cognito / News: Recent posts

Version 1.1 of Cognito includes the following new features:

* Added an install file, so to install cognito just unpack it to the web server, create your mysql database and user, and point your web browser to http://yoursite/install.php

* Added the capability to create forms on the site. This is a major feature with many options and documentation for this will follow at some stage. For now it should be intuitive enough for most users.... read more

This release fixes a bug that was supposed to be fixed in 1.01 but wasn't. Sorry everyone!

A bug in the installation script for the database of version 1.0 has been fixed and released as 1.01

Today Cognito has been released as version 1.0, along with it there are a few new plugins, now allowing you to search the site, get feedback from visitors through polls, and accessing data from external sites for inclusion in your own.

Cognito 0.5 has been released!

Major functions added:

* Fine-grained permissions. Groups can be added to give
templates for users access permissions. Users can be members of multiple
groups. Users can have extra permissions granted to them in addition to
the permissions granted to the groups the user is a member of.
* All actions are now logged in an audit trail.
* Content changes create revisions rather than simply changing the data.
This allows changes to be reverted.
* Added an approval system whereby all users without approval access
cannot see new content or content changes until approved by a user with
approval access. Revisions may be unapproved to roll back changes as
required.
* Added a hardcoded content block called "cognitopanel" where the extra
function links are displayed when logged in.
* New default template... read more

The 0.5 release has been delayed as we've been putting in some extra features. Here's a few to whet your appetite:
* Audit trail allows you to see what changes have happened to the website recently.
* Fine-grained permissions allows you to set exactly what different users are allowed to do. Create groups and set permissions on those to quickly and easily add users to roles.
* Content now has full revision history, allowing you to see and revert to old versions of content.
*An approval system allows content to be created and modified but not be displayed until a user with relevant permissions approves the content to be displayed (users with permissions create and modify content without having to approve it)
* Keyword and Description Meta tags can be specified per template or per page (page over-rides template) for extra search engine rankings.... read more

Cognito release 0.4 is now available to download. Changes are:

Major functions added:

* Added ability to use non-table designs, using <div id="content"></div> tags to show where content should be placed.
* Page titles are now generated using a prefix from the common.inc.php file and the name on the page.
* Image resizing is now performed using the gd library rather than netpbm. It was found that ISP's are more likely to provide php-gd or php-gd2 (gd2 is preferred as it has a much higher image quality) than allowing php to execute programs locally or have the netpbm tools installed.
* common.inc.php and template files are now distributed with a -dist suffix so that unpacking the folder over top of your own wont blow your settings away.
Bugfixes:... read more

Major functions added:

* mod_rewrite support so that images and pages can have real looking url's and be able to be cached at the browser / proxy server.
* page caching at the server so that the mysql and webserver have minimum load, especially good for high traffic sites. Expiry time is determined by the content on the page, publishing dates etc. Maximum cache time is 24 hours, the cache can be flushed manually by a logged in user.... read more

Cognito is now usable in a production environment. Website administrators can now log in to make changes and images can be uploaded / resized / added to content all from the online edit mode.

Please grab the latest release and join us in the mailing list if you have any comments.

Finally cognito is functional enough to be able to release to the public. Although alpha, it is stable and just about ready for production use. A warning though - since it is alpha there may be database changes. I will be putting a schema change file in each release anyway so upgrades will be easy.

Enjoy!