Table of Contents
by Jeff Teeters
This is the 4.2 beta release of the ArsDigita Community System (ACS). The previous release was 4.1.1. This release fixes a number of bugs and has some enhancements. For a complete list of bugs fixed in 4.2-beta, please visit the SDM page for 4.2-beta (also called 4.2b).
Note: In this and subsequent releases, the version numbers of packages will *not* necessarily be correlated with the ACS release number. The release number of a package will be increased only in proportion to how significant the changes made to that package are. For example, in this release the acs-subsite package version is increased from 4.1 to 4.2 because significant changes were made. On the other hand, a package as acs-messaging brings only minor changes to this release and is therefore only labeled 4.1.1 (from 4.1).
Similarly, the version of the ACS release will be increased according to the quantity and significance of the changes made. This release is designated as 4.2-beta because of there were significant changes made since the previous (4.1.1) release.
Enhanced subsite support. This release scopes parties to individual subsites, rather than the entire site.
Improved group support. Group administration pages have been made more general. They now can be used to administer parties (and persons) rather than just groups. Group types now include a default join policy ('open', 'closed', or 'needs approval'). The group administration pages have been made much faster.
Improved permissions. Permissions also now take into account the status of a member in a group (e.g. whether the membership is approved) when determining the permissions for the member. A new view was added (ALL_OBJECT_PARTY_PRIVILEGE_MAP) which can greatly reduce the time required to do permission checks. It is described in file asc-packages/acs-kernel/sql/acs-permissions-create.sql.
Improved documentation.
Bug fixes. See SDM for 4.2-beta for a list.
ACS Kernel. Release number increased from 4.1.1 to 4.2. Enhanced group support, ALL_OBJECT_PARTY_PRIVILEGE_MAP view, numerous other minor changes/fixes.
ACS Subsite. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.2. Scoping parties to subsites, generalize administration pages, improved permissions.
ACS Administration. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.1. Group related changes.
ACS API Browser. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.1. Minor changes.
ACS Content. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.1. Function new changed to procedure.
ACS Content Repository. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.2. Minor changes.
ACS Core Documentation. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.1. Documentation updated and added.
ACS Mail. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.1. Minor changes.
ACS Messaging. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.1. Function new added to package.
ACS Tcl. Release number increased from 4.1.1 to 4.1.2. Modifications to installation and site node related procedures.
ACS Templating. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.2. Many changes.
ACS Workflow. Release number increased from 4.1 to 4.1.1. Minor changes.
default-master.tcl Default master template modified to display more information about how to use acs and customize the site.
Other packages. Packages included with this release and which did not change from the previous release (4.1.1) are: ACS Notification (version 4.0), ACS Utilities (version 4.0.1) and Page (version 4.0). Skin (version 0.1d) is a new package.
In order to run ACS 4.1, you must be running:
AOLserver and the Oracle driver are obtainable from http://www.arsdigita.com/download/. Developer versions of Oracle are available for download from Oracle Technet. A version of ACS 4.0 that runs on PostgreSQL is under development by the OpenACS team.
Please make sure that you have fully upgraded your system to ACS 4.1.1 before upgrading to ACS 4.2-beta. For instructions on how to upgrade to 4.1.1, please see the 4.1.1 release notes included in the 4.1.1 distribution. In order to upgrade your server, you should:
Stop your server.
Obtain the ACS 4.2-beta distribution from http://www.arsdigita.com/acs-repository and replace all the files in your ACS 4.1.1 system. If you have customized any of the ACS 4.1.1 files, please make sure that your work is not lost when extracting the archive. The recommended approach in this situation is use a local cvs repository for your project, extract the tar.gz file to a temporary directory, then do a cvs vendor import to your repository from a the extracted files. Another approach is to to update your files using CVS through the public server :pserver:anonymous@cvs.arsdigita:/usr/local/cvsroot using the tag acs-4-2-beta-R20010307. However getting the files by cvs using the tag at arsdigita.com will not include the html documentation because the html documentation is not stored in the arsdigita cvs repository but instead is generated outside the repository (from xml files) when a release is created. For further information on CVS, please consult CVS and 4.0 Client Development.
Run the content-repository upgrade script:
cd /youracsdir/packages/acs-content-repository/sql/upgrade
sqlplus user/password < upgrade-4.1-4.1.2.sql
There may be a message saying "Error creating attribute view or trigger for acs_message_revision." If so, ignore it.
Restart your server.
Login as a System Administrator and go to /acs-admin/apm. Click Install Packages and wait for the installer to load.
A list of packages that need to be upgraded and enabled will appear. Click on the Next button.
A list of data model upgrade scripts will appear. Unclick the data model upgrade script for ACS Content Repository (file sql/upgrade/upgrade-4.1-4.1.2.sql). Leave the other checkboxes selected. Click Install Packages and the upgrade will proceed.
Restart the ACS server.
Any feedback or comments about the ACS can be sent to acs@arsdigita.com. Please report all bugs with the ArsDigita Software Development Manager (SDM).