If you want to have a section of your site that is just for certain people, such as Clients or Employees, that can be taken care of using the built in security and permissions system.

A standard installation of Rainbow starts out with one Page and an Administration section. The setup is currently a little complicated, but its nothing that an experienced system administrator can’t figure out. Actually its’ not that hard, you just have to do the right things in order to get it up and running. I would suggest getting someone to help you do this if you are just a business person or an individual.

Pages
Rainbow Sites are made up of Pages which can have SubPages. Pages are like containers. They keep all your content in one of three panes. Although all pages share the default template, you can specify a different template for a special page.

Panes ( Left , Center, Right )
You have three panes where you can put just about anything. I think they are working on more, but not many sites need more panes than that. I know, I’ve built quite a lot of them. The panes don’t have to be positioned left to right and can be placed anywhere in any shape using CSS.

Modules
Each Page can have many modules in one of the aforementioned panes. There are many different modules that come packaged with Rainbow. We’ve made one called the Amazon Books Control. We’ll release a new version once we get our pending work done.

Once you’ve logged in, you can go to the Page Manager under Administration and start Adding pages. Once you’ve added a page, you can click “Edit This Page” and add modules of your choice on the pane of your choice.
There aren’t too many things you need to learn as an End User that manages content. Here are a few actions.

• Add A Page
• Move a Page
• Protect a Page
• Add Modules to a Page
• Move Modules on a page.
• Move Modules from Page to Page.
• Delete Modules
• Recover Deleted Modules
• Add Content to a Module
• Move Content from Module to Module.

Some Useful Modules The most useful module for a content site made in Rainbow would have to be the “HTML Document” module. After placing this module on your site, you can insert any HTML content that you would normally put on your site using outdated tools like DreamWeaver or FrontPage. I would say you should still use tools like that to do your layout, but for content edits, its just way too much overhead and inefficient.
Another very useful module is the Enhanced HTML Module. This module lets you publish multipage HTML documents in multiple languages. This is great if you are writing a multipage article that needs to be split into sections.
Some other modules that you can find on the system are Articles, Announcements, FAQs, and Events to name a few. Once you’ve been introduced to Rainbow it’s hard not to use it for your content needs. More to come on using on using Rainbow for Content Management.

Appleseed App

Appleseed is an attempt to make life easier for the small business persons, the back bone of the economy, by reducing the time it takes to get into business, getting work, getting work done, and finally getting paid.

Our hope is to produce software which uses existing technologies in open source, existing companies that provide software as a service in the cloud, and connect companies together in a peer-to-peer social business network. By doing so, we wish to enable the microenterprise to do business locally, regionally, and globally.

As we continue to develop our software, we’ll keep you updated on our progress. We will also show case internet companies who make excellent products which are useful for the microenterprise.