Release of OpenACS 5.8.1: This is the announcement of the availability of the OpenACS 5.8.1 release. This release finishes much of the cleanup work stated in 5.8.0, but contains in contrary to earlier releases as well the application packages. Since the release of OpenACS 5.8.0, we had the following changes 2305 files changed, 53249 insertions(+), 45896 deletions(-) in 6145 commits from 5 authors. These are significantly more changes as the difference between OpenACS 5.7.0 and 5.8.0. 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). - 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All packages are free from calls to deprecated code (157 functions are marked as deprecated and will be moved into an "outdated" package in the 5.9 or 6.0 release) + General overhaul of package management + Install-from-local and install-from-repository can be used to install the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 this 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