[Exist-open] [ANN][RELEASE] eXist-db 1.4.1 is available

Monday, 15th August 2011


Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

The eXist-db team are very proud to announce the release of eXist-db
version 1.4.1.

Version 1.4.1 is not your average point release and concludes almost
two years of hard work from the developers, contributors and the
community. There are more bug-fixes and stability improvements that
you can shake a very pointy stick at, and we believe that it is the
best version of eXist-db yet.

There is far too much to pack into a short list, the full change list
can be found here -
http://exist.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/exist/stable/eXist-1.4.x/?view=log
...but, the highlights include:


1) Referential Integrity – no more vanishing index entries, so no more
failed document updates and inconsistent documents.

2) Database Shutdown and Crash Protection – numerous improvements by
us, which means less unnecessary recovery runs by you.

3) WebDAV – completely new implementation, based on the solid Milton
WebDAV Server library. Enabled by default, but don't panic, the old
version is still present should you need it!

4) Lucene Full-Text Indexing – upgraded to version 2.9.2 for a
performance boost, configurable analyzers, configurable parameters,
better match highlighting and additional functions for working with
Lucene document fields.
	
5) XForms –			
      The betterFORM server-side XForms 1.1 engine now ships with
eXist-db and is enabled by default.
      The included XSLTForms XForms engine has been updated.

6) EXPath – The EXPath projects HTTP Client XQuery module has been
implemented as a first step towards EXPath portable XQuery.

7) Improved transaction handling – scheduled and direct system tasks
no longer need exclusive access to the database. e.g. the Backup
system task can operate whilst your database is still online.
	
8) Indexing architecture – many improvements for both performance and stability.
	
9) Resolution of all reported database lock contention issues.


Heads Up! → As we mentioned, this is no ordinary point release, and as
such the legacy full-text index in eXist-db 1.4 has been disabled by
default in 1.4.1. The legacy full-text index can of course be
re-enabled through conf.xml, however there are several integrity
issues that we will not fix, instead we suggest moving to the newer
Lucene based full-text index.

We have tried to ensure that upgrading from eXist-db 1.4 to 1.4.1 is
as easy as possible, however should you need some assistance or
support above and beyond what the community provides then please
consider eXist Solutions, without whom this release would not have
been possible. http://www.existsolutions.com/

Version 1.4.1 will most likely be the last major release in the 1.4.x
line. Whilst we are also planning to release a preview of eXist-db 1.6
in the next couple of months, 1.4.1 should be considered the current
stable, suitable for production use, version of eXist-db.

Finally, we would like to thank the eXist-db community, contributors
and developers for all their hard work on eXist-db 1.4.1. Thanks and
Enjoy :-)


eXist-db version 1.4.1 is available here - http://www.exist-db.org/download.html



Thank you

The eXist-db team