Coming Soon - CMS Made Simple 1.8

[calguy1000]

Yep, you heard correctly.  CMS Made Simple 1.8 is soon to be released.

Here's the big changes in the queue:
1.  A replacement for the {stylesheet} tag
      instead of {stylesheet} the default templates will use the new {cms_stylesheet} tag which will
      a) process the stylesheets through smarty
      b) write the processed database stylesheets the tmp/cache directlry
      c) output tags to the cached files
      This will be a big improvement in performance to many sites as the browsers will easily be able to cache stylesheets, while
      still providing the advantages of having database based stylesheets.  Additionally the stylesheets will be processed through
      smarty, which means you can use smarty variables like [[$red]] to indicate a color, and one change will change it througout
      your layout.  Theres tonnes of other things you can do with the stylesheets, including advanced smarty magic, it's beautiful.

2.  The {content_module} tag
      This new content tag will allow modules to be able to define content blocks to display in your template, and then use in your
      page logic.  i.e:  You may define a tag like {content_module block='groups' name='allowed_groups' module='FrontEndUsers'
      type='grouplist'} in your template to allow the editor to select which feu groups can access the page.  Template logic an then handle
      the value of that content block.

    The Uploads module already handles ths tag, and so does the CGContentUtils module.  I'll be adjusting FrontEndUsers to handle
    it as well.

3.  Improved bulk content actions
    There will be at least one new bulk content option, allowing you to copy multiple pages at one time.  This feature has been asked for
    multiple times, and well, it was time to throw it in.

4.  Better improved SSL handling
    I know we took a half baked stab at SSL stuff in 1.7.1  However we only got 1/2 way there because of IE and its insistence that
    everything in the page be encrypted (including styleshetets and images).  However, this time we should be able to nail this issue
    once and for all.

5.  The normal host of bug fixes and minor tweaks.  There are probably a couple of other changes we're gonna throw in while we're
    doing a 'second digit release'.  but undoubtedly they're gonna be good.

We're hoping for this release to be out by the end of June, but we're not quite done with the big commits yet.  However we should be done within the next couple of days.

We're looking for four or 5 people that are regular, experienced users of CMSMS to betatest for us.  They will be given private access to the beta, and hopefully will help us establish that no new nasty bugs have snuck in to the code.  So Jos, and JanB and a few others of you, if you're interested send a PM to me or to any other dev team member and we'll add you to the list.

I'll keep you posted guys.

[nicmare]

sounds pretty interesting... i am very excited

[replytomk3]

Great!

[Andiministrator]

Good news - especially smarty for css is really great!

Is there a way for module developers to check out a pre-version of 1.8?
I want to test my modules/plugins if they are compatible with ...

[Deak]

Thanks (as always) for the development team's hard work. I'm totally not getting "smarty in CSS", though. Maybe I'm missing something or other people want to manage/update their CSS in a very different way to what I do. Entirely possible. Any chance of some elaboration of what could done with this feature? How about a blog post going into some detail?

Also... bugs fixes and new features in the same release... 

[calguy1000]

@andministrator, if you want to become part of the beta process just send me a PM

@Deak yeah somebody have to write some blog or wiki entry about smarty in the CSS, but for the time being here's the 5 second overview.
One of the common problems with css is repeated strings, particularly colors.  and finding them and replacing all of them when can be a chore.  by passing the CSS in the template  through smarty before caching the output allows you to do stuff like:

Code: Select all

[[assign var='myred' value='#910']] 

at the top of your stylesheet(s).
and then use stuff like

Code: Select all

h3.error { color: [[$myred]]; }

througout the remaining stylesheet.
Now if you want to tweak that red value there is only one place (per stylesheet) to change it.  You will also be able to do some advanced math, and some logic stuff (like date related styles), and even call UDT's and GCB's However there will be some gotchas wrt caching of the rendered stylesheets that you'll have to watch out for.

More Changes:
a) The use_hierarchy tag in the config.php has been removed, we will treat it like it is 'true' at all times.  Don't ask us to reconsider this one.  Web sites are hierarchical, nuf said.
b) The old custom 404 stuff is gone out of the global settings.  The new error page stuff that has been in for a while will be used instead.
c)  An extensible pseudo cron capability has been added that allows executing of regular tasks.  Modules can add to this list quite
    easily  As part of that, a new cache clearing mechanism has been added to automatically delete files older than N days from your
    tmp/cache and tmp/templates_c directories (including cached stylesheets).  Of course you can adjust this interval or disable the cache clearing completely.

[kendo451]

For those who were wondering, you can change the default tag delimiter in SMARTY.  Since CSS is heavily depended on curly brackets which would conflict with using curly brackets for SMARTY, the stylesheets process SMARTY tags delimited by double straight brackets like so:

[[get_template_vars]]

[Deak]

@calguy Gotcha, I can see something like global changes to colour being of some use to developers. However, I think you're missing the killer application for this: a template customisation screen for end-users that works ontop of appropriately made default templates in CMS Made Simple. People could be up and running with CMSMS, with custom looking site (colours and fonts), very quickly.

I'm not sure that would be in line with your vision of who should be using the software, but it certainly would make things easy for beginners.

[calguy1000]

Yeah, CMSMS is not for beginners, and why start adding stuff that caters to the people that aren't the ones we want to focus on.

[NaN]

2.  The {content_module} tag
     This new content tag will allow modules to be able to define content blocks to display in your template, and then use in your
     page logic.   i.e:  You may define a tag like {content_module block='groups' name='allowed_groups' module='FrontEndUsers'
     type='grouplist'} in your template to allow the editor to select which feu groups can access the page.   Template logic an then handle
     the value of that content block.

    The Uploads module already handles ths tag, and so does the CGContentUtils module.  I'll be adjusting FrontEndUsers to handle
    it as well.

Sounds very interesting.
I was just thinking of integrating a similar function into the AdvancedContent module using a specific content block where other modules could hook in (maybe event driven) by just checking for this content property.
Having this by default in the core is just awesome.
Are you planing to improve the content handling in any further way in future releases?
I'm just asking because i want to know if i still need to maintain the module AdvancedContent or if it will finally be useless since similar functions will be in core anyway.

Kind regards.



Edit:

By the way is this behaviour fixed in any way in CMSms 1.8:

http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... #msg206790

or do you think it is okay to override the basic content properties by content blocks?

[calguy1000]

The {content_module} tag is a completely different animal than yoru AdvancedContent module.  so Yes, if it fills a need I think you should continue to develop it.

I don't see us doing this in the core at any time soon, you are taking the approach we want to promote anyways..  Keeping the functionality in the core simple whilst allowing modules greater power to extend the functionality.

Now, as far as the content block name issue goes, I'll look into it.

[katea]

Wow, this sounds exciting 

Calguy, do you have a time scale on this at all?

I'm about to do afresh install on a site and might consider waiting if it isn't too long?

Are the current modules likely to work with this one?

Great work

Kxxx

[calguy1000]

Well, we're in closed beta... have been for about a week now.

We are not introducing any new features now, and just concentrating on bug fixes, and clearing up a few remaining nagging issues.  It's going quite well.

We are planning to have CMSMS 1.8 out at around the 3rd of July.

[dc2]

Little Question: Will the cached CSS-Files also be minified?

That should be easy to implement and speed up loading a lot (especially with bigger stylesheets).

[wy0453]

Excellent list! I've learned more from this forum in about 2 days than I have at any other forum community.