[opencms-dev] Release plan and roadmap for OpenCms 7

[Alexander Kandzior]

By popular demand...

OpenCms 7 is currently under heavy development. All development is done
using the public OpenCms CVS in the "DEV_7_0" branch. The development is
done by Alkacon Software with contributions from the OpenCms community.

Preliminary list of features for OpenCms 7:  

* The internal link management will be greatly improved. 
* If files (or folders) are moved / renamed, all links to these files 
  will be kept intact. 
* Deleting a resource that is linked by other resources will display a 
  warning / confirmation dialog. 
* A permalink handler for resources will be available for external 
  references in case a resource is moved or renamed. 
* Link management support will be added in editors for standard HTML 
  tags 'area', 'object' & 'embed'. 
* The new "Content Relationship Engine" (CRE) will allow defining 
  arbitrary relations between OpenCms resources. 
* Native support for WebDAV access to the OpenCms VFS will be added. 
* The integrated Workflow will be greatly improved. 
* The new Workflow will ship with standard Workflows (e.g. 6-eye-
  confirm) but will be easily extensible for more complex Workflows. 
* It will be possible to attach external Workflow engines (e.g. JBPM) 
  using a new Workflow API. 
* Publishing of resources will be done using a queue, so a user can 
  continue to work after publishing has started. 
* The concept of "Organization Units" (OUs) will be added to the 
  internal user management. 
* It will be possible to delegate management of users / groups in OUs 
  to Sub-Administrators. 
* A "switch user" (su) function for Administrators in the OpenCms 
  Workplace will be available. 
* Many usability improvements for the OpenCms Workplace will be made, 
  especially concerning the handling of other users locks. 
* Many dialogs in the OpenCms Workplace will be more responsive 
  because of the use of Ajax technologies. 
* The full text search will be greatly improved so that individual 
  resource properties or fields from an XML content can be searched 
  directly. 
* A "time warp" feature in the Workplace allows users to view 
  resources with date expired / date released settings. 
* Auto correction for structured XML contents will allow changes to 
  the XML schema of existing resources. 
* A search tool will be available for content managers in the 
  Workplace. 
* JSP 2.0 and Servlet 2.4 will be used by default. 
* The core database structure will be optimized. 
* Improved documentation will be provided.

Please note that this preliminary feature list of OpenCms 7 is subject to
change until we reach the "Release Candidate" stage (please see below). Keep
in mind that most development on OpenCms 7 is sponsored by customers. That
means some features may be dropped and other features may be added until the
feature freeze. 


OpenCms 7 release plan: 

The Alpha and Beta releases of OpenCms 7 will be available in the public CVS
only. These releases will not be feature complete, and the core API will be
subject to further change. The Alpha releases will be tagged
"build_7alpha_x". The Beta releases will be tagged "build_7beta_x". The
first Alpha version should be available February 14, 2007. The Beta stage
will be started March 21, 2007. 

The first public release for download from www.opencms.org will be OpenCms 7
RC 1 (Release Candidate 1). This release will be available May 2, 2007. This
date will also mark the beginning of the "feature freeze" period, which
means no new features will be added to the core after the OpenCms 7 RC 1
release. There will be no update wizard in this version. After the release
of this version, we will concentrate on issues regarding backward
compatibility with the version 6 releases. 

The second public release for download will be OpenCms 7 RC 2, available
June 6, 2007. This version will contain bug fixes and the final and stable
core API for version 7. It will also contain the first version of an update
wizard for version 7. The goal is to be able to update all released stable
OpenCms 6.0 and 6.2 versions to OpenCms 7 using this update wizard. 

OpenCms 7.0 final will be released July 4, 2007. Compared to the RC 2
version, we expect no changes except fixes for bugs or other issues that
have been found in the RC 2 release. This version will also contain the
final and tested version of the update wizard. 

Please note that this feature list and release plan for OpenCms 7 comes
without any warranty and it is subject to change without notice. Updates
will be published on the OpenCms website and here on the opencms-dev mailing
list. 

Kind Regards,
Alex.

-------------------                                                      
Alexander Kandzior                                                        

Alkacon Software GmbH  - The OpenCms Experts

http://www.alkacon.com - http://www.opencms.org