Bricolage

File Release Notes and Changelog

Release Name: 1.9.0 "Punkin"

Notes:
NAME

    Bricolage - The Bricolage Content Management and Publishing System

VERSION

    1.9.0 "Punkin" (Development Release)

DESCRIPTION

    Bricolage is a full-featured, enterprise-class content management and
    publishing system. It offers a browser-based interface for ease-of use,
    a full-fledged templating system with complete HTML::Mason,
    HTML::Template, PHP5, and Template Toolkit support for flexibility, and
    many other features. It operates in an Apache/mod_perl environment and
    uses the PostgreSQL RDBMS for its repository. A comprehensive,
    actively-developed open source CMS, Bricolage has been hailed by eWEEK
    as "quite possibly the most capable enterprise-class open-source
    application available."

    Learn more about Bricolage and download it from the Bricolage Website,
    http://www.bricolage.cc/.

GETTING STARTED

    Before installing Bricolage, be sure to read the platform-specific
    README file relevant to your operating system, if there is one.

    For installation instructions, see INSTALL. Once Bricolage has been
    installed, this file will also be available via perldoc Bric::Admin.

    For copying information, see License. Once Bricolage has been
    installed, this file will also be available via perldoc Bric::License.

    For the latest news, see Changes. Once Bricolage has been installed,
    this file will also be available via perldoc Bric::Changes.

DOCUMENTATION

    After you've installed Bricolage, the complete API documentation will
    be available as via perldoc. It is also available on the Bricolage
    site, at http://bricolage.cc/docs/devel/api/. Here are a few entry
    points to get you started.

    For installation and system administration, see:

      Bric::Admin

      Bric::DBA

      Bric::Security

    To get started using Bricolage see:

      Bric::ElementAdmin

      Bric::AssetEditing

      Bric::Alert

    To learn how to use the Bricolage templating systems, see:

      Bric::Templates

      Bric::AdvTemplates

      Bric::HTMLTemplate

    If you'd like to contribute to Bricolage, see:

      Bric::Hacker

      http://bugs.bricolage.cc/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGN
      ED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_severity=enhancement&

MAIL LISTS

    There are Bricolage user, developer, and announcement mail lists, among
    others. See the Bricolage Website for a complete list of lists and
    subscription links. http://www.bricolage.cc/support/lists/

KNOWN ISSUES

      * Apache 1.3.28 does not work properly with Bricolage. It causes the
      connections to the PostgreSQL server to be unexpectedly dropped in
      such a way that Bricolage cannot reconnect. Please use Apache 1.3.29
      or later, instead.

SEE ALSO

    http://www.masonhq.com/

      The HTML::Mason templating architecture.

    http://search.cpan.org/dist/HTML-Template/

      The HTML::Template templating architecture.

    http://www.template-toolkit.org/

      The Template Toolkit templating architecture.

    http://www.php.net/

    http://search.cpan.org/dist/PHP-Interpreter/

      The PHP templating architecture.

    http://httpd.apache.org/

      The Apache Web server.

    http://perl.apache.org/

      mod_perl.

    http://www.postgresql.org/

      The PostgreSQL object-relational database management system.

    http://www.bricolage.cc/

      The Bricolage Website.



Changes:
Bricolge 1.9.0 "Punkin" Changes

 New Features

      * Added MASON_INTERP_ARGS bricolage.conf directive to allow arguments
      to be passed to the Mason template interpreter. [Scott]

      * Added support for sub-second precision to date and time management
      in Bricolage. This means that dates can be stored in the database
      with microsecond precision. This was done by modifying Bricolage's
      date and time handling to use the DateTime module from CPAN under the
      hood. The upshot is that you can use the full suite of strftime
      formats supported by DateTime, including the formats for milliseconds
      and microseconds. Sponsored by Alinghi. [David]

      * Added new "Precision" option to DateTime fields added to elements
      and contributor types. The supported precisions are "Year", "Month",
      "Day", "Hour", "Minute", "Second", "Millisecond", and "Microsecond".
      For purposes of backwards compatibility, the default precision for
      custom DateTime fields is "Minute". Sponsored by Alinghi. [David]

      * Added preview_another_all_ocs() and blaze_another() to
      Bric::Util::Burner. The former executes a preview for all of the
      output channels a document is associated with. The latter takes a
      document for its argument and calls publish_another() in PUBLISH_MODE
      and preview_another_all_ocs() in PREVIEW_MODE. [Serge Sozonoff]

      * Added $INSTALL_VERBOSITY makefile environment variable that, when
      set to "QUIET", eliminates many of the questions asked during
      installation and cloning, falling back on the default values. [Rod
      Taylor & Andrea Rota]

      * Added $USE_DEFAULTS makefile environment variable that, when used
      with $INSTALL_VERBOSITY, will use platform-specific answers to all of
      the installation questions. This allows for completely silent,
      customizable installations, which are necessary for packagers.
      [Marshall]

      * Added make dev makefile target for installing a development version
      straight out of a Subversion checkout. It performs a standard
      installation, then symlinks bin/, comp/ and lib/ back to the
      Subversion checkout. [Marshall]

      * Added RELATED_MEDIA_UPLOAD bricolage.conf directive that allows
      editors to upload media files directly into an element profile if
      they have permission to create media and to access a media workflow.
      This makes it a much simpler process for editors to quickly associate
      media with story documents. The uploaded media files will be created
      based on the media type element selected from a select list, and
      given the same category, cover date, and priority as the current
      document. Enabled by default. [João Pedro and David]

      * Added the element type and output channel modules to the SOAP
      interface. [Scott]

      * Added the ENABLE_GZIP bricolage.conf directive to turn on
      compression of the UI pages through mod_gzip. This results in pages
      as much as fifteen times smaller, with minimal extra server load. If
      mod_gzip is found during installation, the appropriate
      LoadModule/AddModule lines will be added to httpd.conf. Disabled by
      default. Suggested by Rod Taylor. [Marshall]

      * Added "Show Alpha Search" preference that determines whether the
      alpha search ("A | B | C | ... [All]") links should be shown. The
      alpha search isn't very useful because you can type the first letter
      in the textbox (or "%" for "All") for the same results, and it
      supports only the ASCII alphabet. Alpha search is now off by default.
      [Marshall]

      * Added MEDIA_UNIQUE_FILENAME bricolage.conf directive to allow the
      file name of media documents to be set to a unique, automatically
      generated file name on upload, (off by default). Also added the
      MEDIA_FILENAME_PREFIX directive for setting a prefix word, such as
      "media", to be prepended to the file name if desired (off by
      default). [Paul Orrock / Digital Craftsmen]

      * Added support for the ANY() function to pass multiple possible
      values for a given parameter to the list(),list_ids(), and, where
      pertinent, href() methods in the following classes:

      Bric::Biz::ATType

      Bric::Biz::AssetType

      Bric::Biz::AssetType::Parts::Data

      Bric::Biz::Category

      Bric::Biz::Contact

      Bric::Biz::Keyword

      Bric::Biz::Org

      Bric::Biz::Org::Parts::Addr

      Bric::Biz::Org::Person

      Bric::Biz::Org::Source

      Bric::Biz::OutputChannel

      Bric::Biz::OutputChannel::Element

      Bric::Biz::Person

      Bric::Biz::Person::User

      Bric::Biz::Site

      Bric::Biz::Workflow

      Bric::Biz::Workflow::Parts::Desk

      Bric::Util::Grp

      More classes will support it soon! [David]

      * Added support for associating secondary categories and output
      channels when cloning a story. Sponsored by Alinghi. [David]

      * Added support for adding secondary output channels to a new clone
      by selecting a group of output channels. All output channels in that
      group that are allowed by the story element will be associated with
      the clone. This is an easy and accurate way to add a bunch of output
      channels to a clone at once. Users must have READ access to each
      listed output channel group. Sponsored by Alinghi. [David]

      * Added MEDIA_UPLOAD_LIMIT bricolage.conf directive for setting a
      size limit on uploaded media files. [Scott]

      * The URI formats are now more flexible. You can now use many more
      parts of the cover date in the URI, and in whatever format you like.
      So you could have a format of "/%{categories}/%Y-%m-%d" and end up
      with the URI "/foo/bar/2004-09-22" if you wanted. Or even
      "/%{categories}/%Y/%V" to get the week number as part of the URI. You
      can also include your own text, similar to the URI Prefix and URI
      Suffix fields, anywhere in the URI (e.g. foobar in
      /%{categories}/%Y/%m/foobar/%{slug}". Suggested by David. [Marshall]

      * Added a frame on top of the preview window with a "Repreview" link.
      This is useful for previewing changes when you're developing
      templates. Rather than having to save the template, go back to the
      workspace, repreview, and then go back to the template profile, you
      can preview the story, then edit the template and click "Repreview"
      as necessary after each save. [Marshall]

      * Added a pluggable authentication system. New authentication engines
      can be created by simply implementing a module named
      Bric::Util::Auth*, where "*" is the name of the authentication
      scheme. The new scheme can then be used by adding it to the new
      AUTH_ENGINES bricolage.conf directive. By default only the existing
      authentication scheme is used. Sponsored by Kineticode. [David]

      * Added support for authentication to Bricolage against an LDAP
      server. The new LDAP_* bricolage.conf directives make it simple to
      configure Bricolage to authenticate against any LDAP server. Includes
      support for authenticating users only if they are members of a
      specific user group in the LDAP database. Users must still exist in
      Bricolage, however. Sponsored by Kineticode. [David]

      * Added support for multiple WYSIWYG editors. The ENABLE_HTMLAREA
      bricolage.conf directive has been replaced by the ENABLE_WYSIWYG and
      WYSIWYG_EDITOR directives. You can now choose between htmlArea 3 and
      the new Xinha, a more active fork of htmlArea (recommended). More
      editors possibly coming soon. See Bric::Admin for details. [Marshall]

      * Added AUTO_PREVIEW_MEDIA bricolage.conf directive. Enabling this
      directive allows media files uploaded to a media document to be
      distributed to all relevant preview servers as soon as the media
      document is saved. Sponsored by Alinghi. [David]

      * Added a PHP burner. Implemented by George Schlossnagle of Omni TI
      consulting. Sponsored by PT.com. [George Schlossnagle]

      * Added UUIDs to story and media documents. A UUID is a universally
      unique identifiers. The format for UUIDs has been described in RFC
      4122, ITU-T Rec. X.667 and ISO/IEC 11578:1996. In Bricolage, they are
      generated by Data::UUID.

 Improvements

      * Creating a template that was deactivated now reactivates it instead
      of just giving an error message. [Scott]

      * The "User Override" screen has been integrated into the "Users"
      screen since the two pages are mostly redundant except for a few
      links. [Marshall]

      * User overrides are now recorded in the event log. Suggested by
      David. [Marshall]

      * The UI now shows which user is logged in and includes a link to the
      user's profile at the top of each page, above the log out button.
      Suggested by Philip Brown. [Marshall]

      * All of the old "NUMERIC" columns have been removed from the
      database and replaced with the more appropriate (and faster)
      "INTEGER", "SMALLINT", and "BOOLEAN" data types. [Neil Conway &
      David]

      * Added exclude_id parameter to the list() methods of the story,
      media, and template classes. This parameter can be used to exclude
      one or more asset IDs from the list of objects returned by the call
      to list() and friends. Suggested by Curtis Poe. [David]

      * The get_desk_stamps() method in the asset classes has been removed
      (it was deprecated in Bricolage 1.8.4). The same goes for the
      required_satisfied() method in Bric::Biz::Workflow. Thanks to
      Marshall Roch for the spot! [David]

      * Users now must have at least READ permission to sources to add them
      to stories. If upgrading from an earlier version of Bricolage, for
      purposes of backward compatibility, members of the "All Users" group
      (that is to say, all users) will be granted READ access to all
      sources. Change this permission to limit access as appropriate. For
      new installations of Bricolage, the default "Story Editors" and "User
      Producers" groups have READ permission to all sources. Suggested by
      Simon Wilcox. [David]

      * There is now a "Preserve Formatting" (disabled by default) option
      in Bulk Edit that retains leading spaces, trailing spaces, and line
      breaks. With this option set, you can, for example, paste in poetry
      without it all ending up on one line. [Marshall]

      * URI formats now require that the categories be a part of the
      format. [David]

      * When using the command line tools, you can now opt to be prompted
      for your password rather than entering it on the command line, which
      would store your plain text password in the shell history. [Marshall]

      * Added tests for the burners. This was important for thoroughly
      testing the new PHP burner, but it will keep the other burners
      functioning well from here on in, as well. [David]

      * Moved the burn_again attribute from Bric::Util::Burner::Mason to
      Bric::Util::Burner, since it could be useful to other burners, and
      since Bric::Util::Burner had knowledge of it, anyway. [David]

      * The HTML::Template burner now sets parameters for all attributes of
      a story as returned by the my_meths() method of the story class,
      rather than just the story title. So, for example, you can now use
      <tmpl_var primary_uri> or <tmpl_var cover_date> with out creating a
      .pl template to set them up. [David]

      * Refactored the separate _add_resource() methods in each of the
      burner subclasses int Bric::Util::Burner itself. [David]

      * Arguments can now be passed to the display_element() method of the
      Template Toolkit burner and they will be set up as variables in the
      stash of the execution context of the element template.

      * Category templates in the HTML::Template burner now cascade just
      like in all the other burners, rather than stopping at the first
      category template found in the category URI. Users of HTML::Template
      templates should take note of this if they have more than one
      category template in their category URIs. [David]

      * The HTML::Template burner now has access to both the related story
      and the related media URIs via the rel_story_uri and rel_media_uri
      variables. The old link variable has been deprecated, since it cannot
      handle an element that has both a related media and a related story.
      [David]

      * Major interface clean-up. The UI is finally mostly valid XHTML and
      uses CSS for all styles. The USE_XHTML directive, added in 1.7.0, is
      no longer used. The file sizes of some pages have been reduced by as
      much as 70%, offering improved page load times. Also, it will now be
      much easier to customize colors, etc. by customizing the CSS
      stylesheet. [Marshall]

      * The desks/My Workspace have been slightly modified to be more
      usable. Most notably, the "View" and "Edit" links (depending on
      checkout status) have been moved to the asset's title, where the
      preview link formerly was, the "Category" line has been replaced with
      "Primary URI", and the URI itself is the preview link. Also, the
      "Site" line now only shows up when there is more than one site.
      [Marshall]

      * Added MASON_STATIC_SOURCE bricolage.conf directive to enable static
      sources in the Mason-powered UI. Enabling this directive can
      eliminate many file system stats on every request, thus increasing
      performance. It's disabled by default, but you should turn it on now!
      [David]

      * Changed the names of the attributes in Bric::Biz::AssetType and
      Bric::Biz::AssetType::Parts::Data that have double underscores to
      have only single underscores. The double underscores are still
      supported for the sake of backwards compatibility, but are no longer
      required. [David]

      * Updated search documentation and wrote tests for
      Bric::Biz::Contact, Bric::Biz::AssetType::Parts::Data, and
      Bric::Biz::Org::Parts::Addr. [David]