The client wanted a place to connect people that are conerned with greener playgrounds for our children. The site needed to be dynamic, with content submitted not only by his staff but other members of the community as well. Also, the future plans for more features needed room for growth.

We customized a popular open source package called XOOPS (see http://www.xoops.org for details). The base package provided us with a running start on the forums, articles and links management funtionality that is required to build a community website. Plus, there are add on modules that provide things like chat rooms that the client has on his future wishlist.

This is a completely PHP, database driven solution - without the major developement time required to create it from scratch. And with the advantage of thousands of testers world-wide giving feedback and improving the base code. Once you learn the default look and feel of the XOOPS site, you'll realize that many sites you visit are based on it.

The trick for us was pleasing our designers with a look & feel that is unique to our client, while maintaining the functionality of the portal.

The customization task was more challenging for this first client. Now that we understand the layout of the code and the strength and weaknesses of the modules, the projects will get faster and easier. The possible applications include corporate intranets, portals, and any community building website.