Index: openacs-4/Announce-OpenACS-5.9.0 =================================================================== RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/openacs-4/Announce-OpenACS-5.9.0,v diff -u -N --- /dev/null 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000 +++ openacs-4/Announce-OpenACS-5.9.0 7 Aug 2017 23:47:43 -0000 1.2 @@ -0,0 +1,289 @@ +Release of OpenACS 5.9.0: + +This is the announcement of the availability of the +OpenACS 5.9.0 release. This release contains several +secturity and performance improvements as well as new +functionality. + +Since the release of OpenACS 5.8.1, we had the following changes + + 3658 files changed, 120800 insertions(+), 97617 deletions(-) + +contributed by 4 committers (Michael Aram, Victor Guerra, Gustaf +Neumann, Antonio Pisano) and patch/bugfix providers (Frank Bergmann, +Andrew Helsley, Felix Mödritscher, Marcos Moser, Franz Penz, Thomas +Renner). These are significantly more changes as the differences +in the last releases. All packages of the release were tested with +PostgreSQL 9.4.* and Tcl 8.5.*. + +Here is a short summary of the changes in this release: + + - The release contains the 78 packages of the oacs-5-8 branch. + These packages contain the OpenACS core packages, major + application packages (e.g. most the ones used on OpenACS.org), and + DotLRN (see detailed list of packages in the attachment). + + SQL: + - Improved performance of acs-object deletion. + - Replaced many manual referential integrity calls by built-in handing + in PostgreSQL. + - Removed various manual bookkeeping and deletion operations in the content + repository by built-in handing in PostgreSQL. + - Removed tree_sortkey on acs-objects to reduce its size and to speedup + operations, where the context-id is changed (could take on large + installation several minutes in earlier versions) + - Removed several uncalled / redundant SQL statements and functions. + - Cleanup of .xql files in acs-subsite: + * Some cleanup of .xql files: removed misleading sql-statements + from db_* calls, which were ignored due .xql files + * Removed bug where same query-name was used in different branches + of an if-statement for different sql statements, but the query-name + lead to the wrong result. + * Removed multiple entries of same query name from .xql files (e.g. + the entry "package_create_attribute_list.select_type_info" + was 7 (!) times in a single .xql file) + + Web Interface: + + - Improve Performance of WebSites created with OpenACS: e.g. move core.js + to a body requests, provide kernel parameter ResourcesExpireInterval + to specify expiration times for resources. + - Much better protection against XSS attacks. + - Improved HTML validity (especially for admin pages) + - Improved admin interface: + - Placed all installation options to a single page. + - Added pagination to /admin/applications (was unusable for large sites) + - New admin pages for subsites linked from site-wide-admin package (/acs-admin). + - Added explanatory text to several admin pages. + - Add lightweight support for ckeditor4 for templating::richtext widget + (configurable via package parameter "RichTextEditor" of acs-templating. + ckeditor4 supports mobile devices (such as iPad, ...) + + Templating: + + - Improved theme-ability: Moved more information into theme packages in + order to create responsive designs, reduce hard-coding of paths, HTML etc. + - Improved include-handling: All includes are now theme-able, interfaces of + includes can be defined with "ad_include_contract" (similar to + ad_page_contract). + - Improved them-ability for display_templates. One can now provide + a display_template_name (similar to the sql statement name) to refer + to display templates. This enables reusability and is theme-able. + - Dimensional slider reform (ad_dimensional): Removed hard-coded table + layout from dimensional slider. Add backwards compatible templates + - Move hard-coded styles into theme styling + - Notification chunks are now theme-able as well (using ad_include_contrat) + - Complete template variable suffixes (adding noi18n, addressing bug #2692, + full list is now: noquote, noi18n, literal) + - Added timeout and configurable secrets for signed url parameters to + export_vars/page_contracts. This can be used to secure sensitive + operations such as granting permissions since a link can be set to + timeout after e.g. 60 seconds; after that, the link is invalid. + A secret (password) can be set in section ns/server/$server/acs + parameter "parametersecret". For example, one can use now + "user_id:sign(max_age=60)" in export_vars to let the exported + variable expire after 60 seconds. + + Misc: + + - Added ability to show ns_log statements of current request to developer + support output when developer support is activated (controlled via package + parameter "TclTraceLogServerities" in the acs-tcl package parameters) + + - Added ability to save data sent by ns_return in files on the file system. + This can be used to validate HTML content also for password protected + pages (controlled via package parameter "TclTraceSaveNsReturn" in + the acs-tcl package parameters) + + - New api function "ad_log" having the same interface as ns_log, but + which logs the calling information (like URL and call-stack) to + ease tracking of errors. + + - Use per-thread caching to reduce number of mutex lock operations + and lock contention on various caches (util-memoize, xo_site_nodes, + xotcl_object_types) and nsvs (e.g ds_properties) + + - Improved templating of OpenACS core documentation + + - Improved Russian Internationalization + + - Make pretty-names of acs-core packages more consistent + + - Mark unused functions of acs-tcl/tcl/table-display-procs.tcl as deprecated + + - Many more bug fixes (from bug tracker and extra) and performance improvements. + + - Version numbers: + + * Require PG 9.0 (End Of Life of PostgreSQL 8.4 was July 2014) + * Require XOTcl 2.0 (presented at the Tcl conference in 2011). + + Changes in application packages: + + - Various bug fixes and improvements for e.g. file-storage, + forums, news, notifications, xowiki. + + + - All packages have the following properties: + + * SQL: + + All packages are PostgreSQL 9.1+ compatible + (tested with PostgreSQL 9.3) + + All SQL files with stored procedures use the + recommended $$ quoting + + All SQL-functions have regular function arguments + instead of the old-style aliases + + The function_args() (query-able meta-data) are + completed and fixed + + Incompatible functions (e.g. for sequences) are + replaced. + + * Tcl: + + All packages were brought up Tcl 8.5, including + the actual Tcl idioms where appropriate (e.g. + using the safer expand operator, range indices, + dict, lassign, etc.) + + The code was updated to prefer byte-compiled functions + instead of legacy functions from ancient Tcl versions + + The code works with NaviServer and AOLserver + + * API: + + All packages are free from calls to deprecated code + (157 functions are marked as deprecated and will be + moved into an "outdated" package in the 5.9 or 6.0 release) + + General overhaul of package management + + Install-from-local and install-from-repository can be used + to install the provided packages based on a acs-core + installation. This means that also DotLRN can be + installed from repository or from + local into an existing OpenACS instance. + + Install-from-repository offers filtering functions, allows + to install optionally from head-channel (for packages + not in the base channel of the installed instance). + Install-from-repository works more like an app-store, + showing as well vendor information + + Packages can be equipped with configuration files + (e.g. changing parameters for style packages) + + Package developers can upload .apm packages via workflow + for review by core members and for inclusion to the + repository. The option is integrated with package + management, the link is offered for local packages. + We hope to attract additional vendors (universities, + companies) to make their packages available on this path. + + New management-functions for package instances + (list, create, delete package instances) + + Substantially improved API browser: + o Show just relevant parts of .xql files for a function + o Provide syntax-highlighting for www scripts as well + o Handle more special cases like e.g. util_memoize + o Provide links to Tcl functions depending on the installed + Tcl version + o Provide links to NaviServer or OpenACS functions depending + on installed version + o Syntax highlighter uses CSS rather than hard-coded markup + o Significant performance improvement for large + installations + +This is just a quick wrap-up of the functions, probably many important +changes are not summarized so far (especially the functional changes +in the application packages). The full list of changes is +included in the raw ChangeLog [1]. + +OpenACS.org runs these package at the newest level (but not all +packages of the list are installed on OpenACS.org). + +The list of application packages contains as well the +DotLRN packages. For DotLRN this means essentially: + - This release provides an upgrade path from outdated PostgreSQL versions + - Use of packaged PostgreSQL distributions without + fiddling with PostgreSQL configuration options + - Easier installation and maintenance + - Larger choice of package combinations + +The version number of DotLRN changed to 2.8.1 +(in accordance to 5.8.1 of OpenACS). + + +[1] http://openacs.org/changelogs/ChangeLog-5.8.1 +============================================================================ + +Package list of OpenACS 5.8.1: + +acs-admin +acs-api-browser +acs-authentication +acs-automated-testing +acs-bootstrap-installer +acs-content-repository +acs-core-docs +acs-datetime +acs-developer-support +acs-events +acs-kernel +acs-lang +acs-mail-lite +acs-messaging +acs-outdated +acs-reference +acs-service-contract +acs-subsite +acs-tcl +acs-templating +acs-translations +ajaxhelper +assessment +assessment-portlet +attachments +bm-portlet +bulk-mail +calendar +calendar-portlet +categories +dotlrn +dotlrn-assessment +dotlrn-bm +dotlrn-calendar +dotlrn-dotlrn +dotlrn-evaluation +dotlrn-faq +dotlrn-forums +dotlrn-fs +dotlrn-homework +dotlrn-news +dotlrn-portlet +dotlrn-static +dotlrn-xowiki +evaluation +evaluation-portlet +faq +faq-portlet +file-storage +forums +forums-portlet +fs-portlet +general-comments +intermedia-driver +new-portal +news +news-portlet +notifications +oacs-dav +openacs-default-theme +profile-provider +ref-countries +ref-language +ref-timezones +rss-support +search +static-portlet +survey +theme-zen +tsearch2-driver +user-profile +versions.tcl +views +xotcl-core +xotcl-request-monitor +xowf +xowiki +xowiki-portlet