1.0 Release Plans

[calguy1000]

Well, as you know, the 1.0 series is quickly approaching.  I thought I'd drop a line in the forum to let everybody know what the goals are and how we're hoping to get there, and also to inform all of the module developers out there about what will need to be changed:

Goals

It is our goal to release a stable, well tested, and well documented 1.0 tree by the end of August, or earlier if possible.  Our goal is to make 1.0 the most stable release yet.  Beta-3 will be available sometime tomorrow, and we hope to have Beta-4 available within five days after that (Friday, or maybe Saturday).  We hope to do a Beta5 about a week after that which will hopefully be the last beta.  Beta5 will last for about a week or so (maybe two weeks), followed by the much anticipated 1.0.

We will not be implementing many new features.  So the functionality you see in 1.0-beta2 will pretty much be what will be in the final product.  We will however be focussing on bugs and performance issues.  We'll try to close down as many bugs from the tracker as is reasonable, while maintaining performance and stability.

The extended beta period is necessary in this release to allow for the increased testing and bug fix period by the fantastic development team that has worked so hard to date to make this product what it is.  As well, module developers need time to be able to fix their modules for 1.0 compatibility.

Module Developers

To all module developers, you will probably need to release a new version of your module that is compatible with 1.0.  This is due to our recent conversion to the standard version of adodb-lite, rather than the one that Ted has wrapped for the past couple of versions.  The primary things that need to change are:

• The RowCount method in adodb is no longer available, you must use RecordCount
• Date manipulation has slightly changed requiring numerous small changes to any module that uses dates in it's database tables
• All modules for 1.0 should be released in XML format (from a 1.0 beta).  The XML files will be automatically available for download by CMS made simple 1.0 users via the module manager.

Note:  It is possible to create a release of your module that is still compatible with the 0.13 series of CMS Made Simple (unless you want to use events).

We are hoping for a large list of modules to be available for 1.0 upon it's release,    Please, if you can spend some time with your modules.

Please post a message on the forum or go into the irc channel if you have more questions.

Thanks for your time people, and I hope to hear from you.

[Dr.CSS]

the fantastic development team that has worked so hard to date to make this product what it is.

HERE! HERE! I second that emotion, Great work Team.

Couldn't ask for a better group of people, it's amazing to see the work going on in the background for this system.

THE BEST I've ever used bar none!

[Russ]

Me too, my excitement increases by the day!
I will try to help with whatever little time I have available and with the meger skills at my deployment

Keep it coming...

Russ

[Piratos]

Date manipulation

Databasefield T are in 1B2  time in the prev version it was datetime.

f you are using this

$dbtime = $db->DBTimeStamp();

the timestamp is set to 'timestampvalue'

if you than using this in a query you have

this : ''timestampvalue''  as an expanded query - double qouted.

and this is the reason why some modules did not work correctly.

[calguy1000]

It seems many people have been encountering a problem with the 1.0 Betas requiring more than the default 8Mb of memory.  This has proven to be a more serious issue than we originally thought it would be. We have been forced to re-look at a few things to try to even further reduce the memory footprint of the default CMS Made Simple 1.0 installation.

We've undertaken a signficant re-organization of the code, to reduce memory requirements in many situations, whilst largely retaining code compatibility with existing third party modules and plugins. 

Ted has undertaken to split some of the larger classes into separate files on a logical basis, and to implement lazy loading where possible.  As well, he's begun rationalizing which files are included by default, and a re-organization of the content types stuff to hopefully save a significant amount of memory for most users. 

Similarly, some work has been done with the ModuleManager to help reduce it's memory requirements, to solve problems with downloading and installing large XML modules, and to improve performance.

The normal set of bug fixes and minor enhancements have also been inserted into the mix.

Note, these will not solve the memory problem for everybody.  As normal, the more pages you have, the more modules you have installed, user defined tags, plugins, etc. the more memory will be required.  And some modules and plugins are not very memory efficient.  Therefore it is still feasable that your installation will require that PHP have more than 8mb of ram available.  However, these efforts should help significantly with the memory requirements of the default installation, and thereby help most users.

Of course these significant changes will require even more significant testing  To this end, we've decided to release a 6th Beta.  As well, the 1.0 release date may slip by a bit.  More information about this, as it firms up.  Stay tuned.

Module Developers

As most people already know, most modues will need to be updated to be compatible with the 1.0 series.  With this latest set of changes, some module developers may have to do more work than just changing RowCount() to RecordCount(), and the other datetime issues.

Content Types now need to be registered explicitly, and they can be put into a separate file to allow for even further reduced memory footprint.  As well static methods like ModuleOperations::GetModuleInstance() will no longer work, as this stuff is now lazy loaded.  You will need to call an appropriate function in the $gCms object to load the appropriate classes first.

Module developers seeking assistance with updating their modules can post a message in the forum, or go into the IRC chat room for (hopefully) faster assistance.  We encourage you to get your modules updated quickly.

[Piratos]

Ok let us test again - i have 3 evenings of time this week - where is the Beta 6.

[calguy1000]

Just talked with Ted.  He's planning (hoping) for the Beta6 on wednesday.  The changes are still not complete.

I'm looking forward to your test results.  Thanks for your help everybody.

[Muzzy]

I agree with Mark and the others, this is by far the best and easiest CMS to use.

With regard to Calguy's notes about memory:

It seems many people have been encountering a problem with the 1.0 Betas requiring more than the default 8Mb of memory.  This has proven to be a more serious issue than we originally thought it would be.

I tried to test beta 4 but got stuck on this memory thing. I spoke to my host and I can increase my php memory to any size required, I posted to this forum to ask for help, which I got by way of what to write to the php.ini file, but no one seems to be able to answer the basic question of where do I place the php.ini file once I have created it?

I'm not a programmer, so any help would be appreciated.

Blessings.
Mike.

[cyberman]

You have only access to php.ini file if you are own a server. Please look here

http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... 982.0.html

[Muzzy]

Thanks Cyberman.

I will check with my host as I have my own unlimited server with them and they have said I can change to value to 16M or what I require. I'll ask them where I access the file on the server.

The link to your previous post was most helpful, thanks once again.

Mike.

[cyberman]

php.ini file can locate in many places.

If I'm right you can found it in folder php on your server - IMHO this should be the default.

[Piratos]

Place this little script on your server:



run it and you can see the path of the php.ini.