[opencms-dev] OpenCms version 5.0 rc 2 available

[Alex Epshteyn]

Great news, great work!

I would like to make a suggestion that the documentation and samples
(especially as related to JSP and other new features) be published as
early as possible. Even if it's readiness is lagging behind the software
(as always :-)), it would help people to start using new features, and
help in testing and debugging.

Being fairly new to OpenCms I can not offer much help in writing the
docs, but would be happy to help with reviewing and editing, and perhaps
with preparing the sample code. Please let me know how I could help.

Nice software guys, keep it up!

-Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: Alexander Kandzior [mailto:alex at opencms.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 10:35 AM
To: opencms-dev at www.opencms.org
Subject: [opencms-dev] OpenCms version 5.0 rc 2 available


Hi all,

I am happy to report that the OpenCms version 5.0 rc 2 is now available.

This version is the second "release candidate" for OpenCms 5.0. The core
features planned for the 5.0 release are all fully implemented. Due to
some major cleanup in the Java source tree and some improvements "under
the hood" of the OpenCms core, I found that it was better to have yet
another release candidate before making the final release. The final
release of OpenCms 5.0 will be made available in 4 to 8 weeks if no
major bugs are discovered.

You can download the OpenCms 5.0 rc 2 release here:
* http://www.opencms.com/download/opencms_5.0_rc_2.zip (binary)
* http://www.opencms.com/download/opencms_src_5.0_rc_2.zip (source)

OpenCms now runs with a default content-encoding of ISO-8859-1 (Western
Europe). In case you do not care about the encoding, this default is
most likley what you need. The previous 5.x releases had the encoding
pretty much hardcoded to UTF-8 (Unicode). With the 5.0 rc 2 release it's
now possible to select different encodings from the default. The
selected value must match the value of the file.encoding set for the
Java VM, the wizard will make sure that this is the case.

The OpenCms 5.0 rc 2 includes all features from the last "major" release
4.6.1, the FLEX alpha 1, the 4.7.7 version and of course the 5.0 beta 1,
5.0 beta 2. and 5.0 rc 1. It's at last as stable as all of these earlier
versions. I encourage everyone to try this version and provide feedback
on the opencms-dev mailing list.

OpenCms 5.0 rc 2 supports Java 1.4. and 1.4.1. Because of required
features related to file encoding and JDBC, Java 1.3 is not longer
supported. If you run Java 1.3 on your OpenCms server, please upgrade to
1.4.1. for OpenCms 5.0.

The almost complete list of changes in OpenCms 5.0 rc 2:

* Improved editor GUI (for both source code and WYSIWYG editor)
* The setup wizards now checks for the correct setting of the Java
  file.encoding
* The com.opencms.flex.jsp.CmsJspNavElement now provides direct access
  to all properties of a file
* Fixed issue #54 from Bugzilla (bodyselector not always working in
  editor)
* Fixed issue with download galleries not displaying the file type
  icon
* Fixed issue with cache settings causing binary document types (like
*.doc, *.pdf) not to display in an offline project
* Fixed various issues regarding the character encoding, as a result
  it is now possible to use any encoding, not only UTF-8 as with
  previous releases
* The default character encoding has been changed from UTF-8 to
  ISO-8859-1
* Fixed an issue with JSP error pages not working in Tomcat 4.1, see
  comment for the setting flex.jsp.errorpagecommit in the
  opencms.properties
* Fixed issues #43, #44 and #45 from Bugzilla
* Fixed an issue where a CmsMethodElement could produce
  NullPointerExceptions in rare circumstances
* Fixed issue with text editor not displaying the save/exit buttons in
  IE if the ActiveX control is not installed
* The "template class caching" was not longer required and has been
  removed as OpenCms 5.x uses the standard ClassLoader
* The online help is now a separate upload module (it is currently
  available only in German and needs an update anyway)
* Improved the OpenCms logfile output during startup
* The proprietary XML style localization for the workplace has been
  replaced by standard java.util.ResourceBundles and support of it is
  disabled by default (can be enabled in opencms.properties with the
  compatibility.support.oldlocales flag)
* All ResourceBundles for localization have been combined in
  com/opencms/workplace/workplace.properties for easier translation
* The Italian locale has been moved to a separate module
  org.opencms.locales.it and is no longer part of the core
  distribution
* Improved language handling in
  com.opencms.workplace.CmsNewExplorerFileList, the current Workplace
  language now stored in session
* Removed errors in JavaDocs and added a package.html file to all
  packages
* Removed unused variables and imports in all classes

Please use our Bugzilla to report bugs in this release:
http://www.opencms.org/bugzilla/

You can find the "TODO" list for the final release here:
http://www.opencms.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/opencms/todo.txt?rev=1.13
Note that all items on the list have been completed in the 5.0 rc 2
release.

Thank you for using OpenCms and have fun with OpenCms 5.0 rc 2 :-)


Best Regards,
Alex.

Alexander Kandzior
Alkacon Software - The OpenCms Experts
http://www.alkacon.com