CMS Made Simple 1.2 Coming Soon

[calguy1000]

Yes.  You've read correctly.

There will be a 1.2 release of CMS Made Simple before 2.0 comes out.  It should be in beta within the next couple of weeks.  1.2 will attempt to address some of the major glaring features that people have asked for and will be the LAST release of the 1.x series of CMS Made Simple (except for any security flaws that come up).

Beta testing will be exteremely important in this release, as we don't intend to have a 1.2.1, and with the exception of security fixes, we'll avoid it at all cost.  We need to focus our efforts on 2.0 from now on.  We expect, and hope that the user community can once again contribute with testing of this release to make it stable, and usable.

Here are the major things that will be in 1.2:
a) Frontend Wysiwygs
    Some modules (News 2.5) support text areas in the front end.  Modules will now be able to provide a wysiwyg
    on the front end instead of just a plain text area. 
b) News 2.5
    Has an 'extra' field for additional information (maybe an image)
    Supports frontend article submission
c) Allow gid == 1 (the admin group) to have all permissions, not just uid == 1 (The first user)
d) Fixes to pagination issues (particularly in the admin log)
e) Defaults for new pages
    There will be a new page or tab in the global settings menu that allows you to set the defaults for newly
    created pages (set the default metadata, cachable, show in menu, etc).
f) A security enhanced content editor
    People without 'Modify Page Structure' permission will not be able to change the 'show in menu', 'page alias', or
    active flags of a content item
g) Additional Editor Groups
    Along with 'user' additional editors, you'll be able to select groups as additional editors
[edit]
    This is a significant feature people.  Along with e) above, you'll be able to easily set what groups
    of people will be allowed to edit pages.  And adding a user will just be a matter of adding them to
    the desired group.
[/edit]
h) Enhancements to debug mode to assist with debugging issues
i)  An enhanced module manager that will not allow you to install modules that are not compatible with your
    version of CMS Made Simple.... and that will 'optionally' only show the latest version of a module.
j)  A replacement file manager
k) More batch operations in Content >> Pages.  Including the ability to export pages to pdf.
l) Batch operations in Layout >> Templates, and Layout >> Stylesheets

As well, the development team as been making an extra effort to close off some of the glaring bugs in the forge.  We can't get to them all, but hopefully many of the bigger ones can be closed for 1.2

The feature list of 1.2 is pretty much locked in at this time.  We've had extensive discussions about the topic over the past few weeks, and this is the set of features we thought we could implement in a reasonable period of time without dramatic overhauls to the way things work, so additional feature requests are probably off of the table for this release.

As you can probably see, this will be a considerable step forward for CMS Made Simple, and its stability is paramount.  I'll keep you posted, but would like to take this time to call for volunteers for beta testing.  Our testing team can only do a limited amount, and can't possibly test all the permutations and combinations of problems that you can.

[addendum]

The beta cycle for this will be short.... 1 week per beta.... and we want to have no more than one or two betas.  So please, test, test, and test.... 1.2 would be perfect for all of the sites that are 'in development' but won't be rolled out for  a while.

[Signex]

I`ll help testing the beta release

[Pierre M.]

Our testing team can only do a limited amount, and can't possibly test all the permutations and combinations of problems that you can.

Community power !
I'll help testing these betas.

Pierre M.

[moorezilla]

I'll do my best to break something!

[SimonSchaufi]

one important thing about page structure: if a user has very limited permission but can create pages, he shall only create pages UNDER the pages he has rights, NOT add pages to the root! (I am not sure but i think this bug(?) is not fixed in 1.1

[calguy1000]

its not a bug, it's just not implemented very well..... you need 'add pages' permission to create new pages, and/or the modify page structure permission.  but those permissions give you the ability to add pages anywhere.

[calguy1000]

1.2 is 'coming soon' it's not ready yet.

[SimonSchaufi]

you need 'add pages' permission to create new pages, and/or the modify page structure permission.  but those permissions give you the ability to add pages anywhere.

yes, i know that. that is what i was trying to say but after creating a new page in the root (what the user shall not be able to do) he has no control again over this page because he has no rights to modify any page. I really hope this will be fixed in the next release.

[calguy1000]

I have setup a group with no permissions except for 'Add Page'.
I addded a user to that group and then signed in as that user.

I then went to Content >> Pages, and I could create a new page.... no difficulty.
When I was returned to Content >> Pages I could see that page, and that this user was the owner of the page
and I could edit it.

The weird thing is I'm not allowed to delete that page (even though I'm the owner.... strange).  Maybe we need another permission 'delete owned pages'

The next thing I would like to see, but it will probably wait for 2.0
is:

1) The ability to specify which users/groups are allowed to create top level pages
2) The ability to only create child pages on pages I own and/or are allowed to edit

[SimonSchaufi]

does this work in a submenu as well? And does this work if the the user is not the owner but has the right to edit the page?


OK, i have tested it by myself in the 1.1 and it works! Sorry for disturbing you!

BUT it would be better if he can only add pages to the path of the pages he has access to, otherwise he can add pages anywhere he wants. (List not all pages in the parent dropdown!)

[SimonSchaufi]

And there is a little style bug (the column on the right and if you hover the first line, it doesnt change the color or has this something to do with the checkbox?) in 1.1

if you select a page by checkbox it would be good if the line has a different background color like in PHPMyAdmin

[rab]

I'm a brand new CMSms user - just downloaded last week and getting ready to start learning/using this week. Don't know if this makes sense or not, but if you would like a newbie to help test the 1.2 beta, I'm more than willing to volunteer. I have several projects planned for CMSms, both personal and commercial, so will probably end up using a lot of its functions and, I suspect, many modules.

My test environment includes a desktop (Win 2kPro using Xampp) and laptop (Win XP, Apache 2.0.58, MySQL 5.0.22, PHP 5.1.4). I have created several ecom sites (using Zen Cart), and can do basic php, mySQL, html and css coding (keyword here is basic!). Production server is unix with Apache 1.3.37, MySQL 5.0.27 and PHP 5.2.3.

So, if it would help, sign me up!

rab

[MichaelK]

Just a simple question.

I have for example the Newsletter Made Simple module installed on my CMSMS. Will every module still work with 1.2?

[junito]

It seems that most of 1.2 improvements are linked with News 2.5 module.

Will 1.2 address one of the issue I already posted about : having keywords replacing categories ?
That will help having news categorised in a matrix way instead of hierarchical

Cheers,

[bruce]

Does the following mean that news editing module will have a preview panel as pages already have?

Here are the major things that will be in 1.2:
a) Frontend Wysiwygs
    Some modules (News 2.5) support text areas in the front end.  Modules will now be able to provide a wysiwyg
    on the front end instead of just a plain text area.   

Best regards!